Episode 104 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

You can’t hear the target that you can’t see. And so if you don’t have revenue targets, if you don’t have strategic plays written down, then you are literally going through the motions, reacting and responding to the things that squeaks the loudest in your world. And this is why this conversation is so important is because that’s not how you grow a business. You got to change and you’ve got to step up and lead this thing going forward rather than responding to everyone else’s priorities. Hi everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:38):

Always good to be back, Rob. Hi everyone. Looking forward to today. I love this little topic we’ve got going. Tradies and urgency. We talk about it a lot and this shift to importance and we get it, right? When you’re a tradie, urgency’s part of the game. Job deadlines loom, clients need things fixed, projects happen, they go off the rails. Time’s money, all those sort of things. The entire identity about being a tradie is that you’ve got to respond fast. You’ve got to be the problem solver. You get rewarded for that. You’re the break and fix guy. You’re the go- to guy. I pick up the phone, you’re the guy I call. So really that serves you well when you’re on the tools from the day you start being a tradie. Probably all the way nearly and we’ll explore this in terms of being a business owner.

(01:19):

But it’s that reactive mindset that can get you stuck really quick. And I think Rob, this is the starting point for today’s conversation is why urgency rules the day so much when you start out and in these early stages of business.

Speaker 1 (01:31):

Yeah, correct. I think we have to accept that that mindset served you well, as you said as a tradesman. It served you getting into business. It serves you until it doesn’t. And that’s why this conversation is so important because that mindset is important. You break it, fix it, problem solver, guy. But when you’re running a business, reacting and responding to all the urgent stuff that happens day in, day out, it’s not what builds a long-term sustainable, scalable business over a period of time.

Speaker 2 (02:02):

Yeah. And as you listen to this, think about all the hats you’re wearing at the moment. You’re doing quoting, you’re doing the sales, you’re doing the estimating, you’re doing the work, you’re chasing payments, you’re answering emails. Wearing all the hats is there, right? It’s the thing that we see most clients come to Pravar with is just, I’m wearing too many hats.

Speaker 1 (02:18):

Correct. And especially for a business doing say that one and a half million dollars or less, they are literally wearing every hat in the business. And especially in the early stages of business, you’re in survival mode.You’re literally trying to get a business up out of the ground. You’re trying to prove to the marketplace that you’ve got a good thing going. You’re trying to make ends meet for you and your family. You’re trying to put your first couple of employees on. Like you’re really in survival mode. And when you’re in that survival mode mentality, you literally have to jump on the thing that screams the loudest. It’s just a way of operating. But the problem is that that’s what got you into business, but it’s not what’s going to get you to where you really want to go long-term.

Speaker 2 (03:03):

Yeah. And it’s geared up for short-term thinking. It’s geared up for reacting, like you said. It’s going through things and grinding through. And it goes from being something you need to do early days into a way of life and it becomes so well grooved that that becomes the way you operate. You hope that … And it doesn’t change. I mean, you grind and you start doing the grinding through the to-do list, hoping that it’s going to ease up one day. But it doesn’t. That’s the plain truth of businesses. There’s always going to be things that need your attention. You’ve got to get good at how you transition from that. And I think most of what’s urgent is going to be noise, but it dictates everyone’s entire day too much.

Speaker 1 (03:40):

It is. And if you’re really honest with yourself, the urgent things are the things that are inside the business. It’s getting that quote done. It’s getting that invoice out the door. It’s following up that debtor. It’s responding to a team member. It’s ordering out materials. It’s something that’s gone pear shaped on site. It’s the doing of the doing. And that’s the stuff that … Those things really, it’s important to get the work done to be able to keep the wheels moving with inside of your business. But these aren’t the important things that you do to work on your business, which move your business forward. And this is really the distinction we’re talking about today is the things that scream the loudest are really often the things that are the doing of the doing of the business operating.

Speaker 2 (04:23):

Yeah. And I think this is the turning point. This is the shift. And it’s got to be a conscious shift. It’s a chapter change in your business. It’s a decision you make as the business owner. And as the business comes out of the ground and you move into this next stage, which I know you’ll talk about, the idea to break through and start to build something sustainable, you can breathe, you know you’re going to survive. You have to make this shift from urgent to important. And we’ll talk about three things in a moment, but let’s just set the scene for when this decision point really comes into focus.

Speaker 1 (04:51):

Yeah. Generally, it’s when a trades business often hits that million dollar mark and you’re up out of the ground, you’ve proven you can do great in the marketplace. You might have one or two or three in your grand crew and around you, but you’re at that decision point to be able to go, “Well, do I want to stay here and run a good tool belt business? Or do I really want to genuinely grow an owner operate a business, which is a $2 million plus owner operator business where you’re off the tools, you’re growing a genuine business, not just growing a job.” And when you get to that decision point, if you’re making that decision to keep moving, what got you to a million dollars in terms of mindset, skillset, and strategy is not what’s going to keep you going forward. And these are the things we’ll talk about today, but it’s a big shift in mindset.

(05:35):

You’ve got to think differently and you’ve got to operate day-to-day differently to be able to move in this direction. So you’re right, it’s a genuine decision to move, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (05:46):

It really is. And I think you used that phrase. I want to come back to it because you just dropped it in there so casually. But a tool belt business versus an owner-operator business. That’s the chapter shift we’re talking about. I know we don’t want it to go too far down the rabbit hole there, but just explain so people listening understand what you mean by a tool belt business.

Speaker 1 (06:03):

A tool belt business is someone, let’s say you’re a Sparky, you’ve got one or two guys in around you and you want to be on the tools. You don’t want to be a manager of a business. You don’t want to manage operational or office people. You’re happy running a submillion dollar business where you actually love your craft of being a tradie. And there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way. I’ve got a mate who runs a submillion dollar business and he loves it. He doesn’t see him get himself off the tools. Now it’s got its pros, but it’s also got its cons. And some people are called to play a bigger game. They want the leverage. They want more money. They want a genuine business rather than just a risky self-employed job. So that means you’ve got to go down that path to leverage through people and systems and structure and develop your management capabilities.

(06:51):

And when you turn that corner, it’s no longer about being a great tradie. It’s about embracing the management apprenticeship that you’re going on and really learning to move in that direction.

Speaker 2 (07:01):

Yeah. So that’s the shift in the decision point. Let’s talk about this. So as you make this shift in this decision point, you’ve got to really embrace three things. You mentioned one there. The first one I want to talk about is leverage. So you’ve got to embrace leverage and people and systems if you’re going to make this shift from the urgent to the important.

Speaker 1 (07:18):

Correct. And leverage comes through good people and good systems. And so when you’re trying to grow a business, it’s not that you get more time, it’s just that you either leverage your time by hiring someone to buy back time or implementing a system to make it more efficient to get more time back. So it’s not like you get extra hours in a day. It’s just that the business grows because you’re bringing in people or systems around you as the owner to take hats off to do some of those tasks. And so when you’re going down this journey of creating leverage in your business, you’ve got to get out of reactionary mode and focused on implementing these key strategic plays to create this leverage, which requires you to prioritise those things in your week to be able to bring those things to life within your business.

Speaker 2 (08:11):

Yeah. I think when you talk leverage, the reason why you’re in this position, a big chunk of time when you’re in the urgent mode is solving problems. So the ability to stop being the person, the only one in the business that can solve a problem comes with those systems, those processes, the people around you that can start to take that off your plate. That’s the leverage we’re talking about.

Speaker 1 (08:31):

And I think it’s a real mindset shift there. The common mindset shift that we see is no one’s as good as me. It saves me time and energy and money if I do it myself. And so when you carry that mindset, no wonder you’re fixing all the problems and solving all the issues is because you’re carrying that mindset around. And so we always say in coaching that mindset always precedes strategy. You first got to have that shift to realise that, well, if I want to grow, I’ve got to create leverage. If I want to grow, there are better people out there. If I want to make more money, I don’t have to keep selling my own time. So you’ve got to have the first the mindset shift. And then you’ve got to prioritise the things that matter that create the leverage. You’ve got to hire key people, implement job management systems or pricing systems and invoicing systems and all those types of things that create it.

(09:20):

But you’ve got to prioritise that. And if you don’t, you’re just going to be reacting and responding to the day-to-day things all day long.

Speaker 2 (09:26):

Yeah. We talk a lot in coaching around creating the space for what’s important. That’s really what we’re talking here. So let’s move on from leverage then. The next step, when you start that, there’s no good getting leverage and then going, “What do I do next?” That you’ve got to be better than that. And this is where it comes into our second pillar of this, which is being more strategic. This is talking more planning, preparation, and really starting to be strategic with your approach.

Speaker 1 (09:50):

It is. And tradies know how to do this anyway. When you’re building a house and you’re a plumber on there, you’ve got a set of plans, you’ve got a scope, you’ve got all the documentation. Well, hopefully, if you’re working for a good builder, but you already know how to plan and prioritise and schedule and execute that job in stages. And so it’s the ability to take that skillset and take that into the business world to be able to go, “Well, where are we trying to go? What are the goals that we’re trying to achieve? What are the key strategic plays which are going to create the most materialistic impact over the next 12 months? And then this quarter, what is the most important one to two things we’re going to focus on?” And that’s what we mean by strategic thinking. It’s your ability to really know what you want, why you want it, and how you’re going to get there.

(10:37):

And it’s your ability to focus on that rather than just get sucked into the day-to-day stuff all day long.

Speaker 2 (10:42):

Yeah. It’s amazing when we coach this, the amount of times we say, who’s ever set a target? It could be something for their operations. It could be something in terms of sales or revenue. Being strategic and planning involves saying, “Here’s where I want to go. This is where we’re taking this business and setting targets.” And for most of the guys we deal with, a lot of the times it’s the first time they’ve really experienced consciously being strategic in that I’ve never set a revenue target. I just take what comes, I deal with whatever happens. You can’t underestimate this strategic thinking shift.

Speaker 1 (11:14):

Correct. We say it in coaching. It’s like you can’t hear the target that you can’t see. And so if you don’t have revenue targets, if you don’t have strategic players written down, then you are literally going through the motions, reacting and responding to the things that squeaks the loudest in your world. And this is why this conversation is so important is because that’s not how you grow a business. You got to change and you’ve got to step up and lead this thing going forward rather than responding to everyone else’s priorities.

Speaker 2 (11:42):

Yeah. And this now by nature extends the view of your world. That short-term survival mechanism gives way to a long-term strategic view of the world. It’s a different shift. It takes a different skillset to do that. Let’s move on then. The third pillar we talk about then, once you’ve got your leverage, you’ve got some strategy in place, you’re starting to be a bit more strategic, the next thing really is taking focused action. And we’ve got two words in there, focused and action. You can’t just sit on your plans and have you sit on your hands with that sort of stuff and go back to reacting and say, “Well, I’ve got a plan, but I’ll get to it when I’ve done my to- do list.” That’s still being in the urgency world. So focused action’s all about being consistent and disciplined in your approach there.

Speaker 1 (12:26):

Yeah, this is where Rubber’s got to meet the road. And I remember dealing with a client a couple of years ago, and I’ll say his name’s Bob, for example, and he was in that ugly phase where he was half on the tools, half off, he had no admin support around him, and he was doing invoicing and quoting, all that kind of stuff at night. And we’re like, “Bob, you got to get some admin on place. You got to do this. ” And he’s like, “Rob, I just don’t have time to be able to get this person around me. ” And so we did a time tracker with him. We tracked his hours. He was doing like 60 plus hours a week. And in his week, he was doing like 15 to 20 hours a week of admin. And it’s like, mate, I know it’s going to get harder over the next month, but if you just put in an extra couple of hours for the next month and go through this recruitment process, you’re going to buy back 15 to 20 hours of your week every week going forward.

(13:20):

And he’s like, “Robert, I don’t have time. I don’t have time.” Eventually he caved in and put in the effort and lo and behold, he got all this time back. He bought that time back and he’s like, “Gee, I wish I’d have done that earlier.” But this is what we mean by focused action. You got to get rubber meeting the road. And sometimes it does get a little bit harder before it gets easier, but you got to prioritise this stuff over the noise to make the change happen. You actually got to force it, don’t you?

Speaker 2 (13:47):

Yeah, absolutely. I think you’re being generous that Bob was one client. I think I could think of about 20 bobs a year that come through that we have bobs with the exact same thing because that’s the journey, right? This is such an important part of your journey as a business owner who’s going from that tool belt to owner operator, as we said. Let’s talk, we’ve been through those disciplines and I think they’re easy enough to comprehend and understand. Interested in a story, let’s talk a little bit about what this looks like in a real life client journey with a real client.

Speaker 1 (14:21):

Let’s use the example of Christian. He runs a plumbing business called PipeDown and he came into coaching at the back end of 2024. So he’s probably been in coaching 12, 15 months now. And he came into coaching, he was probably doing just on 100K months. So he was doing a, say, a 1.2- ish million dollar run rate business. He was half on the tools, half off. So he had a couple of guys in around him. He had limited bookkeeping support, no admin. He did have a factory, which was great, but he was working long days on the tools at night doing quotes and catching up, and he just couldn’t get ahead. Now, his motivation for him was he wants to get in the caravan and travel with his family because that’s what’s really important to him for the family that he’s got, but he couldn’t break the cycle.

(15:22):

And that’s why at Pravar, we caught the hamster wheel. You’re literally going round and round and round and round in circles in that time. And so Christian was stuck in the hamster wheel. And when we really pulled it apart, it’s because he was stuck in urgency mode. He could not move ahead. He was caught doing all the doing, the cashflow issues because he was doing the work, not getting paid properly. He was not pricing properly, which was causing cashflow problems. So all these issues were compounding in his world. He was feeling the symptoms of cashflow and lack of time and no progress, but that’s because his business had stalled because he wasn’t focusing on the things that matter, which were going to drive the business forward. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (16:07):

Yeah, it does. And I think it goes beyond just that. And it’s a really good example because it goes beyond just that operational lack, if you like, of time or that urgency in an operational sense. I think it runs even into jobs where if you’re in urgency mode, the getting the job complete for the customer is way more important than profit. And you hear me say that, even as I say it, you can hear I’m prioritising the urgent of getting a job complete, getting the labour there. Just get the job done, whatever you need, boys, get it done. Is that going to drive a profit, which is really important? Is that going to help you manage better you guys on site? No, because that’s the important side of that equation of running a job. And you’re not doing that because you’re now prioritising the urgent.

(16:47):

And that’s what he was doing. Jobs were run for completion and customers versus the important side, which is him running them profitably for the business.

Speaker 1 (16:55):

He was being pushed by his builders to get a quote in rather than prioritising learning how to price correctly. He was getting pushed by the builders to get certain stages done rather than being well planned and well considered to work to a build programme. He was getting invoices out the door, but there was no process around invoicing and debtor management and getting cash in the door to fix that. So you’re right, everything was coming from a place of operational reactive mode because of all the external factors around him driving. It was almost like he was getting pushed and pulled in a million different directions, wasn’t he?

Speaker 2 (17:38):

Yeah. He had his own business, but he wasn’t running it. He was just literally running around for everyone else and anyone else in the external world that sort of demanded it. And I think the other one that comes into it as well is the way that you manage. If you’re avoiding hard conversations, which Christian was part of his story, avoided hard conversations He just had to keep guys on the job. We had to keep things going. I wouldn’t risk that because I’ve got a job to finish. That urgency of the job, the builder, the demands of the external meant that he never tackled the important conversation. So even in a conversational sense and how you manage as a person, that swing between what’s urgent and important, always playing off there as well.

Speaker 1 (18:19):

And let’s face the facts around that. Like what Christian had to do, like you said before, this is not how you run a business. And if you’re in that position right now, you don’t run a business, you’ve got a highly stressful job, which is dictating how you run your business and how you live your life. It’s a shit way of running your business and you got to change.

Speaker 2 (18:40):

Yeah. And living your life. It’s not just the business you run. It’s the life you live. All of that’s wrapped up under this banner of urgency. Terrible way to live.

Speaker 1 (18:48):

Correct. Because how could you go and spend time with your kids or be connected to your wife and your kids? You can’t because business is just dictating life in the end of the day as well, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (18:59):

Yeah. And you think about it, and it’s where it becomes like a baby. A baby just demands stuff, right? You have a baby, a baby of a business, a baby in real life. It’s going to demand things of you. You have to give into that in an urgency factor. Your business is the same, but at what point your baby’s going to grow up, your baby’s going to mature. Your business needs to grow up. Your business needs to mature, and that’s going to be led by you by going through these steps. So I think this is where Christian’s done that now. And let’s talk about what changed. And you said he’s been, I think it was 14 months or something like that. Take us through the changes he did make and the results that came of that.

Speaker 1 (19:36):

It’s chalk and cheese, who Christian is and the business that he’s got in today’s terms. So he’s gone from a roughly 100K months. He’s now on track hitting 150K months with growing beyond that. And that’s a pretty incredible result in a 12 month period to go from 100 to 150Ks. He’s completely off the tools. He’s got admin and bookkeeping supporting around him. He’s changed who he does work for, how he delivers that work, the team that he’s got in the ground to deliver that work. The cashflow pressures have eased. He finished up at Christmas just recently and with an awesome pipeline of work for quarter one and money in the bank. Who Christian is today as a manager, a business owner, a husband, as a father, a family man, is chalk and cheese within 12 months. And it’s purely come down to his ability to be well planned, well considered, stop reacting to the problems that’s going on and prioritising the things that created these materialistic changes in his month purely only 12 months later.

Speaker 2 (20:48):

Yeah. It’s incredible. Shout out to you, Christian. It’s a great job when you listen to this. Really good job. Rob, I think as you listen again, like we said, intellectually, this is not a hard thing to wrap your head around. The journey itself takes time and there’s some work to be done. It’s challenging. But you can almost hear people listening going, “Well, where’s the catch?” I could do that, but I haven’t. I’ve been running my business like this for 15 years, 10 years, whatever it is for you. But what’s the catch? Because something’s not working for me. I can’t make that shift even though I understand 100% what you’re saying.

Speaker 1 (21:21):

You’ve got to make a choice to make a change. That’s what you’ve got to do. And that was Christian’s choice that he did. He goes, “I can’t keep going this way. I know where I want to go and where I want to take my family life. If I keep operating that way, there’s no way I’m going to get there.” So first of all, it was a decision in the mind to make change. Second thing is, is that you’ve then got to start saying no to this and prioritise that. And that’s what Christian did. He prioritised turning up to our coaching calls every week. He turned up to his Q&A every week and he turned up to doing the work during the week to make the change. So it’s not like he sacrificed 15 or 20 hours a week to work on his business. It was literally like half a dozen hours a week to work on developing his mindset, developing his skillset and working on the strategies that matter.

(22:14):

So it doesn’t require a lot of time at the start. You’ve just got to first make a choice and then you’ve got to make time for this stuff, not wait for the right time. And that’s the catch. You got to choose to do this and get out of that mode of operating. Now it’s hard. It’s like when you shift a grip on a racquet or on a golf club, it feels weird to begin with, but you’ve got to retrain yourself to operate in this new way. And it just takes time. You’ve got to regroove yourself to move in that direction.

Speaker 2 (22:46):

Yeah. And this shouldn’t feel like something else to do. It’s the decision point that you’re talking about. You make the decision and it’s amazing how the world shifts almost seismic. It’s like a, right, that’s the way I’m going to operate from now on. It’s not like you’re carrying more baggage into your week and more stuff to do. When you do this, it’s not like … And the other catch I think is that important doesn’t scream at you. There’s nothing … Important doesn’t go, “Hey, do it right now.” It’s not that feeling that you’re so used to. So I think that’s the other catch is that feeling of, shit, where’s the importance? What’s the deadline? And all of a sudden it’s up to me now. And you end up in that position. I made the choice. Now I’ve got to follow through and act because if I don’t, the good news is no one’s coming to save me.

(23:29):

And the bad news is no one’s coming to save me. I’ve got to see myself through this, which is why I think most business owners shy away from it.

Speaker 1 (23:35):

Correct. When you work for someone else, they tell you what you’ve got to do. When you work for yourself, you’ve got to make your own decisions of what you’ve got to do. That’s called leadership. Leadership is about making strategic decisions. And when you’re leading your business, you’ve got to know what to say yes to and what to say no to, because every time you say yes to something, it’s at the expense of something else. And so to get out of this reactionary mode, you’ve got to learn to say, “No, that’s not a priority and that can wait. That can wait. This can wait because I’ve got to sit down and do this because if I don’t do this, I’m not moving forward.” And you’ve got to remind yourself as every day, every week that you’re not choosing to work on something that is moving your business and life forward, you’re choosing to stand still.

(24:25):

And the reality is the way that this market is moving right now with the rapid evolution of what’s going on in the broader world, plus with technology and AI and everything that’s moving at the moment, you’re going to get left behind. And so you got to choose to change. You got to choose to prioritise this stuff because every time you choose not to, you’re standing still or getting or worse yet going backwards.

Speaker 2 (24:50):

Yeah, absolutely. Shall we do a little challenge on this? I think I can feel the challenge for this week.

Speaker 1 (24:56):

Let’s do it.

Speaker 2 (24:57):

All right. What we’re going to do is pick one thing. Just one thing. Spend five minutes on this if you need five minutes, but pick that one thing that’s genuinely important for you to move your business forward. And just pick that one thing that’s important, not urgent, but it’s been maybe hanging around for a long time. You’ll know what it is, but block time for it. Treat it like it’s the most important meeting of your week, that time you’re going to dedicate to it once you know what it is. And then don’t let urgency hijack it. Just follow through and do that one important thing. Like we said, don’t pick something that’s going to take a year for you to do that. You’ve got to go on a sabbatical to do it. Pick one important thing and then follow through and just get that feeling of what it’s like to prioritise the important over the urgent.

(25:40):

And Rob, I can think of one probably really important thing that people could do, which is book themselves in for a discovery call. That’d be a really good example of making that one phone call. It might be a book a discovery call with us. It might be a call to a new builder. Whatever it is for you, you’ll know what it is, but it’s that level of action, that important action that we want people to take this week.

Speaker 1 (26:01):

Yeah, correct. It could be tweak your pricing. It could be sit down and schedule next week. It could be make that call to that builder. Or sometimes you don’t know what that right next step is. That’s the issue is you don’t know what that important thing is. And that’s why if you’re in that position going, “I know I need to change. I want to change and I’m ready to make change, but I just don’t know what to change. I’m feeling a bit trapped and confused.” Then jump across to strategysession.com.au, fill out the form, book in a time that suits you for a discovery call, and let’s talk through where you’re at, where you’re trying to go, and what is that right next step for you to be able to get you unstuck and moving forward. What a great call, Dan. I love it. You and I could riff on this topic all day long, but I think at the end of the day, building a business isn’t about working harder.

(26:50):

It’s about working on the things that matter. It’s about prioritising the things that matter, which are going to take you to the next level. Hopefully you enjoyed today’s call. Looking forward to coming back to you next week on another episode of The Trade Den. Until then, take care.

Speaker 2 (27:04):

See you soon.