July 8, 2025 • 35 mins
In this powerful relaunch of The Puzzle Factory, Alex sits down with David Baker, founder of Rapid QS — the estimating service shaking up the New Zealand construction industry. We dive deep into the broken state of trade pricing, including inflated quotes from government departments and why transparency in construction costs is long overdue.
✅ Why some government project rates are wildly inflated
✅ How Rapid QS is helping tradies quote smarter and win more jobs
✅ The real impact of bad pricing on electricians, builders, and project managers
✅ What David’s building next for the future of trade pricing in NZ and Worldwide
Whether you’re a sparky, builder, QS or business owner — this is essential listening if you care about pricing fair, quoting better, and running a more profitable business.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Fire up the phone. First, phone picks up.
(00:01):
Hey, it's Darren here. Oh, and I'm sure you exactly who
I was. But anyway, call them, and I was
just been real like respectful as I say, hey man.
I just want to know the numbers like, you know, essentially
you're a government employee. You work for the people.
Tell me the cost. Well, listen mate.
(00:25):
Thanks for coming on, easy. Do you want to just start?
Tell us who you are. What you do better background.
Yeah man. Sweet.
So my name's David, I'm currently running rapid cues or
operating and New Zealand Australia in the UK.
So we do like pricing and estimating for builders and
contractors. Yeah man, I just came up through
the ranks trenches building apprenticeship did all my time
Residential Building, like whanganui Palmerston North moved
(00:48):
down, to Queenstown got involvedwith like the commercial space
there. I'm main big, first, lot of
work, was doing subcontracting to Dominion.
Yeah. Okay.
Her own company and we were doing the big came out there, so
we're building Precast panels and fuck.
That was horrible. I've done a Kmart.
Yeah, it was it was tough. But it was my first rotation of
like commercial deadlines and isjust like, that.
(01:10):
Didn't give a fuk what time of the day it is that I don't care
who you are. They'll say everything I need to
say to get what they need out ofyou which is just panels
delivered by a date and if you can't do it they'll just fuck
you off and get someone else. So yep.
A ruthless experience but we were quite lucky at that time.
There was a huge shortage of guys down there.
Yeah. The boom was massive.
And me and my mate Jake. We were like the only kind of
(01:33):
kiwi kids down there and Queenstown was just full of
Backpackers at that stage. Yeah.
And then my mate Jake had his lbpiece.
They loved us. And I essentially just looked
after all the like upcoming workdealing with the managers at
Dominion. So, you were project managing at
that, we had a guys working for us and it was like me and Jake
went 50/50 in a business. And we were just literally there
(01:55):
just to build panels. So we set up a Precast bid, but
we saved Dominion so much money because we were we kind of like
set up the bed came up with the idea to you know have a 600 off
the ground. A form play baseball during the
bottom, got some fucking gas heaters in there.
Get these panels what we're doing four panels and 30 the
process up. Yeah, otherwise they had to go
to Cromwell. Yeah.
(02:16):
I think it was like bellcroft fee for panels was going to be
like, I don't know, 50,000 a week or so huge.
So I know I'm blocking alone like 60 panels.
I'm pretty sure we saved them over 150k.
So they kind of loved us there. So we had a little bit of wiggle
room on like, some, what negotiating?
Yeah, anyway, we were essentially just on charge up
for 18 months, we kind of cleaned house made shitload of
(02:38):
money and then yeah, we just gotfinished and to putting in a
fixed price for blocks. Yeah, we got about 20% into the
block and we were like fuck man.Why are expenses like four times
as much as what's coming in? Yeah, we were like talking.
We did a beer with like the younger project manager, guy who
he thought was like our mate, and we're like brothers anyway,
(02:59):
like get us out of the contract and we quickly very quickly
realized how much he was in our mate, because he was probably
cutting on the deal a little bitas well.
From Dominion. So yeah, yeah.
Anyway, that's just commercial construction broth in that first
lockdown. I was doing constellation bus
station. Oh yeah.
Anyway, we went into the full lockdown first one Global
(03:20):
pandemic. I was getting bloody penalty
notices. Oh, the construction company
because the switchboard wasn't installed.
The company was Okay. Yeah but it's just I love
knowing that should I who was it?
The name is gone if it comes to you let me know.
Anyway cool. Yeah yeah.
I was like what? Fuck man.
(03:41):
Without rigid program shit? Yeah, that's horrible man.
So like that for me was good butthat's kind of what sparked
there's no. What's that rolls them?
Oh yeah, mine was yeah Dominion but Manson actually were fucking
good to me. They offered me a main gig down
there when I was doing before product Dominion, I went through
(04:01):
a recruitment company. Oh yeah, Bishop boys.
Those ones that racked up a massive debt.
Yeah. Spencer was actually good to me
at the time because he knew, youknow, I kind of helped find more
Backpackers get guys on the ground.
This is when I first went to Queenstown.
Yeah, it was Mainland time down there.
Anyway, Rosen were awesome to me, offered me a full-time job
but then my mate Jake, I got himdown through Spencer, Spencer
(04:21):
didn't pay my Jake and I was like very bitter pay, my mate,
Jake, he's a Golden Gloves boxer.
Like, whatever good at that. Game I made Jake and then I'll
Jake was like got offered this contract.
He was on the piss One Night in Queenstown met Jason the crazy
project manager for Dominion. Hey do you want to build these
fucking panels, right? Jake hit me up.
Hey bro you want to come do this?
Yep. Fucked off that.
(04:42):
Whatever. Anyway.
Um, good real, taste of commercial construction.
Yes, you can make a lot of money, no relationships.
I find and they just do not givea shit about time.
Totally price driven. Yeah, absolutely.
Totally pricey. We fucking, yeah, it was like a
200,000 dollar contract. I think we got about 40,000
dollars of the way in realize that bills were already like 65
(05:02):
Grand. Oh shit.
Close up, shop me and Jake splitwent.
He moved back up to one we say down in Queenstown he took all
the vehicles and assets and tookthe loss of 20K.
Yeah, 20, 25 K. I just walked away with nothing
like me and Jake is still made. So this day he's renovating my
house on so that was all I caredabout man.
I've done like three business Partnerships now, two to
(05:25):
building ones. One queue, missing.
I can hand over my heart, still sack and call all those guys.
Us today. Yeah, have a chat with them.
I'm the same with my ex businesspartner like we he's just called
me. Say catch up all the time.
Best mates, best thing I think is the best thing you can do
like for the sake of 20 grand tonot call someone that you fuck
me in. That guy did 23 hour shifts
(05:45):
about six times like you get pretty tired.
Yeah man. Yeah, we were like we were going
home at 4 a.m. and back on side of 5:30 and yeah I lived off
macca's. So it like just in that Journey
where like where did you start pricing Lerner?
Yeah man for sure. So after that went to like Rizzi
stuff and because every Builder was building high and
architectures at fucking five and a half thousand square, they
(06:08):
were no Builders left on maintenance.
Yeah, so I just dawned every Hotel every property management
company in Queenstown and yeah, I was fortunate enough to get
did like one bathroom renovationfor a hotel, Indian guy can't
yeah best Indian climb of ever had man and you don't get many.
Um, he was, he was fantastic. Anyway, one bathroom and then
(06:28):
ended up doing 5 for him and hishotel.
Yeah, he offered me working Auckland and I was flying
between Auckland and Queenstown for about 18 months had like a
team of ten back on charge up inQueenstown throughout like
Brosnan and dominion and that I love sites.
So it's making good money there like turning over like 30 grand
a week, 35k a week, not profit Revenue.
Yeah yeah and loves this shit and then Auckland was good.
(06:49):
That's when I kind of started I just went hard on Ray White.
So Ray White Manor was my first big pitch and I remember at my
like I was just doing maintenance work, but man, I
knew nothing about pricing. I was I was my flat feet of them
was 50 bucks, an hour, 10% on materials, no vehicle charge,
nothing. And I I got up to like 50 to 60
(07:12):
jobs to do it any one time, and my average invoice job was like
100 bucks or something and I waslosing.
So, yeah, you look at your non-billable time like, you
know, you're efficiency now all the bills you've got to pay.
So yeah. Anyway, got there but pricing I
really, really got honed in on pricing.
When I left Queenstown I was in Auckland full-time and I
(07:34):
remember specifically my twin brothers a plumber and gas
fitter he was helping me for that.
A bathroom in the middle Bank, I'd prices bathroom cosmetic,
kind of renovation, six and a half Grand and I lost two grand
on it and I was What the fuk happened here so it made you dig
in, but that's when I was just doing four line, item zero
quotes, labor material, subs pngs, and I was at.
(07:54):
Nah, man, something's not addingup so, um, I don't know what I
did. I just started, I didn't see
anything online or anything, I just started putting every
single cost into a spreadsheet like labor site.
Visit, like how much time is it going to cost me to leave my
house and rims drive to Meadowbank just down the road?
Yeah, come back home price. It put that in one and a half
hours. I'm worth 70 bucks, an hour at
(08:14):
that time. Yeah, boom.
There we go. What's my first thing when I get
on site organized materials chatwith client or set up the
Builder, one and a half hours, 70 bucks an hour.
Go through step it out, job by job, demolition.
Remove shower, remove vanity remove heated Tower, remove
tiles, put rubbish and skip thattakes fucking time.
It's the breakdown, right? I come across all the time where
(08:35):
my how do you price the job in the whole sort of guess how long
it's gonna take me and then sortof work out the materials.
I'm like yeah. Like that isn't a system.
Yeah you need to know exactly what you To put into that job
and you need to associate per item, how long it's going to
take, you know, right? Yeah, for sure.
So, my thing, like I just really, really, really wanted to
(08:55):
dig into these jobs and find outevery single line item that I
could put into this job. And yes, at that time, I was
probably coming in like, 30% higher than any other Builder.
But when the client was seeing afucking 45 line and breakdown
for a 2000 dollar job, they werelike Jesus super detail and they
were just like, for me, it was just the cost was the cost.
(09:15):
Yeah. And the only things that could
budge on was margin or the amount of hours and I was like,
that's not too bad. Like you know, versus sending a
full lineup quote of 20 grand. They were like what is this made
up? So mean yeah, as soon as I
figured that out my win rate of projects went from like 30% to
like 60 and this is at the time when Auckland was kind of really
really busy. I think that's must have been
(09:37):
like 20 21. Yeah. 2018 to 2021 pretty coated
that's somewhere. Absolutely creamy its work.
So my best value jobs. Well, I under 50K.
Yeah. And that's where I was getting
like 30. 40% margins on jobs. Yeah.
For sure. Yeah.
And I just got super, super efficient at the, the process of
initial inquiry. So digital marketing creating
(09:59):
leads to like a generated, audience specific audience,
calling them up with them fucking like as quick as Uber.
Like I just want to be like I was just on Gmail 24/7.
Manchester response times on a fresh refresh.
Refresh. Yeah, call yeah, detail pricing
get photos off client. Detail pricing follow up 24
hours later. Yeah, that was my system for
(10:20):
like three years. And I remember in the, I just
remember in the first weekend, we launched like this digital
marketing ad, it was just me standing at my mate's house,
saying what services we offer? Yeah, we put 1,000 ad spin on
Facebook like in 2017. And I got like 45 leads and me
and Mike were literally sitting shout out my keys in Thailand.
Now best dude ever, the lead Guybest best trade League guy ever.
(10:43):
We were just sitting there getting Dopamine hit after
dopamine hit. Like we would sit there Saturday
night, 7 p.m. watching TV come and call them straight away and
people you guys selling drugs. Yeah.
On the side. Yeah we'll fix it.
Yeah so like I just I just like exhausted that process for like
(11:04):
three years. Yeah so it's kind of just
ingrained to me now and I'm not sitting here saying I'm the
world's best builder. That was not my forte.
I could still build and do maintenance shit and and still
build decks and do all that stuff.
But There were so many builders that didn't want to deal with
all that shit. I just got an absolute kickoff
today. Um and it was a dopamine, hit
getting the except that email. Yeah.
And turning a you preaching to the choir on a terrible
(11:26):
electrician but I loved quoting winning jobs selling you know,
winning new clients and stuff and and managing the guys stuff
like that. Actual electrical work, not
really my jam. But this, I mean, my twin
brother, for example, I mean, hehe's a plumber and guests for
them. He does, he wants to do nothing
else except go to work. Plugin.
(11:47):
Listen to crypto or UFC reviews and yeah, he's a main plumber.
Yeah, any he he doesn't want to talk to anyone.
That's some guys love the tools and yeah, that's cool.
You know, the name but we're alldifferent, right?
You know, I think I remember oneInstagram video.
I did it was like is kind of like three pillars within
construction and it's like finding your lane and mine is
definitely like the sales and negotiating.
Yeah and you've got the guys that just want to work and don't
(12:08):
deal with anything and then you've got the guys that love
chaos and they want to organize subbies, they want to organize
Builders. They want to be the big dick on
site. Yeah, order of around round.
Shift it like yeah. Find your lane man and just
double down. Yeah, I totally agree.
And yeah because coming back to it, obviously, I was saying
before the the way I found you. Yeah, as I've said it on on this
before but I'm constantly getting head up to help price
(12:31):
jobs or Price jobs for people and I was like is nobody doing
this and then yeah one of our members pointed me in your
direction. I was like thank fuck somebody's
actually doing it. That's been good.
Like it's been a cool evolution of just finding a skill and
finding something that I'm good at finding a way to like
advertise. It promoter make it kind of fun
(12:53):
and interesting as best I can. And then just showcasing my
skills through, like not direct sales, like all I'm doing is
just putting out what I'm good at like becoming a thought
leader in my space and I'm not even like at the top of the
food. That's what makes people dig
into your content. Yeah.
And figure out what you do and Iwas the same, I went down a bit
of a rabbit hole. I was like, what's this guy all
about? Yeah.
And that was another reason. Nice to come on because I was
(13:16):
really interested in the other side of what you're doing, which
is kind of whistleblowing. He blew a fucking around with
price in and particularly the councils.
Love it there. So, what have you had?
Like, obviously you've gone on agunman at them a little bit to
expose the bloated pricing. Yeah.
Have they come back here at all now and I've sit here, everyone
like, I'm just waiting for them to and this is how I see it.
(13:39):
Like, I'm just putting my opinion out there.
Yeah. And if I can ruffle some
feathers, I'm just literally, ifthese guys are right, and
they're better than me. Just come back and prove me
wrong. Yeah, tell me.
Show me the sheets. Just show me.
Show me your prices. It's show me that you've had no
response. That's wild, man.
I really want to hone in on it, but I'm just, I'm kind of
getting to the point where it's like, well I can just keep doing
(14:00):
this and keep roasting you guys.But I mean, this one guy Darren
toy bro, biggest pussy I've evermet.
Yeah, if I was in my 40s and I saw some young 30 year, old guy
ripping into me on tiktok and Instagram, I'd be making it my
absolute Vendetta to get back atthe store.
Yeah. Run.
Shut them down. Yeah, I called him the other day
and Brendan entered a sick video.
We just like I was just point blank.
(14:20):
I saw it. I saw the beginning of that.
Yeah, I was just point blank asking him.
Hey man, do you know the cost ofthis?
He's like I can't comment on that right now.
And who is this guy? Apparently like the cool thing.
Now about with a little bit of an audience is I'm just getting
sent so much information information from the public.
Yeah, Wicked. So I had no clue who was in
charge of this project and he was the construction manager for
(14:42):
this project. Yeah.
Yeah. I keep calling or I get put on
hold, I will try get through them.
Nothing. Sent him an email like every day
for about two weeks. Yeah, and then I keep
screenshotting it. Putting it on Instagram, making
a poll, will Darren reply? All the shit, never replied.
And someone on tiktok said, you owe me a beer.
I've got his personal number here, but oh, baby doll told
(15:03):
Brendan fire up the phone. First, phone picks up.
Hey, it's Darren here. Oh, and I'm sure you exactly who
I was. But anyway, called him and I was
just being real like respectful.As I said, hey man, I just want
to know the numbers. Like, you know, essentially
you're a government employee, you work for the people tell me
the cost and he didn't want to give the cost and I said to him,
I said, Darren all I need is a ballpark figure.
(15:24):
Just tell me what it costs like I'm building a house right now
and I roughly know it cost me $384,000 752 dollars man.
Yeah tell me whether it's 450 or250.
That's what I need to know. Yeah.
And when he said I couldn't do it four times and we put up the
tally counter one to say you're a pussy.
Yeah yeah just give me the number pedaling like politician.
Yeah so yeah. 630 Grand for these container homes absolute
(15:46):
joke. Like I've already price some of
these jobs like and they're trying to say that the earth
works with the biggest cost, don't fucking give me that shit.
I paid for a Geotech and wanganui.
He's 1900 bucks. Funny story with king or I did a
big job for him a few years back.
I think it was a 45 Apartment project over three blocks first
one on price for king or a Anyway, they sent me a schedule
(16:11):
or materials telling me what I'dsell them product her and I was
like and doing that. So I just prise it with all my
own products back to Warner. And in the contract all the
subcontractor agreement, it's set in there.
That will be absolutely no variations on the project.
I think we started out and it was maybe a four or five on 500
Grand project and we did 200,000with variations on them.
(16:35):
Point B, in it seems like nobodyknows what's going on over the,
you know what I mean? It's just hard.
Like, I don't know. Like it's, I can't sit here and
say, I know that, like, as I don't know their process inside
and out, but I just can't like, you would think That it's with
all the red tape, and building processes and systems.
And sign offs that it would be super transparent, but it just
(16:59):
seems like they're getting away with all fucking smoke mirrors
and our Industries full of it. And I'm always trying to myth
boss this shirt which is why I appreciate what you what you're
trying to do as well. It's just so bad.
Like, when I'm Dunkin' is podcast last week and he
actually asked me a question. He's like, so you're actually
helping the consumer. Make more money or save money as
like damn this is kind of going against our audience because I
(17:19):
want Builders to make more moneyto the consumer.
Yeah, but like, we're not look when I rephrase that question.
I was like, man, we actually arehelping the consumer save money
in the building to make more money because the average
consumer could be getting absolutely fleece by these top,
Builders? Okay, let's just saying Aura,
they're just facing everyone. Yeah.
But we're actually coming in with like, transparent pricing
the Builder to make enough moneyso they can run a profitable
(17:42):
business. Yeah.
Because if they're not profitable, they're not even
gonna be there to do your work. Exactly.
And if Builders don't make money, we've got no one to build
shit and the homeowner can't do their fucking Urgent.
But the transparency is the K. And obviously, it's a bit of an
idealism, but if we can put transparency back into the
construction industry, build that trust with the consumers,
again, everyone can charge a fair price.
(18:05):
Nobody's undercut in, you know, all this kind of thing, and it's
just gonna make our industry stronger going forward.
You know what I mean? And the other thing I was gonna
ask you is what's so obviously, you're essentially taking the
dog work out, a price and jobs for Builders plumbers back east
and what's driving your sales, what why are people coming to
(18:27):
you rather than price at themselves man?
It's yeah a few points. Good question.
I think like when I remember I was tenor for some townhouses
like second year business and Auckland and I was doing a job
for classic developments reachedout to a ques in Christchurch
and they didn't get back to me for like two weeks.
Yes, let's go on here. Like I was like, I was like,
(18:48):
man, I'm just a builder. I just want to get a price like,
you're running a service and I was this is when I was peak time
of calling leads within five minutes.
Yeah, and I was like cool. So I'm a service based business
owner. I'm calling clients back as
quick as I can and then I'm trying to hire this service and
they won't even call me back. So, what is going on?
So one thing I was just like speed.
So the first thing when I created my Facebook page was no
(19:08):
more four week bulshit turnaround times.
Yeah. And I was like, I think tradies
will like that, because they'll be like, okay, cool.
Like this guy's gonna get back to us and turn the job around.
And then I think transparency, like the second thing when I was
doing my building stuff. I never knew how much to charge
like and I first started doing work for Ray White.
It was 50 bucks an hour and I had no clue.
That hire a hubby was charging 120.
(19:29):
Yeah, yeah. Oh shit, man.
Nobody tells you that I'm fine now or ask him, you know?
I didn't know. So then the second thing is when
we started building our social media platform, as I just wanted
to let people know what the rough charges were like.
And now, I get so many young guys, or anyone older guys, like
whoever How much should we be charging for this?
Are we on par with this? I've got so much work.
(19:51):
At the moment. What should I be doing?
Put your prices up. If you've got no work, drop your
prices a little bit. Do what you can do to get
through your slow period. Then when you're busy again, you
can stop when your prices up. Yeah, I don't know, man.
Um, and also our mindset at rapid qss is I don't want to be
seen to be overcharging people. I just want to make 20% margin
on 1000 jobs, rather than 200% margin on 10 jobs.
Yeah, I'm not trying to fleece people.
(20:12):
I want people to be like this, for a fair, that's exactly, man.
I would way rather have a 90 to 95% return of value like return
of customer, right? Then this guy's like, oh Jesus,
we ever paid for this guy not gonna go back to him, so yeah,
yeah. Because I what I'm interested in
is if it's the same for you particularly in the construction
(20:32):
on a space. Mine's drip.
Like when people come to me for help quote in a lot of its time
driven, you know, time to. But a lot of that is because
they don't know how to do it or they're not confident.
You finding that with Builders and stuff too.
I'd say 70/30 time versus skill,every Builder out, there is a
better price of me every Builderout there in New Zealand is
(20:54):
knows their business, better than me tenfold.
Yeah, they don't know, they don't know, I don't know how to
price better than them for theirown business.
They know what their, they know,how fast their boys are.
They know who they're quick, guys are their slow, guys, are
they know what their rep? Charges them to deliver a door
at last minute notice. I don't know that shit.
Yeah, I think it's more the timeI'd say 80/20 80%.
So this Builder just before said, hey man, I'm the in-house
(21:17):
cues. I've just had three sets of
plans come across a desk. They kind of want tenders
closing by next Friday. I need help.
And I was like cool man and I said to him, this is what you
should be doing. Like you should be using a cue
in external contract cues. If you've got an in-house cues,
paying them, 100 Grand a year. Respectfully, fire them use us
as a contract cues, you're only paying for what you do, and then
(21:38):
it's contract price and you as the cues director of the
business, you only deal with thejobs that get accepted from the
85%, what we do? Yeah, so if I quote through job,
three jobs for you, one of your clients comes back and says, one
out of the three comes back and says cool happy to go here.
What's the next step? Hey mate.
Next step is I just need to charge a 2000 dollar bike,
commitment fee, cover the cues and then you've got a locked in
(22:00):
job. Yes, you've still spent 2000 and
2000 on the other que es reportsbut you've just invested six
grand to secure. One million dollar new build.
Yeah, but if you climb back to grandmother that as well as you
saying me, a hell of a lot cheaper than that. 100 Grand a
year as a, That's it man. So the way I look at it as like
if we're pricing and prime example, this one guy Gus and
Christchurch absolute G-Man. He's been with us.
(22:21):
Me and the league guy for two years and he was just doing
maybe, I don't know, 40 Grand a month of bathrooms and dicks and
all that shit. Last 18 months we've quoted 6.5
million with the work and he secured 2.1.
So 30 3031 percent, something like that.
Yeah, cream in it, bro. And now like he invests 50k in a
year into advertising and leads 50k a year to me to do all this
(22:42):
pricing full-time. Yeah.
And so 100 Grand a year to turn over 2.2 at 30% profit.
That'll be getting him a lot further than what he was doing.
I am, I was like, I was like youshow me.
Show me how those numbers aren'tgood.
Yeah. Like 100,000 dollar investment
to potentially make 400 to 500 and he's not doing any lead
generation or any pricing. That's not just a system man.
(23:03):
But it takes it just takes ballsto do that kind of stuff.
So with, I think with Builders where are they learning to
price, is that are they you know, standing offers a builder
on the tools then go into the offices of project manager then
get an Enterprise or yeah. Well that's the thing man.
Like in in BCI town in our apprenticeship things there's no
(23:25):
schedules modules no training packs on pricing, how to clean
GST, how to charge for variationFinance.
Nothing So yeah, nothing man, I think there might be two ways.
I first start learning a pricingjust by Wow, I just wanted to
make a heap of money, man, you but you're definitely the type
of person or just run out something and figure it out, you
(23:46):
know what I mean? And I think I just learned 10
times faster because it was my money on the table.
Yeah, I was like oh damn, I don't like losing money.
Yeah, no, I like yeah. Um I think they yeah, Tina for
their own project. Maybe they're working for their
boss and their boss, gives them an opportunity to start like
tailoring up some quotes. Hey mate, this little bathroom
jobs come. And do you want to take half a
(24:07):
day off? And he is roughly how we charge
in our company. That's a good way for like
foremans to get going or you know, force your apprentices
guys have just been qualified, maybe they can start doing some
pricing but good question, man. I don't know what anyone because
that that was my path. I went, you know, like Foreman
project manager for a site and then the big site that I was
looking after had existing houses and stuff on it as well.
(24:28):
So I'd start price in the littlejobs and from there into price
in projects, but you've done theproject management side as well,
so you've got an understanding. Yeah.
But in our industry, the issue as you've got great Electric
Don't get me wrong on the tools and they just can't start a
business. They don't even know what gsts.
They've never priced a job. You don't know what people
charge so I think In New Zealand.
(24:50):
I think the entry bar to set up a business is too love.
I think you should have to do some kind of foundation Business
course. I think that should be built
into the cost of setting up a business.
Yeah, just to filter out some ofthe shit.
Yeah, you know. Um, yeah, it's good and, and
maybe that's part of a good timeof having like somewhat, a quiet
(25:11):
period now, because it will filter out a lot of the people
that aren't good operators. Play the dead would outright.
We've just had such a good period for a long time, like we.
Yeah, and I'm not gonna sit hereand say, oh yeah, man, I just
got it when it was creamy like Iwas still doing Bakersfield when
it was starting to like really, really drop off.
Yeah, I was only winning maybe four out of 20 jobs.
Yeah, it was getting hard. Yeah, definitely getting hard
but Yeah, I don't know, I think it, it's good.
(25:33):
Good for everyone to go through some some tough shit, but like
my last year of business, like we'd have really well like yeah.
But to make that happen, I thinkI'd probably something in the
region or well, me, I'm a business.
Yeah, I think we'd price like 13, 14 million dollars worth of
work for that year. Just to win what we want.
You know what you want? Probably 1.5.
(25:55):
Yeah. You know what I mean?
So, the percentage is actually open, right?
But we have that we had to do it, you know what I mean?
And that was all. So a bit of a learning curve for
me, on really cherry picking outof the bigger commercial jobs.
All the, you know, larger jobs, what I would go for, and doing
as much due diligence, digging as I can to find out whose
actually price in a. Because if you're going up
(26:17):
against big boys, you cannot match their price in because
they're just buying ship way cheaper than you.
You know, I agree. I am fucking interesting.
So what some, what's next on thecards for you?
Because you've also got the podcast which is starting to
take off. So yeah man.
Just enjoying the journey. Like at the moment, we're going
through like a bit of a full internal restructure of how
we're just running the operations of the business.
(26:39):
So like my Australian business partner of that is helping set
up the same kind of structure and New Zealand in the UK.
Yeah, at the moment, man, like the goal for the next two years
is, we've got some pretty hefty targets.
We want to hit across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
So, for me, man, it's purely just a HEPA travel.
I want to do another 50 to 60 podcast and then the next like
(27:00):
18 months, I'd say, yeah. Traveling podcast, go, meet guys
be seen on site. We're just trying to eliminate
our competition by these seen onsite, with guys, talking the
day-to-day, I want to build the best.
Transparent cues and platform that we can for Builders.
I would love to do a shitload more work on our newsletter and
put more stuff out there. It's just time at the moment.
Podcasts are good. The business is good.
(27:22):
I play a shitload of tennis. I love tennis know you married.
You got kids, I got a partner, no kids yet but I definitely
want to hit that in the next, probably two to three years.
Yeah, I want to get it going. I'm very close to my twin
brother and he's about to have his first baby, this one.
So you want to similar, I kind of want to yeah, play the 30th
time frame and all. I'm just digging into personally
(27:42):
like, how do you deal with all the travel busy, busy lifestyle,
running in the business. Like, does that put stress on
your relationship? How how's all that side of?
Yeah, it's it's differently. It's definitely hard.
I personally love chaos. So I love being busy.
I get Kevin fever. Super quick Partners.
Awesome man. She's super supportive of the
whole thing, so she believes in it.
(28:03):
Yeah, yeah, she loves it. So she, she quit her job and she
finishes up in two weeks. She'll come to the UK with me in
the next month. And we'll be based what I want
to do is be based in the middle of the world for the next 18
months purely. So I can get to either New
Zealand or the UK within nine hours.
Yeah. That's kind of my thing
overnight flight. Wake up in a new place.
Yeah, the podcasts are differently.
(28:24):
The most I'm not going to sugarcoat it.
They are draining running. Your own podcast is draining the
Australian two week. One, we've done.
I've probably done it five times.
Now, is this just going around having all the conversation?
It's like last one. We did end of March flew back
from the UK and yeah, overnight next day.
And then we I think we did 60 episodes and five days.
(28:44):
Oh, yeah. And then that's tiring man.
Because they're not setting downthe studio.
It's like rocking up to cite first time client sitting up,
obviously, all the camera stuff,whatever.
It's just it's just training andthen you every time you get off
a podcast back in the car you were like cleaning out your
inbox replying to miss calls doing as much as you can try to
keep up with the general day andI flew back to Auckland like 1
(29:06):
p.m. 1 a.m. on a Friday night. I think I woke up at like 2 p.m.
the next day. Went out food went for like a
light cardio, whatever went backhome 6 PM sleeping like 16 hours
sleep. Yeah yeah.
So it's hard but um I just I want to I want to look back when
I'm like 50 or 60 and be like, fuck I went.
Oh so fucking hard. Yeah, yeah, sitting pretty.
(29:28):
I try to man. So and I think whenever you've
got like a good opportunity for any any Builder, like even a
young guy that's got an opportunity to run a project for
his boss. Yeah, fucking take it on the
chin and don't sit there and think, oh, should I need more
money? And I should be getting just do
the job first, prove yourself. And then that's rewarding.
Just sit there and be like, because eventually if you keep
(29:49):
doing good things and Performing, you'll get what
you're wrote. I think one thing for them, for
the younger guys who've maybe got these opportunities as well.
Like the expert, the opportunityto get that experience is yeah,
man, like worth so much more than the extra fucking dollar of
an hour. We gonna get a whatever, you
know, and you've just gotta fakeit until you make it.
(30:09):
Yeah, prime example here. Yeah.
We've so for the UK stuff we went over there me and Brennan
went over. We launched we never did shots
and tick tocks. Did a funny one outside Big Ben
and all this shit. Yeah.
Anyway our stats are real funny.So we've generated like 250
leads maybe cost 2000 dollars. Yeah, we've closed like 35 jobs
but worked for ten clients. Yeah, I think so.
(30:29):
The funny thing is, the first sort of jobs I was doing work
for. We were charging like 90 pounds
to do a job. But so my reason for doing that
was obviously foot in the door, I've got no emotional, right?
Yeah, I've got no clout. I've got no experience.
No reputation in the UK. Yeah, so one client, we did a
job for 90 pounds. Turn it around and like six
(30:50):
hours, small little Foundation job.
I did it. I mean, in New Zealand shit,
that would take me maybe 20 minutes.
This one took me three hours trying to get to go.
Okay, Mark but now that guys, put two and a half hours and
pounds for us. Yeah.
And he's giving me three jobs a week.
Yeah. So yeah.
Just little things like that. Didn't want to try and REM up
front. Ask for more money up front.
I'll just do cheap. Get in the door.
Yeah, that's what I did with RayWhite.
(31:10):
Account back in the early days so model was just no fucking
vehicle charge. No materials on shit.
Yeah, making no money, but I remember, I'm pretty sure we
must have tuned out. Maybe 50 or 70 K with the
maintenance work and maybe two years.
Yeah, but my metrics. There were.
If I do every 20 jobs that I didfor them, I'd get offered to
quote a 30,000 or 40,000 bathroom or kitchen.
(31:31):
Yeah, so pay for itself. Would like the big projects
coming up. Sign the back.
I never turned down a small job man.
Never ever, ever turned down a small job.
Ever never know. No hear a lot of people say that
like particularly, you know, it's quite tough out there at
the minute and a lot of the local spark is I'm like how to
keep busy. How did you build your
reputation? Like, I never turned down a job
(31:52):
in my area. Yeah, you, yeah, I just think,
even if you're only charging 100or 150 dollars, just treat it
like, it's 100,000 job, man. Call them back fast.
Be presentable. Turn up to the job real.
Well, walk them through ask for a Google review and just say
thanks so much. Appreciate your business.
Yeah, yeah. Cool man.
(32:14):
I think last thing and if you got any advice for people out
there like young business owners, any advice from you
being a business, owner yourselfor pricing or whatever.
You got ya mate, I think right now it's kind of hard.
Obviously the Market's a little bit tough.
I think it's about to turn in the next three months and did
yesterday's OCR just drop. Yeah, another point five point
(32:35):
two five. I think it's positive.
I would try and you, I think I feel like now, there's no
excuses to kind of not win, or fight like to be failing,
because there's so much free shit out there.
Yeah. And I would use as many
Professionals, as you can. Like, get if you're trying to be
mean business owner, invest intolike becoming a bit of business
(32:56):
owner, go find someone like the professional builder, I've done
wonders for me, they're so good,educate yourself, educate
yourself, learn jump on YouTube,quit social media apps.
Stop getting on the piss and just like learn as much stuff as
you can. Yeah.
So many people will probably still, I don't know.
Rocking up to the pub for not a week like cut that shit out.
Yeah, or leave? That shit for.
Yeah, for the weekend? Yeah.
(33:17):
I'm just like honestly, man. I feel like there's no real
solid advice. I just think if you want to go
and get better at like, it's cool.
It's cool YouTube, man. Yeah, I have not paid.
I'm yeah, I'm pretty bad. I'm paid for a sense of
education and a while, but I might YouTube search history is
wild like anything. I want to learn YouTube and chat
GB team man, and you can get answers like off the office.
(33:40):
It's unbelievable. Like when I was a kid, just go
and pick out encyclopedia, you know.
Yeah. She go to the library and find
Books and stuff. So, yeah, no excuses to not win
now. And I think the funny thing is,
is when I think the market is about to turn and will soon.
See, who are the guys that have been sticking it out through the
tough time and those guys on theback end of this are going to be
(34:02):
fucking booming cool because youknow the running a tight ship.
Yeah they've got through it. So yeah.
And it will probably take like six to 12 months for all the
Cowboys to come back into the market.
Yeah. So they can cream it and make a
good. Have a good reputation in the
first front front end of a busy market.
So yeah, well, we'll see what happens in the meantime if
people want to get hold of you. Yeah.
(34:22):
How do they do that, Instagram, man.
Rapper cues or email me? David at rapper, qwest.com, we
aim to email everyone back with them half an hour quotes with
them for hours. That's kind of our business
model man. So, and your podcast is just
called rapid cues inside a chat,just go to YouTube rapper cues.
We've got heaps of stuff on there and our first 20 episodes
were just you know, guys that have been in business for more
(34:44):
than 20 years. Yeah.
And next 20 episodes are kind ofLike talking to more about
details cost, blowouts on jobs, we're Builders made money lost
money. So you actually have a plan of
what you're going to do on your profile.
I thought. Yeah, no.
We're still off the cuff, bro. We're still shooting shit but I
felt like we'd we'd done really well on talking to the guys at
the the top end of the industry and the guys that have been in
(35:06):
business for 20 plus years. Yeah.
And then I was like, let's focusmore on and this is purely me on
YouTube. Looking at like Grand designs
video. Yeah.
Half a million views. I want to get some of that.
Yeah. So um yeah we just went and next
style was Builders with jobs or either finished or in
construction or about to start. Yeah.
And we wanted to talk about eachprocess for each job so that's
what we did. Nice.
(35:27):
Yes I think we must be ten or 15through.
We'll do five more reevaluate see what everything's happening.
Yeah. See what's going on on the
market and then I'd love to do here go style next.
Next 10 Target. These cancel guys.
Roll around security. So any big boys over 100 gigs
out there? Yeah well I'll be watching that
(35:48):
Interesting. I think that's what we want to
do. Yeah, appreciate it man.
Cool. Thanks for coming on.
Thanks very much, bro. Awesome.
Cheers. Cheers.
Fire up the phone. First, phone picks up.
(00:01):
Hey, it's Darren here. Oh, and I'm sure you exactly who
I was. But anyway, call them, and I was
just been real like respectful as I say, hey man.
I just want to know the numbers like, you know, essentially
you're a government employee. You work for the people.
Tell me the cost. Well, listen mate.
(00:25):
Thanks for coming on, easy. Do you want to just start?
Tell us who you are. What you do better background.
Yeah man. Sweet.
So my name's David, I'm currently running rapid cues or
operating and New Zealand Australia in the UK.
So we do like pricing and estimating for builders and
contractors. Yeah man, I just came up through
the ranks trenches building apprenticeship did all my time
Residential Building, like whanganui Palmerston North moved
(00:48):
down, to Queenstown got involvedwith like the commercial space
there. I'm main big, first, lot of
work, was doing subcontracting to Dominion.
Yeah. Okay.
Her own company and we were doing the big came out there, so
we're building Precast panels and fuck.
That was horrible. I've done a Kmart.
Yeah, it was it was tough. But it was my first rotation of
like commercial deadlines and isjust like, that.
(01:10):
Didn't give a fuk what time of the day it is that I don't care
who you are. They'll say everything I need to
say to get what they need out ofyou which is just panels
delivered by a date and if you can't do it they'll just fuck
you off and get someone else. So yep.
A ruthless experience but we were quite lucky at that time.
There was a huge shortage of guys down there.
Yeah. The boom was massive.
And me and my mate Jake. We were like the only kind of
(01:33):
kiwi kids down there and Queenstown was just full of
Backpackers at that stage. Yeah.
And then my mate Jake had his lbpiece.
They loved us. And I essentially just looked
after all the like upcoming workdealing with the managers at
Dominion. So, you were project managing at
that, we had a guys working for us and it was like me and Jake
went 50/50 in a business. And we were just literally there
(01:55):
just to build panels. So we set up a Precast bid, but
we saved Dominion so much money because we were we kind of like
set up the bed came up with the idea to you know have a 600 off
the ground. A form play baseball during the
bottom, got some fucking gas heaters in there.
Get these panels what we're doing four panels and 30 the
process up. Yeah, otherwise they had to go
to Cromwell. Yeah.
(02:16):
I think it was like bellcroft fee for panels was going to be
like, I don't know, 50,000 a week or so huge.
So I know I'm blocking alone like 60 panels.
I'm pretty sure we saved them over 150k.
So they kind of loved us there. So we had a little bit of wiggle
room on like, some, what negotiating?
Yeah, anyway, we were essentially just on charge up
for 18 months, we kind of cleaned house made shitload of
(02:38):
money and then yeah, we just gotfinished and to putting in a
fixed price for blocks. Yeah, we got about 20% into the
block and we were like fuck man.Why are expenses like four times
as much as what's coming in? Yeah, we were like talking.
We did a beer with like the younger project manager, guy who
he thought was like our mate, and we're like brothers anyway,
(02:59):
like get us out of the contract and we quickly very quickly
realized how much he was in our mate, because he was probably
cutting on the deal a little bitas well.
From Dominion. So yeah, yeah.
Anyway, that's just commercial construction broth in that first
lockdown. I was doing constellation bus
station. Oh yeah.
Anyway, we went into the full lockdown first one Global
(03:20):
pandemic. I was getting bloody penalty
notices. Oh, the construction company
because the switchboard wasn't installed.
The company was Okay. Yeah but it's just I love
knowing that should I who was it?
The name is gone if it comes to you let me know.
Anyway cool. Yeah yeah.
I was like what? Fuck man.
(03:41):
Without rigid program shit? Yeah, that's horrible man.
So like that for me was good butthat's kind of what sparked
there's no. What's that rolls them?
Oh yeah, mine was yeah Dominion but Manson actually were fucking
good to me. They offered me a main gig down
there when I was doing before product Dominion, I went through
(04:01):
a recruitment company. Oh yeah, Bishop boys.
Those ones that racked up a massive debt.
Yeah. Spencer was actually good to me
at the time because he knew, youknow, I kind of helped find more
Backpackers get guys on the ground.
This is when I first went to Queenstown.
Yeah, it was Mainland time down there.
Anyway, Rosen were awesome to me, offered me a full-time job
but then my mate Jake, I got himdown through Spencer, Spencer
(04:21):
didn't pay my Jake and I was like very bitter pay, my mate,
Jake, he's a Golden Gloves boxer.
Like, whatever good at that. Game I made Jake and then I'll
Jake was like got offered this contract.
He was on the piss One Night in Queenstown met Jason the crazy
project manager for Dominion. Hey do you want to build these
fucking panels, right? Jake hit me up.
Hey bro you want to come do this?
Yep. Fucked off that.
(04:42):
Whatever. Anyway.
Um, good real, taste of commercial construction.
Yes, you can make a lot of money, no relationships.
I find and they just do not givea shit about time.
Totally price driven. Yeah, absolutely.
Totally pricey. We fucking, yeah, it was like a
200,000 dollar contract. I think we got about 40,000
dollars of the way in realize that bills were already like 65
(05:02):
Grand. Oh shit.
Close up, shop me and Jake splitwent.
He moved back up to one we say down in Queenstown he took all
the vehicles and assets and tookthe loss of 20K.
Yeah, 20, 25 K. I just walked away with nothing
like me and Jake is still made. So this day he's renovating my
house on so that was all I caredabout man.
I've done like three business Partnerships now, two to
(05:25):
building ones. One queue, missing.
I can hand over my heart, still sack and call all those guys.
Us today. Yeah, have a chat with them.
I'm the same with my ex businesspartner like we he's just called
me. Say catch up all the time.
Best mates, best thing I think is the best thing you can do
like for the sake of 20 grand tonot call someone that you fuck
me in. That guy did 23 hour shifts
(05:45):
about six times like you get pretty tired.
Yeah man. Yeah, we were like we were going
home at 4 a.m. and back on side of 5:30 and yeah I lived off
macca's. So it like just in that Journey
where like where did you start pricing Lerner?
Yeah man for sure. So after that went to like Rizzi
stuff and because every Builder was building high and
architectures at fucking five and a half thousand square, they
(06:08):
were no Builders left on maintenance.
Yeah, so I just dawned every Hotel every property management
company in Queenstown and yeah, I was fortunate enough to get
did like one bathroom renovationfor a hotel, Indian guy can't
yeah best Indian climb of ever had man and you don't get many.
Um, he was, he was fantastic. Anyway, one bathroom and then
(06:28):
ended up doing 5 for him and hishotel.
Yeah, he offered me working Auckland and I was flying
between Auckland and Queenstown for about 18 months had like a
team of ten back on charge up inQueenstown throughout like
Brosnan and dominion and that I love sites.
So it's making good money there like turning over like 30 grand
a week, 35k a week, not profit Revenue.
Yeah yeah and loves this shit and then Auckland was good.
(06:49):
That's when I kind of started I just went hard on Ray White.
So Ray White Manor was my first big pitch and I remember at my
like I was just doing maintenance work, but man, I
knew nothing about pricing. I was I was my flat feet of them
was 50 bucks, an hour, 10% on materials, no vehicle charge,
nothing. And I I got up to like 50 to 60
(07:12):
jobs to do it any one time, and my average invoice job was like
100 bucks or something and I waslosing.
So, yeah, you look at your non-billable time like, you
know, you're efficiency now all the bills you've got to pay.
So yeah. Anyway, got there but pricing I
really, really got honed in on pricing.
When I left Queenstown I was in Auckland full-time and I
(07:34):
remember specifically my twin brothers a plumber and gas
fitter he was helping me for that.
A bathroom in the middle Bank, I'd prices bathroom cosmetic,
kind of renovation, six and a half Grand and I lost two grand
on it and I was What the fuk happened here so it made you dig
in, but that's when I was just doing four line, item zero
quotes, labor material, subs pngs, and I was at.
(07:54):
Nah, man, something's not addingup so, um, I don't know what I
did. I just started, I didn't see
anything online or anything, I just started putting every
single cost into a spreadsheet like labor site.
Visit, like how much time is it going to cost me to leave my
house and rims drive to Meadowbank just down the road?
Yeah, come back home price. It put that in one and a half
hours. I'm worth 70 bucks, an hour at
(08:14):
that time. Yeah, boom.
There we go. What's my first thing when I get
on site organized materials chatwith client or set up the
Builder, one and a half hours, 70 bucks an hour.
Go through step it out, job by job, demolition.
Remove shower, remove vanity remove heated Tower, remove
tiles, put rubbish and skip thattakes fucking time.
It's the breakdown, right? I come across all the time where
(08:35):
my how do you price the job in the whole sort of guess how long
it's gonna take me and then sortof work out the materials.
I'm like yeah. Like that isn't a system.
Yeah you need to know exactly what you To put into that job
and you need to associate per item, how long it's going to
take, you know, right? Yeah, for sure.
So, my thing, like I just really, really, really wanted to
(08:55):
dig into these jobs and find outevery single line item that I
could put into this job. And yes, at that time, I was
probably coming in like, 30% higher than any other Builder.
But when the client was seeing afucking 45 line and breakdown
for a 2000 dollar job, they werelike Jesus super detail and they
were just like, for me, it was just the cost was the cost.
(09:15):
Yeah. And the only things that could
budge on was margin or the amount of hours and I was like,
that's not too bad. Like you know, versus sending a
full lineup quote of 20 grand. They were like what is this made
up? So mean yeah, as soon as I
figured that out my win rate of projects went from like 30% to
like 60 and this is at the time when Auckland was kind of really
really busy. I think that's must have been
(09:37):
like 20 21. Yeah. 2018 to 2021 pretty coated
that's somewhere. Absolutely creamy its work.
So my best value jobs. Well, I under 50K.
Yeah. And that's where I was getting
like 30. 40% margins on jobs. Yeah.
For sure. Yeah.
And I just got super, super efficient at the, the process of
initial inquiry. So digital marketing creating
(09:59):
leads to like a generated, audience specific audience,
calling them up with them fucking like as quick as Uber.
Like I just want to be like I was just on Gmail 24/7.
Manchester response times on a fresh refresh.
Refresh. Yeah, call yeah, detail pricing
get photos off client. Detail pricing follow up 24
hours later. Yeah, that was my system for
(10:20):
like three years. And I remember in the, I just
remember in the first weekend, we launched like this digital
marketing ad, it was just me standing at my mate's house,
saying what services we offer? Yeah, we put 1,000 ad spin on
Facebook like in 2017. And I got like 45 leads and me
and Mike were literally sitting shout out my keys in Thailand.
Now best dude ever, the lead Guybest best trade League guy ever.
(10:43):
We were just sitting there getting Dopamine hit after
dopamine hit. Like we would sit there Saturday
night, 7 p.m. watching TV come and call them straight away and
people you guys selling drugs. Yeah.
On the side. Yeah we'll fix it.
Yeah so like I just I just like exhausted that process for like
(11:04):
three years. Yeah so it's kind of just
ingrained to me now and I'm not sitting here saying I'm the
world's best builder. That was not my forte.
I could still build and do maintenance shit and and still
build decks and do all that stuff.
But There were so many builders that didn't want to deal with
all that shit. I just got an absolute kickoff
today. Um and it was a dopamine, hit
getting the except that email. Yeah.
And turning a you preaching to the choir on a terrible
(11:26):
electrician but I loved quoting winning jobs selling you know,
winning new clients and stuff and and managing the guys stuff
like that. Actual electrical work, not
really my jam. But this, I mean, my twin
brother, for example, I mean, hehe's a plumber and guests for
them. He does, he wants to do nothing
else except go to work. Plugin.
(11:47):
Listen to crypto or UFC reviews and yeah, he's a main plumber.
Yeah, any he he doesn't want to talk to anyone.
That's some guys love the tools and yeah, that's cool.
You know, the name but we're alldifferent, right?
You know, I think I remember oneInstagram video.
I did it was like is kind of like three pillars within
construction and it's like finding your lane and mine is
definitely like the sales and negotiating.
Yeah and you've got the guys that just want to work and don't
(12:08):
deal with anything and then you've got the guys that love
chaos and they want to organize subbies, they want to organize
Builders. They want to be the big dick on
site. Yeah, order of around round.
Shift it like yeah. Find your lane man and just
double down. Yeah, I totally agree.
And yeah because coming back to it, obviously, I was saying
before the the way I found you. Yeah, as I've said it on on this
before but I'm constantly getting head up to help price
(12:31):
jobs or Price jobs for people and I was like is nobody doing
this and then yeah one of our members pointed me in your
direction. I was like thank fuck somebody's
actually doing it. That's been good.
Like it's been a cool evolution of just finding a skill and
finding something that I'm good at finding a way to like
advertise. It promoter make it kind of fun
(12:53):
and interesting as best I can. And then just showcasing my
skills through, like not direct sales, like all I'm doing is
just putting out what I'm good at like becoming a thought
leader in my space and I'm not even like at the top of the
food. That's what makes people dig
into your content. Yeah.
And figure out what you do and Iwas the same, I went down a bit
of a rabbit hole. I was like, what's this guy all
about? Yeah.
And that was another reason. Nice to come on because I was
(13:16):
really interested in the other side of what you're doing, which
is kind of whistleblowing. He blew a fucking around with
price in and particularly the councils.
Love it there. So, what have you had?
Like, obviously you've gone on agunman at them a little bit to
expose the bloated pricing. Yeah.
Have they come back here at all now and I've sit here, everyone
like, I'm just waiting for them to and this is how I see it.
(13:39):
Like, I'm just putting my opinion out there.
Yeah. And if I can ruffle some
feathers, I'm just literally, ifthese guys are right, and
they're better than me. Just come back and prove me
wrong. Yeah, tell me.
Show me the sheets. Just show me.
Show me your prices. It's show me that you've had no
response. That's wild, man.
I really want to hone in on it, but I'm just, I'm kind of
getting to the point where it's like, well I can just keep doing
(14:00):
this and keep roasting you guys.But I mean, this one guy Darren
toy bro, biggest pussy I've evermet.
Yeah, if I was in my 40s and I saw some young 30 year, old guy
ripping into me on tiktok and Instagram, I'd be making it my
absolute Vendetta to get back atthe store.
Yeah. Run.
Shut them down. Yeah, I called him the other day
and Brendan entered a sick video.
We just like I was just point blank.
(14:20):
I saw it. I saw the beginning of that.
Yeah, I was just point blank asking him.
Hey man, do you know the cost ofthis?
He's like I can't comment on that right now.
And who is this guy? Apparently like the cool thing.
Now about with a little bit of an audience is I'm just getting
sent so much information information from the public.
Yeah, Wicked. So I had no clue who was in
charge of this project and he was the construction manager for
(14:42):
this project. Yeah.
Yeah. I keep calling or I get put on
hold, I will try get through them.
Nothing. Sent him an email like every day
for about two weeks. Yeah, and then I keep
screenshotting it. Putting it on Instagram, making
a poll, will Darren reply? All the shit, never replied.
And someone on tiktok said, you owe me a beer.
I've got his personal number here, but oh, baby doll told
(15:03):
Brendan fire up the phone. First, phone picks up.
Hey, it's Darren here. Oh, and I'm sure you exactly who
I was. But anyway, called him and I was
just being real like respectful.As I said, hey man, I just want
to know the numbers. Like, you know, essentially
you're a government employee, you work for the people tell me
the cost and he didn't want to give the cost and I said to him,
I said, Darren all I need is a ballpark figure.
(15:24):
Just tell me what it costs like I'm building a house right now
and I roughly know it cost me $384,000 752 dollars man.
Yeah tell me whether it's 450 or250.
That's what I need to know. Yeah.
And when he said I couldn't do it four times and we put up the
tally counter one to say you're a pussy.
Yeah yeah just give me the number pedaling like politician.
Yeah so yeah. 630 Grand for these container homes absolute
(15:46):
joke. Like I've already price some of
these jobs like and they're trying to say that the earth
works with the biggest cost, don't fucking give me that shit.
I paid for a Geotech and wanganui.
He's 1900 bucks. Funny story with king or I did a
big job for him a few years back.
I think it was a 45 Apartment project over three blocks first
one on price for king or a Anyway, they sent me a schedule
(16:11):
or materials telling me what I'dsell them product her and I was
like and doing that. So I just prise it with all my
own products back to Warner. And in the contract all the
subcontractor agreement, it's set in there.
That will be absolutely no variations on the project.
I think we started out and it was maybe a four or five on 500
Grand project and we did 200,000with variations on them.
(16:35):
Point B, in it seems like nobodyknows what's going on over the,
you know what I mean? It's just hard.
Like, I don't know. Like it's, I can't sit here and
say, I know that, like, as I don't know their process inside
and out, but I just can't like, you would think That it's with
all the red tape, and building processes and systems.
And sign offs that it would be super transparent, but it just
(16:59):
seems like they're getting away with all fucking smoke mirrors
and our Industries full of it. And I'm always trying to myth
boss this shirt which is why I appreciate what you what you're
trying to do as well. It's just so bad.
Like, when I'm Dunkin' is podcast last week and he
actually asked me a question. He's like, so you're actually
helping the consumer. Make more money or save money as
like damn this is kind of going against our audience because I
(17:19):
want Builders to make more moneyto the consumer.
Yeah, but like, we're not look when I rephrase that question.
I was like, man, we actually arehelping the consumer save money
in the building to make more money because the average
consumer could be getting absolutely fleece by these top,
Builders? Okay, let's just saying Aura,
they're just facing everyone. Yeah.
But we're actually coming in with like, transparent pricing
the Builder to make enough moneyso they can run a profitable
(17:42):
business. Yeah.
Because if they're not profitable, they're not even
gonna be there to do your work. Exactly.
And if Builders don't make money, we've got no one to build
shit and the homeowner can't do their fucking Urgent.
But the transparency is the K. And obviously, it's a bit of an
idealism, but if we can put transparency back into the
construction industry, build that trust with the consumers,
again, everyone can charge a fair price.
(18:05):
Nobody's undercut in, you know, all this kind of thing, and it's
just gonna make our industry stronger going forward.
You know what I mean? And the other thing I was gonna
ask you is what's so obviously, you're essentially taking the
dog work out, a price and jobs for Builders plumbers back east
and what's driving your sales, what why are people coming to
(18:27):
you rather than price at themselves man?
It's yeah a few points. Good question.
I think like when I remember I was tenor for some townhouses
like second year business and Auckland and I was doing a job
for classic developments reachedout to a ques in Christchurch
and they didn't get back to me for like two weeks.
Yes, let's go on here. Like I was like, I was like,
(18:48):
man, I'm just a builder. I just want to get a price like,
you're running a service and I was this is when I was peak time
of calling leads within five minutes.
Yeah, and I was like cool. So I'm a service based business
owner. I'm calling clients back as
quick as I can and then I'm trying to hire this service and
they won't even call me back. So, what is going on?
So one thing I was just like speed.
So the first thing when I created my Facebook page was no
(19:08):
more four week bulshit turnaround times.
Yeah. And I was like, I think tradies
will like that, because they'll be like, okay, cool.
Like this guy's gonna get back to us and turn the job around.
And then I think transparency, like the second thing when I was
doing my building stuff. I never knew how much to charge
like and I first started doing work for Ray White.
It was 50 bucks an hour and I had no clue.
That hire a hubby was charging 120.
(19:29):
Yeah, yeah. Oh shit, man.
Nobody tells you that I'm fine now or ask him, you know?
I didn't know. So then the second thing is when
we started building our social media platform, as I just wanted
to let people know what the rough charges were like.
And now, I get so many young guys, or anyone older guys, like
whoever How much should we be charging for this?
Are we on par with this? I've got so much work.
(19:51):
At the moment. What should I be doing?
Put your prices up. If you've got no work, drop your
prices a little bit. Do what you can do to get
through your slow period. Then when you're busy again, you
can stop when your prices up. Yeah, I don't know, man.
Um, and also our mindset at rapid qss is I don't want to be
seen to be overcharging people. I just want to make 20% margin
on 1000 jobs, rather than 200% margin on 10 jobs.
Yeah, I'm not trying to fleece people.
(20:12):
I want people to be like this, for a fair, that's exactly, man.
I would way rather have a 90 to 95% return of value like return
of customer, right? Then this guy's like, oh Jesus,
we ever paid for this guy not gonna go back to him, so yeah,
yeah. Because I what I'm interested in
is if it's the same for you particularly in the construction
(20:32):
on a space. Mine's drip.
Like when people come to me for help quote in a lot of its time
driven, you know, time to. But a lot of that is because
they don't know how to do it or they're not confident.
You finding that with Builders and stuff too.
I'd say 70/30 time versus skill,every Builder out, there is a
better price of me every Builderout there in New Zealand is
(20:54):
knows their business, better than me tenfold.
Yeah, they don't know, they don't know, I don't know how to
price better than them for theirown business.
They know what their, they know,how fast their boys are.
They know who they're quick, guys are their slow, guys, are
they know what their rep? Charges them to deliver a door
at last minute notice. I don't know that shit.
Yeah, I think it's more the timeI'd say 80/20 80%.
So this Builder just before said, hey man, I'm the in-house
(21:17):
cues. I've just had three sets of
plans come across a desk. They kind of want tenders
closing by next Friday. I need help.
And I was like cool man and I said to him, this is what you
should be doing. Like you should be using a cue
in external contract cues. If you've got an in-house cues,
paying them, 100 Grand a year. Respectfully, fire them use us
as a contract cues, you're only paying for what you do, and then
(21:38):
it's contract price and you as the cues director of the
business, you only deal with thejobs that get accepted from the
85%, what we do? Yeah, so if I quote through job,
three jobs for you, one of your clients comes back and says, one
out of the three comes back and says cool happy to go here.
What's the next step? Hey mate.
Next step is I just need to charge a 2000 dollar bike,
commitment fee, cover the cues and then you've got a locked in
(22:00):
job. Yes, you've still spent 2000 and
2000 on the other que es reportsbut you've just invested six
grand to secure. One million dollar new build.
Yeah, but if you climb back to grandmother that as well as you
saying me, a hell of a lot cheaper than that. 100 Grand a
year as a, That's it man. So the way I look at it as like
if we're pricing and prime example, this one guy Gus and
Christchurch absolute G-Man. He's been with us.
(22:21):
Me and the league guy for two years and he was just doing
maybe, I don't know, 40 Grand a month of bathrooms and dicks and
all that shit. Last 18 months we've quoted 6.5
million with the work and he secured 2.1.
So 30 3031 percent, something like that.
Yeah, cream in it, bro. And now like he invests 50k in a
year into advertising and leads 50k a year to me to do all this
(22:42):
pricing full-time. Yeah.
And so 100 Grand a year to turn over 2.2 at 30% profit.
That'll be getting him a lot further than what he was doing.
I am, I was like, I was like youshow me.
Show me how those numbers aren'tgood.
Yeah. Like 100,000 dollar investment
to potentially make 400 to 500 and he's not doing any lead
generation or any pricing. That's not just a system man.
(23:03):
But it takes it just takes ballsto do that kind of stuff.
So with, I think with Builders where are they learning to
price, is that are they you know, standing offers a builder
on the tools then go into the offices of project manager then
get an Enterprise or yeah. Well that's the thing man.
Like in in BCI town in our apprenticeship things there's no
(23:25):
schedules modules no training packs on pricing, how to clean
GST, how to charge for variationFinance.
Nothing So yeah, nothing man, I think there might be two ways.
I first start learning a pricingjust by Wow, I just wanted to
make a heap of money, man, you but you're definitely the type
of person or just run out something and figure it out, you
(23:46):
know what I mean? And I think I just learned 10
times faster because it was my money on the table.
Yeah, I was like oh damn, I don't like losing money.
Yeah, no, I like yeah. Um I think they yeah, Tina for
their own project. Maybe they're working for their
boss and their boss, gives them an opportunity to start like
tailoring up some quotes. Hey mate, this little bathroom
jobs come. And do you want to take half a
(24:07):
day off? And he is roughly how we charge
in our company. That's a good way for like
foremans to get going or you know, force your apprentices
guys have just been qualified, maybe they can start doing some
pricing but good question, man. I don't know what anyone because
that that was my path. I went, you know, like Foreman
project manager for a site and then the big site that I was
looking after had existing houses and stuff on it as well.
(24:28):
So I'd start price in the littlejobs and from there into price
in projects, but you've done theproject management side as well,
so you've got an understanding. Yeah.
But in our industry, the issue as you've got great Electric
Don't get me wrong on the tools and they just can't start a
business. They don't even know what gsts.
They've never priced a job. You don't know what people
charge so I think In New Zealand.
(24:50):
I think the entry bar to set up a business is too love.
I think you should have to do some kind of foundation Business
course. I think that should be built
into the cost of setting up a business.
Yeah, just to filter out some ofthe shit.
Yeah, you know. Um, yeah, it's good and, and
maybe that's part of a good timeof having like somewhat, a quiet
(25:11):
period now, because it will filter out a lot of the people
that aren't good operators. Play the dead would outright.
We've just had such a good period for a long time, like we.
Yeah, and I'm not gonna sit hereand say, oh yeah, man, I just
got it when it was creamy like Iwas still doing Bakersfield when
it was starting to like really, really drop off.
Yeah, I was only winning maybe four out of 20 jobs.
Yeah, it was getting hard. Yeah, definitely getting hard
but Yeah, I don't know, I think it, it's good.
(25:33):
Good for everyone to go through some some tough shit, but like
my last year of business, like we'd have really well like yeah.
But to make that happen, I thinkI'd probably something in the
region or well, me, I'm a business.
Yeah, I think we'd price like 13, 14 million dollars worth of
work for that year. Just to win what we want.
You know what you want? Probably 1.5.
(25:55):
Yeah. You know what I mean?
So, the percentage is actually open, right?
But we have that we had to do it, you know what I mean?
And that was all. So a bit of a learning curve for
me, on really cherry picking outof the bigger commercial jobs.
All the, you know, larger jobs, what I would go for, and doing
as much due diligence, digging as I can to find out whose
actually price in a. Because if you're going up
(26:17):
against big boys, you cannot match their price in because
they're just buying ship way cheaper than you.
You know, I agree. I am fucking interesting.
So what some, what's next on thecards for you?
Because you've also got the podcast which is starting to
take off. So yeah man.
Just enjoying the journey. Like at the moment, we're going
through like a bit of a full internal restructure of how
we're just running the operations of the business.
(26:39):
So like my Australian business partner of that is helping set
up the same kind of structure and New Zealand in the UK.
Yeah, at the moment, man, like the goal for the next two years
is, we've got some pretty hefty targets.
We want to hit across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
So, for me, man, it's purely just a HEPA travel.
I want to do another 50 to 60 podcast and then the next like
(27:00):
18 months, I'd say, yeah. Traveling podcast, go, meet guys
be seen on site. We're just trying to eliminate
our competition by these seen onsite, with guys, talking the
day-to-day, I want to build the best.
Transparent cues and platform that we can for Builders.
I would love to do a shitload more work on our newsletter and
put more stuff out there. It's just time at the moment.
Podcasts are good. The business is good.
(27:22):
I play a shitload of tennis. I love tennis know you married.
You got kids, I got a partner, no kids yet but I definitely
want to hit that in the next, probably two to three years.
Yeah, I want to get it going. I'm very close to my twin
brother and he's about to have his first baby, this one.
So you want to similar, I kind of want to yeah, play the 30th
time frame and all. I'm just digging into personally
(27:42):
like, how do you deal with all the travel busy, busy lifestyle,
running in the business. Like, does that put stress on
your relationship? How how's all that side of?
Yeah, it's it's differently. It's definitely hard.
I personally love chaos. So I love being busy.
I get Kevin fever. Super quick Partners.
Awesome man. She's super supportive of the
whole thing, so she believes in it.
(28:03):
Yeah, yeah, she loves it. So she, she quit her job and she
finishes up in two weeks. She'll come to the UK with me in
the next month. And we'll be based what I want
to do is be based in the middle of the world for the next 18
months purely. So I can get to either New
Zealand or the UK within nine hours.
Yeah. That's kind of my thing
overnight flight. Wake up in a new place.
Yeah, the podcasts are differently.
(28:24):
The most I'm not going to sugarcoat it.
They are draining running. Your own podcast is draining the
Australian two week. One, we've done.
I've probably done it five times.
Now, is this just going around having all the conversation?
It's like last one. We did end of March flew back
from the UK and yeah, overnight next day.
And then we I think we did 60 episodes and five days.
(28:44):
Oh, yeah. And then that's tiring man.
Because they're not setting downthe studio.
It's like rocking up to cite first time client sitting up,
obviously, all the camera stuff,whatever.
It's just it's just training andthen you every time you get off
a podcast back in the car you were like cleaning out your
inbox replying to miss calls doing as much as you can try to
keep up with the general day andI flew back to Auckland like 1
(29:06):
p.m. 1 a.m. on a Friday night. I think I woke up at like 2 p.m.
the next day. Went out food went for like a
light cardio, whatever went backhome 6 PM sleeping like 16 hours
sleep. Yeah yeah.
So it's hard but um I just I want to I want to look back when
I'm like 50 or 60 and be like, fuck I went.
Oh so fucking hard. Yeah, yeah, sitting pretty.
(29:28):
I try to man. So and I think whenever you've
got like a good opportunity for any any Builder, like even a
young guy that's got an opportunity to run a project for
his boss. Yeah, fucking take it on the
chin and don't sit there and think, oh, should I need more
money? And I should be getting just do
the job first, prove yourself. And then that's rewarding.
Just sit there and be like, because eventually if you keep
(29:49):
doing good things and Performing, you'll get what
you're wrote. I think one thing for them, for
the younger guys who've maybe got these opportunities as well.
Like the expert, the opportunityto get that experience is yeah,
man, like worth so much more than the extra fucking dollar of
an hour. We gonna get a whatever, you
know, and you've just gotta fakeit until you make it.
(30:09):
Yeah, prime example here. Yeah.
We've so for the UK stuff we went over there me and Brennan
went over. We launched we never did shots
and tick tocks. Did a funny one outside Big Ben
and all this shit. Yeah.
Anyway our stats are real funny.So we've generated like 250
leads maybe cost 2000 dollars. Yeah, we've closed like 35 jobs
but worked for ten clients. Yeah, I think so.
(30:29):
The funny thing is, the first sort of jobs I was doing work
for. We were charging like 90 pounds
to do a job. But so my reason for doing that
was obviously foot in the door, I've got no emotional, right?
Yeah, I've got no clout. I've got no experience.
No reputation in the UK. Yeah, so one client, we did a
job for 90 pounds. Turn it around and like six
(30:50):
hours, small little Foundation job.
I did it. I mean, in New Zealand shit,
that would take me maybe 20 minutes.
This one took me three hours trying to get to go.
Okay, Mark but now that guys, put two and a half hours and
pounds for us. Yeah.
And he's giving me three jobs a week.
Yeah. So yeah.
Just little things like that. Didn't want to try and REM up
front. Ask for more money up front.
I'll just do cheap. Get in the door.
Yeah, that's what I did with RayWhite.
(31:10):
Account back in the early days so model was just no fucking
vehicle charge. No materials on shit.
Yeah, making no money, but I remember, I'm pretty sure we
must have tuned out. Maybe 50 or 70 K with the
maintenance work and maybe two years.
Yeah, but my metrics. There were.
If I do every 20 jobs that I didfor them, I'd get offered to
quote a 30,000 or 40,000 bathroom or kitchen.
(31:31):
Yeah, so pay for itself. Would like the big projects
coming up. Sign the back.
I never turned down a small job man.
Never ever, ever turned down a small job.
Ever never know. No hear a lot of people say that
like particularly, you know, it's quite tough out there at
the minute and a lot of the local spark is I'm like how to
keep busy. How did you build your
reputation? Like, I never turned down a job
(31:52):
in my area. Yeah, you, yeah, I just think,
even if you're only charging 100or 150 dollars, just treat it
like, it's 100,000 job, man. Call them back fast.
Be presentable. Turn up to the job real.
Well, walk them through ask for a Google review and just say
thanks so much. Appreciate your business.
Yeah, yeah. Cool man.
(32:14):
I think last thing and if you got any advice for people out
there like young business owners, any advice from you
being a business, owner yourselfor pricing or whatever.
You got ya mate, I think right now it's kind of hard.
Obviously the Market's a little bit tough.
I think it's about to turn in the next three months and did
yesterday's OCR just drop. Yeah, another point five point
(32:35):
two five. I think it's positive.
I would try and you, I think I feel like now, there's no
excuses to kind of not win, or fight like to be failing,
because there's so much free shit out there.
Yeah. And I would use as many
Professionals, as you can. Like, get if you're trying to be
mean business owner, invest intolike becoming a bit of business
(32:56):
owner, go find someone like the professional builder, I've done
wonders for me, they're so good,educate yourself, educate
yourself, learn jump on YouTube,quit social media apps.
Stop getting on the piss and just like learn as much stuff as
you can. Yeah.
So many people will probably still, I don't know.
Rocking up to the pub for not a week like cut that shit out.
Yeah, or leave? That shit for.
Yeah, for the weekend? Yeah.
(33:17):
I'm just like honestly, man. I feel like there's no real
solid advice. I just think if you want to go
and get better at like, it's cool.
It's cool YouTube, man. Yeah, I have not paid.
I'm yeah, I'm pretty bad. I'm paid for a sense of
education and a while, but I might YouTube search history is
wild like anything. I want to learn YouTube and chat
GB team man, and you can get answers like off the office.
(33:40):
It's unbelievable. Like when I was a kid, just go
and pick out encyclopedia, you know.
Yeah. She go to the library and find
Books and stuff. So, yeah, no excuses to not win
now. And I think the funny thing is,
is when I think the market is about to turn and will soon.
See, who are the guys that have been sticking it out through the
tough time and those guys on theback end of this are going to be
(34:02):
fucking booming cool because youknow the running a tight ship.
Yeah they've got through it. So yeah.
And it will probably take like six to 12 months for all the
Cowboys to come back into the market.
Yeah. So they can cream it and make a
good. Have a good reputation in the
first front front end of a busy market.
So yeah, well, we'll see what happens in the meantime if
people want to get hold of you. Yeah.
(34:22):
How do they do that, Instagram, man.
Rapper cues or email me? David at rapper, qwest.com, we
aim to email everyone back with them half an hour quotes with
them for hours. That's kind of our business
model man. So, and your podcast is just
called rapid cues inside a chat,just go to YouTube rapper cues.
We've got heaps of stuff on there and our first 20 episodes
were just you know, guys that have been in business for more
(34:44):
than 20 years. Yeah.
And next 20 episodes are kind ofLike talking to more about
details cost, blowouts on jobs, we're Builders made money lost
money. So you actually have a plan of
what you're going to do on your profile.
I thought. Yeah, no.
We're still off the cuff, bro. We're still shooting shit but I
felt like we'd we'd done really well on talking to the guys at
the the top end of the industry and the guys that have been in
(35:06):
business for 20 plus years. Yeah.
And then I was like, let's focusmore on and this is purely me on
YouTube. Looking at like Grand designs
video. Yeah.
Half a million views. I want to get some of that.
Yeah. So um yeah we just went and next
style was Builders with jobs or either finished or in
construction or about to start. Yeah.
And we wanted to talk about eachprocess for each job so that's
what we did. Nice.
(35:27):
Yes I think we must be ten or 15through.
We'll do five more reevaluate see what everything's happening.
Yeah. See what's going on on the
market and then I'd love to do here go style next.
Next 10 Target. These cancel guys.
Roll around security. So any big boys over 100 gigs
out there? Yeah well I'll be watching that
(35:48):
Interesting. I think that's what we want to
do. Yeah, appreciate it man.
Cool. Thanks for coming on.
Thanks very much, bro. Awesome.
Cheers. Cheers.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!