Episode 65 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

I think when you are so busy with all everything in a business, it’s really hard to think beyond what you’re doing tomorrow, let alone being like in six months I want to be at this point and in a year’s time I want to be here. All you can think about is have I done what I needed to do today? Have I got work lined up tomorrow? That’s it.

Speaker 2 (00:26):

Hi everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back. Dan. Looking forward to today’s episode.

Speaker 3 (00:34):

Hey Rob. Good to be back. Yeah, really looking forward to today. We’ve got one of our OGs, a guy we love. We’ve worked with a lot. Really keen to sort of walk through this story and reflect on plenty of stuff that’s happened in the past and the good stuff that’s going on now.

Speaker 2 (00:49):

Should we give Mitch Copp from Copper Electrical a big, big warm welcome?

Speaker 3 (00:53):

We should cue the streamers whistles. Hey Mitch.

Speaker 1 (00:56):

Thanks guys. How you going?

Speaker 3 (00:58):

We’re doing well. How about you?

Speaker 1 (01:01):

I’m Good. Going good.

Speaker 3 (01:02):

Ready for a bit of a walkthrough?

Speaker 1 (01:05):

Yeah, I am looking forward to where the conversation takes us.

Speaker 3 (01:09):

Excellent. Excellent. That’ll be good. You ready to kick off Rob? Yeah, let’s do it. All right, Mitch, we’ll get started. It is great to have you on, mate. As we just said, you are the what we class is one of the OGs when we talk about that. It’s been probably what, three, four years now since you’ve been in coaching?

Speaker 1 (01:27):

Yeah, yeah, about four years.

Speaker 3 (01:29):

Yeah. Excellent. And that sort of coincides with launch programme sort of coming out hitting its straps. How big was launch when you first started? How many guys were sitting in that programme?

Speaker 1 (01:40):

I actually look back through it today. There was only seven of us when I was first joined up and unknowing. To me, I thought that was just the size it was over the two years I was in there. It definitely grew,

Speaker 3 (01:52):

Definitely. Grown a bit now Rob.

Speaker 2 (01:54):

Yeah, we’ve got a cracking group in there and a good solid group of 50 businesses in there now and we’ve set a limit on that and yeah, we love it and doing some good work in there.

Speaker 3 (02:05):

So let’s go back even before launch, let’s start talking about, I want to hear a bit about your journey as a kid, what Mitch was like as a kid, what the family scene was, where you grew up, some of those sort of early pointers and things that led to the person you are today. So let’s go back and start with what was school like and see where that goes.

Speaker 1 (02:24):

So I was born in the Sutherland Shire and then we moved to Terrigal when I was about 10 years old. Always, I dunno if I’d say I enjoyed school, I definitely enjoyed other things outside of school a lot more. I decided to leave school when I was 16. That’s kind of when I decided to jump into the workforce. And so dad was an electrician and he’s probably the one that he never pushed me into getting into electrical, but I think that’s how I’ve ended up here. I’m now surrounded by a lot of electricians. My father-in-law, my two brother-in-laws are both electricians as well. And mom was a full-time mom. She was a dental nurse before she had kids and then has been a full-time mom, so.

Speaker 3 (03:20):

Okay. Did your dad have his own business as well? Was he a business owner?

Speaker 1 (03:24):

He did, yeah. So dad is still an electrician. Dad’s 72 still doing a couple little service jobs, so he ran his own business. However, he business very different than what I have. He never to this day has ever employed anyone. It was always just him doing the work on site and mum helping him out with the books.

Speaker 3 (03:46):

Nice. And brothers and sisters?

Speaker 1 (03:49):

I got two older sisters.

Speaker 3 (03:50):

Okay. Are they run their own businesses or they do their own thing?

Speaker 1 (03:56):

They both help in family businesses with their partners.

Speaker 2 (03:59):

A whole family of Sparkies. How good’s that?

Speaker 1 (04:01):

Well yeah, the brother-in-laws are both on either side too. It’s not like their brothers. So it’s my sister married a Sparky and I married a girl who has a brother who is a sparky, so we’re surrounded by him.

Speaker 3 (04:15):

Good’s that Nice. So if you moved when you were younger, you moved I think when you were going into high school then?

Speaker 1 (04:24):

Yeah, just before high school we moved up to the central coast. Yeah. So I got thrown into high school without really having to call group of mates up here, but fairly quickly found a good group of mates and found them through surfing. So that was a big thing. As soon as I got to high school, I spent a lot of my time at the beach.

Speaker 2 (04:44):

And you love your surfing, don’t you? You’re pretty good at it.

Speaker 1 (04:48):

I love it. I dunno about how good I am at it, but yeah, I do love it. Don’t get to do it as much as I would like anymore. But that comes with a young family.

Speaker 3 (04:57):

Definitely. Rob’s talking, comparatively speaking. We did our surfing training thing when we had our event at Mastermind on the Gold Coast. You were clearly well and above and certainly above Rob and I, so I think we can say that you are very good compared to what we were able to dish up that day.

Speaker 1 (05:16):

Yeah, I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the water.

Speaker 2 (05:19):

Yeah, we’ve seen videos and Dan and I struggled to stand up on a board and yet you are carving up in the videos that we’ve seen. So you’re being a little bit modest I think when it comes to your surfing, correct?

Speaker 3 (05:30):

Absolutely is no time for modesty. Mitch, come on. You’ve mentioned your family. Let’s talk about that. They’re a big part of this story, a big part of your life. Why don’t you just introduce us to your family at the moment and give us the rundown.

Speaker 1 (05:43):

Yeah, so got a beautiful wife, Joni. We’ve been together since we were 17. So we got together really young, got two young kids, got Piper who’s five years old, a little girl and a little boy Ace who’s just turned three.

Speaker 3 (05:58):

Nice. Very, very nice. And that’s great. And Joni works in the business now?

Speaker 1 (06:02):

Yeah, she does. She just does a day a week in the business helping us with a lot of the marketing and social media side of our business.

Speaker 3 (06:10):

Nice. And she does a great job too. We’ll come back to that. It’s a big part of the story that we want to cover off today. The journey starting for you then. All right, so we’ve established, you went to high school a little bit, you surfed a lot. When did you make that transition from school student and kid into entering into the workforce? Were you first year apprentice trade school the whole lot or did you finish school?

Speaker 1 (06:34):

Yeah, so I started year 11. Did year 11 for about two weeks. Got a pre-apprenticeship course through the TAFE and I went, alright, I’m out mum and dad said, as long as you’ve got something secure, we’re happy for you to leave. So went off and did that. That was a three month short course, which got you first six months worth of tafe basically taken off and found a job pretty quickly after that with a local electrician. Yeah, so by the time I started with him I was probably mid 16, almost 17 years old.

Speaker 3 (07:05):

Okay, so you didn’t go out with dad, there was no suggestion of joining the team there?

Speaker 1 (07:10):

No, dad was always really good about that in, he did a lot of small service work, so he didn’t see the value in me just being his guy to passing tools. He’s like, I think you’ll learn a lot more going with a bigger company, doing different types of jobs rather than just assisting him in service work Also, there’s that thing of working for your family. I think it was good looking back on it now. I learned respect, I learned how to be a good employee and you just dunno if that would’ve been there with your dad.

Speaker 3 (07:42):

Yeah, for sure. Did you enjoy your apprenticeship? Some guys do. Some guys hate it. Were you enjoying that journey or were you?

Speaker 1 (07:50):

Yeah, I did. I did. We had a good group of guys that we worked with. The company that I worked for, they fluctuated over my apprenticeship from about four guys through to about nine at one point. So I had a really good group of guys and good tradesmen in there that taught me the right things. And we had a pretty wide variety of work. We did really high in residential through to project homes, so it was a learning curve on both sides.

Speaker 3 (08:18):

Nice. How long were you with them before you went into your own business or was your own business the next step from that or had it all?

Speaker 1 (08:24):

So I did five years with that company and then worked dried up a little bit and I found another local business who I did two years with and then I actually used to DJ on the weekends and run some nightclub parties. So when I was trying to remember earlier today, I think I was probably about 19, 20 years old and actually just stopped being a Sparky for about 10 months and just DJ’ed and ran nightclub parties until I realised that sleep’s too important and found a job again. But that’s at that point where I went into my own business.

Speaker 3 (09:00):

Alright, now we’ve got to pause there because Rob, I can see you. You are dying to jump in. Go on. This is news to both of us I think.

Speaker 2 (09:08):

I did not know that. No Mitch’s the dj. What was your DJ name?

Speaker 1 (09:13):

It was Wolf Pack. It was me and another guy and we were called Wolf Pack. So yeah, it was a good time, probably from about 19 through to about 24. But like I said, I got to a point where it was just, it’s pretty taxing on the body. We got to the point where we were DJing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then trying to face up to an electrical job on a Monday wasn’t very safe.

Speaker 3 (09:45):

And tell us with that, I mean obviously it’s almost full-time at that point for what you can work. I can imagine. Did you have fans? Were there festivals? What were you doing?

Speaker 1 (09:56):

Yeah, yeah, we played at nightclubs all through Sydney and the central coast and did a couple of interstate gigs in Queensland, WA, Tasmania. We played at a couple of festivals. So yeah, it was good fun.

Speaker 3 (10:11):

Oh, the whole nature of this podcast episode’s going way off the rails here. We could do this for days. That’s amazing. And what about your mate then? Is he still doing it or are you both out of it now?

Speaker 1 (10:22):

Yeah, he lives up in Noosa. He still, he’s still doing it a little bit. Yeah, so his passion, he’s still super passionate about it, loves it. But I hit a point when I was about 24, 25 where I was just really wanted to start a family, really wanted to, I’d had my fun, not saying that I wanted to settle down and become a boring old man or anything, but just had some other focuses I wanted to concentrate on.

Speaker 3 (10:52):

Be honest. Do you still have the deck somewhere under the bed or in a cupboard or something like that or none at all?

Speaker 1 (10:58):

Not anymore, but one of my mates came up to visit me over Christmas and he brought ’em up so we pulled him out. Yeah, no, it was good fun.

Speaker 3 (11:07):

Nice one. Excellent. Well there you go. That’s great. I love that. That’s a good part of the story. So surfing, DJing, that’s where we’re at at the moment and a bit of electrical work. Let’s bring it back on track. Then you get back into your electrical work. You do hit this point when you think about starting your own business, you start to think about that. What was that like? What did you do? Can you remember that transition that you made?

Speaker 1 (11:30):

Well I really fell into it, so I’d gone out on my own after that point. Just started a business, when I say gone out on my own, it was just me, a Subaru Liberty station waggon and a tool belt and a four foot ladder. It wasn’t anything to not, didn’t even have a van or anything was subcontracting a fair bit to a couple of different guys and a real estate agent said to me, oh, we need someone to do our service work. So I jumped into that and kind of just fell into it to be honest. I was happy subcontracting to other guys and then it’s kind of just evolved into taking on more service work and then I was doing one real estate and then I started doing their other ones and it grew from there.

Speaker 3 (12:18):

So what did you do at that point as it kept growing? Did you work yourself to the bone in that point or did you get someone in early? What was your sort of strategy at that point?

Speaker 1 (12:26):

Yeah, so pretty well did just work myself to the bone so early on, I think the real beauty of working for yourself was being able to go have a surf or play golf every now and then. That very quickly disappears as soon as you start getting more clients and then like you said, you start working 40, 50, 60 hour weeks and all of a sudden you just feel completely burnt out. So I think I was probably in business about maybe a year and a half, two years before I put an apprentice on and then put an apprentice on and then you kind of go through that same cycle. They take a bit of the pressure off, you’re still doing all your admin at night and then at that point then we decided to put another tradesman on, so hopefully I could leave the job site for an hour or sit on the job site and do a bit of admin work.

Speaker 3 (13:15):

Right. Were you married at this point or was this still premo? You’re obviously with Joni

Speaker 1 (13:21):

Still. Yeah, pre being married.

Speaker 3 (13:25):

Yeah right. How many years before you start thinking about coaching is this?

Speaker 1 (13:31):

This was probably 2016, so yeah, still a bit before coaching. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:41):

So obviously a lot of stress, a lot of frustration, a lot of learning along the way. I’ll call it learning, but when you had that, what were some of those biggest frustrations you had? Maybe how did you deal with that stress at the time? It’s a pretty lonely place when you’re sort of getting out of the ground in that sort of what we’d call a wild wild west sort of phase.

Speaker 1 (14:00):

Yeah, yeah. I think that’s probably what led me to coaching was just the never feeling like you can get on top, constantly being burned out, not really knowing, yes, you’re a good electrician but nothing about business. Just because you own a business doesn’t mean that you know how to run a business, nor is anyone taught you. So that’s why I sought out some support from coaching and then I stumbled across a Facebook post from Rob and made contact and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done.

Speaker 3 (14:32):

Yeah, I want to pick up on what you said there about it being very different from having a business and actually knowing how to run one. Rob, this is something we come up with a lot when we talk to guys. Anyone can really start a business. That’s the easy part, right?

Speaker 2 (14:46):

Yeah. We see this a lot with tradesmen. They’re very good tradesmen, they’re good at their craft and they often get into business, they see the business as an opportunity to make more money and have more time and that’s the lure that gets into business. But you first realise that when you get into business the time that the thing that you don’t have when you’re starting your business is time because you’re literally doing everything. And so yeah, Mitch, you came to us earlier in your journey, definitely on the smaller side of where we do generally take on a client, but where you made up for that was ambition and drive and a real desire to make it work. So that’s what made up for your size at the time, wasn’t it?

Speaker 1 (15:33):

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I was thinking, I think we’re at the point it was me and apprentice and possibly two tradesmen when we joined.

Speaker 3 (15:40):

And what were you looking for there, Mitch? Obviously you’ve talked about you don’t know much about business at that point admittedly, but were you looking for knowledge? Did you think you came to it looking back now with looking for that sort of magic bullet, was it just to accelerate things? Was it to set the foundation? What was it that sort of brought you in?

Speaker 1 (15:59):

If I’m honest, Dan, I don’t think I knew what I was looking for. Just an answer. Like you said, probably the magic bullet thinking it can’t be this hard. And probably also thinking at the time I was quite young, I’m thinking I can’t do another 30 years of it. Like this is just burning you out. And this was pre-kids and that was another thing on my mind is how would you ever do this with a family?

Speaker 3 (16:24):

Right. Did you think at the time, were you healthy at the time? By that I mean most guys when they get to that point they end up you just ploughing into work and eating crap, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (16:37):

Yeah, probably the only thing that was slipping was probably diet, still exercising and things like that. Pretty active love sports and stuff, so I was still keeping active, but my mental state probably wasn’t great because you’re just feeling so tired and burnout and probably the only thing I had an issue with at that point was diet.

Speaker 3 (16:56):

Yeah, for sure. What did you take out of those first few months if you like, in launch and stepping into this programme? What hit you the most when you walked in there?

Speaker 1 (17:08):

Probably to work, it’s super cliche, but the working on the business, I don’t think until that point really you think if I’m not on site generating an income that’s not pushing you forward, but you’ve got to work on the business to push the whole thing forward. So I think I was really stuck in that hourly transactional, I need to be on site to make money. That’s the only way I can’t take an hour a week to have a phone call with Rob. So changing that mindset was a big one. And then also I remember really early on Rob having a call with me and talking about how you have to put some trust in other people and if you think you’re never going to find good staff out there, you’re never going to find good staff, but as soon as you change your mindset around that and understand that there is people out there that want to work for someone, want to do a good job. As soon as I changed my mindset on that, we found really good staff and not say the staff before that were, they’re still with us today, one of them.

Speaker 2 (18:10):

You’re in that zone, that sub million dollars where you were working your way up towards that space, but you’re in that zone where you’re a technician trade business, you still got the mindset of a trader. You still think like a tradesman. You think that my value is on the tools charging myself out. But it sounds like the real realisation you had early in your journey is you can’t grow a business whilst you’re on the tools at that decision point. Aren’t you going, well, do I kind of just stay here and have a couple of guys and this is kind of a bit of fun or do I have a red hot crack? And you really made that decision to go, you know what, I’ve got to get myself off the tours and I’ve got to grow this business and focus on that path, didn’t you?

Speaker 1 (18:58):

Yeah, and I think that’s a massive thing too in coaching is you open up your mindset too. There is a pathway or a journey beyond where you’re at. You can see guys as always in coaching going to be someone that’s just a little step or two in front of you and you can kind of always see them and go, well, they’re doing it, I can do it too. So it’s to be gone.

Speaker 3 (19:21):

Definitely. Do you remember some of the levers or milestones that helped you build some momentum through that time? I mean you made a couple, I’m sure, Rob, you’ve got a couple you can throw out there. But for you, Mitch, looking back on that time, what was sort of the thing that sort of hooked you on it or got you on the journey do you think?

Speaker 1 (19:40):

Yeah, like I said, employing more staff, that definitely helped and putting trust in them not being such a micromanager of it has to be done by way and there’s only one way to do something a bit further down the track. We implemented admin, moved out of our home office and things like that, but really early in launch it was just about understanding what a P&L was, just trying to understand your numbers, understanding a bit more about business.

Speaker 3 (20:12):

And that’s all part of transitioning off the tools. Rob, what do you remember about Mitch’s early journey in that sense?

Speaker 2 (20:17):

Yeah, Mitch made a really great big decision early on his journey and it makes sense now. You did your apprenticeship doing high-end work and you started your business doing service work, and I remember when you got into coaching you were doing service work and you, you’re doing high-end construction, which is where you are at the moment in the residential space and that makes sense now because that’s what got you up and out of the ground. But I remember there became this real crunch time in your journey in coaching where you were starting to, you weren’t afraid of cold calling builders and hitting ’em up through Instagram and you were getting more quotes to price across your desk and you started to really take off in the residential construction space, but it’s almost like the service game was that started letting you down and you were letting other people down at that time, weren’t you?

Speaker 1 (21:09):

Yeah, and I found it really hard. There was no real satisfaction for me personally in doing service work. So that was a big thing too at the time. It was, yeah, we were doing a little bit of everything like you said, and you’d be on a construction job and get pulled away to a service job for half the day and you’re just losing all this time. So I remember that when we’d made the decision to stop doing service work, it’s a hard thing because you’ve got this income in flow of work and all of a sudden you’re like, I’m no longer going do that. It’s pretty scary to knock that back. But yeah, like you said, with some focus and planning around it, we could backfill that with more construction style jobs.

Speaker 2 (21:51):

A lot of people underestimate the power of that. Just one huge decision because looking back, I see that as your real turning point that really enabled you to take off because you then hyper-focused in this is who Copper Electrical is, this is the work that we do. These are the builders that we’re going to go and chase. This is the name that we’re going to create in the marketplace. These are the team we need to hire. This is the job management system. We need to line off, align off that position in the marketplace. A lot of trades businesses underestimate that decision of where they position themselves in the marketplace. But looking back on your journey, Mitch, I see that that was one of the best decisions that you made because yes, it took you a good 12 to 18 months to really solidify that position in the marketplace, but that was a real foundational decision for you, wasn’t it?

Speaker 3 (22:44):

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

(22:45):

Did that come at that time, we talked about when you got in, it was sort of looking for that not magic bullet, but that idea of reducing the stress, the head space, the consistent grind, all that sort of stuff. It was sort of getting away from that. What Rob’s talking about is a move towards what you actually wanted and thinking more like a business owner, right? That’s a business owner’s decision, not someone who’s trying to get out of a certain situation. Was that the first time you felt like you were making unquote, but business owner sort of decisions and your whole mindset had swung into business owner mode?

Speaker 1 (23:17):

Yeah, for sure. I think when you are so busy with everything in a business, it’s really hard to think beyond what you’re doing tomorrow, let alone being like in six months I want to be at this point and in a year’s time I want to be here. All you can think about is have I done what I needed to do today? Have I got, that’s all I really ever had to. Yeah, that was it.

Speaker 3 (23:44):

Yeah, you can’t sign up for that as being the way forward if you’re going to make this sort of a strategic decision, which Rob said takes 8, 12, 18 months to really bet in, that’s a lot of uncertainty for someone to deal with that’s dealt in that short term sort of reactive type thinking.

Speaker 1 (23:59):

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3 (24:01):

Alright, so let’s talk about then the next phase that comes. So you’ve gone through launch, you’ve made some of these moves, you’ve made this big call, you’ve stepped into your business owner shoes if you like. You’re starting to make that transition. Leverage comes around. We’re talking probably only about what now we’re two years out. I think it was sort of around this time bit earlier, maybe start of the year in 2023. We can talk about you’ve got your ground crew sorted, you’ve got your market sorted. Next comes sort of office crew and I’ll say premises, that sort of thing. There were two big, big decisions. I don’t pick whichever one you want to tackle first, but how did you approach those next? Obviously you’re getting into more uncomfortable territory, but you’re setting some good foundations.

Speaker 1 (24:45):

Yeah, moving out of home, I reckon that’s one of the biggest levers we’ve ever pulled for making you feel like you are actually a business. I was working out of a home office. It also acted as the laundry room at the time so that it wasn’t a very nice space to work out of each day and our garage was absolutely stacked to the ceiling with boxes and things like that. Joni one day was in there trying to move some stuff around, had a TV bracket falling ahead and cut her head open. It was at that point I really went, yeah, we’ve got to do something about this. So yeah, it was a massive thing. Off the back of that too, we had Elaine, our admin who was working remotely and we found that really at the start, that was during COVID, so it kind of made sense, but once COVID kind of died down, we did have the ability to be in person with each other, but we couldn’t. So it was a game changer as soon as we got in the office together and being able to sit near each other and talk about things without having to set up a zoom call or schedule a phone call. Yeah, it was huge.

Speaker 3 (25:58):

And it wasn’t just the laundry. I remember you sitting on the front porch. The weather luckily in Terrigal is not too bad, so you had a nice little outdoor meeting room, which wasn’t too bad on the front porch, but you’re right, it’s a huge shift and a huge change, a massive milestone for anyone that’s in that place is to get that separation that we talk about between work and home, so that was really important. Can you remember that decision though? I remember it really clearly at the time I was coaching you that wasn’t as easy as a bracket fell on Joni’s head, we’re moving out, I’ve got to get something done. You wrestled with that for a long time and there was a pretty big realisation that came through that time. Do you remember that?

Speaker 1 (26:39):

Yep, yep, I remember it well.

Speaker 3 (26:42):

Talk us through from your angle what you were dealing with.

Speaker 1 (26:45):

Risk and opportunity. I remember we had a call where you just kept basically drilling me on it. You need to think of the opportunity in things, not so much the risk side of it. You need to be aware of risk, but also if you’re too focused on the negative or the risk of things, you’ll just never progress forward or you will, but just at a snail pace.

Speaker 3 (27:06):

Yeah, the snails pace is absolutely right and we were talking about the risk versus the uncertainty of it all. You went from the what’s the risk to, well now I’m uncertainty. If you go risk plus uncertainty, you’re rarely going to make any action forward, right? You’re just going to sit tight and go, well, I hope nothing bad happens. How long did you wrestle with that decision? I mean this was something that you knew you had to do well before we even started. It was something you’d obviously been thinking about, but you couldn’t pull that trigger for that reason.

Speaker 1 (27:32):

It could have been nine to 12 months. I reckon that. I really struggled with that. It was just a huge business overhead that you really do struggle to see. Well, now I see the value, but at the time I was like, this is a huge overhead to add to our business for at the time what I thought was little value or add to the business, but now I’m like, yeah, just can’t believe we did it for so long.

Speaker 2 (27:59):

And it’s not uncommon that a lot of trades businesses wrestle with the risk and uncertainty of that phase. That’s why in coaching we call it the hamster wheel because you are literally going round and round and round in circles until you have the courage to step off and in that phase, you’re right, it’s a profitless growth phase because you add in admin, you add in renting a premises, you add in costs around you getting off the tools and you paying yourself out a margin of jobs all of a sudden, so the owner becomes an overhead. So between this whole one to $1.5ish million dollars mark, it’s a hard phase that you’re going through and you were smack bang in the middle of it and that was the risk. The risk was the time and where am I going to get the work from and what’s the cost going to be and what pressure is this already going to put on me? I’m already feeling this challenge. I’m going to go through more of it, but once you got to the other side, what did it do for you? What was the opportunity and what did it create for you once you got the premises and Elaine working internally in that space?

Speaker 1 (29:02):

Yeah, it’s definitely allowed us to, like I said, it makes you feel like you are actually a business, being able to hold toolbox meetings in your warehouse, being able to have clients come to your office if they need to discuss things with you versus having to meet them at a cafe or having to have them come to your front of your house to talk to you about something or show them a part or something like that. Yeah, it’s being able to work with your team around you in the office is huge. Being able to have internal processes now material gets dropped to the office, Elaine receives it, it’s labelled, it’s put onto a shelf in a certain area, all of those things. Before we had our own warehouse, when we actually moved from the garage to the warehouse, we realised there was parts in there that we’d ordered once or twice for jobs that were still there and the part had been installed on the job just because we didn’t know where anything was. There was no room, there was no space, no process, so that was a big one.

Speaker 3 (30:01):

What did it do in a personal sense, obviously the operational efficiencies are all there. What did it do at home either and talk about for you and also from the family side, what changed in the dynamic in that sense?

Speaker 1 (30:14):

I think it was around the time I moved to the warehouse where working at night just stopped almost immediately. You no longer had your office downstairs, so you’re fully detached from it. Now when I leave quite often I’ll literally not even take my laptop or anything home, take my phone and that’s it. iPads, laptops, everything stay at work, so being able to create that disconnection, so I go to work and I come home from work and trying to switch off the different identity. I guess you’d say like you’re a business owner when you’re there and you’re a family man when you’re at home and you can give them your full attention rather than, yeah, I cringe when I walk past that room still downstairs.

Speaker 2 (31:01):

Because before that you were the typical tradie working all day, heading upstairs, putting the kids’ bed, bath and then heading back downstairs, working at night, doing all that kind of stuff because that was the norm for you for so long, but this move out of the home and creating work life, that separation, it sounds like it went a long way to breaking that pattern of working behaviour by the sounds of it.

Speaker 3 (31:25):

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

(31:28):

I think that was the other thing that you had. At the same time, I think from Joni’s perspective, that wasn’t, and there was nothing sinister going on, but there was that sort of friction that we’ve talked about at the time as well, and I think from that point on when you moved out, I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you about any sort of friction in how do I deal with this or the relationship that you’ve got with Joni. That sort of separation almost nailed it down. It was like, all right, now we can be husband and wife rather than wife and business owner or tradie.

Speaker 1 (31:55):

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, you’re just able to detach. I feel like it’s a natural progression. I feel like you do need to go through that, but like you said, I probably fought with it for longer in my mind than I needed to.

Speaker 3 (32:07):

It was as much a mindset challenge as it was the strategic decision and all the cost associations, everything like that. What about Elaine, let’s touch on Elaine’s, the output on Elaine. What happened there? Again, that was something where she didn’t know if she could stay working remote. There’s not that we’re advocating one for the other working remote or office. The whole of Ava were remote, but what did you notice when that happened with Elaine?

Speaker 1 (32:31):

She was working at the time, I think two days a week and as soon as we came into the office, she went from two to four days, so it goes to show how much stuff there was to be done, but when you’re not in an office space, she couldn’t do those jobs. She’s now five days a week and we just wouldn’t know what to do without her. She’s a massive part of the business and yeah, she’s grown with us and really happy to have her on our team.

Speaker 3 (32:58):

Yeah, so good to get that result from it. Again, it was one of those things that could have gone probably either way had you hold off on the development and the growth you had to do as an individual, as a business owner to do that, which is really good. What then happens next is part of your story. I think we’ve got to touch on it because this also, it speaks volumes to you as we go through it, it’ll become apparent, but just the idea of for all these moves you’re making and things sort of growing and you are grappling with some of these bigger decisions and being strategic, there was a pretty serious situation developing at home and that sort of went on for a fair while and I think that challenged you probably in many ways as you’d expect a lot more than probably the business challenges. Do you want to just explain briefly as much as you want in terms of what was going on at the time and let’s sort of dig into that a little bit.

Speaker 1 (33:48):

So Joni’s mum was terminally ill and her health was just rapidly deteriorating and that did go over probably about a two or three year period. Then you chuck into that mix COVID kids, so there was a lot going on outside of the business as well. So yeah, that was a major influence on I think that thinking, knowing that I’m the only income provider for the house, knowing that all the stress Joni was going under, coming home from work, trying to bottle that stress up, not really stress anyone else out, and when you internalise all that stress, you have no real healthy outlets. It’s not great for your mental health.

Speaker 3 (34:38):

How did you deal with it was your, obviously you’re trying to keep the stoic, I’m here, I’ve got it all together. I know it was straining on you. You could see it, it took a hell of a lot of energy. It took everything. You had to keep going at times, but what was really going on with you and how did you deal with that? What was your process to get through that period?

Speaker 1 (34:59):

At the time, I just did my best, just did what I could during COVID. I definitely started after work. I’d have a beer while I was doing some bookwork at night, and I don’t think I ever got to the point where I was an alcoholic or had a problem with it, but it lent into having two beers each night. Was your stress reliever over the last couple of years? I’ve really changed the way I do things, my habits and leaning into things that can help you cope with stress that aren’t alcohol. So that’s been a big one for me.

Speaker 3 (35:31):

What was that? I mean people talk about that a lot for you. What was that? Is it just an example? We talk about habits to Bevan on here all the time. What was your, I don’t know, your personal healthcare habit or what was it that was your lead domino to keep things in perspective and start to get back some of that capacity?

Speaker 1 (35:49):

Yeah, like you said, it was definitely stacking habits, not going, I’m going to do everything at once. I did 75 hard, which that was a really big, I guess you’d call it circuit breaker for me, where I just completely, yeah, it’s a pretty strict heavy routine, which snapped me out of drinking and being in that mindset, but I took a lot of good things out of that too with reading, going to the gym, exercise, drinking water, things like that, and then one by one, I’ve just slowly stacked things to the point now where I do things without thinking, go to the gym four or five days a week, run once a week, do ice baths every morning, have a sauna almost every second night. So things like that have just really helped me cope with stress better where you’re doing your hard things through the day and set you up for a good day ahead.

Speaker 3 (36:41):

Coming through that challenge you’ve gone from, if we just take this moment in time, unfortunately Joni’s mum passes, things continue on, you get through all of that, you get back on track, you’ve learned a hell of a lot and gone from someone which is usually urgency driven if I can say that. You’re responding, you’re reacting to a lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 (37:03):

For sure. Super reactive. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:05):

Yeah. You’ve gone from that to what’s going on in your will where you’ve got nearly no capacity dealing with the health issues at home. Joni’s mum, I think you had some challenges at the time. You were crook a lot, you had that sort of chronic flu thing that you had. There was a whole lot going on. How did you move from the urgency side into you had to learn how to prioritise, you had to prioritise what was important nearly every day for probably, I can remember six months I’d say, where it was literally what is the most important thing. How did you find that transition? What did you learn about that?

Speaker 1 (37:36):

I think I was kind of backed into a corner. Well, I kind of had two ways I could go about it. I could go one way and let everything overwhelm me or I could really focus in, like you said, do what’s in my control, focus on what’s important that day, and just do my best to get through that. It’s a cliche thing, but hard times don’t last forever and good times don’t last forever either, so you kind of got to be ready to face those hurdles when you come to ’em.

Speaker 3 (38:05):

How much did you lean on coaching at that time? As we said, you came to coaching not knowing what it was. You came into business not knowing how to run a business. You’ve developed as a person in this, we’ve talked about it in a brief moment of time, but geez, you’ve changed as a guy, as a leader in nearly every element of your life and world you’ve changed. How do you reflect on that time and what do you see as some of the biggest changes you made as a person within yourself?

Speaker 1 (38:30):

I think it’s just been steady, steady growth and changes, wanting to be better, wanting to improve. Yeah, definitely coaching’s made me concentrate on being a better person, but just being surrounded by you guys and also the guys in the group. Yeah, it’s like nothing else. They all mean a lot to you. Got some really good friends in there who you know, could call at any time. There’s 60 odd guys in there, you’d know. You could probably call all of them at midnight and they’d pick your call up. It’s a pretty special group we’ve got.

Speaker 3 (39:06):

It really is, and I think now we’ll touch on this. You are now part of the leadership group. For those that listen to Jack’s story, Jack’s the leader. Mitch is now part of that same leadership group, so we’re not going to repeat that. Your journey as a leader then, as I said, you emerge out of all of this, the learnings, the good, the bad, the lessons, the execution that you’ve been able to have. I’d class you now, as a leader, that’s not what you came in as, but how do you reflect on your leadership, your style, and how does that show up now? What do you take as some of the leadership things that you’ve done or you continue to invest in from a leadership perspective?

Speaker 1 (39:42):

I think from a leadership point of view, you learn a lot through coaching, starting to change your mindset around being one of the boys. You can still be friendly and you can still be friends with your staff, but just going from being one of the mates who you all go to the pub on a Friday afternoon and that typical tradie, kind of the persona that a lot of business owners take on, it’s hard to then on Monday morning, have a hard conversation or a chat with someone when you’re at the pub with them on Friday afternoon as their best mate. So changing that, holding toolbox meetings, getting more comfortable, public speaking, all of those types of things have really helped with my leadership.

Speaker 3 (40:26):

What’s your take on leading a team? As you said, it’s easy to hire blokes, it’s easy to start a business, it’s hard to manage and lead. That’s a whole nother league of operating. Talk to us about your maybe even mentioned Jordy and that sort of relationship, that training that you’ve had to put in, that investment in people now that you, you’ve taken and how much do you invest in teams and training and even the experience of trying to trade up Jordy from where he started?

Speaker 1 (40:52):

Yeah, so Jordy started working with us about three years ago and we’re transitioning at the moment to a project manager role. So there’s definitely been some training there and testing out my leadership skills to then hopefully help him develop leadership within the team as well.

Speaker 3 (41:09):

So a big, big part of it. What about the other one I like to hear about is your outside giving back to the industry. I know you’re big on that. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve done in terms of giving back to the industry and as a result of giving what it’s led to.

Speaker 1 (41:25):

So I was a part of the Clipsal advisory board for about three and a half years. So that’s where you go to clipsal meetings and give them some information. They select two guys from each state and have little conference days or events where they’ll basically just pick our brain, talk about things in the industry and stuff like that. So I’ve always been really interested in creating a really good working environment for our guys, giving back to our industry. I want myself and all of our team to be really on what’s happening in the electrical industry. I don’t want to let it get away from it, but also wherever I can give back, I get enjoyment out of that too. So yeah, being on the Clipsal advisory board, that definitely tested me a few times. They asked me to speak at an event up in Cairns in about, yeah. So yeah, as you know, I love public speaking, so yeah, but it’s good. It’s good to push yourself outside your comfort zone. We followed on from Koshi, had just done an hour keynote speech and then up I get. So it was a good test, but hey, all those things help improve your long term.

Speaker 3 (42:39):

Definitely. And as we now know, you could have just pulled out the decks and put some tunes on for a run. It would’ve been great anyway. We know that now would’ve been much more comfortable up there, but it is. It’s true, right? You’ve gotten so much out of that giving in and leaning in. I think that continues the work you’re doing with the group now to be one of our leadership group. I think that you can see you developing by what you are putting in as much as what you’re getting out of it, which is so good to see, and the guys absolutely love being around you to learn that it is such a relatable way that you’ve gone about it. I think it’s the way that most people envisage it being not many people that can execute at that level.

Speaker 2 (43:19):

And Dan, I think we see that a lot in the mastermind that Mitch is a young guy and we do have a younger group of guys in the mastermind, but Mitch is earlier in his journey and a young guy in the mastermind. But I think there’s always been that natural thread of leadership, but it hasn’t been something you were just born with. As you’ve been speaking a lot around today, you’ve had to work hard on developing that skills, and I think that’s a really good key takeaway from today is that you’ve got to want to embrace that development and that journey to go on and develop your management skills and develop your leadership skills and learn to trust and delegate and hand over that stuff. Doesn’t come naturally, doesn’t, Mitch, you’ve got to work really hard on it.

Speaker 1 (44:02):

No, not for me anyway. Yeah, it’s a ever evolving thing. I feel like you said. I often seek out, I’m always listening to audio books or reading books and just trying to get that little bit better and be able to show up in my best capacity for the family and for work.

Speaker 3 (44:21):

And it’s showing through mate as you do that. So it really is. That leadership side I think is one of the other biggest things that I’ve seen. Probably one other area while we’re here that I do want to touch on before we wrap it up is the numbers side of the business world and the dedication you’ve had to put in there too. I mean, this is another area I know you’ve plugged in lately in your lifestyle journey in particular with your coach, you’ve worked really hard to get a grasp on those numbers, and again, I think it’s my take on it looking out for men is the results have spoken for themselves, but I think the amount of work that’s gone into that again is just you following this process of being open, knuckling down on the fundamentals, and then executing the work as best you can without stepping out for a minute and going, Hey, who am I to do this? I think there’s that sense of growth and being open all the way through. What’s your take on your journey through learning numbers and really getting immersed in that sort of financial management side of the business?

Speaker 1 (45:16):

Yeah, I think like you said, just learning bit by bit, getting more comfortable, understanding it on a deeper level, leaning into a lot of the tools that we’ve got at Pravar as well, and trusting that process and actually using the tools is a big one, not just setting them up and putting it in a Dropbox folder and forgetting about it. Yeah. The tools that you guys have created, when I say tools, it’s not like there’s thousands, there’s a couple of key ones, and if you really do lean into ’em, they make such a big difference.

Speaker 2 (45:48):

What difference does it do for your decision making as a leader by understanding your numbers more and what does that do for decision making and knowing what strategy to work on and when?

Speaker 1 (45:59):

Yeah, well, stealing your words. It gives you the dashboard. You no longer operating off gut feel. You’re not like, I think we have enough money to make that decision or that next hire, or I think we’ve got enough work. You’ve got it laid out in front of you and either you do or you don’t.

Speaker 2 (46:16):

This is big at the moment. You’re in a market where in the residential construction space, I love the position that you’re in, but you’ve got a business that is, despite the challenges that are going on in the industry right now, you are growing and expanding when other people around you are somewhat plateauing or dare say that I go backwards, but knowing those numbers, it’s gone a long way to really help you dial in your business and dial in the way that you run a business, hasn’t it?

Speaker 1 (46:46):

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It’s a big thing. I’ve always just focused on what we’re doing as well. Pay attention to the industry, but not get too caught up in everyone else’s business. Just concentrate on us, know your numbers, know where you want to go, and just try lock in on it.

Speaker 3 (47:03):

So that’s a lot of growth. A lot of areas, like we said, this was going to be a walkthrough from Go to Low and where we are now. What’s next for you? If you look at it, what’s your next big development, do you think, in terms of yourself, the business? What are you focused on at the moment?

Speaker 1 (47:21):

A lot of my time at the moment, I still sit in that estimating role in the business. That’s a big, big position that we need to fill over the coming. Hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll field that role just so I can get some time back. I feel like once again, you buy yourself time and then all of a sudden that time diminishes in that area. So being able to put a full-time estimator on is a big one. We’ve just bought a commercial property, which is being built at the moment, so getting out of the office space that we’re currently in and being able to do up our own office with our, lay it out the way we want, have a really nice working environment, that’s a big one for the year, and just continuing to develop our team. We’ve got a really good staff retention, a really good team of guys, and just continue helping them to grow and provide good careers for all of them.

Speaker 3 (48:13):

I like it. That’s really cool. We can’t wait to hear how that goes. I’m sure you’ll lean into it. You always have. You’ll take the lessons out as you go. You’ll eventually hit that result you want, but I really love those goals you’ve just outlined, Mitch. Again, they’re rooted in foundational the right thing at the right time. What we sort of teach it is good progress for the right place you’re in, and again, with the skills and the work you’ve done, it’s another step forward rather than trying to make a giant leap or a big course correction, which I really love, and I think that’s part of the story. And Rob, I think you can summarise that if you like, but that’s probably where I’d leave today’s episode.

Speaker 2 (48:52):

I would agree with that. If we look at Mitch’s story, you said they’re a foundational and sustainable, and the other word I’d like to add in there is consistent and being good, sustainable, consistent foundational growth. And that’s what I really love about Mitch’s story. He’s got really clear on who he is, where Copper Electrical sits in the marketplace, who they want to do work for. They know what they’re good at and what they’re not good at. And then Mitch’s has done an incredible job in developing himself and his leadership skills to be able to build a great team around him to get to where they are today that is running an incredible business. So hats off you, Mitch. You’ve done a great job and we’ve love watching your journey over the last couple of years. It’s been really inspiring, mate, and we’ve absolutely loved it. So yeah, we are really proud of you. And yeah, thanks for jumping on today. It’s been awesome going back over your story and hearing all about it. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (49:49):

Thanks guys. It’s been good.

Speaker 2 (49:51):

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and you’ve really taken something away from Mitch’s story and you’d love to be able to go on your own journey to be able to build the foundations and get the structure right in your business and jump across to strategysession.com.au, get a call booked in and let’s see if coaching is the right fit to be able to help you grow your business in a sustainable manner. Thanks for tuning in today. Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and looking forward to coming back to you next week with another episode on The Trade Den. See you then.