Episode 41 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There’s a lot of confidence that I’ve now got within business because we are having a lot more success than we’ve ever had.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Denn, good to have you back, Dan.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
It’s always good to be back with another client story. I love these, so it’s going to be a lot of fun today.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah. Should we give Andy Clyde from Inline Cabinetry? A big warm welcome to the Den.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I would cue the sound effects. Cheering, clapping. Hey Andy, how are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hey guys, thanks for having me on. I’m looking forward to today.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, we are really grateful for you to be able to come and join us today for another episode here. And yeah, really looking forward to getting stuck in with you.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yep. Looking forward to it too. Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hey Andy, as we said, welcome. Let’s do our start, the usual start for our client stories. We love this. We want to land everyone with you about who you are, what you do, how long you’ve been in business, where you do it. Just give us a little bit of a roll call on that and then we’ll kick in.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, so I’m Andy Clyde. I’m the owner of Inline Cabinetry out of, based out of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. We specialise in the residential space in the mid to high end range architectural work. We do quite a bit of our own private works and we’ve got a few commercial builders as well that we do a lot of work for that are in the government sort of space. So yeah, we’ve got a good variety of work here.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
How long have you been trading?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Since 2019, but in business pretty well since 2017. So yeah, had a couple of years as a shareholder of a previous company.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Very nice. You’re a young guy. How old were you when you first started running as an owner of Inline?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
31? I just clicked over 31. Yeah. And yeah, I had that point where I was like, I’m 30. Geez, the last 10 years went quick. I don’t want to get to 40 and not give something in crack. So yeah, I just bit the bullet and had to give it a go. So nearly 40, still have another year to go, so that’s been a good journey so far.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So you’re younger than Rob. I’m going to jump in quick. I think he’s going to say you are just old dad, but anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I turned 40 the other day, mate, back in May. So life doesn’t change when you turn 40, so don’t sweat it. It’s all good.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Plenty of grey here mate. So I’m sure we’re going to keep coming thick.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I was going to say 50, the new 40. But anyway, let’s move on. Andy, let’s talk about coming into coaching. I think you remember this day pretty well. Do you want to just take us back there? I think it was in 2021, you might have a more clear picture of exactly when, but coming into coaching, where were you and what did life look like back then for you?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, it was hectic. Life was pretty crazy. 2021, we had just moved into a new factory after outgrow the previous factory. It was a team of six back then I was working 80 plus hours a week, getting up very early, getting home. I was trying to get home for 5:30-6:00. I could at least spend some time with kids and my wife dinner there would be a couple of hours there before I’d be ushering them back into bed. So I’d get behind the computer and keep working again until all hours of the night. So it was a really crazy busy time then.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah. How old were the kids at that time? They were really young, weren’t they? From memory?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
They were, yeah. So youngest, when was that 21? Youngest would’ve been three and then right up to eight, seven or eight, four kids. Yeah, they’re all very close together.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I like the way you just brushed over four kids. It’s like, hang on, there was four of you at the time. So that’s our dad test. That’s our test for everyone we bring on.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, it’s tricky to remember more. But yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The challenges, as you said, coming in, coming out of the business where you were a shareholder, those challenges that you were experiencing were sort of common, but there was a pressure over and above that in terms of what you were facing at the time. Without going into all the details of that, just sort of what pressures were you under, not just in terms of being a dad or trying to get your business out of the ground and trying to find your feet in the industry. What were just some of the other climates and things that you were dealing with at the time?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
At that time it was just crazy all the time. So I didn’t really have time to think about anything. It was just, I was always on this mode of just do work, see work, do work, and it’s just constant. I never had time to really think about anything. So kicking off inline off the back of the previous company that I was with, I had spent a couple of years building the cabinetry wing of this particular business up and then in that time that particular builder that I’d teamed up with had been dodging the books and using the cabinetry money to prop up the building wing. And in that time we owed a lot of suppliers money and we couldn’t basically afford to pay them. So once I worked out that where all the money had been just getting swindled out of the cabinetry side of things and pushed into the building side and to prop that up and whatnot, I sort of pulled the pin on that business.
(05:26):
I couldn’t keep working under that sort of pressure and I couldn’t drive anything. All the answers were back onto this particular builder, so I couldn’t make any answers. It was all back to him. So I didn’t like that being the one, making the calls. I like everything coming back onto me and if something’s going to go wrong, it’s going to be off mine, off my back, not someone else’s. So Inline kicked off pretty rocky. I mean in the industry, everyone knew me as this part other company, but I wasn’t the director of that company and we were dragged through mud. We couldn’t get credit with any suppliers for three months. We had to solely run off getting deposits in, using that money to get jobs going. I had to refinance my home, which put us back behind another 150K and it was just this really tough time.
(06:28):
So those sorts of conversations back with my wife that we’ve got to refinance to do this to get our disposition was really tough at the time. So look, we just head down, bum up and just went for it over the next 12, 18 months and really had to dig my heels in and build that trust back with everyone so that we could trade properly again and trade how we should be trading. I think there was quite a bit of ego probably driving at that point going, I’ve worked too hard right now to let go of everything that we’ve already built. So I wasn’t going to let that go. I wasn’t going to let that slip. So that was a big drive for me to just keep pushing.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
No wonder you were working so much at the time because it wasn’t just trying to get a business out of the ground. Plus it was also in that period when Corona was also around as well. You’re a young guy, young family, but you’re also trying to salvage your own reputation and everything all at the same time. Starting a business is hard enough, let alone trying to build and salvage a reputation and get it all out of the ground. You kind of had it all against you didn’t you?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It was, yeah, I just felt like at that time I was a punching bag. I was just getting hit left and centre and every time we took one step forward it was 10 steps back and it was like, when’s this going to end? How is this, we can’t just keep going on like this. And yeah, we got to a point where it was like, I’ve been following your page there for a while Rob and I was sitting there one night, nine 30 at night, Sunday night and I knew I had to get to work the next day and I didn’t want to get up and go to work. I, I knew I had to keep showing up, I had to keep going, but fuck I didn’t want to. And that’s when I reached out, I was like, I need help. I need help with the next steps and I need to be shown how to get where I want to go because I don’t know how to get there.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It takes a lot of courage to be able to reach out for someone like that when asking for help is hard enough, but when you’re in a pretty dire strait, it takes a lot of courage to be able to put your hand up and acknowledge you need help, doesn’t it?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean us as tradies, we are good at what we do and then understanding the business side of a business and numbers and leadership and managing and all that sort of stuff doesn’t come naturally to us and we need to be trained how to look at these certain pillars to be able to run a successful business and yeah, we’ve learned exactly that through the prior programmes.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Do you reckon, Andy, you mentioned two words, one was ego, one was belief. As you were talking through that time, what drove you do you think most in that time? Was it your own self-belief or was it just ego in terms of I don’t want to be something more or different? What was it that really kicked you over the edge?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
There’s probably a little bit of both. I think the ego behind it was, I don’t want other people to see me failing or fail. And especially I promised my wife when I took this journey on and went down this road of my own business, which she was very apprehensive about me starting the business purely because of the security around that and making sure that there’s money coming in each week to support the family. I remember distinctly saying to her, I’ll make this work. I’m going to make this happen and you’re never going to go without. And I still live by that today and still to this day we’ve never gone without. Yes, there’s been tough weeks, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve never gone without. So it is definitely that part that was, it’s always been driving me to be successful.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, fantastic. I’m going to put you on the spot a little bit here, but what three words would you use to describe yourself in that time?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Determined for sure determined to make something work, determined to keep pushing and be successful, but completely overwhelmed, scattered, lost all at the same time. So yeah, I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, I just didn’t know how to get there. So that would probably be the main ones.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah. And when you started then, let’s talk about that journey. So you mentioned you called Rob, Rob gave you a call back and no sooner were you in the launch programme, we talked around, I remember onboarding you back then the first time it was, we were talking just before we started the show around, I remember that day very clearly. There was this guy sort of sitting in an upstairs office with a very dark room, very, very quiet and just sort of what are we doing here? How did you feel about coming into coaching at that time where you just hopeful, was it sort of like this is a hail Mary, was it just purely I need the support? Did you have a plan in mind when you got to coaching? What were you feeling and what were you hoping for?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
To be honest with you, I didn’t even know what coaching was. I hadn’t even really looked into it. I’d just seen Rob’s videos coming up on Facebook saying, are you in a construction business doing this? And everything that you put in those posts, just saying straight, so true to me. It was exactly where I was. So I was quite sceptical about the whole what is this all about and where’s it going to go? And I didn’t know, but I was at a point where I had to give something and go because what I was doing wasn’t sustainable and I couldn’t keep going down this road. So that very first call with Rob was, I was at a point where it was like I’m shrinking back to just me and an apprentice and I’m just going to go back to being small or I keep going but I don’t know how to keep going.
(12:00):
And Rob made it very clear to me that I was on the right path, I was on the right, I was doing the right things. We just needed to shift the trajectory of where I was going and what I was doing and go that way. So I put a lot of trust into Rob after that phone call and after that we had another onboarding sort of session coming into launch and you had your ease aboard behind there and you had all your texts going, you’d put all these squiggly lines all over a page and I didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about, but it looked good to me and I’m like, well let’s go on this journey and see what it’s all about. So I remember that pretty clear.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Awesome. Can you remember the first, let’s talk some of the early moves then that you made you coming in, you dunno what to do. Can you remember what the sort of first focus or lever was that you were trying to pull in those days?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, at first it was just probably a lot around mindset. It was just getting myself out of this hamster wheel rat race that I was in, just going random round circles and stopping and actually thinking about what we’re doing and being a bit strategic about which way we’re going to go rather than just letting it all happen and hoping it’s all going to work out at the end. Putting an action plan into place and having a bit of a path to follow was pretty massive early on, which then set me on the journey at that point still working ridiculous amount of hours that we needed someone to help me with the quoting and in sales because I was taking 3, 4, 5 weeks to get back to clients and we were losing jobs because I was taking too long to get back to people. So I’ve been speaking to one of our builders and he knew of someone that wasn’t happy in a job, which was a competitor of ours and he had a number so I just gave her a cold call and just said, Hey, you want to come in for a chat? And still to this day I’ve got Carly on board and she’s been an absolute gun for us and she’s a big part of the reason why we are landing where we are at the moment. She’s been unreal. So the first big lever was the sales and getting quotes back to people within two to three days rather than three to four to five weeks.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I like that. And again, if you’re listening and you’ve been listening all along that theme of getting some structure and is really important. I think the other one, Rob, is the idea that Andy just spoke about of having an outcome in mind, a bit of a plan before you start, otherwise you’re doomed to stay stuck in that hamster wheel.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, definitely. I think we see a lot with clients when they first come on board. They know they need to change but they don’t know what to change. And I think it is just getting a roadmap in place is the key because just having the clarity of what to do in what order and when creates momentum and helps you move forward because when you’re feeling stuck and trapped, you create an element of confusion and when you create confusion it creates inaction or you just keep reverting back to what screams the loudest. And I think that’s where you were, Andy. You knew you needed to do something but without that plan you were kind of just reverting back to whatever scream the loudest weren’t you?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, absolutely. That was exactly it. Whatever was screaming the loudest got the attention and at this point I was getting a lot of backlash on not getting pricing back to people and Bill was going, oh fuck it, we’re going elsewhere. We can’t wait around for this. So that was screaming and that’s what we went for and it worked out great. It was a good first lever to pull.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And then I think the second one is once you got that under control, you started getting the quotes out the door, then it became a production issue, then it became a real crunch in terms of well how do we, we’re starting to win work. I’m starting to get on top of this. Carly’s come in and she’s a gun, so this is all good, but COVID sort of ending things are picking up. You had to pull some other levers in terms of your production capability and the equivalent of your ground crew.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, absolutely and we had a couple of guys here that ended up moving on towards the end of 2022, which sort of made me change my perspective and what we needed as well. So these guys have been great for me for the first few years but weren’t probably the right guys to then push us forward. We moved on and the next big lever that I really need to pull was the drafting and the set out guy that I had here. So yes, we’ve got a couple of other traders on the floor, but I needed someone else really skilled to be able to take a big weight off my shoulders and be able to do this job at the capacity that needs to be done at because I wasn’t doing it at the capacity it needed to become at. So yeah, towards the end of 2022 we landed Lawrence, who’s still with us today and is an absolute gun at what he does. I feel that that position single handedly changed my life in terms of my personal life and had I not been in coaching, there’s no way I would’ve hired this guy. I would’ve been like, no, I can’t afford that, I can’t do that. This is me that has to do all this. So yeah, we put him on early in 23 and haven’t looked back. It was a really big lever.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I think the other one, Rob, there’s a nugget in there. I’m sure you’re going to jump all over this, but that idea of what got you here isn’t going to get you there. That is before you even find a Lawrence, before you do this stuff, that recognition that hey, we got to this point. Yes, but things still have to keep changing, moving progress has to happen if we’re going to stay on track with our plan.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, definitely. If you listen to Andy’s story and if you’ve heard all her other client features, there’s a real theme along all of it is we get off the tools, we become sales led, we dial in our ground crew the same formula, the same formula works, but before you got to Lawrence and got him on board, that took you a long time, didn’t it, Andy, to wrap your head around it and have that you knew it was the right strategy but it took you a long time to mentally accept that that was the right one. Talk us through that, that took you a bit to reconcile, didn’t it?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
It did and I think that’s that small mind sort of thinking that you think that you are the only one that can do this job and I was definitely in that. I was like, there’s no one else that is going to look at these jobs and do this the way that I do it at the speed that I do it, the quality that I do it and the accuracy when I look back now, it took me so long to get that in place, but I wish I’d done that so much earlier because he does that job at 95 to 100 percent quality now where I was doing it maybe 30%, 40%. And we’ve gone from having so many stuff ups out in the factory and jobs that 20 job unfinished jobs on the go to just a couple now because nothing gets missed. Now he’s doing that job.
(19:02):
That’s only what he has to do is just do the set outs and do that and in the lead up to that, well I didn’t see this until afterwards, but in the lead up to that I’m like, there’s no way I’m going to find someone that’s going to be able to do this better than me and how wrong I was. I found everyone in this company does their job so much better than I’ll ever do it because that’s all they’re doing is that one section of the job. Whereas I’ve been doing that plus that, plus that plus that and it just never works.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
It’s a big limitation for so many business owners that that mindset is no one’s as good as me, it saves me time and energy and money if I just do it myself. And I think there has to be a point in time where you put that little bit of an ego or chip on the shoulder aside to be able to go, hang on a second, there are actually people out there who can do this better for me because in your world it it’s laws in the bookkeeping and admin side of things, it was Carly in the residential sales, it was Lawrence in the set out, it was the guys in the factory in the instal. It was every time you’ve taken a step forward, you’ve had to overcome that mindset of actually there are other people out there. I’m not the best at this. I think I’m doing a great job, but I’ve just got to let go of that ego or that mindset and let someone in. And every time you’ve done it and turned those corners, it’s catapulted you forward, hasn’t it?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Oh absolutely. I mean three months after we put Lawrence on and in play, I then got wind of a project manager for another company and same thing, cold call here and I was like, we had just won this massive job up in the country and I needed guys to be able, quality guys to be able to help do this. So once again cold called him, got him on board, and within a couple of months of Lawrence starting, we also then had a project manager. So I then had people around me to be able to help me and support me rather than me do everything. And that there my life completely changed. I went from working 80 plus hours a week back to 40 to 60, back to 50, and then settling at that sort of 40 at the moment. So it’s been huge.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
What did that mean for the family and the kids in that sort of realm when you did that? There’s obviously knock ons and everyone can understand there is ripples, but tell us a little bit about what had actually happened in your world when you made these changes and what you noticed at time.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, so prior to making these big structural changes to the company and doing all those hours, Maddie at home was at a point where she wouldn’t even call me to help drop the kids off at their sports or get to birthday parties or activities or anything like that because she just knew the answer was going to be No, you’re too busy. So she would be always going to her parents or a sister or finding anyone else around her that can help her out and support her with four little kids. Thinking back of it, I did what I had to do and she knew I was doing what I had to do so there wasn’t resentment or anything there, but I didn’t feel great within myself not being able to be there. So now I am there, I’m able to be there, I’m able to help out. I get to every one of the kids’ sports every single week. I now time block my life and my work roles around my life now it’s not the other way around, so I’m at everything I can. If the kids need to go to the doctors, we get ’em there, we split, we divide and conquer and her parents don’t have to be there helping out every step of the way. So it’s been a massive, massive shift in the last 12 months.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
That’s so good. I think that that idea you’ve gone from then everything that was whatever was screaming the loudest, it’s now whatever I deemed to be the most important, which is a monumental shift and it makes huge impacts in families and relationships with kids and stuff when you do that. The other thing I would say, and I think this is where a lot of guys tend to get it wrong, and I think we learn over time, but time’s not what you’ve got when you’re trying to run a business is that a lot of guys, when there’s that we talked about that ego and belief, I think what you did was you held your belief but you let go of the ego and I think a lot of guys get that wrong. They’ll hold onto the ego and let go, the belief disappears and then they just got left with this ego or what they believe is their ego, what they think they should do. So I think that move that you made along this way in making these decisions like Rob was talking about is a really good example of the power of just sort of going right, I’m going to hold onto my belief but the ego’s got to drop. If I’m going to go and get people that are better than me, I have to go through this path.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, absolutely. The ego has definitely dropped right away and it was probably a big driver at the very start. And yeah, that’s long gone now.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
And we’re going to talk about that because I want to turn a corner and talk about your role then going from being the jet you were on the tools, estimating the sales, if I’ve left anything out in terms of all the hats you were wearing, feel free to throw some more in there. But going from that idea of I’ve now got a business that I’ve got to lead and a business I’ve got to manage and a business that’s there to be run and someone’s got to do that and that became your new role being so close in the trenches. What was your approach to management early on? Were you in the mate to manage a category you were trying to manage but just weren’t getting any cut through? How would you summarise your management skills back a couple of years ago?
Speaker 1 (24:33):
They were terrible. I reckon back a couple of years ago they were, I was more the mate. I was absolutely the mate with the guys on the floor and knock off at the end of the day and have a beer and talk and there was no real hard line management or anything like that. There was things I didn’t accept or whatever, which I definitely brought up, but I was definitely in that mate space rather than the manager and I had to go on that journey to change that and that really changed probably towards the end of 2022 when I had a couple of guys leave that I was mates with and we bought in new people and new structure and I couldn’t keep coming down that path they before would grow into a company, I had to lead and manage them as we were paying them really good money as well. It’s not like you’re paying an apprentice or anyone to do these roles. You’re paying out the good money. So that has to be managed for us to be successful.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Looking back, as you start to make that transition then you get quality people and you’ve got to step up your game obviously. What were some of the hardest things about dropping the mate piece? What did you take out of, in a management sense from coaching so far you’ve almost been less than perfect in terms of how you’ve executed on the journey, I think Rob, it’s fair to say, but just what did you take out of those initial sort of mate to manager conversations where you’ve got to go from being, trying to just keep everyone happy enough so that they’re showing up and doing their job and they smile and we all get along to actually having a plan to manage a business. How did you do that?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, it was tricky. I think that’s a real personal journey that you go on and you learn to go from that mate to having that being the mate to having those hard conversations with your workers and your guys that arn’t performing or are performing. And I think that’s a real within sort of journey that I went on myself and read up a fair bit on it and lent into the Pravar coaching structure to really self-develop that skill. And I’m still honing that now. I’m not nowhere near perfect at it and that’s still a growth thing for myself that I’m going through.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
What was your first thing that you got that you sort of thought, I think I can manage this business and be in mind? We’re talking management, right? We’re talking about numbers, we’re talking about hard conversations. What was the thing that you sort of thought I can actually, I’m going to be all right at this?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
I think once I had the operational structure around me and things really started to kick into gear and start working and start moving, you start then believing that you can do run a bigger company, you can do more. And before that there’s a lot of self-doubt. I can’t run a business of 20 plus people or anything like that. So once things start really kicking into gear, started kicking into gear and started working, you start then believing that you can manage and you can do, and I still sit here and count my lucky stars of how good our team is and the support I get from the team. So yes, I’ve got to manage them, but they’re also very driven people as well that have high expectations of themselves and they all want to do best for the company as well. So that’s been a big part of the change I suppose.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Excellent. Talk to us a bit about the numbers side of management in terms of what you learned numbers wise and coming into, you’ve got the people skills obviously, and you’re right on that journey numbers wise and what you had to learn there. Was there a big gap in terms of numbers for you and financial management?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, huge. Coming into coaching something off thought I knew how to read a PL, didn’t know how to read a PL, so I have cashflow management of pipeline management. We had a little bit of a Excel spreadsheet that we used to do ourself for pipeline and what was coming up, but nothing to the extent of what we’ve got now. So yeah, my financial aptitude was terrible and it’s something that we’ve learned a lot in this journey so far and I used to hate it. I used to actually hate the numbers. They were terrible all the time. But we’re on the other side of that now and now I’m purely in a management position that I’m not on the tools at all. I’m looking at these numbers all the time, daily, weekly, monthly, and assessing where we’re at all the time. And I love it now. It’s something I didn’t think I would say, but I love it. This is where I’ve grown into and I’m really enjoying it.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Rob and I are both smiling very widely at that comment. That’s so good to hear.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
You’ve got to learn to love it, don’t you? Especially around coming from a getting off the tools and starting to run a business. We say to clients all the time, you’ve got to learn to love your new role, but that’s kind of what you were alluding to there. You’ve got to learn to love to manage people and have the hard conversations and think strategically and know your numbers. It’s a whole new role, it’s a whole new persona, it’s a whole new way of doing things and you feel like a bit of a fish out of water at the start, but you got to learn to grow into it, don’t you?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And just keep dialling it in and keep learning new parts and new things and I love it now and I’ve got the time to invest into it to enjoy it too. Whereas before I didn’t have time to look at the numbers. I didn’t have time to analyse it, it was just, it’s something that I wasn’t like doing, so I just swept it under the carpet or put my head in the sand because I didn’t want to have to deal with the numbers that were coming out the other end. I didn’t like that. But even now when we have a bad month or whatever it may be, I actually like it. I look at that and go, right what went wrong? I’m sit there and analyse how do we have a terrible month? What can we do to fix? Where did that go wrong? So whereas before it would’ve just been month after ba, month after bad month. And yeah, just try and work your way through it.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And I think it’s one of those things where this stuff just takes time. If you’re already looking at dates in terms of the conversation we’ve had already, it was early 2021 when you first came on board. Now we’re talking into the 2023’s, 2023’s of where you are so far in your journey. This stuff takes time. And I always say this to clients early on in their journey that to be able to go from 1 million to 2 million to 3 to 4 to 5 and build out that what we call a 3 to 5 million lifestyle business, it’s like a 3 to 5 year journey. And it’s like anyone can make a shitload of sales and go from one to three, but the time comes from learning the skills, having the management skills, the time to sharpen your soar in terms of your financial acumen and the understanding of numbers and the restructure and the hiring and learning to manage that stuff just takes time. And a lot of people get, sometimes it puts people off when I say, mate, you’re on a 3 to 5 year journey minimum to get here, but it literally takes this long, doesn’t it, Andy?
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Oh, a hundred percent. And you can’t just learn this stuff overnight. It’s something that’s got to be practise and practise and practise and practise. And it’s only, I’ll be honest, it’s probably in the last six months that I’ve actually felt confident around that. And it’s just part of the growth. We’ve just got to practise and practise and practise
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Part of the journey. I love it.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Now it might sound like that we’re coming to where we are today, but I’ve deliberately sort of held off on this and this is going into let’s talk about leadership and really going from mate to manager to leader. And I think for you there was a very pivotal moment that you had in your mind as something you wanted to do personally, and that became a transformational thing for you that I think you’d look back, you’d say it was a gift every day of the week, but let’s talk around this trip you did to Kakoda, maybe set it up in terms of what you were planning just for yourself, and then we might dovetail into how this became part of your coaching journey and how it fed into you becoming what I think the whole group knows. Anyone who knows you or has heard you has become Andy 2.0.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah. So obviously this has been, it was a lifelong thing that I wanted to do and I love a challenge and the encode challenge was something that I’d thought about. I’d actually gone to book it in 2011, but then my wife fell pregnant and we put that on the back burner. So yeah, start of last year, my brother-in-law turned 40 and he asked if we were keen to do kakoda and I jumped at it, I was like, let’s do it. It doesn’t matter what pressure I’m on right in right now. I’ve just got to book this in and I’m going to work towards it. So I went on that journey of getting training myself and getting myself ready to do the kakoda track. And in that time in coaching, and Andrew being such a massive support to me, really challenged me. I was going through this transition in business from survival into successful mode, and I’ve spent so long into the viable mode that we’re coming out the other side of that now.
(33:58):
And he challenged me leading up to it to go into the jungle and shed Andy 1.0 and come out the other side is Andy 2.0. And at the time I was like, how is this guy talking about? And it took me a little bit to sort of, I knew what he was talking about, but I was like, how am I going to do this? And it’s something that does just start to happen and it meant that you really, I went into the jungle and had this in the back of my mind that I was going to come back out the other side and not fall back into what I’ve always done and shrink back. I was going to shed Andy 1.0 and come out and keep growing. So I did that. It might’ve taken a month or two on the other side of Kakoda for that to really start to come through, but I definitely left a part of me behind in that journey.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Yeah, we talk about this as being part of what we call a hero’s journey and Joseph Campbell talks about hero’s journey in the classical sense. He came up with all this sort of stuff and the hero’s journey is literally the lifecycle of almost every hero’s story you can think from Star Wars to the Hunger Games and all that sort of stuff. They all follow the same trajectory and that is there’s a challenge, there’s a new world that you get offered to go and be a part of for you. We used Kakoda as that, or Andrew did your coach Andrew, he used that as the backdrop for your hero’s journey. And it became that thing where you go through the call to action, you then end up in what we call the cave where only you can go in there and if you’re thinking about it in terms of what you might know listening, it’s that part in Return of the Jedi where Luke Skywalker goes into the cave and he has to confront Darth Vader.
(35:41):
That’s him going into the cave and what comes out and all this sort of stuff. So that’s that metaphor that gets used in the hero’s journey, the jungle and kakoda and this whole track for you became the cave of you going into that, but more importantly, what was going to be left behind and what was going to come out. So I think as good as everything we’ve talked about to this point and your story and what it was, the full transformation, that there’s no going back the moment of saying I am now committed to being this guy I think has its origins in that jungle and what you left behind. I don’t want to focus on what got left behind as much as who came out at this point. Talk us through what you think was, because as you come out of the cave in the hero’s journey, there’s the gifts that you’ve given and you reflect on those and it took a couple of months because you’ve got to have the new challenges and recognise that you are this new version. So talk us through what lessons you took out of that and who came out and what is Andy 2.0? We started the conversation with you talking around the three words you’d used to describe yourself, if those changed or what you look at now when you look in the mirror, what is Andy 2.0?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Great question. And I think I left Andy the cabinet maker out the jungle and came out Andy, the businessman. And I’ve had to really step up to that and there’s a lot of confidence that I’ve now got within business because we are having a lot more success than we’ve ever had. And there’s been other little changes along the way in terms of you can change in your own mind and your head space, but you’ve also got to change physically as well in terms of how you dress and show up to work. And prior to going to coder, I was still dressing as a tradie and one of the boys and yeah, I don’t now dress as a tradie or anything like that. I had to really change that identity coming out as 2.0 and yep, the boys gave me a bit of shit for what I was wearing and all the rest of it, but that’s fine, I just had to brush that off so they understood that I am now Andy, the businessman and not the cabinet maker. I’m not to jump down there and help out when I can now and now they need a leader at the front of this company leading the company, not being someone that’s actually in the business and working in it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Makes absolute sense. I think that Andy 2.0 that you’ve taken into business, and again, I want to really hammer home for people listening is the confidence that you just spoke of. That’s that belief still shining through. There’s got to be that sense of belief that hope that we can do it. That vision that you’ve had, which is a big part of leadership, how did it show up, not just in business but at home, you come back from Kakoda and are you this different guy, Maddie, was she like, hang on a sec, something’s changed, nothing’s changed. Was it just more of what she already knew? How did it sort of play out on the home front?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah, there was a pretty big change on the home front in terms of I would still take my computer home every night and I would still put that in the office and then kids would get to bed and I’d still jump in and do a little bit prior to Kakoda. So there’s a big shift there that I made that that was the end of doing that sort of thing at home. I wasn’t going to go home and work anymore, so I left the computer at work and now my office is just room that’s full of everyone else’s crap, so I can’t actually get in there to work now. So it’s good.
(39:14):
I am present at home now. I don’t have to usher the kids into bed and I don’t have to skip four pages while I’m reading a book so I can quickly get to the end of the book. I knew I had to get on the computer and keep working so I can sit there and spend the time with kids and read and not rush them, which before they probably didn’t know too much. I was rushing, but as they’re getting older, they know that when you’re trying to brush them off now and yeah, I couldn’t keep going down that path. So home life is great. I get out of here at a good time every day. I make sure that I’m at the kids’ sports events every single night of the week. We’ve got four kids that do multiple sports, so there is something on every day.
(39:58):
I haven’t worked a Saturday in over 12 months when I’ve done nothing but work. Saturdays for the last 10 plus years, I just, I’m home, I’m around, I’m there to help. And if I get a phone call after five o’clock, that’s work. Even as I’m home, I generally just goes to the voicemail. If someone’s calling me two or three times, yes, I’ll call ’em back, but otherwise can wait till tomorrow and yeah, my phone has gone from ringing 80, a hundred, 120, 150 phone calls in a day to five phone calls a day maybe now. Yeah, it’s huge.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
That’s brilliant. I think coming out the other side, there’s no question you never want to go back, so I’m not even going to bother asking you that. What I might do is ask if you could be talking and just picture someone listening to this who’s thinking, shit, I totally am grooving with where Andy was and I totally want to be where Andy is. What would you say to them in terms of maybe having the courage to do it? What would be your advice to that person? How would you talk to someone if they came to you and just asked for your take on what to do?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I couldn’t speak highly any more highly of business coaching. And the first thing I say to anyone that’s in struggle like that, I get yourself a coach and get yourself some help because you can do it. And if you told me three years ago that this is where I’ll be sitting now, there’s no way I’m not going to be there, but it’s only three years and three years goes really quick. I can’t believe that I’ve been in coaching for three years already and my life’s completely changed in that three years now. Had I not done coaching, I probably would’ve followed the business by now, to be honest. I couldn’t. My family was worth more to me than what this business was. But yeah, definitely get into coaching and you can do it and it’s not that long. You just got to put in the work, you got to put in the work, you got to listen to your coaches and follow the path. And it works. It really does.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, I love it. And I wasn’t definitely not asking that question for you to promote coaching.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
No. I honestly say to everyone, Dan, even our suppliers, I have one of our reps come in just before and we’re talking about the growth of the company and there’s not a lot of guys around here to do this and why are you growing so much and is there any benefit in growing and doing all this sort of stuff because they’re just in this small minded way that everyone’s always done it. But there’s a bit of a change of the guard that’s happening now. I feel with older business owners sort of pushing out. They’re getting into their fifties, sixties and going, it’s all getting too hard now, but us younger guys are sort of coming through and moving with technology, but there’s so much business coaching around there now you can get the help that you need to get you through to where you want to go.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I love it. Really well said. Let’s talk a little bit more about coaching now. I think, and again, this is all still part of the journey, I think Rob, for Andy, there’s probably a couple of things. The first one we should talk about is the breakthrough award. We talked about it on our episode around the review of our Gold Coast event. Andy winning that breakthrough award, I think it was probably one of the easiest awards we gave. It was the first time we’d ever done it, but it was pretty clear cut. Who should have been the recipient of that award?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, traditionally we’d given out the turnaround award in the lifestyle mastermind, our third phase of our coaching. But with the quality of clients that are coming through, the great work that clients have come through, being in launch into leverage, into lifestyle, which is the journey that Andy’s been through. A lot of guys are now getting their foundations right in launch, their structures right in leverage, and then really building out the lifestyle business that Andy and the other guys are working towards that a lot of the big challenges that we used to deal with in lifestyle are getting done earlier in their journey. So we had to ditch the turnaround award and we replaced it with the breakthrough award. I think the whole essence of the lifestyle programme is to break through and be the leader you were destined to be. That’s the essence of what the lifestyle program’s about.
(44:20):
You can’t run a lifestyle business without being a great leader, which is the essence of today’s story. And so yeah, Dan and I put our heads together and we decided to call it the Breakthrough Award and we could not give it to a more deserving winner. And I think Andy, that was because 12 months prior you went through that whole structural change and then the whole journey of going to kakoda, coming back to a different guy, and the shift in your leadership was, it’s almost those two years of structural management change and then the leadership journey you went on. We couldn’t think of a better guy. So what did it mean to you, mate, to be able to get that breakthrough award and stand up in front of your peers and accept that award? What did that mean to you and Matty?
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, look, it was a really humbling experience and something that I’ll absolutely never forget being recognised for the hard work that you put in over the last couple of years. We talk about this a lot in business, Rob, that it’s fucking lonely being a business owner and it’s really hard to do this job. And I went through a lot of really shit times and to stand up there in front of your business peers and your wife and receive an award in the business sense, it was really nice. It meant a lot to me. And as I said in my speech, this wasn’t just an award for me, it was an award for Maddie as well, for the hard work she’s put in at home and stuck on the side the whole way. So yeah, it was really nice.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
I really admire that part in your speech because I think a lot of business owners underestimate the importance of having a strong partner beside you. And I know I’ve seen it in I wouldn’t be where I am today in business if I didn’t have a solid relationship with marriage with Jacq. We would not be achieving what we’re doing. And we see that a lot with clients where it’s so important that you have your person beside you, your partner if you’re married or not, that that’s the most important person in your world because they ride the highs, they ride the lows. And if you’re fighting battles on multiple fronts in business and in relationship, something’s got to give. But for you guys to be able to navigate the challenging times you went through in business and to be able to come out the other side stronger and to be able to get where you are today, she’s the unsung hero in a lot of this, isn’t she?
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Absolutely. Yeah. You just can’t do this without, on your own. You can’t have the family life and doing all the things with the kids without the support of your partner or wife you. And I really wanted to make sure that she got the recognition of that because yes, she doesn’t work in the business and that’s a really good thing for our relationship, but she needs to be recognised because being a mum’s lonely as well, and when you’ve got four kids screaming at you all day, that’s bloody hard work. And she’s done that day in, day out for the last 12 years and allowed me to be able to do what I can do here at work and yeah, absolutely. They’re a massive part of your journey.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Great. Love it. The next thing that you’ve stepped into is our lifestyle leadership group. And I don’t want to say stepped in, almost twisted your arm, coerced, whatever we want to call it, but we announced it at our October mastermind event in Adelaide that you’ve stepped in, which is big shout out to you to do that. For those who dunno what we do there in launch and in lifestyle, we have a leadership group within our programmes and they’re clients who play a leadership role, they uphold their culture, they play a big part from a client side to be able to do all the great things that we do here at Pravar and but yeah, we’re stoked that you’d want ’em to jump on board. It’s a testament to your leadership and we knew that you would play a big role in it in being the custodian in that culture. So yeah, big shout out to you mate, and congratulations for stepping in. It’s awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Thanks mate. That was really nice to hear that and to get that recognition. Once I feel, once again for people that are listening three years ago, there’s no way I would’ve thought that I could be part of a leadership group within this group of guys and the calibre of guys that are within the group. And I remember coming into the group and looking up to these leaders that were in the group and I kicked off and thought, oh yeah, these guys are so far ahead in their journey, but when I look back now, they weren’t that much further ahead. It doesn’t take that long to get to where you want to go and being one of those leaders now, I hope I can do some justice and enjoy the leadership journey that I’m going on with this.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Before we round out today, it’d be great to be able to get a bit of a snapshot of what business looks like today. You spoke a little bit about the start, whereas pretty much yourself, you had laws doing bookkeeping and you had a couple of guys in the factory and the instal team. But mate, what does business look like now in terms of run rates, in terms of team and everything around you? What does business look like just to give us all an appreciation of a snapshot of what the amazing work you’ve done over the last few years?
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Yeah, so just a couple of years ago in 21 we were doing about $1.1m in Rev and then to that last financial year, we hit $2.9m and we are on the trajectory about $3.6m this financial year. We are a team of 13 we subs and we have actually just started renting some space in the factory next door to us to start unlocking some capacity on the floor. So with the view to be moving into that factory next year. So yeah, it’s been some pretty massive changes in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Fantastic mate. I’m going to say it is well deserved, but geez, it’s been well earned more than anything else. So excellent job. I think we can, it’s a great place to wrap it up with that as being our end of it. I remember Rob said in his speech how proud he was of who you’d become on behalf of all of us, I think we’re very proud of what you’ve done for the way you’ve approached it and your willingness to really keep your belief and drop the ego and all the things we’ve talked about today. You’ve executed like a champion, which is what we look for. So on behalf of Rob, myself, we’ve both had the pleasure of being there since the start of your journey. Andrew, who’s been your coach, I know he’s very proud of you too. So mate, we can’t speak highly enough of you and we can’t wait to see what you do going forward. But thanks for coming in today and sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Awesome, thanks heaps guys. I’ve had a great day today. It’s been good fun reflecting on the journey of what’s been the last couple of years, so appreciate all the work that you guys put in to us and I can’t thank you enough.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, thanks mate. We really appreciate it. You’ve done a cracking job and I think the essence of today’s story is that your willingness to grow, we becomes the limit within your business. A lot of business owners pursue business growth, but they don’t realise that their business growth is handicapped by the willingness of the owner to grow themselves. You never outgrow who you are, your identity, and you’re willing to grow within yourself. And mate, you’re a testament to that, that the more you’ve grown and expanded and develop yourself, your businesses just growing into that level of expansion. So congratulations mate. You’ve achieved some great things, but it’s been as much a personal journey as it has been a business journey as well, and you’re a testament to that, so well done, mate. Thanks very much for joining us today. If today’s story really resonated with you and you’ve absolutely loved hearing Andy’s journey in terms of where he is come from, the journey that he’s gone through to get to where he is today, if that’s really resonated with you and you’d love to be able to have a conversation with us to be able to see how we might be able to help you on your journey, either click on the links in the show notes or join us @strategysession.com.au to be able to just book in a time.
(52:39):
Let’s have an honest conversation around where you’re at, where you want to go. Let’s bridge the gap and put a roadmap in place, and if we’re a good fit, let’s get you into coaching and let’s see how we can help transform your business and life as well. Thanks for tuning in today and looking forward to coming back to you next week.