Episode 31 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Yeah, sometimes you look back and go, why didn’t we do this earlier? But the truth is I don’t think we would’ve been capable. We were inexperienced, we didn’t have to know how.

Speaker 2 (00:13):

Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den podcast. Good to have you back, Dan. How’s things?

Speaker 3 (00:21):

Great to be back. Super excited for today, Rob, we are going to set a record for the podcast today.

Speaker 2 (00:27):

Why is that, mate?

Speaker 3 (00:28):

Because we are going to have record numbers in that We’re going to not be just doing one client story. We’re going to be doing a client story with two guys. We’re going to a business partnership today, so really excited to bring these guys on. You and I both know them pretty well. We’ve both coached them, so it should be great to get their story out and share what it’s like to do coaching and be in business and run a great business with two guys running it.

Speaker 2 (00:52):

Yeah, awesome. I’m really looking forward to today and don’t we love our bringing client stories along there are, I know for our listeners they’re some of the most downloaded episodes that we do have and yeah, really looking forward to getting these boys on. So where do you want to start, Dan?

Speaker 3 (01:08):

How about we introduce the guys first and welcome these guys in and then we can get our usual roll call going. So before we go any further, big welcome to Chris and Andrew from Kinetic Electrical. How are you boys?

Speaker 4 (01:21):

Doing well, thanks guys. Yep. Morning gents. Doing really well.

Speaker 3 (01:24):

Awesome. Feeling good. Ready for this conversation?

Speaker 4 (01:27):

Yeah. Good. You hit record now I’m nervous, but other than that I’m good.

Speaker 3 (01:33):

That’s all right. You boys have been doing a bit of reminiscing leading up to this. It was a little bit of a trip down memory lane.

Speaker 1 (01:39):

Yeah, we have. It’s not often that you sit back and reflect on your journey, so this has given us an opportunity to sort of look back on our journey through business, both before and after coaching, and sort of have a little laugh at some of the earlier things that we were doing back when we started the business, but also celebrate some of the big wins we’ve had along the way.

Speaker 3 (02:00):

Yeah, it’s been a hell of a journey. We’re going to get into that today. Before we do though, let’s do our usual roll call just for people listening. Name the business name, how long have you been in business, just give us a bit of an intro.

Speaker 4 (02:12):

Cool. Yeah, so Kinetic Electrical And Data. Been in business nine years now, so yeah, next year is number 10. We have 13 employees and we have say 3 in the office and then we have 10 say ground stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:32):

The name probably gives it away. Electrical and data is obviously the areas that we service. Electrical and data contracting mostly in the commercial world now. You’ll hear a bit more about that. But yeah, we do all aspects of electrical and data and yeah, few sort of areas we specialise in on the back of that.

Speaker 3 (02:53):

Fantastic. Where are you boys based in?

Speaker 4 (02:55):

Sydney? Sunny Sydney. We like to say.

Speaker 3 (02:57):

Sunny Sydney. I won’t debate that. We’ll let that slide, but that’s okay. Moving right along. How about we just get names because we’ve got the two of you. Just introduce yourself. Which one is Chris?

Speaker 4 (03:07):

Yep. Chris. Tall one. Good looking one

Speaker 1 (03:12):

Face for a podcast I’d say.

Speaker 4 (03:14):

Face for radio. I’ve always been told so.

Speaker 1 (03:17):

And I’m me, Andrew.

Speaker 3 (03:18):

Alright, cool. So if you’re listening, you’ve got the two voices there with names against them, so hopefully that helps. Let’s see how we get going. Alright guys, I’m going to take you back to the beginning and let’s just start off just painting a bit of a picture. Can you guys remember when you first met, how long have you known each other?

(03:36):

Yeah, we met in high school, so yeah, it was a long time ago now. That would’ve been coming up to 20 years ago. Yeah, 20 years ago. So yeah, time flies so I never would’ve thought at high school that we’d be working together. But yeah, here we are.

(03:48):

Okay, and what were your first thoughts of each other? Was it over at, you’d hear some people have a blew and then they’d become best mates, or how did it come about for you guys? What was the sort of circumstances at high school?

Speaker 1 (03:58):

It was probably just mates by default. We were both hanging out in the same sort of circle of guys at school and next minute I suppose you’d call each other mates. That’s about it.

Speaker 3 (04:08):

Okay, cool. So you followed each other through into trade?

Speaker 1 (04:13):

No, we actually left school at slightly different times, but we both did get into our trades working for separate companies and we both went through our apprenticeships pretty separately and then we went off travelling and yeah, that was it. We’d both taken off to see the world and who knew that when we got back from our travels that we were going to kick off a business partnership.

Speaker 3 (04:39):

Okay. So where did you travel and how long and did you talk about business while you’re away? Was it sort of the plan building or was it afterwards?

Speaker 4 (04:46):

It’s funny, we reminisced about this before we actually, I can’t really put a time and a place, Andrew’s got a bit more of a romantic story behind it, but it’s something just that came natural to us. We always talked about working for ourselves, how great it would be to surf at lunch, do all those things, which we have yet to do. But yeah, I dunno, it’s something that we just came natural. We both knew that we worked hard. We both got on very well. We’re both levelheaded, so it was back then 10 years ago, it was just something very casual, no brainer. You never really look too far ahead when you’re mid twenties.

Speaker 3 (05:23):

Yeah, no, it is very much. Let’s get into it and we will say sorry to everyone along the way a bit later on. That’s really cool. Any fears or uncertainties about going into business? A lot of people when they go in solo start off and they have those fears or uncertainties. I’m interested to hear how you guys felt about going into business given there was the two of you, you were good mates at the time. Was there any sort of uncertainties, any questions that came up at that time that you can remember?

Speaker 1 (05:52):

I think for us it was probably the opposite. Being as Timo said, young in our early twenties. Twenties we were probably a bit more fearless than anything above everything. We were keen confident and we knew we were capable and we were willing to have a crack.

Speaker 4 (06:06):

We also probably didn’t need much. We each had our van set of tools in a way you went. It’s not like we had this big, big fee to set up anything or any overheads at the time. I remember we took three months without pay and that’s how we started. We built a bit of a kitty and it grew from there. So it wasn’t on no bigger grand schemes when we started. But yeah, and also as you probably know, it’s pretty positive mindset from both of us where it was like, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ll work for someone again.

Speaker 3 (06:38):

Give it a crack and just get into it. We’ll give it our best shot. I love it. And you’ve kept that going all the way through, which is going to come through today, which is why we love talking coaching you guys. What about setting the context then you’ve set up, so you’re in your bands. What sort of work were you doing at the time? What was the work? What were you seeing? What were you taking in at the time?

Speaker 1 (06:58):

Well, at the start we were pretty lucky. We have a pretty wide network around us. Most of our mates are tradies and at the time a number of ’em were starting business as builders. So before we knew it, the work was coming into the fast from our network. We weren’t doing anything in the way of marketing or sales or anything like that. We were out there, work was coming in, we were doing what we knew best, which was being good electricians. At that point in time, we probably didn’t consider ourselves to be businessmen. The work was coming in, we were getting it done and on we were going, things were good.

Speaker 3 (07:30):

Yeah, beautiful. Did you consider yourselves as running a business at that time or was it still you two guys just running after work, chasing work and just saying how good’s this?

Speaker 4 (07:38):

Yeah, when work do work, it was, you never really think too much about it. Now I look back at it, it was pretty chaotic. Obviously working. We put a good spin on it, but working big days, working 10 or 12 hours on the tools, doing paperwork at night. So yeah, looking back on it now, it’s obviously a little bit different, but at the time it was just what you did.

Speaker 3 (08:02):

Yeah. So was it both hands to both hands doing the same sort of work? At that time you were just basically two guys had the same business name and just off doing your own sort of thing?

Speaker 4 (08:12):

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (08:14):

Two guys working under the same business name. The work was coming in so quick that we realised we needed to start hiring staff. So it was only in the very early days that we were actually on site together. Once we had an apprentice or two under our belt, that’s when we sort of knew we had to divide and conquer a bit. We were on different sites, we rarely worked together and that’s when we sort of divided off and basically were sort of running two separate businesses because we had no sort of systems or structure or nothing in place to help us to run it. We were sort of just running things separately out there on our own.

Speaker 3 (08:51):

Yeah. Did you notice different strengths either within yourselves or weaknesses within yourselves at that time? Was there any sort of hint of what was to come in terms of who’s going to be good at managing the business side or the sales side versus the ops side? Did you already have that sort of planned or was it still very much just we both do whatever and we’re sort of doing the same stuff?

Speaker 4 (09:11):

Yeah, I’d love to say yes, we had all that, but no, it was just as we said, win work, do work. It was very busy and as you know, that word busy doesn’t mean much looking back. But yeah, we used to just, I remember vividly when people said, do you want to grow? And it was already chaotic just with four or five people. It’s like, I don’t want, you don’t want any more people, it just means more headaches.

Speaker 1 (09:34):

I do remember early on through our association of our industry that we became a member of, we got access to a JMS programme, so a job management system, which I’d used at another company. So we knew pretty early on that that was going to be beneficial to us. Timo was pretty handy in operating and setting that up, so he early on showed probably a natural knack for the estimating and sales role. So only looking back now do I recall that. Whereas I probably preferred to be out managing people in front of clients and onsite. So that might’ve been the early signs of what was to come. But yeah, other than that, we were just out there doing what we had to do.

Speaker 3 (10:19):

Fantastic. And let’s keep the tension building. I just want to keep it there. Any disagreements, anything bubbling away that was going to have to be resolved later on that you could see on the horizon?

Speaker 1 (10:31):

I’d love to have a great story about that, but nah, we’ve never really butted heads too much.

Speaker 4 (10:37):

Yeah, actually, well obviously before this podcast we had a bit of a chat and we’re trying to bring up some conflicts we’ve had and we haven’t really had many, so obviously watch this space, there’s probably one to come soon.

Speaker 1 (10:50):

I think it’s important to maybe acknowledge that. Yeah, Timo said earlier we’re both on the same sort of level, similar mindset. We’re both sort of open-minded and if anything ever arises in terms of what could possibly become a conflict, I think we both sort of can see each other’s perspective and we sort of sit down and nut it out before it grows into anything else.

Speaker 3 (11:11):

Nice. I’m going to delve into a little bit of that later on, especially as the business ramps up and you’re facing up with bigger challenges and all that sort of stuff. So definitely keen to hear more about that later on. Just to be clear for if you’re listening and wondering why Timos all of a sudden ended the picture, it’s not that we’ve got a third person in Chris’s last name is Tim, and so Andrew’s going with Timo and he’s still talking to Chris.

Speaker 1 (11:36):

Only his mom calls him Chris.

Speaker 3 (11:39):

Andy’s coaches if he’s in trouble, my wife when I’m in trouble. Christopher. Alright, let’s move on a bit. I want to get into, just before you get into coaching, we’re going to start the coaching journey now. So we’re going to fast forward a little bit again. Before you got into coaching, what was the sort of situation, so we’re talking around that, I think it was about June, 2022, you came into the leverage programme. What was the reason for coming into coaching and just set the scene, how the business has obviously got out of the ground. You’ve done a great job sort of pushing through in those early stages with all hands to the deck and just everyone do what they need to do, let’s just make shit happen. What was of the situation that led you to say, yep, but let’s go into coaching? How’d you come across this?

Speaker 1 (12:21):

Well, yeah, around that June, 2022, we had a team of about probably around 10 or so business from the outlook from the outside probably looked like it was booming because we were busy. We were working in some pretty incredible locations through the residential work that we were doing. But on the inside we started to see the signs. I feel like we’d probably reached a limit in terms of our capabilities as businessmen and we started to probably ask questions around how we were going to break through this next sort of barrier and then maybe you could call it fate. Tim, I had a phone call with another coaching client.

Speaker 4 (13:07):

Yeah, I vividly remember it. I was speaking to Peter Knowles who’s our mechanic, and I called him, it might’ve been about 4:30-4:45, and knowing Pete, he used to work late like us. So when he told me he was at home, I was in shock, I couldn’t believe it. And then he went on to tell me that he’s been doing this coaching and he is put these systems and structures in place and a kind of light bulb moment and I was like, alright, give me his number. And that was really it Before that, coaching wasn’t on our radar. We were just stuck busy being busy. You know what, you dunno what you dunno. So I’d say that I also thought coaching was a little bit airy fairy at the time. I think I said that to you, Rob, but yeah, that was the moment I remember it so vividly. He was at home and we were still in the office, so it was like 4:45. I was like, man, I’ve got hours left in me before I even think about going home.

Speaker 3 (14:01):

Yeah, great. I love it. And let’s just clarify, you guys probably take it for granted, but the type of work, the resi work that you were doing resi and then there’s highend resi. Just if you can paint a picture of just an example of when you talk about the high resi work you were doing, how long you were on sites, the sort of jobs that you were working on at the time.

Speaker 1 (14:21):

Yeah, we’d found ourselves in the very high end of the residential market in Sydney, we were working in what they call trophy homes.

Speaker 4 (14:28):

Like ultra high end.

Speaker 1 (14:30):

But these trophy homes weren’t always trophy jobs, so to speak, although from the outside they definitely look like that. We were working in these incredible locations on Sydney Harbour in these amazing homes. One was just listed on the market and it was the most expensive house on the market in the country. So you can imagine what sort of calibre of jobs we were working on, but unfortunately with that came really long construction programme timelines. We were going into jobs under the expectation that the build was going to last for around 12 months. Fast forward two and a half years later and we were still there. And you can imagine by the end of that two and a half year timeframe, all your labour allocation is completely exhausted. Material prices have gone through the roof in the past two and a half years and all the other challenges that came with it.

Speaker 4 (15:23):

Increasing wages over a couple of years. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:25):

Yeah, massive timeframes.

Speaker 3 (15:27):

Huge.

Speaker 1 (15:28):

Huge. So sometimes the finished product that looked incredible wasn’t a true reflection of the business side of what took to get it there.

Speaker 2 (15:39):

It’s also a testament of, obviously a testament to the workmanship you guys did have at the time. No random sparky gets on those types of jobs. So you obviously were very, very good and you obviously had a very, very good team around you to be able to even get a foot in the door to be able to work on those types of jobs, wasn’t it?

Speaker 4 (15:56):

Yeah, yeah. We’re doing lighting control, bit of AV, bit of security work, so going across multiple aspects and our guys obviously testament to the guys we’ve got. They’re very smart and switched on and take a lot of pride in their work, but they don’t see the backend, so they just think that obviously everything’s moving and everything’s going great. But yeah, fast forward to obviously our coaching call with you guys and you pull it apart. It’s a bit of a reality check as well. Bit of face the fact moment.

Speaker 2 (16:26):

I remember one of our first calls and early on in leverage when you’d just finished a job when you’re in the leverage programme and you’re like, we pulled apart a job and you’d been there for two and a half years and literally it had cost you money to be on that job because it had been that long. The amount of times you had to go back, the amount of site meetings, the exhaustion of labour was, I remember some of those early conversations, and you’re right when you said Andrew, that it looked good on the outside, but internally because the jobs just dragged out for so long, it just became problematic from a job point of view. Amazing business point of view became problematic, didn’t it?

Speaker 1 (17:06):

Yeah, it did. And it was hard to face the fact at the time it’d taken us so long to build a business to get into that part of the market and to sit there and ask the question, are we going to turn our back on this style of work? That was a really big decision for us. I think it was the first time we’d made a conscious strategic business decision prior to that we’d never actually sat down and actually pulled things apart. So yeah, that was a big turning point for us.

Speaker 3 (17:37):

Was that one of the first levers that you started to look at was the market you were in and understanding that market or I’m keen to learn and Rob jump in if you need to, but what were some of the early levers when you first got in, given where you started? We just said before two guys in vans leading into trophy homes, there hadn’t been a lot of structure in place. So what were some of those early things that you learned when you got into coaching and how did you even feel about it given that you’d only had one call with Pete to say, this is pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (18:06):

The first big lever and Rob will always talk about it was obviously we did a time tracker of Andrews and I’s our days, and obviously we’re being good mates and good guys. We’re thinking we’re helping each other when we’re trying trying to manage our jobs that we had both on the tools running two different multiple sites together, but we think we’re helping each other out. When someone calls when they couldn’t get onto Andrew, they’ll call me, then I go and order gear, order all this stuff, get it delivered, blah, blah. In the meantime, they’ve called Andrew, he’s ordered the gear, it’s been sent to site, so then they’ve both been sent to site, then the guys don’t want to say anything, they don’t want to. So then it stays on site for a year, then they bring it back to the factory. It’s a couple thousand dollars worth of material. So I think that there was a vicious cycle and that lever of splitting our roles, that was our biggest lever we first did. And it took a little bit of time to do, but that would be the biggest lever that we’ve done. Even if we’ve been in coaching nearly say two years, that’s still to date, the biggest lever we’ve pulled is splitting those roles and then obviously owning the roles is moving forward.

Speaker 1 (19:14):

I remember our first call with Rob, he basically said, any trades and services business in the industry has four main four components, obviously your sales, operations, admin and accounts. And he said, who’s doing those four roles? Talk me through it. And we sort of looked at each other and said, we’re both doing all of them. So there was no separation between any of the departments within our business, as Chris said. Yeah, we were just overlapping thinking we’re helping and just bumping into each other effectively. Yeah, pretty much yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:53):

What you used to say, Rob one plus one in a partnership should equal three. The one plus one we’re actually still equaling just one. I think that was a real big face to fact moment. So you said that within the first five minutes and I was just like, oh.

Speaker 3 (20:07):

This is us. Yeah, for sure. Rob, do you want to jump in? I mean, as we said, this is a partnership discussion, we haven’t had many of these, so give us your take on that in the early days. I’m really keen to hear how you view that given we’ve talked so much about solo business owners, when you come across two, what do you usually see?

Speaker 2 (20:24):

Yeah, this is a big one, and this is actually one of the biggest levers that anyone can pull when they’ve got in, when they are in a partnership and like what Chris has said before, when you do have a partnership, you come together because you generally have complimentary opposites which compliment each other. And I say that to business partners all the time. You come together, one plus one should equal three, but more often than happens it equals 0.5 or one. And the reason why is when we do go through that structure, generally when there’s only one owner, the owner’s name is the admin, they are the bookkeeper, they are the sales or estimation guy, and they are the operations guy. But when you’ve got business partnerships, what happens is they grow and generally come up off the tools, but then they just start bleeding over top of each other and they dilute each other.

(21:15):

And so the whole essence of having a business partnership is you should compliment each other to be able to play a bigger game together. But what often happens is they bleed into each other and blur the lines and deteriorate the actual value of a rural partnership. And I think that’s where you guys got to is you’d got to a point and you’d both getting off the tools and you had no other structure around you, but you were both just working just over the top of each other. And what you said there, Chris, you thought you were helping each other out, but you’re actually, you’re in essence working against each other. And that became the glass ceiling, didn’t it?

Speaker 4 (21:52):

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly what we’re doing trying to be, we think we’re helping each other and just stepping on each other’s toes, wasting time. I think we worked it out, we were spending it on a day on average, two hours a day crossing paths and doing the exact same role. It’s like eight hours a week in each.

Speaker 1 (22:10):

Yeah, we were also saying it was important probably at that time to look back and acknowledge the business that we’d built and the work we’d done to get us to that point. We had a great business, a great bunch of guys with really good culture and we’d built up a really good client base. So that was something to be proud of. So both of us, as Timo said, we’re pretty positive people. It was kind of hard for us to look at the negatives within the business. We saw everything is going pretty well.

Speaker 3 (22:41):

And did that bleed in, as you say, you’re both pretty positive. Again, was this the start of you guys being strategic and what did you notice? Did anything come up when you went to split those roles or were you sold on the strategy from the start and was literally, well, this is how we’re going to do it. What was the work involved in it? And you said it takes time to bet it in, but even just making the decision about who’s going to do what and there’s going to be something you’re going to commit to that’s different to what you’ve been doing. How did that feel and what came up as you sort of went through those early stages of what we call that divide and conquer sort of strategy?

Speaker 1 (23:13):

No, there was no resistance from the start there in that aspect. I think that was the first light bulb moment, the first call with Rob, it was just a realisation. It was like a breath of fresh air. This is exactly what we need right now. Not to say some of the suggestions that followed that they came with maybe a little bit of resistance from within, but at the time we knew, yep, this is exactly what we need right now. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Speaker 4 (23:37):

Yeah, I was also using our JMS a lot more than Andrew at the time, so I was doing a bit more quoting, doing bits and pieces on the JMS. So it was a bit of a natural fit that we just said. I’ll run with it. I’d already built out some pre-build and doing those things in the backend, so it was a bit of a natural progression. It was maybe the kick we needed as well. We’re probably too nice to say anything, so we’re both just doing, trying to do the same thing. But yeah, that was the biggest lever and we still talk about it now, but yeah, as you said, it was two years ago.

Speaker 3 (24:07):

Yeah, and I think I’m jumping around a little bit, but I remember you guys had a conversation once, I think it might’ve been you, Andrew and event sort of said, it’s not that you guys are all exactly similar. It’s not like you mirror images of each other. There’s a real difference between the two of you. So whilst you got along, whilst you could commit to decisions and whilst there was a rhythm and a good fit for that stuff, just explain so someone listening can understand the differences that you still have with each other, like the positivity of one of you versus the practicalities of the other. Just explain where the differences are. We’ve talked a lot about the similarities, but where are your differences as business partners?

Speaker 1 (24:45):

Yeah, I think overall we’re both pretty optimistic, but for me, if you could say the glass is half full for Timo, the glass is overflowing. He’s an extremely positive person, which is a really great characteristic to have, especially in business. There’s always an upbeat positive mood around the office. You wouldn’t dare walking into our office with a frown on your face because he’d be straight onto you. And yeah, overall that’s great for me. As much as I am optimistic, I think I’m probably bit more realistic. I’m a bit more cautious. I probably like to know all the facts before we sort of dive into something. Timo is probably a bit more keen to have a crack, so that’s probably the only real difference between us. Yeah, I think we always like to have a positive outlook, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that the future outcome, thinking that the future outcome’s going to be better than what’s most likely might be a little bit of a dangerous thing if you ask me.

Speaker 4 (25:51):

It brings me back down to I think it’s a good mix because as he did say, I’m very positive and I’ll shoot for the sky, but Andrew’s very realistic and calculated and goes through the details a little bit more, which is what you need. I think if we were to run the business salt like single, I don’t think we would be where we are today without having each of our own traits. So I think that’s a very good thing to acknowledge as well.

Speaker 2 (26:20):

It’s really important that we do make this point here. This is the big punchline around this episode around having a business partnership in here is having a business partnership’s no different to a relationship partnership where a lot of people want to go and find their partner, which is the same as them. And if you are listening here and you are thinking about you and your wife or your partner or whatever it is, yes, you might have similarities, but what often happens, the secret to having a really successful relationship is actually being opposites and compliment each other. It’s a complimentary opposites that make the relationship successful. And that’s what these guys we’re talking a bit about here before where Chris, and if you’re in a partnership listening to this, I can guarantee that one of you will always lean more towards the sales and the estimation and the business development and winning work and driving the business forward.

(27:17):

That’s naturally someone’s going to have that propensity to want to do that. Whereas the other partnership, and that’s you Andrew, where you’re more calculated, you want to know the facts, you’re looking at labour and man hours and management. That’s why this partnership, it works really well between these two guys is because one’s naturally a sales guy and one’s naturally an operations guy. And that was the secret in coaching when we got them into this space that when we unpacked this, their strengths, their weaknesses, what they were good at, what they liked and didn’t like, the more we could pull that to pieces, that’s when we could peel back the roles and the people and move forward. And so that’s the secret to having a business partnership. And that’s what you guys did really well early in coaching, wasn’t it, where you really took your time, unpacked it, looked through it, and really made some big decisions, didn’t you boys?

Speaker 1 (28:11):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And like you say, a business partnership is like a relationship and I think it’s important to be able to compromise sometimes to also have the ability to see things from the other person’s perspective. So I think fundamentally you need to have that sort of mindset when you’re dealing with someone, whether it be in a relationship or a business partnership. So having those fundamentals in mind I think is really important when you’re unpacking all of this in business and making sure you’re on the same page moving forward.

Speaker 3 (28:47):

And just if you’re playing along, listening in, let’s just clarify, what roles did you actually land on? Rob hinted at it there, but let’s be really clear, Andrew, where did you end up in the business and where did you land?

Speaker 1 (28:58):

Yeah, so I’m operations project management underneath myself. We have a supervisor, we have an admin in the office and then our ground crew working out in the field. And then obviously Chris, Chris’s sales, he’s estimating, he’s got his head in the quotes and that seems to be really working really well for us.

Speaker 4 (29:21):

It’s also something that you grow into. It’s coming from being a tradie on the tools every day on site to now being in an office. It does take a bit of time to get used to, but I would say I actually really enjoy it now because I’ve grown into it and I also know that it’s my role and it’s helping the business. So it’s a bit of a win-win. But I would say to other people out there, it is a bit of a shift in mindset going from on the tools every day to being in front of a computer and spreadsheets.

Speaker 2 (29:51):

Chris, what did you notice early in the days, the moment you started peeling away operations from your plate? Obviously we backfilled ground crew early, helped you get off the tools and started peeling away operations. What did that do for your head space, your time, your focus, your drive? What did that enable for you in those early days to really catapult things moving forward?

Speaker 4 (30:13):

Yeah, as you said, losing that operational side of things, it was probably the phone calls. I used to take a hundred phone calls a day. So you try pricing work, new work and then taking phone calls about old projects and that stuff. So it gave me focus drive, but also just the ability to get through work. I was always, I probably say I was half-assing a lot of estimation work because I was so rushed, so busy trying to get things out the door, not being able to focus. So it was a bit of a catch 22. I was also trying to win work, but it wasn’t at great margins or I didn’t really know the true value of the project. I was just trying to get in there and get it done.

Speaker 3 (30:54):

And I think this is important as we sort of go to the next major lever that you guys pulled, which was to ultimately make the decision to almost start again, you got out of trophy home. So talk us through that massive decision. You’ve sort of divided and conquered, the roles are starting to become clearer and then there’s this huge decision, this huge pivot that comes through in coaching and strategy. So talk us through that move and where you ended up saying you wanted to get into and some of the early steps that came up in moving out of trophy homes.

Speaker 1 (31:27):

We feel in the residential market, obviously we had a lot of constraints, but in terms of growth and moving forward, I think we were sort of capped if we wanted to grow. Keeping in mind this far into our coaching journey, our mindsets had changed. We weren’t scared of growth anymore. We wanted to continue growing the business, start building some structure and systems and processes in place. So in order to do that, we knew something had to give and the work that we were doing was just not going to deliver that. So I think it was early on a bit of a scary thought, turning our backs on what we knew so well, but we knew that something had to give and we made the decision pursue work in the commercial space, how that was going to look at that time we didn’t know we lost every builder that we’d worked for nine years, we say, yeah, we’re still friends with them. We didn’t obviously burn bridges as we said, we’re nice, try to be nice guys. But yeah, we turned it back essentially on all the contacts we had. And at the start, again, it was definitely stressful, tried not to show the stress, especially to the team as well. We obviously talked to the team, said what we’re doing. But yeah, they’re definitely very stressful. It’s still a little bit stressful now. We’re still trying to build relationships and out of the 10 builders that we were doing consistent work for, there’s only one that we still do a little bit of work for now.

(32:54):

At that time, we’d started to implement some of the tools that we’d been given through coaching, and one of them is planning your pipeline and forecasting work over the coming months. And I remember we were basically about to go off a cliff. We had these residential jobs finishing up and we just hadn’t landed any commercial work yet. I remember we had a call with our one-on-one call with our coach at the time, and he basically said, right guys, we need to talk about a bit of strategy here. What are we going to do? And we said, well, we could start calling some of those old builders. I reckon we’d land a job with ’em tomorrow. He said, no, I’m not going to allow it. Let’s stick to our guns. You guys have put in enough work to date, something’s going to land pretty soon. And sure enough, it did work, started coming in,

Speaker 4 (33:43):

And now we’ve built some really good relationships in the commercial space. They’re still doing some really nice high-end projects in the commercial space. So it’s been a bit of a compliment to our residential and I don’t think we’d be doing the commercial work we do now, our previous experience with all our lighting control. So when you look back at it, it’s a bit of a, it’s been the perfect stepping stone for us.

Speaker 1 (34:05):

Yeah, sometimes you look back and go, why didn’t we do this earlier? But the truth is I don’t think we would’ve been capable. We were inexperienced, we didn’t have to know how, we didn’t fully understand how the commercial world sort of worked, I think.

Speaker 4 (34:19):

Contractually as well.

Speaker 1 (34:20):

Yeah, yeah. We’ve done so much work in the background to get us to that level. And now we say commercial, we now basically service the education space as well as hospitality. Then we do a bit of work with some industrial projects as well.

Speaker 3 (34:36):

Like we said, it’s a huge shift. And you mentioned it before Chris, when you talked around being a tradie going into the office, you’ve now gone into a role that you weren’t comfortable, you weren’t comfortable in. And I say that you hadn’t done it for very long, you weren’t that experienced in it in terms of just doing the bd, the office work, then you shift and pivot and change completely in terms of the market that you’re servicing. What was the pressure on you at that time and how did you grow and how did you work through that, given that the brunt of if it was not working when you’ve got that hole and the potential to fall off a cliff, what was going through your mind at the time and how were you able to work through that? And then Andrew, I’m going to ask you the question, how were you viewing that with your partner, being in that position and not diving into try and help and rescue and save and ending up where you were when you first started in the high-end residential stuff?

Speaker 4 (35:29):

Yeah, as Andrew mentioned before, I’m obviously a very positive guy, so I think that was actually very helpful in these stages and processes. Yeah, it definitely was stressful. And I did have some sleepless nights about winning work, but obviously stuck to our guns and speaking to friends within the industry and knowing we do good work, we’re good people, we’re very high integrity. So I think I kind of backed ourselves in that and knowing that, and it sounds bad, but I see all these other people doing pretty well. I’m like, mate, if these guys can do it, they’re no better than us. So I’m sure that we can do it and yeah, stuck to our gun. But yeah, definitely. I’d love to say I had this magic trick that I did, but it was just sticking at it, being consistent. And Andrew, what did you notice or what were you seeing at the time and did you have to try and wrestle with that idea of should I have to step in here or were you pretty much staying out of that running operations at the time and trying to get those things ready for when the work did come?

Speaker 1 (36:27):

Not really, because Timo just kept telling me how great everything was.

(36:32):

He didn’t know if there’s one time that being open-minded and optimistic is a really good thing. It’s when you’re probably trying to make a shift in business because you have to be super positive and open-minded about it. And at the time, the work wasn’t really coming in. It was the early days and there was a level of stress because the pipeline showed that we’re about to go off a cliff, as I said. So there was a bit of stress and there were times when you start to maybe have a bit of self-doubt, but sure enough, Timo sort of got me back on track and told me everything was going to be amazing.

Speaker 2 (37:11):

But this is the good thing about a partnership when one’s down, the other one picks them up. When someone’s up the other one often brings them down. So Andrew, you played a part in that where optimism’s good, but over optimism can be dangerous. So Andrew, there’s no doubt throughout that period where you played a big part in terms of also curbing some of that optimism to bring that element of reality along the way. No doubt yeah?

Speaker 1 (37:39):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we don’t want to be unrealistically optimistic. I think, as I said, I’m always pretty realistic and the numbers just weren’t there. We didn’t have the jobs coming in. And so that was an opportunity for us to really sit down and say, okay, is this working? What’s our plan? Let’s come up with a strategy here. How are we going to bring in work? And if the work doesn’t come in, how are we going to alleviate our team out in the field and the surplus labour that we may have? So we were able to really look at some strategies around that to fall back on and that was a good way to ensure that we’re making the right decision.

Speaker 3 (38:25):

So guys, as you’re moving forward through this phase and you’re going down this new line of work, the roles, everything we’ve spoken about, was it just absolute blind faith in each other knowing that, hey, I’ve worked with this guy long enough, he’ll be right. Or did you build in checks and balances and what was the way that you were both able to do that without both drifting off into different paths completely?

Speaker 1 (38:48):

I think the fact that we’re both good communicators is definitely a plus. Being good mates and sitting next to each other in the office meant that we were basically talking all day, not necessarily always about business, but we were always sort of communicating. What that also did was made us realise that we actually needed to probably come together in more of a formal setting to actually discuss business strategies and decisions. So that’s when we started bringing in our directors meeting may seem a bit silly, just the two of us. I mean we’re often sitting together, just the two of us anyway. But when we actually were able to implement an agenda, record, the minutes of the meeting, it was a great way for us to actually come together, have open dialogue, communication, and bring up any strategic decisions that we needed to make, but also any issues that we needed to resolve.

Speaker 4 (39:44):

Yeah, good way to hold each other accountable as well, because obviously talking every day and off the cuff, there’s so many things that you might talk about and some things get listened to others, but in the director’s meeting, there’s the 10 or 12 points that you really want to get across. We note them down the action items, how we’re going to do them. I think that’s a really great way to move forward because obviously being so close and good mates, we we’re talking every day.

Speaker 3 (40:08):

And there’s genuine care there and all the dynamics of a personal relationship still there, it doesn’t go away. And I think this is, whether it’s a partnership, whether it’s a family business, there’s got to be that carved out time for what I call checks and balances where you are actually putting in those conversations where there is a level of accountability, there’s a different tone to the conversation if there needs to be. And it’s okay to do that in that environment, in that context, without jeopardising the relationship or the momentum you’ve got in an operational sort of sense as a team for the day-to-day running of the business. I think that’s really important. Rob, I know you like this sort of area of this and especially when we’re dealing with partners, what do you see in this as sort of one of the most critical things perhaps that guys need to have as well?

Speaker 2 (40:52):

Partnerships have their pros and their cons. The pros of that partnership is like what Timo said before are around accountability, genuine care and pretty good, often communication. But the cons of that are exactly the same because this is where the bleeding of partnerships come in because you are sitting around next to each other, you’re just constantly talking. That’s where the duplication of work comes in from partners. When you don’t have a business partner and you are naturally a sales guy, you’ll always hire a really good PM who is the opposite. So these guys have followed the same strategy that someone who doesn’t have the partnership would follow, but what they’ve got is the complexities of a partnership that sits over the top. And that’s where these guys have done a really good job in terms of getting on the same page, having their directors meetings, really good open and honest communications, even though they have divided and conquered those things that we just spoke around there is what kept them connected even though they had divided.

(41:58):

And that’s the secret to a really good business partnership is you have to divide and conquer one plus one equals three, but in the middle you’ve got to get on the same page. You’ve got to communicate, you’ve got to have open honest conversations around what’s working, what’s not. Otherwise this is where problems in a partnership or a relationship exist is if you don’t communicate well. And so for you guys, back to you guys is how has that communication helped keep those lines of dialogue open to be able to make sure that things were spoken around, spoken and communicated well, what’s been the secret there do you think?

Speaker 4 (42:33):

I dunno if there’s any secret, as you said, it’s that open communication. We talk regularly obviously about work, but we are also best of mates outside of work. So I think knowing that we’re best of mates, we’ve also got everyone’s, as you said, best interest at heart. So we’re obviously very, the communication’s very open and very honest. I’d say that’s probably, we’re very honest with each other.

Speaker 3 (42:57):

I think you might be missing a little bit of a trick and not that that’s not important, but I also say that discipline, you guys have to have a huge amount of discipline to stick to that, given that you are best mates, given that there’s so much positivity and so much fun, we don’t need to get into that stuff. That doesn’t feel good. I think talk about maybe Andrew, the discipline to have that meeting and stick with it even when things are hard, when they’re good, when regardless you don’t miss that meeting.

Speaker 1 (43:23):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we both are very disciplined. That’s probably a common personality trait between us and sticking to those meetings and having them regularly is probably one of the reasons we haven’t had conflict. We talked before about resolving conflict. We’ve been lucky enough to never have to resolve any major issues. And looking back, you could probably put that down to the open and honest communication that we have with each other, whether it’s in our director’s meeting or just when we’re talking business day to day.

Speaker 4 (43:55):

But yeah, probably also when you do say a discipline, yeah, I do remember at the start it was very hard for me to stay out of operations because I’ve quoted a job, I know some ins and outs and then I hear the guys speaking about it. But I did my best to stay out of it and just see what would happen. And you realise my little comments don’t really do anyone. I’m speaking over people or taking something away from Andrew when I’m telling the other guys. So I think discipline in that way definitely has led to a stronger team and in our roles, well, everyone knows the roles within our business very well now due to that discipline.

Speaker 3 (44:36):

Yeah, for sure. I love it. So let’s round the corner. Now we’re going into personal journeys as we usually do on a client feature, but to do something different, I’m going to ask you the same question, but you’re going to answer it for each other and the question’s going to be, what have you noticed or who has your partner become? So Andrew, for you, who have you noticed Chris become over the last two years since he’s ended into coaching? What’s changed? What’s different, what’s better.

Speaker 1 (45:01):

In that time I’ve definitely seen Chris develop himself as a leader and improve on his leadership skills that comes around confidence. He’s obviously a very positive guy and his confidence sort of flows through that. So developing himself himself as a leader on the back of his own confidence is probably the main change I’ve seen. And that probably stems from him on a personal level. He is a confident person, he’s always pursuing his own goals outside of work. He’s recently completed a half iron man and you can’t do that without a level of confidence as well as obviously very strict discipline around your habits. So that’s another area that I think has really led and helped Timo to develop his leadership in that time. We’ve also seen him become a dad, so I think we’ve also seen the softer side of him. Yeah, he’s not the hard man that he makes himself out to be.

Speaker 4 (46:01):

A big softie I am.

Speaker 3 (46:03):

No questions there anything he’s forgotten there. Chris, what would you say about yourself in terms of your development? Anything that you’d add to that?

Speaker 4 (46:11):

I think he’s hit the nail on the head there. Yeah, probably consistency for me. I’ve been in the past very much like a yo-yo or rollercoaster up and down, especially with my habits around training and health. So obviously looking after myself in the mornings first and sticking to that and making that a habit has given me the confidence in work to win work. And obviously in a new market we are doing pretty well from obviously only being here for 18 months. So that’s given me the confidence to move forward doing that.

Speaker 3 (46:43):

Excellent. I love it. Alright, your turn. Now you get right of reply. What have you noticed or what have you seen change, improve different in Andrew over the last two years?

Speaker 4 (46:55):

Andrew’s big changes similar to mine leadership, but around that word that you always use in coaching is like encourage. So obviously not shying away from the tough conversations in the past two years gone by. I would say we would let both of us, but we would let things get swept under the rug or not address them when we should have. Andrew’s big strong point now is addressing it head on and having that awkward conversation and bringing it to the table and it’s actually not awkward when you do that and I think he’s found that in doing that. So I think that’s one. And then obviously he’s training similar to me. He does training in the morning, swims, marathon swimming. Probably biggest compliment is he can go to bed at eight 30 every night. So if you want to text Andrew at 8:35, you are not getting a response. His discipline as well around that, very, very disciplined around his training, which leads into work as well.

Speaker 3 (47:52):

For sure. And you guys are getting really good results on that personal side in terms of the training and the stuff you’re doing. You say marathon swimming, but they’re great results that Andrew’s got as a result of following through on all those habits and all that hard training. So it’s pretty impressive.

Speaker 4 (48:05):

Yeah, definitely. And even, yeah, I also enjoy getting around and yeah, Andrew did the 10 K Ocean swim. I did, I paddled for him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:14):

And not to mention Tim’s Ironman that he just completed, but I think we’ve both obviously got interest in keeping fit and healthy, but actually being able to believe that we can follow through with these goals. A lot of that mindset is through things we’ve learned in coaching. So I think it’s something worth mentioning as well.

Speaker 3 (48:35):

Yeah, absolutely. Look, as I said at the start, Rob and I have both coached you, we know you guys pretty well and have seen the journey over the last couple of years. I think you both really nailed what you’ve seen in each other. I dunno if there’s anything you’d want to add, Rob, but I can definitely see the leadership, but then the confidence and then even that sort of distinction between the confidence and the courage, it’s absolutely there in spades with these guys.

Speaker 2 (48:57):

Yeah I would agree with that. I think to be able to go after, to be able to have the discipline to stay out of operations and really go after new markets and put himself out there has been a big part for Timo to really drive this business forward. And that takes a lot of courage to be able to do that when you’ve already got a beast of a business moving along to be able to completely move into a new market and go, you’ve done really well there mate. And for you, Andrew, you’ve done a cracking job in terms of your ability to manage guys. I remember some of our early conversations, you’d shy away from holding people accountable to hours and materials and labour and a lot of the problems in the jobs you were having in blowouts was just purely down to lack of management.

(49:37):

And you guys have just done a cracking job in dividing, conquering, staying true to your positions, having a really good handover from sales to operations, and then just being responsible for each other’s part. And then the ability to communicate well in the middle has just been the recipe for a really, really good partnership. And it’s why we love working with you guys and you’ve both done a cracking job whilst being great husbands, great fathers, great family men, and being able to spend quality time with your families as well. You’ve both done a cracking job. It’s been really, really good to see.

Speaker 3 (50:11):

Yeah, and if you’re listening, they are as great a blokes as they sound on the podcast. They’re really are. It’s a lot of fun and the guys all love getting around you guys, and any time we get to spend with, it’s always positive and it’s always productive, so absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 (50:25):

We can’t forget Tim o’s tours on our mastermind weekends. Like Timo, you’ve been doing your run club of the morning. It’s been a big part of our mastermind weekends, hasn’t it?

Speaker 4 (50:34):

Ben telling me it’s the hit of the weekend. Yes. I’ll just leave that there.

Speaker 2 (50:41):

Win the morning, win the day. It’s the mantra, isn’t it?

Speaker 4 (50:43):

That’s what they say.

Speaker 3 (50:44):

That’s right. All good. So I think that’s a great spot for us to wind up today. It’s been a great conversation boys. Thanks for coming on and lifting the lid on not only your partnership but the strategies and the tools and the things you can learn and pick up just in general for anyone who’s listening that’s in a business partnership, it’s been great. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (51:02):

Thanks for having us. It’s been great to talk and to reflect on our journey so far. Really enjoyed it.

Speaker 4 (51:07):

Yeah, cheers boys. Not so scary. So that was great. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (51:11):

No, thanks boys. We’re really grateful to be part of your journeys and you’ve done a cracking job in coaching so far. So yeah, thanks for very much for being with us today and thanks for listening. For those of you who are joining us with our podcast, thanks very much for tuning in today. Hopefully you took some golden nuggets. Regardless if you’re in a business partnership or not, the same principles apply. You’ve just got that added complexity of being in a partnership. So it’s been really good unpacking this today with the kinetic boys. Who run a great business and have a crack in business partnership. So thanks. Joining us today for those of you listening, hopefully you took some golden nuggets out of it and looking forward to coming back to you next week with another cracker of an episode on The Trade Den. Thanks very much. Talk to you soon.