Builder Mindset to Business Mindset with Duane Johns of Alair Homes

Most builders hit a wall. They work 80-hour weeks, carry tools, manage crews, chase payments, and somehow still struggle to make ends meet. Sound familiar? That was Duane Johns twenty years ago, grinding it out in Charlotte, North Carolina after moving from the Hamptons.

Then 2008 hit. While other builders went under, Duane used the crisis as a mirror. 

"I think that that too, one thing that happened in that 2008 environment, especially the few years after, was everyone got reduced to a commodity, you know, I mean, the builders or modelers, they had the lower hand, no doubt." 

The shift from thinking like a builder to thinking like a business owner changed everything.

In this conversation with Michael Krisa, Duane walks through that transformation. He talks about the moment he tracked his time for two weeks and discovered he was doing 75% of tasks that weren't moving his business forward. He shares how joining a Vistage group opened his eyes to what real business owners were doing across industries. Turns out, the guy running the insurance company and the woman with the graphic design business faced the same problems – just different flavors.

"I started thinking differently, really approaching it as a business, just lots of different opportunities seem to arise from that, you know, and I think what people need to know when they hear that is that doesn't mean you're giving up your respect for the craft or your quality or any of that."

We dig into the financial reality most builders face. When you actually calculate your hourly wage against all the hours you put in, McDonald's starts looking competitive. Duane explains why most builders leave money on the table by not charging for all their time, and how understanding your numbers becomes the foundation for everything else.

"People simply are not charging for all the hours they're working. It's that, it's really that simple. That's the biggest area that I've found across the board where people can, if they put some attention, they could immediately add to their bottom line."

The conversation moves into systems and scaling. Duane joined Alair Homes as a franchise partner, initially skeptical about how a franchise model could work in custom building. But he discovered something powerful: having proven systems meant he could focus on building his business instead of building the business itself. 

"A lot of times I equate it to it's using the mousetrap versus building the mousetrap."

Time blocking becomes a central theme. Duane shares his approach to protecting calendar time like it's sacred, ending each day organized so he can actually disconnect, and setting boundaries with clients about when emergencies are really emergencies. 

"Don't be one of these people that commits to it, but then gives everything up, you know, and takes this meeting and takes that meeting and moves this around. You got to say no." 

The goal isn't working less – it's working on the right things.

We explore the future of construction, touching on technology, automation, and the workforce shortage. 

"When you look at where we are and how we still actually build homes is, it's pretty archaic, it's really the same way we've been building them for a hundred years."

He believes builders who embrace change will thrive, while those who don't will get left behind.

The conversation also addresses the skilled trades perception problem. Duane never went to college, watching friends graduate and end up on job sites anyway. He's passionate about changing the narrative around construction careers, showing young people that building offers real opportunities for entrepreneurship and wealth building. 

"We have to get to a place where skilled labor in this country it's an absolute necessity. It's, as I said before, most of these crafts are noble positions."

Toward the end, we talk about vision and leadership. Many builders struggle to think beyond next year, but Duane pushes them to imagine where they want to be in ten years. 

"I would say over 50%, maybe 60% to 70% of the builders that I talk to, if I straight up challenge them on that, they really struggle. They kind of think of it as a prediction." 

Do you want fifteen offices? Want to dominate the Southeast? Want to retire on a beach? You can't get there without knowing where "there" is.

As Duane puts it, "What gets measured gets done. If you don't have a very strong level of accountability in your organization, it's going to be really difficult to track any kind of forward progress."

This isn't another podcast about better estimating software or the latest nail gun. This is about fundamentally changing how you think about your role in the construction industry. Whether you're swinging hammers or manag