Episode 38 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

When you’re balancing out your ground crew, it’s the right person doing the right job at the right cost. Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How’s things?

Speaker 2 (00:18):

Great to be back. Yeah, very well, thanks Rob. Really excited today as we go and kick off what we’re going to be doing as another series, another three parter.

Speaker 1 (00:26):

Yeah, these are a big one, aren’t they? And today’s a big one in terms of recruitment, retention and how to design a really productive, effective ground crew. And to be honest, this is one of those topics that is so important for so many business owners because when you’re growing a business, the most important thing you need is an efficient and effective and a productive ground crew. And without it, you actually don’t have a business and finding the right people on your ground crew, tradesmen, apprentices and everything is one of the biggest challenges that so many trades guys in the business space find, don’t they?

Speaker 2 (01:04):

It is and I think people underestimate the skill involved in it. It’s absolutely a skill. I mean you’ve done it with a background in HR I’ve done it plenty of times in my career, but being able to hire and put together a team through recruitment process is really, it’s a fundamental skill of any manager or business owner.

Speaker 1 (01:22):

When you’re starting out in business, you generally hire your mates, get someone in, hire friends and friends, and you often get to that point where you exhaust all the contacts you’ve had and that’s where a lot of people start stalling in terms of being able to grow their teams. But there’s no doubt we are in a tight labour market. It’s hard to find good people. A lot of traders that we speak to do have a lot of beliefs and blockages around finding good people. They don’t think anyone’s out there and we’re going to talk through that in future episodes in this series, but today’s a really big one because we are going to be talking around designing your ground crew and the thing that we see so much in coaching, especially when I talk to a lot of guys on the front end is they’re so close to their business and they almost lose that objectivity around, well who do I need and when? And they’re so hung up on, well, how do I get someone they don’t have the ability to take a step back and almost do that whole designing process, which is actually one of the most important steps before you even think recruitment.

Speaker 2 (02:25):

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. They get stuck on that story of, well, I need someone, I can’t find someone. There’s no one good around and they just loop on that. But really that’s going about it the wrong way because you haven’t designed it right, you haven’t followed the process and there’s a massive step when you skip that. And then what most people find themselves in as well is that they’re hiring out of desperation. It’s like someone’s left, someone’s gone. We need to fill that gap right now. We’ve got work coming up that we haven’t planned for properly. There’s all of this urgency around hiring and it’s hire anyone we can find that’s good enough and even in some cases not even good enough, but we need the arms and legs and I think skipping this process that we’re going to go through today, this sort of really taking a step back and designing your ground crew is a big jump that people can make to really sort of smooth out some of these issues that they do have and change that story about, well, there’s never anyone good when I need them.

Speaker 1 (03:17):

Yeah, if we had a dollar every time we heard that we’d have dollar coins piled up for d?ays, wouldn’t we

Speaker 2 (03:25):

Out of control. It really is and it is just consistent. I think that proves that recruitment doesn’t stop. That’s probably another mindset and a little bit off topic, but at the same time people think, well, I’ve got that person in. I plugged that gap. Let’s keep moving on and I don’t have to worry about it again, but you and I both know you’re going to worry about it again. It is going to come up again. You need to be on this stuff and you really need to learn this skill. So it’s not an absolute turn the business upside down when something happens or someone leaves.

Speaker 1 (03:54):

Over the next couple of episodes, we are going to be doing this as a little three part series, but over the next couple of episodes we are going to be taking you through this whole process around design, recruit, and retain really good people. In particular, what we’re going to do today is take you through the three steps to getting the right people on your team will help you get clear, help you find the gap that you need to fill and what type of team member you should be bringing on. And like we’ve already alluded to, recruitment is a skill, recruitment is an actual skill. You don’t learn this in trade school. This is one of those skill sets you need to be able to develop as a businessman and the more you do it, the better you get. But there’s a real process to be able to ensure you get the right person at the right time with the right skill for where you’re trying to go. So that’s why we’re going to be talking through these three steps today in today’s episode.

Speaker 2 (04:51):

Yeah, absolutely. We’re ready to go on the first one then. I think you’ve introduced that pretty well there. You’re ready to kick in with number one?

Speaker 1 (04:57):

Let’s do it.

Speaker 2 (04:57):

Alright, so the first one we’re going to talk about is what we call getting clear and what we’re talking there is what’s your outcome and the outcome being for you. So think about it to start with, what’s your outcome as the business owner, as the person who’s running the show in your business? What’s the outcome that you are chasing and how clear are you on what you need for the businesses?

Speaker 1 (05:19):

This is the big one where when I speak to so many guys, when they jump on a strategy call and they want to be able to either get unstuck or continue to grow their business, they lack clarity and they lack clarity on who and when and how. And that’s what is this whole outcome thing is. It’s really getting clear, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (05:44):

It is. So when we start with getting clear, you’ve got to, this is that first step. So rather than rushing into that, you’re still going to have questions that you’re trying to fill about who’s it going to be and what’s it going to look like and what do I have to do when they get on board, but way before then get clear on what those outcomes are. Like you just said. Is it to wind you off the tools? Are we looking for growth? There’s three areas I think that we really hone in on and keen to hear your thoughts Rob, in terms of well, what are those three that you look for to try and pinpoint the next step that we go to in phase two there’s sort of those three areas that we do.

Speaker 1 (06:18):

Yeah, number one is growth, number two is capability, and number three is capacity. So when you’re thinking around when it’s with growth is maybe you’re in that stage where you are still partly on the tools, partly off and you’re looking to grow your business, then who do we need to be able to bring into the team to be able to unlock that next phase of growth? So there’s that one element. The next part is capability. So we are looking at the dynamics of our current ground crew at the moment and are we missing a certain skillset? Are we missing a certain level of experience? What do we need to bring into the ground crew to get that level of capability within the business to be able to go to where the business is moving or if it’s a capacity thing, what do we need to be able to unlock to be able to create capacity within our team to get to the next level, whether you are on the tools or off the tools.

(07:24):

So it really comes down to there’s really only three outcomes around why we’re hiring it’s growth capability or capacity, and before you even go down the lines of throwing a seek ad up or putting an ad up on social media or whatever it is, you’ve got to be really clear on what that outcome is that you’re chasing. Otherwise you run the risk of getting the wrong person at the right time and it just throws all your dynamics out or you’re hiring someone too expensive, you’re not hiring someone the right skillset and you’re just bringing arms and legs in without getting the actual outcome that you’re trying to chase in the first place.

Speaker 2 (08:08):

Yeah, I think it makes the hiring process almost like a lottery. If you haven’t got this outcome in mind, you’re hoping you get someone in that can do something. I don’t know exactly what, but I’ll know if they’re good or not and hopefully the problems that I’m experiencing or the challenge I’m trying to overcome will disappear as a result of saying I’m going to get someone in and it’s a really hit and miss thing. Let’s just clarify in terms of that capability, I think skill and experience you touched on. I think also when it comes to capability, it can also be leadership. That’s another one I’d throw into capability. And capacity. I’ve heard you say this so many times on different calls and different things we’ve done, but people will say to you, I can’t take on any more work. We’re full, we can’t do anything anymore. We’re Chockas, and this is where I think that’s the question to go well, you need capacity.

Speaker 1 (08:53):

Yeah, correct. We’ve got to remember, remember that when you’re running a trades and construction business, you sell man hours. That’s what you sell. And so many times I talked to so many tradies, he is like, Rob, we’re stuck at a million dollars. Great, how many guys you had? I’ve got four or five. Okay, excellent. How long have you been here the last two years? I’m like, great. So what are we doing to be able to put more guys on and get to the next level? Oh Rob, I can’t find anyone. There’s no good guys out there. Anyone good is just working for themselves. It’s like, mate, unless you take your team from four to five to 6 to 8 to 10 to 12, the chances of you going to one to $2m to $3m to $5m and growing and bringing in more team and making more money and winding back your hours and making more profit, the chances are slim to none because if you don’t bring on more people in your ground crew, you’re never going to get any further because you’ve got no more billable hours to sell. So the chances of growth is slim to none. So if you’re trying to grow a business, you have to keep looking at unlocking capacity within your ground crew to be able to keep taking things to the next level. There is no other way around it.

Speaker 2 (10:02):

Yeah, absolutely. So I think we’re clear then on those three outcomes that we talked to. Get that in your mind first as you listen to this, play along with us and answer those three questions of which one you’re looking for. Then we get to topic two, which is all about finding the gap. I love hearing you talk about this because when you talk about it, Rob, this is sort of what the big bulk as you listen to this and you’re wondering if we say it every episode book in a strategy call and talk to Rob, this is exactly what you cover off is learning and finding this gap. So maybe start with how it works in terms of finding the gap, what we’re talking about when we say find the gap, but maybe in the context of what someone might expect once they get on the phone call with you on that initial strategy call.

Speaker 1 (10:42):

Yeah, one of the first areas that I always look at, I’ve got a real process when I step a client through a strategy call. One of the first areas I always look at is the market they’re in and where they’re trying to go. That’s a big part. That helps me get context in terms of where are they and where are they trying to push in their market. Then I’m trying to wrap my head around numbers wise, what’s their monthly revenue at the moment and where are they trying to go? So they might say, Rob, we’re doing a hundred grand months and so I’m doing one to $1.2 and I’d love to be able to get to $1.5 to $2 over the next 12 to 24 months. Great. That gives me context to where they’re at and then we talk numbers and pricing and a little bit around numbers there and everything to really unpack well, how are we going to do that through extra business development and where’s the workload coming from? And then my mind immediately goes to, well, great, who’s who in the zoo at the moment, who we got and where are we trying to go?

Speaker 2 (11:44):

So understanding current states, like the first step, it sounds like it’s not about let’s go to solution mode and how we either fix it or we change it or what we need to do there. It’s always where are we right now as a beginning point, which goes nicely to what our first thing was, which is really step back a minute and understand where you want to go, but understand where you’re starting from.

Speaker 1 (12:03):

Correct. Because then the first thing I’ll go is, okay, as the owner, well how much are you on the tools versus off the tools? Are you ready to step off the tools? Are you ready to make that step? And then it’s, well, let’s talk about it names position, what do they do? And I’ll get them to talk through, well, Bob’s a tradesman, he’s been with me this long. Frank’s a tradesman fresh out of his time came through and as an apprentice great. And so I’m trying to wrap my head around tradesman and how long an experience and then it’s like, okay, I’ve got three apprentices and I’m going then down to the level of well what year are those apprentices? Because I really want to start pulling apart the dynamics of that ground crew in my mind. Then I can go, okay, he’s doing $1.2, the owner’s 50% on the tools, 50% off.

(12:57):

He’s got a good tradesman, a really green tradesman and two apprentices coming through the ranks and there’s a third year and a fourth year. So in my mind then I’m going, great, that all makes sense. I can see what their current state ground crew looks like. The owner wants to achieve growth by stepping off the tools and then I’m like, great, there’s a gap we’ve got to fill and we also want to take it to the next level to be able to add a million dollars in revenue. Bang, there’s a capacity issue and then I’m taking it to the next thing going, well, if we pull the owner out of the ground crew, we are missing skills and experience. So when guys come to me on strategy calls, they’re so close to this situation, they don’t have the ability to design it, but because we’ve got so much experience in this and we know how to design ground crews really well from a HR point of view, human resources point of view, you pull at all the pieces and it’s glaringly obvious when your objective to be able to see the gaps.

Speaker 2 (13:56):

Yeah, it’s like putting together a puzzle that you put together. So many times we talk about a lot when clients come to us, it’s usually they’re growing their business, they want to do it the right way. That sort of channel lane if you like. The other one is when people come to us and say, listen, I cannot keep this up. I can’t keep doing the hours. I’ve got my family suffering. That sort of stuff. Finding the gap when it comes to that, and someone says this, what you’re focused on is the numbers, the people, sort of the hardcore, the business and where it sits. How would someone who’s faced with the challenges of family and their personal situation, hours and time with kids, et cetera, how is this still relevant for them in terms of finding the gap?

Speaker 1 (14:37):

Yeah, huge because when guys are working really long hours, it’s generally because they’re on the tools most days almost full time and then they’re trying to run a business full after hours, so they’re doing 30 to 40 hours a week on the tools and then they’re trying to do 30 hours a week of admin, quoting, invoicing, all at nights and on weekends. And so that’s a big part of it is looking where is getting really clear of where the owner is spending their time. And it’s more often than not because they’re at that stage of business where they really want to start winding off the tools.

(15:20):

The thing that keeps them on the job sites or being billable is the phase of business that they’re in, but it’s also most likely because they’re the most experienced, the most skilled person in the ground crew. And then we’ve got to go down that line of going, well great, how are we going to replace you? What level of leading hands site foreman, skilled senior tech to be able to bring that level of leadership into the business to be able to give you the space to be able to step off the tools. It’s a big part of the design process for sure.

Speaker 2 (15:51):

Yeah. And when you do that, it brings into that gap becoming all three things that we’ve already talked about. You’re looking for capacity because you need to get more capacity if you’re going to step out of the tools that capacity’s required capability because you’re going to be presumably the most experienced, most capable person on your team at this point in your journey. So how do we get that capability? And then you’ve got to be able to, you’ve grow because there’s got to be an uplift in the business to be able to bring on the overhead that you’re going to bring the expenses and the salaries and things like that as you bring people on. So as you listen to this, if you’re in that bucket of I need to change my personal situation more than anything else, the business is sort of ticking, but I can’t keep it going, then your outcome’s pretty easy. It’s going to be all free in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 1 (16:36):

Yeah, correct. And so we always, when the owner wants to get off the tools for good, you’ve got to look who do we have to backfill to give them the permission to be able to do that or give them the space and capability to be able to do that. And sometimes that could be through a good tradesman and potentially an apprentice or sometimes it needs to be a really good leading hand to be able to fill that space. Whenever you’re designing ground crew, there’s three things that you want to focus on. Is it skill experience or is there a certain ticket that you need to be able to get? And so with the owner, sometimes they’re stuck on site because they’re the only one with an excavator ticket. Maybe they’re the only one who can drive the truck, a certain truck. Maybe they’re there because they’ve got a certain level of experience that no one else is in the team that’s got, maybe they’re there with a certain level of experience that no one else has got.

(17:40):

And so when I’m pulling apart the ground crew with a client, I’m looking for skills, experience and tickets to be able to go, oh, that’s the thing that’s keeping you stuck on site, right? That’s what we’ve got to backfill and this is where so many people go wrong because they’re like, let’s just go and hire someone, and then they get the wrong person and they wonder why it doesn’t fix the problems. And that’s why you’ve got to take a step back and go, right, what’s our objective here? Who do we need and when and why? Then let’s go on the recruitment journey to get them and you hire to solve the problem, not hire to bandaid the issue that they think they’re facing.

Speaker 2 (18:22):

And this is where guys overreach, I’ve seen this so many times with guys where they’ll overreach and go, if I can get this guy, he can do even more than what we need right now. Explain the danger of that mentality of he can do more than she can do more than what we need right now. So let’s get that person as opposed to what you just explained, which is there’s the gap, let’s fill the exact gap that we’ve got.

Speaker 1 (18:45):

They hire a unicorn and A, they often overpay for someone, and B, they hire someone and then they build a role around that person and then that person pisses off in six months time and you can’t hire another unicorn with the exactly the same thing. And so it’s always really important to get really clear on the position first, then the person and then you go to market and get that person for that right position, whether it’s skill, experience or ticket and in line with your objective because then you go in a market and finding the right person, and we hear it so much with clients, it’s like, oh, I got really clear and all of a sudden someone popped up and it’s amazing how this process is much better. It’s not that all of a sudden someone appeared out of the marketplace. It’s actually because you got clarity, you were really clear on who you wanted. You went to market and put out the right recruitment message, that person appeared. No, I know it sounds a bit woo woo, but you just got to trust us. Is clarity first, recruitment second, and it’s amazing that the right peer people apply at the right time.

Speaker 2 (19:55):

Yeah, absolutely. We could keep talking about this step for hours I think, but let’s just, if we were to summarise this, this is exactly what the strategy session walks through. If you’ve got other questions as you’re listening to this and you think I need tell us about this extra bit, make a booking and get on that strategy session, that’s the best thing someone can do. Then it starts to get the next sort of step from here in terms of this particular find the gap discussion has to be tailored. It’s not a one size fits all.

Speaker 1 (20:25):

Yeah, correct. And we are building out, we’re looking at current state, we’re looking at where the business is going, we’re clear on what are the gaps are and then we get really clear around how do we get you off the tools and who to hire and when in that journey. And we often map it out over the next 12 to 24 months. So it’s not like it’s a, hey, we’re going to hire five people in the next three months. It’s strategic. We’re strategically mapping, where are we going? Who do we need to hire with? What skill, experience or ticket and when and clients just get so much clarity from it. They’re like, ah, I get it. And then boom, they take off because they’re no longer confused and spinning their reels not feeling like they can move forward because clarity is power in the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (21:12):

It is absolutely right. And I think you mentioned that word strategy, you can’t have strategy if you’re in a knee jerk sort of reactive moment. We’re going to do this as quickly as possible, move on, fill the gap, move. That’s not strategic, that’s just reactive and there’s a big, big difference when you do it. The last one I think we can talk on today in terms of thinking this through is around the idea of balance and balance being the key. I think what people then do is they go, I’m going to deal with my ground crew and rather than keep on this strategic mindset of how we do this, they start to then think, I might be able to save a buck here. Maybe I could keep doing a little bit, but I’ll get some cheaper ones in. I might be able to charge out more.

(21:49):

And they start to see recruitment as a, I don’t know how you’d even describe it. It’s like it’s a cost saving and profit making thing all in one guy. If I can get away with one and try and get lucky with a good guy who’s cheap, and that’s really a danger that people fall on that last hurdle when they do this, even if they have done steps one and two. Let’s talk a little bit about balance being the key and how do we make this so that we don’t either overextend ourselves or we try and cut corners.

Speaker 1 (22:15):

Balance is huge and when you’re balancing out your ground crew, it’s your ability to get the right person doing the right job at the right cost of labour.

Speaker 2 (22:34):

That sounds like a lot. Do you want to break those down for us at each point? Let’s just go back over that one at a time. You’ve talked about a lot in three little steps, but there’s plenty in that.

Speaker 1 (22:43):

It’s the right person doing the right job at the right cost. And when you’re designing your ground crew, one of the first questions I ask a business owner is, what does your perfect crew look like? And they’ll often say, well Rob, we might do plumbing for builders and I know that I need a really good leading hand for to run the crew. I need two tradesmen and an apprentice floating in around for example. Now that may not be yours, but that’s for an example. And then I’ll go, great, this is where we are at the moment. Where are we trying to go? Yep, I need two crews of that with the ability to be able to move onto three. Great. And so once you get clear around the dynamics around your team, then you can go, well, how do we make sure that we get the right balance and blend of leading hands, tradesmen and apprentices to get that blend and the right ratios so you don’t have tradesmen doing apprentice jobs or you’ve got too many apprentices and not enough tradesmen, which then throws the whole dynamics out because you’ve got a really green team with no experience.

(24:14):

So that’s what I mean by blend and dynamics. It’s super important to keep designing this in a way to get the blend and the dynamics correct.

Speaker 2 (24:23):

Yeah. It also breeds longevity. If you’re going on that pathway and saying, we don’t want to be just churning guys because people move these days, people will change roles, guys step up, they get offers, this happens, right? You can’t fight that. No one’s immune to it. Get over it. If you’re listening to that thinking, I can try and beat that, you can’t. But what you can do is have that balance in terms of you get the balance, the impacts of someone leaving or something going is way different If you are too top heavy or not top heavy enough, for instance, the minute someone’s leaves that just gets exaggerated. It becomes even more unbalanced. So if you’ve got apprentices that are first years and you just got all first year apprentices and you’ve got one leading hand, it’s already unbalanced, but you lose your leading hand, you’re left with all apprentices, you’re in trouble, you lose another first year, you get even less experience so you’re even more under the pump. So blending doesn’t just mean top and bottom end. It’s like having a couple of first years and typically we’ll go a couple of first years, who’s your second or third? Have you got a fourth coming through? There’s a real timeframe to this again where that balance is there to give you a smooth runway for a period of time, not just in the moment in terms of once you’ve found that gap.

Speaker 1 (25:36):

Yeah, correct. And when you pull apart who’s who in the zoo and the ground crew and once you’ve identify who’s the next logical hire, then you’re right. Sometimes I speak to some guys and they’ve got three tradesmen and one apprentice. I’m like, mate, your next two hires are apprentices. It’s so much easier to get good apprentices than it is sometimes to get tradesmen. I’m like, man, that’s a good thing because get an apprentice now and get another one in six months time. And by the way, you need a younger apprentice this time and you might need a bit more of a second or third year in the next six months. So you’re always designing what that looks like. Other times some guys have got the ratios out where like you said, too many apprentices. Then it’s like, mate, we’ve got to go straight in there and find a good tradesman. And so getting that balance right immediately is important and then you build with balance in mind and if you can get that right, you’re always maintaining the right blend of leading hands, tradesmen and apprentices and thinking long-term in terms of where you’re trying to build to. If you keep balance and dynamics in mind, it sets you up for a good long-term future of building from within around building guys and bringing them through the ranks.

Speaker 2 (26:55):

Absolutely. I’ve got two questions. I’m going to play a bit of devil’s advocate time here. We haven’t done this for a while, but let’s play it anyway in terms of one of the things we then here, surely Rob, if I can get good guys, I can get tradesmen, I’m going to have a gun team, I’m just going to get tradies. I’ve got two guys I can hire as tradies. I know we didn’t say that, but I’m bringing in the two tradesmen, the qualified, I’m going top level, top shelf, let’s go. We’re we’re going to crank this team up. What’s the danger?

Speaker 1 (27:22):

If the danger is that you hire really good tradesmen and you’re paying top dollar for them to do potentially labouring or apprentice work and you’ve got someone on $45 an hour who you could be paying $20 an hour to do and the risk is it just blows out your average labour cost out of the park and then you are trying to charge them out in your quoting and you’re missing sales because you’re trying to recoup your labour costs. So it impacts your sales. And you’ve brought on this tradesman who’s doing grunt work and he gets the shits because he wants to be a good tradesman doing apprentice work. And so just because you can doesn’t mean you should sometimes because it becomes costly for you. And B, you’re bringing on a good tradesman who’s doing apprentice work and he’s going to get the shits and then potentially move on because he’s not doing the work that he potentially wants to be getting done.

Speaker 2 (28:17):

Love it. Absolutely. Spot on. Agreed. What about, alright, devil’s advocate. Number two, we’re going to go, let’s say we’ve identified the gap. We need some experience, we need a bit of skill, but it’s mainly experience. I want to get off the tools a bit. I think we’ve decided we’re going to need a leading hand to come in to bring me off that a bit. Let’s bring in a leading hand, but Rob, I can’t afford that. How am I supposed to afford that right now? What can you talk to in terms of the timing of when can I afford it or when should I do it?

Speaker 1 (28:50):

Bringing in a billable person is different to a non-billable person. And if you are bringing in an overhead, for example, like a project manager or an estimator or something like that, that will have a far bigger impact on your bottom line than bringing in billable labour. And there is a balancing act when you are trying to get off the tools that the way that the business is making money is the owner by billing themselves out, which is bringing revenue in to be able to pay them to pay their families. So in the short term, there absolutely is a bit of a cashflow crunch because you’ve got to bring someone in, pay them more, a couple of dollars extra per hour as a leading hand. You step back a day or two offsite into the office, you’ve got to pay them, start paying them immediately and you still got to pay yourself.

(29:50):

Your family has to live. But what you’ve got to do is get in very quickly and reallocate that time that you’ve just bought back into sales. And it’s a real balancing act between stepping off the tools and into sales immediately and you’ve got to go and win that next wave of work to be able to afford for that extra person that you’ve brought into your team. And yes, it might be a little bit of short term pain, but you’ve got to look at the long-term gain around where you’re trying to go and just work your way through that from a cash point of view in the first three or so months.

Speaker 2 (30:29):

I’m glad you brought that up because a lot of guys, when they do this and fair play to them, they’ve busted their ass, right? They’ve worked 80 hour weeks for so long, they get someone in, finally they think, shit, finally I can take a breather, but it’s the wrong time. You’re so spot on in terms of you’ve got to get into that sales. We talk about this idea of matching revenue to resources and making sure if we’re going to go down this path, we’re all in. We can’t be half in, half out. If you think you need that break, I don’t know how you feel, but my thinking is the best time to do. It’s before you hire this person in, go and take a long weekend, do something like that where you’re not incurring the added overhead plus your living expenses. Have that break. Bring the person in and know that this isn’t a ticket to say, well, I can just take some less hours and do nothing. It’s going to be, has to be replaced. Like you said, we can’t stress that enough.

Speaker 1 (31:18):

And that’s why we always recommend for those of you especially who are, you’ve heard me say it a few times now, winding yourself off the tools. You don’t just rip yourself off the tools from being almost full-time on the tools to off the tools overnight. You will just literally destroy your bottom line. And that’s why you’ve got to transition off the tools over a period of time and have that goal to work yourself off the tools. You step off a day a week, replace it with business development stuff, step a second day, keep pushing. So you’ve always got to wind back, step into sales more. And this is when you do become really sales led and you’ve got to be prepared that it’s going to get a little bit harder before it gets easier. I don’t want to sugarcoat it. It gets harder before it gets easier, but there’s a bigger game to play and the moment you get off the tools and get that real dynamics and blend and balance right of your team, then it’s like let’s lock it in and bang, let’s focus on growth. But you’ve then got time on your side to chase work and grow the business because you’re no longer stuck on site with a nail bag on or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (32:27):

So I think that’s the second part of balance as we just talked about it. So just to clarify around that one out before we sort of turn for home, let’s think around in terms of why we said balance is key. One is because you can really upset the apple cart if you get the wrong ground crew in too many inexperienced people versus experienced and the cost there, but also the balance between your revenue and the resources you’re running. There’s no point bringing people on and thinking you can just do the same amount of work or you do less work and just bring in the same amount of revenue. That’s just a recipe for disaster. And we’ve seen both of these things happen many, many times and it’s always, it’s correctable, but it’s a mistake that you can easily avoid if you get your balance from the start, which comes from being strategic. So really important.

Speaker 1 (33:10):

That whole revenue to resourcing matching principle is super important and rough terms and everyone business is different, but let’s assume one tradesman could bring in say 300 grand worth of work. For example, if you’re doing around the one to $1.2, you’re probably going to have four to five in your ground crew that if you want to be able to go from one to $1.2 to $2.5, your team’s going to have to grow to five to 10. That’s just the reality of it.

(33:45):

And then well, if we’re going to double up our revenue, we’ve got to ultimately double our team. It’s not always in proportion to like that, but if you then start setting revenue targets that we’re going to go from 80 grand months to a hundred to 125 to 150 to 175 to 200 K months, then what you can do is start chasing revenue to hit that and then you can match your resourcing profile to be able to go, well, when we start etching towards this revenue line, this is when we need to hire who we need to hire and when what you can actually do is, and we do this with clients all the time, is we match, we map their revenue to resourcing profile over a 12 to 24 month period. And we do that really well in launch to be able to show them the path. Well, if you want to go from one to $1.2 to $2.5, then this is when you could be targeting and this is who you need to hire. And when you start getting that matching correct, what it helps you do is keep your ear to the ground from a recruiting point of view and you’re always thinking forward in terms of where you’re going rather than focusing on what you don’t have within the team at the moment. So you start being proactive rather than reactive. From a recruitment point of view.

Speaker 2 (35:07):

It becomes almost a game in a sense, and I’ve had that with clients before. It’s almost like instead of I’m going to get to this level and buy myself a jet ski, I’m going to get to this level and then I get to get another tradesman how good’s that, and it starts to build as that’s the way that we sustainably grow the business.

Speaker 1 (35:22):

If you need a tradesman today, it’s too late.

Speaker 2 (35:24):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (35:25):

Way too late. But if you know you’re going from a 100K months to 125K months over the next three months and you’re starting to do business development, you’re starting to lock in work and you’re going to need someone in three months time, you’re already forward playing in terms of where you’re going. For our clients in launch, we’ve got ’em locked in their pop or their plan on a page to be able to go, we’re going from here to here, revenue, this is who we need to hire over the next three months. And they’re on the front foot from a recruitment point of view, which means they’re going to the market, they’re finding better quality people because they’re not desperate. They’re patient, they take their time and they put in the effort to recruit and then they get the right person at the right time for the right cost rather than the wrong person at the right time and often paying more than they need to because they’re reacting to a situation. So being planned and prepared and matching revenue to resourcing is one of the most important things you can do when you’re growing your trades business.

Speaker 2 (36:32):

Agreed. Alright, well I think we’ve got there for part one, this is going to be a three parter, so we’ve got plenty more to discuss, which I can’t wait for. Do you want to give us the summary then in your mind, the three things that we covered today? I sort of introduced them and gave a bit of a spiel, but do you want to wrap us up with the three sort of steps and the three things we want people to keep in mind by the end of this episode?

Speaker 1 (36:51):

Yeah. Number one is you’ve first got to think what then who then how. Number two is you need to design your ground crew and not leave it up to chance. And number three is you’ve got to bring on the right person at the right time and that’s absolutely critical.

Speaker 2 (37:06):

Yeah, for sure. Alright, in terms of action steps, if you’ve listened to this and enjoyed it and you’re wondering, where do I go now? First things first, let’s make sure you get your strategy call booked in. If you’ve got any sort of inkling that this has been a great conversation, then wait until you do it with Rob in person on Zoom. But wait until you do that, have that conversation. You start getting into the tin tax of your own business. It’s really, really powerful. But before that even, first things first, just get clear on your outcome. What is that outcome? Am I after growth? Am I after capability? Am I after capacity? That’s really, really important. And then have a think about it and at least document write down who have you got? Who’s who in the zoo at the moment? What’s your current state ground crew?

(37:48):

Are they tradesmen? Are they apprentices? Who’s in what positions? And really get those positions clear for who you’re running in your ground crew at the moment. And then once you’ve got your current state done, like Rob said, let’s go to the next level and think about what does future state look like? What’s the next 12 months look like? What would be your ideal crew in 12 months? Don’t think names but think positions. So don’t try and fill it in with people. Just fill in what does it look like from the basis of the balance sort of equation that we covered today. And I think if you can do those three things, it’s going to put you in a whole different frame of mind around bringing people into your business when you should and answering some of those other questions that you probably otherwise wrestled with if you’ve never done it before.

Speaker 1 (38:29):

Yeah, love it. So understated this topic we’ve been teaching around today, hasn’t it?

Speaker 2 (38:36):

Oh, it is a game changer. Having that level of clarity, like we said, it’s just so powerful.

Speaker 1 (38:42):

Yeah. Good stuff. Well, thanks for tuning in today. Don’t forget that this is a three-part series. So if you want to be able to hone in on your skills to be able to master that art, that is recruitment, make sure you tune into next week’s episode because what we’re going to be talking there around how to find great ground crew, even in a tough labour market. So make sure you hit that follow or subscribe button so that you do get notified when that episode does drop because it’s going to be an absolute belt. It’s going to be able to help you develop the skill that is recruitment. And then on the episode after that, it’s all about retention. So how do we build a business where people want to be able to belong and you get to retain your people rather than just continually turning them over, which means you have to do a hell of a lot more recruitment. So really looking forward to bringing you the next two episodes, which is all about recruitment and retention. Thanks for tuning in today. Looking forward to coming back to you next week.

Speaker 2 (39:40):

Catch you on the next one.