August 12, 2025 • 53 mins
Would you jump on a plane if the pilot didn’t understand their cockpit dials? Randy Stanbury of 4 Level Coach shares how builders and remodelers can stop “flying blind” by mastering financial literacy, building systems, and creating a clear vision. Learn the steps to free yourself from day-to-day operations while scaling profitably.
Show Notes:
Opening Analogy & Randy’s Background (0:00)
Breaking Down the Four Level Success System (2:53)
Why Builders Struggle to Trust and Let Go (6:48)
Profit Before Growth, Systems Before People (9:38)
Using Metrics to Drive Profitability (16:39)
Incremental Goals and Building Momentum (24:13)
Software Adoption Challenges and Team Buy-In (30:13)
Integration Support and Maximizing ROI (36:16)
AI, Technology, and the Future of Building (43:37)
Closing Advice and How to Connect with Randy (48:09)
Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano
Podcast Produced By:
Motif Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You would not jump on a plane ifthe pilot did not understand his
(00:04):
or her dials in their cockpit,right? Totally, yet we're flying
the plane of our businessesevery day not understanding
those dials.
Mics are hot. Randy mics arehot. Let's get at it. Let's get
(00:25):
at it. Baby. Good to see you,dude. Thanks for jumping
on. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah,good to be on. I look forward to
this,yeah, yeah. I love it. I always
like to do a little intro here,and I think specifically it's
important for what you're doingover at four level. Go ahead and
give the listeners a littlebackground on yourself, what
four level is all about, andwe'll use that to kick off the
(00:45):
combo. Yeah,little bit about myself. I mean,
I what's interesting. I startedmy first business in 95 so it
goes back a few years now, or 30years into this thing. Now, I
was one years old. Youwere one years old, I had to
agree. Yeah, that's along time. Man, yeah. Okay, jabs
(01:09):
over, jabs over. Go ahead.
Well, you know what'sinteresting about it is, back in
the day, it took me about threeyears to know enough to know I
didn't know nearly enough. Andyou know, I started to get some
(01:29):
help. Started working with abusiness coach. Took me nine
years to get myself removed frommy core business. That business
ran and operated without me forthe next 10 years. I was paid
extremely well during that time.
And then I went and startedanother business, and another
business after that. And Icontinued to do the same thing
(01:52):
that I figured out during thatyou know, that time frame from
98 to 2007 2017 I sold thatfirst core business. And what I
realized when I sold it is it'sextremely rare what I pulled off
to be removed from the businessfor 10 years. Well, it ran and
(02:12):
operated without me, and I wasable to go start another
business and another one. And sothe the reason I bring that up
is four level coach has beenbuilt from what I pulled off,
what I figured out, and what weshare today is how to do exactly
that for builders andremodelers. And you know, it's,
it's what I think we all want.
(02:39):
We all want ultimate freedom oftime and money follow a coach is
a success system that has beenbuilt from what I did in my
businesses along the way, and soour team has been built under
this four level Success Systemto share what we do with
builders and remodelers thatreally are highly ambitious,
(03:00):
self driven action takingentrepreneurs want more for
themselves, their families,their life and their business,
right? And if they want that,then we have the system, the
steps to do it. And we lovetransforming life. So that's
kind of why we exist and whywe're here.
Dude, I love it, and I so, youknow, I have not done what
(03:23):
you've done, but when I was atbuilder trend, I built their
onsite consulting service with acouple of others. And the
standardizing of businessprocesses to the point of
getting a business owner or justeven partners individuals to
remove themselves from thebusiness is crucial. And to your
point of like, what you wereable to do in a nine year period
(03:45):
ultimately remove yourself fromthe business and build other
businesses is extremely rare.
What is it like? What is the keycomponent to getting that done?
Oh, man. What the one thing or atheme? Yeah, theme, right? No,
it's very cool. I like wherethat, you know that conversation
(04:07):
can go, right? And the truth is,you know that nine year, what I
figured out nine years, we canhelp people do now. And really a
three year, we have a kind of athree year Success System. It
does take, hey, others will takefive six years. Some will take
two years, right? But you know,you can do it in three to four
years for sure. And what is it?
So? What is it really? You know,in a nutshell, we wrote the book
(04:33):
The 10 Reasons buildersremodelers fail to grow, right?
So love it that 10 reasons why,the 10 Reasons Why builders for
modelers fail to grow. It's onAmazon. You can grab it, Google
my name, whatever, right? Butthe point is, is, what's really
clear to me is that unless weget those 10 Reasons dealt with,
and we don't, if we can solvethose, then we can package this
(04:56):
and. Get to that level, right?
That's possible. Now, lots ofguys are going to say, you know,
and listening to this, well, Idon't want to remove myself from
the business that. And that'snot the intention of this. The
intention is that you have abusiness that can run and
operate without you. You don'thave to. It's nice to have a
(05:18):
choice in what we do, right? Mything was, like, I didn't, I
didn't want to go lie on abeach, right? That wasn't my
intention. I wanted to get freedup because I had other desires,
passions, you know, to go andthat I needed to get focused on,
because that's what drives me. Iwant to be challenged by, you
know, what I can build next sortof thing, right? So, what is it
(05:41):
so? The 10 Reasons, if we don'thave a clear vision, we're not
going to get there, right? If wedon't know where we're going, we
can drive around in circles,we'll never get there, right? It
starts with vision, to me,always. The other real key thing
is we need some financialliteracy, right? We have to
understand our numbers, we haveto be pricing projects, our jobs
(06:04):
profitably, or else we'll neverbe able to build the teams
around us or hire the A playersthat we need. So it's a
combination of knowing thefinancial side of our business,
having business savvy, andgetting ourselves off of what we
call it transitioning you frombeing in a contractor to an
entrepreneurial leader, right?
Love it so business savvy,financial literacy, we need to
(06:27):
be able to get our time right.
We refer to it as time mastery.
If, if, if I'm running incircles and I'm not leveraging
my time properly, I will neverget there, right? I have to get
really, really dialed in on, howdo I leverage my time? And then,
on top of that, how do Idelegate? How do I trust and let
go? Right? Big, big challengefor a lot of this industry is
(06:51):
being able to trust and let go,right? That's a key component.
Why do you think that is, Idon't mean to derail because
it's great, but it's so true.
It's like, even if you had thechance and the operation, the
business that was runningitself, could you even let go?
And I would say most buildersstruggle with that, like you
just said, why is that? Do youthink it's
(07:15):
I think because we believe,first off, that there's nobody
else that can do it as good aswe can. I mean, I had a
conversation with a gentlemanthis morning about that, right?
So if I believe in my mindsetthat no one can do it as good as
I can, how do I trust someoneelse to do it? How do I trust
and then let that go forsomebody else to do it? Because,
(07:37):
you know, I'm the only one thatcan do this right now, the fact
of the matter is that if you'reable to trust and let go, Well,
there's a number of componentsthat we need to be able to trust
and let go. First of all, weneed a team of eight players. If
we have C players, yeah, that'swhy I can't trust and let go,
(07:59):
because I got a C player that Ihave attempted this with before,
and it went for a shit, andtherefore I'm no longer wanting
to try that again. And I'm like,no, this doesn't work. And I'm
outit's not only reasonable, it's
probably a good idea to nottrust and let go in that
circumstance, correct, right?
Okay, yeah. So it makes if Iget the right player in place,
(08:19):
that's great. The other thingis, if I haven't built the
system and trained someoneproperly, they're not doing it
the way I want it done,therefore I'm looking at them
pissed off. But really, I shouldlook in the mirror and say,
Well, damn, I didn't give them,I didn't give them the tools to
be successful. Yeah, yeah,right, totally. So, so if I've
(08:42):
tried it in the past and itdidn't work, then the past is
dictating my future, and we'vegot to get rid of that too,
because we can't. Just becausesomething didn't work before
doesn't mean it won't workagain. It just means we have to
change what we did. Yeah,totally. Do you think part of
that's because there's so muchrisk in not only just like
(09:04):
starting and running a business,but so much risk and
construction that that lettingthe past dictate the future, or
that close mindedness that Itried this before and it doesn't
work, therefore It'll neverwork, mentality seeps in?
Well, sure. I mean, I it's muchsafer if I just do it myself,
(09:29):
because I know and I can trustmyself, so I'll just do it. But
right? The more that I do that,the more I'm stuck on the
hamster wheel. Yes, right? So Ihit a ceiling. I'm stuck on the
hamster wheel. And the truth is,when I'm that busy, I don't have
time to build the system or toget the training in place. So we
always say, look, there's threethings we need. One is profit
(09:51):
before growth. I think far toomany try to grow and they don't
know their numbers are notprofitable yet. We're trying to
grow something that's not reallymaking money. We hope that we're
going. To make money one dayonce we get bigger, right? And
that is, you know, just means todisaster. So we've got to get
pricing and profitability rightbefore we grow. Second thing is,
(10:12):
we need to get the systemsbefore people right. But we
don't have time to get thesystems. And I mean systems, the
training, the structure aroundsomebody being successful. So I
throw people at my problem, andit creates more chaos,
frustration and overwhelm,because I did set them up to be
successful. Therefore I get thisstuff because they're not doing
(10:33):
the things I want done. And thenI go, well, this doesn't work
totally right. So that happens.
And then the third thing is, weneed to get the how before the
what. As builders or modelers,we're focused on the what, it's
what we know it's the what Irefer to as the it's the job,
it's the job site, it's thebuild, it's the construction,
(10:54):
it's what I'm comfortable with.
So I focus on the what, but thehow is what people will pay more
for? The how is the clientexperience? The how is the
system, the, how is everythingelse that makes the what go to
another level? Totally makessense.
It totally does so. Profitbefore growth, systems before
(11:18):
people, systems before people.
And then how, before the what?
Now,if you get those things right in
the right order, then you have acompletely transformed business
and ability to grow and scale.
And our job is to help peoplepiece that together, understand
what that is, and then take theright steps in the right order.
And when you say, you know, howdo you get yourself removed from
(11:42):
your business one day to have ascalable, sellable business?
It's it's all of those thingsdone extremely well, and then
making sure we have a marketingmachine that's feeding us
consistent, predictable leads.
It's making sure that we have asales system that's again
predictable and consistent thatwe can remove ourselves, train
somebody else to do thisactually better than you can
(12:04):
sell, which is hard for us toimagine, because nobody else can
sell like we can. TypicallyRight, right? But when, when you
get the parts and the machinesall working and they're dialed
in, those are solving the 10Reasons, you know. And another
big one that you guys focus onis the metrics, right? So
another one is, I need to knowthat the KPIs my business, I
(12:25):
need to be on top of my numbers.
I need to understand the needlemovers in my business so that I
can track look. I cannot improvewhat I don't measure, I don't
track. So what I measuring getstracked, gets improved. So all
of this stuff is extremely hardbecause at the end of the day,
we don't have the bandwidth andtime to focus on doing it. So
(12:48):
all of this goes back to my ownpersonal time management and how
I leverage thattotally. I know that was
beautiful Randy, and I say thatI literally just had a
conversation with Chloe brownabout this, and it's, honestly,
it's been coming up, like, verycommonly on this podcast, is
like, if you don't know yourmargin, I frame it this way,
(13:11):
like, if you don't know ifyou're making money on what
you're scaling, why are youscaling it right? And that's
like knowing your profit beforeyour growth. It's like it was
just absolutely plagued the USand builders in the last five
years, really, right from covid,like covid immediately, like it
was super, super rough,volatile, volatile commodity
markets. You know, you got yourlumbers, your supply chains, off
(13:34):
the off the roof, you can'tscale for a lot of people got
burnt on that, but there were ahell of a lot of builders that
caught a lot of opportunity withinventory shortages. People at
home, remodeling homes, buildinghomes right with interest rates
as low as they were, there was ahuge opportunity for people to
go out and double the size oftheir business, and they'd turn
(13:54):
around after a 1218, month buildcycle of doubling their
business, looking at theirprofit margin or what they
actually netted, and they'relike, I didn't make any more
money doubling my top line thanI did where I was originally at.
Like, I'm gonna go back andlike, do it, yeah, it's because
they didn't know what they werescaling, right? They didn't know
their profit before theirgrowth, right? It needs it's
like, you wouldn't imagine Applegoing out and creating billions
(14:16):
of iPhones if they didn't know,to the decimal of a penny what
their margin was going to be onthat unit, right? Like, that's,
of course, like an obnoxiousreason, but I think, like, if
metaphor that I think we allunderstand, get and understand
it, that that's simplistic,right? And the challenge in this
(14:39):
business, as you said these arelong sales cycles, long build
cycles, you know, chatting witha client this morning. I mean,
it takes, it takes a year to twoyears to turn around bad
pricing. If we're a custombuilder, because we've got
projects that we have on the gothat might not be priced well,
right? We have priced. Jobsrecently that haven't started
(15:02):
yet, that are going to startsoon, that are a year, 18 month
projects that were tied intoalready. And then, if we start
changing our pricing today, ittakes, you know, the sales cycle
to close and then to get thatproject started, and the new
pricing starts kicking in whenthe old stuff ends. So it's like
(15:24):
a year to two year process tostart feeling the effects of
new, improved, higher levelpricing that will turn the
business around.
Right totally. I like, justimmediately go to like, I just
see bloat in that even, like, ina like, even the more day to day
operational standpoint, meaning,like, it's really like, these,
(15:45):
these time horizons that ittakes for these problems to
surface, and then have theinformation you need to act on
them to, like, start weeding itout. To your point. Like, it
could be a year, like I could bebidding a project, and I could
have three projects going rightnow, and I'm bidding stuff on
the project that I haven't quitecrossed right now with my
current project, or I just didand I didn't take that into
(16:07):
consideration. Well, I just gota bid signed on that right now.
I'm locked into those numbers towhere, if I would have been
seeing my data in real time, Iprobably could have
circumnavigated that poorpricing and got ahead of it,
right? That's what I mean, like,and like, and I was like, I'm
biased towards adaptive on thatbecause, like, that's the entire
intention of using AI toautomate bookkeeping and
construction accounting, is thatyou can have the immediacy in
(16:28):
your data, because you're notbuilding a project, finished
with a project, and then decideto bid another one. You're
constantly bidding, constantlybuilding, constantly moving this
pipeline. What are you seeingbuilders do to shorten that
timeline, or that feedback loopto understanding their numbers,
to prevent that type ofsituation. Well, getting a bad
(16:49):
product, having pricing, have towork itself out. I
mean, your your comment aboutbeing biased on adaptive, I
think is, you know whetheryou're biased on adaptive or
you're not. Adaptive is quitesimply an answer to that, right,
like, right, yes, I get the yourbias to it, but adaptive is the
(17:10):
answer to that. That is whatneeds to be done. The other, of
course, is if we are using likeyou mentioned, builder trend,
earlier, job. Trend, resume,build, builder, whatever the
software is that we are usingto, you know, grow, scale our
business. I think far too oftenI just see it being
(17:34):
underutilized, right? It's, it'salways, it's 30% typically we
see anywhere from, I'm going tosay 25 to 30. 35% that we are
using the capabilities of it.
And so if we want to do this, weneed to be using a much bigger
percentage of the software inthe system the way it was
designed to be used. Again, I goback to look, and it's no fault
(17:57):
of the builder out there. Thechallenge is there's a hundreds
of moving parts every day. We'rebeing pulled in a million
different directions. Thechallenge is we're trying to do
more of it ourselves and tryingto keep up with it because we
feel like we can't afford thehelp that we need to do this, or
we're not even sure what tonecessarily do with that help if
(18:20):
I were to get freed up, right?
So it's, it's a really, it's areal big challenge. And I'll go
back to the fact of you know our10 Reasons, and that business
savviness, the financialliteracy and business savvy,
those two things are the key toall of it, you know, because as
(18:44):
soon as you have businesssavviness and again, it's no
fault of the builder, becausetypically a builder becomes a
builder or remodeler becausethey were skilled, right?
Skilled, great hands, greatskill, so knowledgeable on site,
and that's where mycomfortability is. But the
(19:06):
trouble is, if that's how I leadand grow my business, I'm going
to run into challenges, becauseI'm not, I'm not thinking of the
business savviness stuff or thefinancial literacy required to
make decisions in this business,to decide that, to the side that
it's I need adaptive, andadaptive, the return on my
investment with adaptive islike, it's such a no brainer
(19:30):
that I should be doing that Ijust I might not be coming from
the place of an entrepreneurialmindset,
right? You might not understandthat that's that's the
potential, or that kind of goesback to, like, needing the clear
vision, right? It's like youmight not even understand that
that's what you need. But it'sno slight to the builder,
(19:52):
because it's like, that's notnecessarily their wheelhouse, or
they haven't spent the time orfelt the pain to move into that
world. Of thinking is what Itypically
see. Yeah, well, and let's,let's touch on vision for a
moment. I think most of us,well, this is a simple human
nature. Our vision to thinkbeyond what we've currently done
(20:16):
is extremely difficult. So to gowith a a bigger vision than what
we think is possible based onwhere we've been and where we
are today, you know? So the pastis dictating our ability to
think of a vision greater thanwhere we are, right? So if you
put that into context, it'slike, look, it's taken me 10
(20:37):
years to get to here, and I'mdoing 2 million in sales, 2
million, right? And I always askthe question, where do you want
to be in the next, you know,three to five years? And the
answer is, typically, hey, I'dlike to get to, you know, maybe
double that. Maybe I can get to4 million. But it's typically
like, maybe I'll do anothermillion dollars in the next
(20:59):
three years, right? Really?
Interesting. And the truth is,it's like, you know, it might
have taken you 10 years to getto here, but when we move
forward, when you put the fourlevel success system into play,
you start dealing with these 10Reasons. You start exponentially
multiplying what's possible,right? It's no longer, you know,
two, you know, 10 years to getto two. It's, you know, we've
(21:23):
done this several times, and atthe end of the day, it's
possible to get to 10 million inthe next three to five, but it's
so beyond our imagination ofthinking that we end up with
this really small vision. Now, asmall vision, all I have to do
is just keep showing up the wayI've already showed up. Nothing
(21:44):
really has to change in order toget to that incremental vision.
So my vision isn't big enough toactually move the needle and
make the changes that I need tomake totally right? If I have a
bigger vision, then I have tomove the needle today if I'm
ever going to get there. So I'vegot to get more serious about
(22:05):
the actions that I take. Theactions are driven by our
vision. I'll take no freakingaction totally. Yeah. I won't
invest in adapt, adaptive. I'mnot going to put the time and
money into that, because I don'treally need to to get to my
vision. My vision is smallenough that I'll just keep doing
(22:26):
what I'm doing.
Vision is, do you think there'sanything real scalability? Do
you think there's anything wrongwith that? Anything wrong with
what, with with not necessarily,like, not having, like, a big
enough vision? Well, it there'snot a big enough
vision. Or if, if you want morethan what you currently have,
(22:49):
yes, there's somethingdrastically wrong with that,
because you will all always onlyhave what you already have if
you don't have a big enoughvision. Yeah. So there's nothing
wrong with it, if what you haveand what you where you're at is
what you want, right? If you'recool with your life and your
lifestyle and the time that youspend in that business and the
(23:13):
frustration most look most arefrustrated about their their
their time and their lifestyle,and you know, the 60 plus hours
a week that they work. So if Iwant that to change, yes, that's
a problem. If I'm okay withthat, then, no, that's
fine. Totally, totally. I alwaysthink about this. I think, like,
(23:35):
from a vision standpoint, do youthink that vision should be as
like, simple and pointed aspossible, as it should like. And
I'm thinking about thistactically for the listener,
right? Because like this islike, this makes a ton of sense.
Like, if you don't have thevision, you're not going to be
motivated, and you're not goingto have the clarity to make like
action, to take action. But Ithink a lot of people, they kind
(23:55):
of get right action, the rightaction, and that's what I'm
saying. Thisis the difference, though, too.
I want to make sure that that'sclear, right? Because this
industry takes more action andworks harder. Like, it's not
about more action, it's theright action. And I know you,
you and I are on page. I justwant to make sure for the
listener that makes sense. Like,this is the hardest working
(24:16):
industry on the planet. It's notabout action. Just clear, clear
thatup. Yeah, it's about the right
action. And that's where Ithink, like going back even like
the simplicity of the vision,right? Is like having a clear,
simple vision of, I'm tired ofworking the 60 hour weeks in my
business, I want to scale backinto 40 or 20. Do you see that
(24:38):
as being like, reasonable?
Maybe, like, baby steps into abigger vision? Or do you think
that people should be saying,like, I want to be $10 million a
year at a 30% net on aremodeling business, and I want
to be completely removed andjust do this like big package
(24:59):
deal vision? What do you suggestwhen people are struggling with
thisgreat question? I think it has
to be done in incremental steps,because we cannot wrap our mind
around it. Our job is to helppeople wrap their mind around
it. And how this typically worksis one. We need courage. We need
the courage to think bigger thanwe are already. And it takes
(25:20):
real courage, because I'vegotta, if I, if I'm true to
that, I've gotta do thingsdifferent. That is going to make
me extremely uncomfortable,right? So I gotta have the
courage to have a vision thatgoes beyond my current
capabilities, right? If I havethat vision, I have to make
commitment now to that vision.
So if I can go beyond and, Imean, we don't have to go to 10
(25:43):
million. Let's go a littlefurther than our, our doubling
of size. Let's go to triple.
Let's say, call it 5 millionfrom two, and say I can do five
and three. And this is what I'mgoing to do. I'm also going to
work not 60 hours. I'm going toget down to, you know, 30, you
know, maybe I'll cut that inhalf. Maybe, could I get to 30?
And, believe me, all of it's100% possible, but our mind has
(26:03):
to be able to think that. But wehave to have to have enough
courage to, you know, Believe init and think it and go after it.
We got to make commitment to it.
Now, we don't have thecapability, and nor does our
team, and that's the beautifulpart. You don't have to, you've
got to be able to makecommitment to the vision, and
then your team, then everyaction we take, everything that
(26:26):
we're moving towards, everyneedle mover in the business,
when I'm talking not justaction, but needle moving action
actually builds ourself and ourteam's capability. That then
gives us more confidence tobelieve in a bigger vision
again. So it's incremental stepstowards a bigger and bigger
vision, but we got to go beyondwhat starts with courage. We got
(26:48):
to make commitment. We got toget our confidence based on our
new capabilities. Yeah, and thenthat will fuel more courage.
Yes, it'll almost like, justkind of like, create an
environment of the process thatyou had just outlined, right?
It's like, it's like, it's like,once you, once you, it's like,
(27:08):
it's just momentum, right? It'slike an adaptive even, like,
it's like, we have a ton ofmomentum right now as an
organization, internally, right?
Sales pipeline exploding,product humming, like engineers
ripping like, you can feel it inthe organization. Isn't even a
remote environment, right? Rightpoint being is, like, that's
because, like, the vision wasclear, like leadership was
(27:29):
committed to it. We started todrive and had the courage to go
after what it was going to taketo get there, and now we've
accomplished it. And youincrease
capability along the way, youdid not have the capability to
do what the vision was in thefirst place, but you're
increasing capability now,right? Totally. And you're
getting that momentum, whichthen kicks in confidence. And
(27:52):
the fact, my guess is your teamis more confident than it's ever
beenbefore. Incredibly, night and
day, you look at thisorganization from 12 months ago,
and it is a completely differentorganization. It's
incredible. Bingo. There's theyou just hit the nail on the
head of what happens. So whenyou join four level coach, and
you join our ecosystem and oursuccess system of everything we
(28:12):
just talked about to this is thestuff that has to shift. You
make this bigger step, you makethe commitment, you increase
capability, you get moreconfidence, you increase his
courage. I can then thinkbigger, and I then the engine
turns. We call it the successwheel. When this success wheel,
this fly wheel, is starting totake action, like you're seeing
(28:33):
with adaptive what you justexplained is exactly how it
works. Builder, modeler, world.
When they get that this is whenyou can go from 2 million to 10,
so much faster you ever believepossible, because your world is
completely transformed. You saidyour business does not look like
it didn't feel like it theconfidence 12 months, yeah,
right, totallyquarter after quarter, year
(28:57):
after year, and the momentumthat that kicks in three years
from now, you're, you're off thecharts,
totally, 100% 100% and I thinkthat that is, like, an important
piece. And then I think, like,even, like, bring it back into,
like, the tactical bit, youknow, I, for whatever reason,
(29:18):
like this is resonating with me.
I hope I'm not just like,ripping the E break on this you
can, we can jump back if we needto, no but go ahead. But I
think, like, part of whatprevents this momentum from
happening is the day to day,right? Because it's like, one
thing to listen to a podcast, acouple of guys that have seen
it, that have executed on it,right? And like, of course, we
can get excited. And like, Yes,this is what it is. But then for
(29:38):
the guy that's in the guy that'sin the truck that's driving the
job site, that's working 60hours a week, getting his ass
kicked by all the day to daystuff that's happening is like,
I think part of it, from asolution standpoint, is going
back to your comment of the 25to 30% of these products that
get used comment, and I havebeen saying for like, years at
builder trend even, probably.
(30:00):
It's like Job tread. People barkabout price at Procore, right? I
say all these companies havebeen priced so low comparative
to the value that they couldpotentially bring. Like, that is
my God's honest truth. Like, ifyou're actually using job tread,
the way that job tread can beused, if you're actually using
builder trend or adaptive orwhatever, to the fullest, like
those, those upfront costs aretruly like pennies compared to
(30:22):
what they do. But I saw it atbuilder trend, 25, 30% usage,
and you sit here and you scratchyour head like, why are people
not motivated more to startleveraging these systems and
processes capturing data ontheir businesses, to actually
start getting out of thismomentum. Okay, so
what do you think the reason islike? And I've got my belief
(30:45):
around it, and I'm curious ofyours,
so I think that, like, fiveyears ago, I would have answered
this of like, you've got amarket that's, like, primarily
resistant to tech five? Yeah, Iwas probably close about 10
years ago, like, right when Istarted at builder trend. And
like, mind you, I was like, 300around their employee. They've
(31:08):
got 800 employees now they have,like, maybe like 10,000
customers. I think now they'relike 25,000 just to like, kind
of give you a perspective. Andlike, builder trend was, like,
this was before job tread. Thisis before all that well, I mean,
you'd call builders, and they'dbe like, I'm not running
software, right? There was likethat resistant to software. But
now, as I like, I start to seelike the number of competitors,
(31:30):
the resios, the build tools, thebuild books, the builders, the
builder pads, the whatever,insert project management
software, dime a dozen, as italways comes down to like user
interface and ability to adopt.
And I think that now you've gotan industry of builders that are
comfortable and familiar andhave been sold and bought and
shifted and changed software,but it's so challenging for them
to get their business to adoptit that it prevents them from
(31:56):
ever fully ingraining it. Andthe people that do adopt it
really well, totally bought in,use every feature as much as
they can. They see a ton ofvalue out of it. And they're
like, this is totallyinvaluable, right? But that's my
answer is, I think, like, Ithink it's the products that are
available are extremelydifficult to adopt from a
(32:17):
functionality and a process anda piecing together standpoint,
and it's easy to lose sight ofit, and it's probably because
there aren't sound businessprocesses in place before, so
they're biting off so much atthe beginning of the front end
of these processes of I've gotthis really cool piece of
software now that is basicallyproviding a framework for me to
execute workflows in but I don'thave those workflows today in
(32:41):
place. That'smy take you to me 100,000% nail
on the head. And this is exactlywhy at four level, when I'm
looking at how we help peoplebecome as successful as possible
to get to the absolute pinnacle,and peak, which is a level four
(33:04):
business in our world, thatsellable business that removes
yourself from day to day. Thething is, peak, it's flowing,
it's profitable. It's, you know,it's a well oiled machine,
right? So, simply put, in orderto get there, systems and
software is a critical keycomponent. It's one of the 10
(33:26):
Reasons systems and software,without it, you will get to a
certain point, but you will notget beyond that, right? So what
we realized is there was amassive gap in how much people
are using their software and howwell they use it, and then the
adoption, you said, adoption oftheir team, right? So we created
four level integrators, so weare integrating these project
(33:51):
management software solutionsinto businesses that once that
happens, it's a whole new world,right? But it's completely built
out. It's a done for you typesystem, because they don't have
time to build it. They don't tieone. We're also not like if you
ask me to build it, it ain'thappening. That's not my that's
(34:16):
not my expertise. That's not,but I, but if I, you know, if
I'm on job site, I'm a, I'm a,I'm a builder mindset to start
with. I'm trying to be anentrepreneurial mindset. I'm
trying to shift from that righttransition from contractor to
entrepreneur, right, and now youwant me to become a software
expert as well, and set that Ijust that's completely
(34:39):
ridiculous. I also don't thinkif, unless you're a marketing
expert, you should be focused onyour marketing. So, you know, we
need to get the help we need,and then we need to get our
teams to adopt it. The challengewith that, and in large part, is
the training, right? So you knownow we've got to be trained and
our team's got to be heldaccountable. Right? So, you
know, we believe it in a rolecalled the system CIA. The CIA
(35:03):
is creator, implementer andaccountability. It's what it
stands for. But we need to dothe same thing with our
software. It's the, you know,creating the the software to be
leveraged and used the way itshould be following. And I don't
believe in just standardizedtemplates that, you know, we can
get anywhere because thoseworkflows, they're not That's
(35:23):
not how you run your business,it's not how you think, and
it'll get you, you know, maybehalfway home, and then you're
going to be pissed off, becauseit's, it's, it doesn't work for
you, the way you think and howyou operate, right? So we have
to customize our workflows, andit's been a game changer our
whole integration side. And, Imean, it's like, it is so busy
(35:45):
too, and they're just going fulltilt, doing this constantly for,
you know, clients. It's, it's,yeah, but it's also, I love what
you said, right? Neil, is there510, years ago, this wasn't a
big as big a deal. Everyonepretty get pretty well gets
today that this is a criticalcomponent, and it needs and and
we just got to take it over theedge. We got to go further with
(36:09):
it,totally, totally and I think,
you know, when it comes to, likethe integrator side, like that
was a lot of what we were doingat builder trend with the on
site consulting service. It waslike me Daniel Martinez, who's
actually adaptive now on ourcustomer success side, and then
Brett Jones. He's still at He'sstill at builder trend, but we
(36:30):
would do like 60 consultations ayear. Is what we would call him.
It was like a 60 day service.
You would like do pre work. Youwould go out for two days. You
would sit down with them, havethem implement, I don't
implement, identify SOPs, headback 60 days of rollout,
building workflow charts andlike, how people actually
execute, move through thebusiness, and it would still be
(36:51):
like a toughadoption. Yeah, tough adoption.
Do you gotta work? Oh, yeah,that's you've gotta. We have to
work with them and their teamsafter the adoption, or it
typically will fall off thetable and again, not use it as
well as they, you know, theycould, you know, they'll,
they'll go way further, butthey're still not taking getting
(37:12):
the full value. Yeah, right,that you know that that that
tool, you know, we need to lookat our software as one of the
most important tools in ourtoolbox. I mean, we've got a lot
of important tools, but that's,there's not one that's much more
importantthan that, yeah, well, and I
think, like, that's like, I, tome, it seems like a goofy
(37:35):
cliche, but it's so accurate. Islike, the tool in the toolbox.
And I think it's goofy because,like, we sell the contractors,
right? And we work withcontractors, and they're kind of
like, okay, yeah, software. Butit's like, seriously, if you're,
if you're, are you gonna try anddrive screws with a hammer?
Like, the answer is like,obnoxiously, no, right? Like,
(37:55):
that is totally ridiculous. Andit's like the guys that you're
talking about, like in thefield, who are like tradesmen,
craftsmen, decades ofexperience, like, that's where
they go, and then they get theleap of faith to start their own
business as like, if you're notviewing establishing process, if
you're not viewing applying andadopting software, if you're not
(38:15):
viewing that as any moreimportant than am I using a
Phillips head screwdriver on aPhillips screw? Or, am I using,
what is it? Is a torque? Orwhat's the weird, whatever?
Right? A wrong screwdriver onthe screw? Right? I'm not a
contractor. Point being is,like, that would be ridiculous
(38:36):
in any other component of yourworld. But when it comes to
software, like it gets devaluedon and then that's where I say,
like, in terms of, I'm superbullish and excited about, like,
the innovation and thedisruption and the moves that
products are making, because Ithink there's a huge opportunity
for project management solutionto become more compelling.
Honestly, like, I think, I thinkright now it's I struggle with
(38:57):
this, and actually I want yourtake on this. I actually think I
have someone. I talked tosomeone this morning. I need to
get an answer back to him. I'mconnecting with another builder.
But he was like, I talked tobuilder trend. I talked to
resio. I've talked to Job trap.
Like, literally, he's talkingabout project management tools.
He's pretty stoked aboutadaptive, but he's like, how
does all of it play together?
And like, how should I go aboutshopping and choosing and
(39:20):
designing project managementsoftware, I always come at a
loss, not necessarily a loss,but it's like, it's a nuanced
answer, because they all,they're all very similar, but
they all do certain thingsdifferently, right? And they're
like some of them are known likeCO construct and builder turn
with a historic competition,right? It's like CO construct
was known for having tighterfinancials. Builder turn was
notorious for having betterproject management. Project
(39:42):
management, right? That was aneasy delineation for people to
make. The comment on there wasreally two people to choose
from, co construct, buildertrend. Now you're off. Now when
you're kind of flooded with allthese different solutions, how
do you go about that Randy? Howwould you handle that
conversation? How do you choosejob code over builder trend over
Procore, over resi overwhatever? Or,
yeah. I mean, I think it'spretty straightforward today in
(40:04):
terms of just, how do you do youenjoy the user interface? Is it
really, at the end of the day,it's you have to find it easy
enough for you to use, not socomplex that you can't use it
right, or don't want to use it,your team won't want to use it.
(40:27):
What we find, as well as even,you know, builder trend will do
certain things one way. And youknow, somebody moves from
builder trend to Job trend, andtheir whole world blows up
because Job trend doesn't dothings and think that, it's
almost like I gotta rethinkbackwards as to the way I
thought before, right? But atthe end of the day, I don't give
(40:48):
a shit what software you use,use the software to its fullest
potential, and, and, and youwill like, because they all are
going to have their nuances, butthey will all get the same
outcome, right? So at the end ofthe day, you're going to get the
same outcome, I think, as well,it depends what, what size are
you? What sort of enterpriselevel are we looking at? Are we,
(41:12):
you know, our commercial side?
Of course, Procore is theCadillac. And if you, you know,
over in, in the small builderremodeler world, there's
certainly, you know, the jobtreads flying off the shelves
and builder trends strugglingbecause they're keeping price
point up and right, you know.
But the the larger custombuilder, you know, is going to
(41:35):
be the builder trend fan, right?
So I to me again, I don't, Idon't really. Doesn't matter
which one you use, use it fully.
Get dialed in. And you know, Iwould say the components that I
think we also need to look at,though, is the support. Customer
Support is so critical for them,right? Like we'll do full, full
(42:01):
integrations of the software. Soyou need a lot less support if
you you know work with fourlevel on the integration side,
because it's all going to bebuilt out and done for you, and
then we'll train you through it.
But if you're not doingsomething like that with any
with anyone, then you're goingto need the customer support in
a big, big way, right? So, youknow, I think if you're choosing
(42:23):
software, you you need to belooking at the customer support
size and what's what side andwhat's available, and how deep
and how far they go with you.
Totally. I couldn't agree more.
I mean, that was like, so when Istarted to build, I was on the
BDR, like, cold calling, closingdeals that type of side. And
then when I was on the on siteconsulting that was more on the
(42:44):
customer success side. It was avalue added service, right? It
was like the premiumimplementation integration. It
was probably like a lightversion of what you guys do
coupled with their customersuccess. And dude, we it was six
to 18 months. Was like normal,normal for like, six, six
months, if you have someonelike, full on dedicated to doing
an implementation rollout,sharper business, some type of a
(43:08):
hierarchy or org chart with likeresponsibilities and process
outlined, and something that youcould, like, map and like, tie
in, and then you could trainpeople on 18 months for the guy
That's like, I bought it forscheduling and to do's, and then
I always wanted to get into thisstuff, but I never had the time.
So I couldn't agree more, like,the customer success side there,
but that's why I also say, and Idouble back down on this, like,
(43:30):
super optimistic about, like,the solutions that are out there
and that are hopefully beingdreamed up when it comes to
project management. Because Ithink, like, today, like, just,
I think a six to 18 month, twoyear, whatever it ends up being,
implementation set up to time tovalue adoption is totally
ridiculous with the technologythat's available today. And you,
(43:50):
like, the very first thing thatyou had mentioned when it came
to, like, how do you approachthis project management
conversation is user interfaceis like, that should be like,
just the standard at this point,because the way that like,
artificial intelligence ismoving and workflows are getting
automated, and the technologythat's available is like, is, is
UI even going to be the sellingpoint in the future, or is it
(44:12):
going to be how, how artificialintelligence is taking and
leveraging available data toexecute workflows. So,
yeah, yeah. I mean, we're justobviously scratching the surface
of AI and what's possible. So, Imean, it's, it's, it's like,
(44:33):
scary, exciting of what'spossible and what's coming. And
the truth is, if we're notjumping on to that today, man,
we're missing opportunity in abig way. Like, you've got to be
adapting, adopting fast, right?
You know, you just, you do haveto, yeah,
(44:55):
I'm kind of over the, like,scared of AI phase. Obviously, I
work for, like, an AI native. Ofproduct, right? But I think,
like, there was certainly, like,a component of that. You see
some of the stuff that comesout, and you're like, oh shit,
like, AI can make cold calls andsell stuff, right? It's like,
that's pretty well, yeah. Andit's like, no one's safe. But on
the other hand, you look at itand it's like, the way that AI
(45:15):
is getting traction is it's notgoing to go away. And I think
the way that AI is being appliedto reduce the tedious, mundane
tasks that people typicallydidn't want to do is the
exciting part,but, but here's what's beautiful
about our industry, right? Theindustry of builders,
remodelers, trade subs, right?
(45:40):
Our sub. This is not, this isnot an industry that's going to
be disrupted, right? We will, wewill be building homes. We'll be
remodeling home. There's so muchinventory that needs remodeling.
We need a lot more homes beingbuilt, right? And so like, and,
you know, of course, there, youknow, there's 3d printing, and
(46:00):
there's going to be some that,like, we're going to have all
kinds of product shifts andtechnology inserts, but we still
need human beings to build thisindustry 100%
and I think, like, just liketoday, even Before AI, what was
the differentiator betweenFinnish carpenters 20 years ago,
(46:24):
right? Yeah, yeah. Who can do itbetter? Right? It was like, what
human is a better finishedcarpenter who has the better eye
for detail, who has the mostprecise cuts, who's thinking
about the functionality ofwhatever they're getting ready
to finish, right? It's alwaysbeen that way. You're so far
away from a robot or RPA fromactually, and I know we're
(46:48):
coming up on time here, I canlet you jump in a minute. No,
no, but, but it's we're so faraway from like robots,
automating this stuff again, itgoes back to the tedious task.
It's like, you see the, I think3d printing is too early, but
you see these big, likemachines, and they're like, they
pour concrete and they setrebar, and they're typically
used on, like, big interstatejobs, right? It's like this big
(47:08):
machine that, like, just movesand does it? It's like, how many
people and how much skill doesit take for humans to tie in
rebar and pour concrete? Right?
That seems like something that'sreasonable for a robot to do,
right? At a probably, like, moreconsistent output and a more
quality like, that makes senseto do when it comes to our
industry with residential and,like, actual, like, hands on
contractors, is like, you'restill the differentiator is the
(47:31):
human, and there's so and that'sthe argument now, is like the
trades, like, the trade pool isso low because there's not that
many skilled people, it's like,we'll start training them
like, well, and if you think offuture here, right, like we're
private if you look at whereprivate equity money is going,
the big capital money, it'sgoing into this industry and the
(47:53):
trades. And why is that? Becausethey see it as the long term
future, the undisrupted businessthat is so beautiful for us in
our world that it's just, youknow, we need to build our
machines out. And I mean ourbusinesses as machines totally
(48:13):
like, you know, we've got tothink about it differently. And
you know, if we leave, you know,your your listeners, with
anything, I think, like, to me,biggest takeaways here, there's,
there's two keys, becomefinancial literate, like really,
really understand the Dows inyour cockpit. We use the
(48:35):
terminology all the time. Youwould not jump on a plane right
if the pilot did not understandhis or her dials in their
cockpit, right? Totally. Yet,we're flying the plane of our
businesses every day notunderstanding those dials so so
we are very unsafe in ourbusiness if we don't have
(48:55):
financial literacy, it'simpossible to make intelligent
business decisions that help yougrow and scale without financial
literacy, it's completelyimpossible. So if, until we have
that, we are going to struggle,no matter what, we're probably
never going to get to where wewant to go ultimately, and we're
(49:15):
going to have that smallervision. And we may achieve that,
but we'll never get to a visionthat was beyond our, you know,
wildest dreams today, and thetruth is that's available. If we
get this the, you know, thesethings dialed in, financial
literacy, business savvy, we'vegot to be able to transition
from contractor toentrepreneurial leader. If we
(49:37):
can do those two things, ourwhole world can change, because
we're going to see thingsdifferently that we could never
see before. Without financialliteracy and business savvy,
totally, I couldn't agree more.
I couldn't agree more. Andagain, like, that's that's just
kind of our world. So I guessthere's maybe some, like,
assumed bias here, but it's thetruth. It's like, if you don't
(49:57):
know what. Scaling what in thehell are you do scaling it if
you don't know your financials,if you don't have an
entrepreneurial mindset, it'stough building a lifestyle
business. I was at the Sunbeltshow just literally this week,
and scbc the week before, and alot of the builders I was
talking to, I asked them aquestion, there are typically
(50:18):
two buckets, either you'remonetizing a hobby or you're
building a business. Which onedo you fall into? And they're
like, Well, what do you mean? Iwas like, monetizing a hobby is
like you're making money, you'resupporting a lifestyle, like
it's not like, necessarilyrepeatable, or you're looking at
p and l's and balance sheets,can't really make sense of it,
whatever it might be. And thenwhen you're building a business,
is like you are creating andproducing and selling a product
(50:41):
to the decimal of a percentageprofit margin, product in,
product out, and your goal is toscale and grow. And it was like
60% of them were like, I'mdefinitely monetizing the hobby,
sure, and it's like,none of that, no fault of their
own, of where they were, wherethey are. But when you hear this
podcast, or you hear otherpeople talking about this, what
(51:03):
I always want to do is I just,we have to drop this message in
so that, hopefully that itshifts a mindset. It says, Oh,
it that clicks. I might haveheard it several times before,
but it just clicked today. And Ihope for someone it clicks today
to go shit that makes sense orthat that's something I get. I
need to take that to that nextlevel, and I can do extremely
(51:27):
well. The other thing in thisbusiness, I can make a really
good living, you know,monetizing my hobby, as you say,
right? But, but I will nevermake a fortune. And if you're in
the four level world, we're hereto help you make a fortune, not
just a living.
I love it. I love it. I think weleave it there. Randy, this was
(51:49):
great. Dude, awesome, man.
We'll, we'll have to get, we'llhave to get in touch again. This
was good. It's good. Yeah,please chatter back and forth.
Yeah, yeah. There's lots ofroads we can go down. And I wish
we had a lot more time,honestly, because, yeah,
there's, there's so much touncover in this
world. Totally, totally, I'llreach out to you actually, and
(52:10):
before we let you go, where canthe listeners find you guys?
Find us at website, the numberfour level coach.com, you can
reach out to me directly andhappy to to chat with anyone my
email. Randy Stanbury, S, T, a,n, b, u, R, Y. Duck at Gmail,
(52:30):
sorry. Randy at four levelcoach.com man, I was all messed
up there. Yeah. Randy at thenumber four level coach.com.
Yeah, please reach out to mehappy to jump on a call. I love
doing assessments right, lookingat a business and saying, hey,
where do I have holes in it?
What would have to changewhether you want to work with us
(52:51):
or not, or move forward or not,we can always do a quick 30
minute assessment call. Yeah,I love it. I love it. I
appreciate you, Randy. I'll letyou get back to it. Thanks for
jumping. For jumping onthe pod. Cheers and appreciate
you too. Thank you guys, seeyou, dude.
You would not jump on a plane ifthe pilot did not understand his
(00:04):
or her dials in their cockpit,right? Totally, yet we're flying
the plane of our businessesevery day not understanding
those dials.
Mics are hot. Randy mics arehot. Let's get at it. Let's get
(00:25):
at it. Baby. Good to see you,dude. Thanks for jumping
on. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah,good to be on. I look forward to
this,yeah, yeah. I love it. I always
like to do a little intro here,and I think specifically it's
important for what you're doingover at four level. Go ahead and
give the listeners a littlebackground on yourself, what
four level is all about, andwe'll use that to kick off the
(00:45):
combo. Yeah,little bit about myself. I mean,
I what's interesting. I startedmy first business in 95 so it
goes back a few years now, or 30years into this thing. Now, I
was one years old. Youwere one years old, I had to
agree. Yeah, that's along time. Man, yeah. Okay, jabs
(01:09):
over, jabs over. Go ahead.
Well, you know what'sinteresting about it is, back in
the day, it took me about threeyears to know enough to know I
didn't know nearly enough. Andyou know, I started to get some
(01:29):
help. Started working with abusiness coach. Took me nine
years to get myself removed frommy core business. That business
ran and operated without me forthe next 10 years. I was paid
extremely well during that time.
And then I went and startedanother business, and another
business after that. And Icontinued to do the same thing
(01:52):
that I figured out during thatyou know, that time frame from
98 to 2007 2017 I sold thatfirst core business. And what I
realized when I sold it is it'sextremely rare what I pulled off
to be removed from the businessfor 10 years. Well, it ran and
(02:12):
operated without me, and I wasable to go start another
business and another one. And sothe the reason I bring that up
is four level coach has beenbuilt from what I pulled off,
what I figured out, and what weshare today is how to do exactly
that for builders andremodelers. And you know, it's,
it's what I think we all want.
(02:39):
We all want ultimate freedom oftime and money follow a coach is
a success system that has beenbuilt from what I did in my
businesses along the way, and soour team has been built under
this four level Success Systemto share what we do with
builders and remodelers thatreally are highly ambitious,
(03:00):
self driven action takingentrepreneurs want more for
themselves, their families,their life and their business,
right? And if they want that,then we have the system, the
steps to do it. And we lovetransforming life. So that's
kind of why we exist and whywe're here.
Dude, I love it, and I so, youknow, I have not done what
(03:23):
you've done, but when I was atbuilder trend, I built their
onsite consulting service with acouple of others. And the
standardizing of businessprocesses to the point of
getting a business owner or justeven partners individuals to
remove themselves from thebusiness is crucial. And to your
point of like, what you wereable to do in a nine year period
(03:45):
ultimately remove yourself fromthe business and build other
businesses is extremely rare.
What is it like? What is the keycomponent to getting that done?
Oh, man. What the one thing or atheme? Yeah, theme, right? No,
it's very cool. I like wherethat, you know that conversation
(04:07):
can go, right? And the truth is,you know that nine year, what I
figured out nine years, we canhelp people do now. And really a
three year, we have a kind of athree year Success System. It
does take, hey, others will takefive six years. Some will take
two years, right? But you know,you can do it in three to four
years for sure. And what is it?
So? What is it really? You know,in a nutshell, we wrote the book
(04:33):
The 10 Reasons buildersremodelers fail to grow, right?
So love it that 10 reasons why,the 10 Reasons Why builders for
modelers fail to grow. It's onAmazon. You can grab it, Google
my name, whatever, right? Butthe point is, is, what's really
clear to me is that unless weget those 10 Reasons dealt with,
and we don't, if we can solvethose, then we can package this
(04:56):
and. Get to that level, right?
That's possible. Now, lots ofguys are going to say, you know,
and listening to this, well, Idon't want to remove myself from
the business that. And that'snot the intention of this. The
intention is that you have abusiness that can run and
operate without you. You don'thave to. It's nice to have a
(05:18):
choice in what we do, right? Mything was, like, I didn't, I
didn't want to go lie on abeach, right? That wasn't my
intention. I wanted to get freedup because I had other desires,
passions, you know, to go andthat I needed to get focused on,
because that's what drives me. Iwant to be challenged by, you
know, what I can build next sortof thing, right? So, what is it
(05:41):
so? The 10 Reasons, if we don'thave a clear vision, we're not
going to get there, right? If wedon't know where we're going, we
can drive around in circles,we'll never get there, right? It
starts with vision, to me,always. The other real key thing
is we need some financialliteracy, right? We have to
understand our numbers, we haveto be pricing projects, our jobs
(06:04):
profitably, or else we'll neverbe able to build the teams
around us or hire the A playersthat we need. So it's a
combination of knowing thefinancial side of our business,
having business savvy, andgetting ourselves off of what we
call it transitioning you frombeing in a contractor to an
entrepreneurial leader, right?
Love it so business savvy,financial literacy, we need to
(06:27):
be able to get our time right.
We refer to it as time mastery.
If, if, if I'm running incircles and I'm not leveraging
my time properly, I will neverget there, right? I have to get
really, really dialed in on, howdo I leverage my time? And then,
on top of that, how do Idelegate? How do I trust and let
go? Right? Big, big challengefor a lot of this industry is
(06:51):
being able to trust and let go,right? That's a key component.
Why do you think that is, Idon't mean to derail because
it's great, but it's so true.
It's like, even if you had thechance and the operation, the
business that was runningitself, could you even let go?
And I would say most buildersstruggle with that, like you
just said, why is that? Do youthink it's
(07:15):
I think because we believe,first off, that there's nobody
else that can do it as good aswe can. I mean, I had a
conversation with a gentlemanthis morning about that, right?
So if I believe in my mindsetthat no one can do it as good as
I can, how do I trust someoneelse to do it? How do I trust
and then let that go forsomebody else to do it? Because,
(07:37):
you know, I'm the only one thatcan do this right now, the fact
of the matter is that if you'reable to trust and let go, Well,
there's a number of componentsthat we need to be able to trust
and let go. First of all, weneed a team of eight players. If
we have C players, yeah, that'swhy I can't trust and let go,
(07:59):
because I got a C player that Ihave attempted this with before,
and it went for a shit, andtherefore I'm no longer wanting
to try that again. And I'm like,no, this doesn't work. And I'm
outit's not only reasonable, it's
probably a good idea to nottrust and let go in that
circumstance, correct, right?
Okay, yeah. So it makes if Iget the right player in place,
(08:19):
that's great. The other thingis, if I haven't built the
system and trained someoneproperly, they're not doing it
the way I want it done,therefore I'm looking at them
pissed off. But really, I shouldlook in the mirror and say,
Well, damn, I didn't give them,I didn't give them the tools to
be successful. Yeah, yeah,right, totally. So, so if I've
(08:42):
tried it in the past and itdidn't work, then the past is
dictating my future, and we'vegot to get rid of that too,
because we can't. Just becausesomething didn't work before
doesn't mean it won't workagain. It just means we have to
change what we did. Yeah,totally. Do you think part of
that's because there's so muchrisk in not only just like
(09:04):
starting and running a business,but so much risk and
construction that that lettingthe past dictate the future, or
that close mindedness that Itried this before and it doesn't
work, therefore It'll neverwork, mentality seeps in?
Well, sure. I mean, I it's muchsafer if I just do it myself,
(09:29):
because I know and I can trustmyself, so I'll just do it. But
right? The more that I do that,the more I'm stuck on the
hamster wheel. Yes, right? So Ihit a ceiling. I'm stuck on the
hamster wheel. And the truth is,when I'm that busy, I don't have
time to build the system or toget the training in place. So we
always say, look, there's threethings we need. One is profit
(09:51):
before growth. I think far toomany try to grow and they don't
know their numbers are notprofitable yet. We're trying to
grow something that's not reallymaking money. We hope that we're
going. To make money one dayonce we get bigger, right? And
that is, you know, just means todisaster. So we've got to get
pricing and profitability rightbefore we grow. Second thing is,
(10:12):
we need to get the systemsbefore people right. But we
don't have time to get thesystems. And I mean systems, the
training, the structure aroundsomebody being successful. So I
throw people at my problem, andit creates more chaos,
frustration and overwhelm,because I did set them up to be
successful. Therefore I get thisstuff because they're not doing
(10:33):
the things I want done. And thenI go, well, this doesn't work
totally right. So that happens.
And then the third thing is, weneed to get the how before the
what. As builders or modelers,we're focused on the what, it's
what we know it's the what Irefer to as the it's the job,
it's the job site, it's thebuild, it's the construction,
(10:54):
it's what I'm comfortable with.
So I focus on the what, but thehow is what people will pay more
for? The how is the clientexperience? The how is the
system, the, how is everythingelse that makes the what go to
another level? Totally makessense.
It totally does so. Profitbefore growth, systems before
(11:18):
people, systems before people.
And then how, before the what?
Now,if you get those things right in
the right order, then you have acompletely transformed business
and ability to grow and scale.
And our job is to help peoplepiece that together, understand
what that is, and then take theright steps in the right order.
And when you say, you know, howdo you get yourself removed from
(11:42):
your business one day to have ascalable, sellable business?
It's it's all of those thingsdone extremely well, and then
making sure we have a marketingmachine that's feeding us
consistent, predictable leads.
It's making sure that we have asales system that's again
predictable and consistent thatwe can remove ourselves, train
somebody else to do thisactually better than you can
(12:04):
sell, which is hard for us toimagine, because nobody else can
sell like we can. TypicallyRight, right? But when, when you
get the parts and the machinesall working and they're dialed
in, those are solving the 10Reasons, you know. And another
big one that you guys focus onis the metrics, right? So
another one is, I need to knowthat the KPIs my business, I
(12:25):
need to be on top of my numbers.
I need to understand the needlemovers in my business so that I
can track look. I cannot improvewhat I don't measure, I don't
track. So what I measuring getstracked, gets improved. So all
of this stuff is extremely hardbecause at the end of the day,
we don't have the bandwidth andtime to focus on doing it. So
(12:48):
all of this goes back to my ownpersonal time management and how
I leverage thattotally. I know that was
beautiful Randy, and I say thatI literally just had a
conversation with Chloe brownabout this, and it's, honestly,
it's been coming up, like, verycommonly on this podcast, is
like, if you don't know yourmargin, I frame it this way,
(13:11):
like, if you don't know ifyou're making money on what
you're scaling, why are youscaling it right? And that's
like knowing your profit beforeyour growth. It's like it was
just absolutely plagued the USand builders in the last five
years, really, right from covid,like covid immediately, like it
was super, super rough,volatile, volatile commodity
markets. You know, you got yourlumbers, your supply chains, off
(13:34):
the off the roof, you can'tscale for a lot of people got
burnt on that, but there were ahell of a lot of builders that
caught a lot of opportunity withinventory shortages. People at
home, remodeling homes, buildinghomes right with interest rates
as low as they were, there was ahuge opportunity for people to
go out and double the size oftheir business, and they'd turn
(13:54):
around after a 1218, month buildcycle of doubling their
business, looking at theirprofit margin or what they
actually netted, and they'relike, I didn't make any more
money doubling my top line thanI did where I was originally at.
Like, I'm gonna go back andlike, do it, yeah, it's because
they didn't know what they werescaling, right? They didn't know
their profit before theirgrowth, right? It needs it's
like, you wouldn't imagine Applegoing out and creating billions
(14:16):
of iPhones if they didn't know,to the decimal of a penny what
their margin was going to be onthat unit, right? Like, that's,
of course, like an obnoxiousreason, but I think, like, if
metaphor that I think we allunderstand, get and understand
it, that that's simplistic,right? And the challenge in this
(14:39):
business, as you said these arelong sales cycles, long build
cycles, you know, chatting witha client this morning. I mean,
it takes, it takes a year to twoyears to turn around bad
pricing. If we're a custombuilder, because we've got
projects that we have on the gothat might not be priced well,
right? We have priced. Jobsrecently that haven't started
(15:02):
yet, that are going to startsoon, that are a year, 18 month
projects that were tied intoalready. And then, if we start
changing our pricing today, ittakes, you know, the sales cycle
to close and then to get thatproject started, and the new
pricing starts kicking in whenthe old stuff ends. So it's like
(15:24):
a year to two year process tostart feeling the effects of
new, improved, higher levelpricing that will turn the
business around.
Right totally. I like, justimmediately go to like, I just
see bloat in that even, like, ina like, even the more day to day
operational standpoint, meaning,like, it's really like, these,
(15:45):
these time horizons that ittakes for these problems to
surface, and then have theinformation you need to act on
them to, like, start weeding itout. To your point. Like, it
could be a year, like I could bebidding a project, and I could
have three projects going rightnow, and I'm bidding stuff on
the project that I haven't quitecrossed right now with my
current project, or I just didand I didn't take that into
(16:07):
consideration. Well, I just gota bid signed on that right now.
I'm locked into those numbers towhere, if I would have been
seeing my data in real time, Iprobably could have
circumnavigated that poorpricing and got ahead of it,
right? That's what I mean, like,and like, and I was like, I'm
biased towards adaptive on thatbecause, like, that's the entire
intention of using AI toautomate bookkeeping and
construction accounting, is thatyou can have the immediacy in
(16:28):
your data, because you're notbuilding a project, finished
with a project, and then decideto bid another one. You're
constantly bidding, constantlybuilding, constantly moving this
pipeline. What are you seeingbuilders do to shorten that
timeline, or that feedback loopto understanding their numbers,
to prevent that type ofsituation. Well, getting a bad
(16:49):
product, having pricing, have towork itself out. I
mean, your your comment aboutbeing biased on adaptive, I
think is, you know whetheryou're biased on adaptive or
you're not. Adaptive is quitesimply an answer to that, right,
like, right, yes, I get the yourbias to it, but adaptive is the
(17:10):
answer to that. That is whatneeds to be done. The other, of
course, is if we are using likeyou mentioned, builder trend,
earlier, job. Trend, resume,build, builder, whatever the
software is that we are usingto, you know, grow, scale our
business. I think far too oftenI just see it being
(17:34):
underutilized, right? It's, it'salways, it's 30% typically we
see anywhere from, I'm going tosay 25 to 30. 35% that we are
using the capabilities of it.
And so if we want to do this, weneed to be using a much bigger
percentage of the software inthe system the way it was
designed to be used. Again, I goback to look, and it's no fault
(17:57):
of the builder out there. Thechallenge is there's a hundreds
of moving parts every day. We'rebeing pulled in a million
different directions. Thechallenge is we're trying to do
more of it ourselves and tryingto keep up with it because we
feel like we can't afford thehelp that we need to do this, or
we're not even sure what tonecessarily do with that help if
(18:20):
I were to get freed up, right?
So it's, it's a really, it's areal big challenge. And I'll go
back to the fact of you know our10 Reasons, and that business
savviness, the financialliteracy and business savvy,
those two things are the key toall of it, you know, because as
(18:44):
soon as you have businesssavviness and again, it's no
fault of the builder, becausetypically a builder becomes a
builder or remodeler becausethey were skilled, right?
Skilled, great hands, greatskill, so knowledgeable on site,
and that's where mycomfortability is. But the
(19:06):
trouble is, if that's how I leadand grow my business, I'm going
to run into challenges, becauseI'm not, I'm not thinking of the
business savviness stuff or thefinancial literacy required to
make decisions in this business,to decide that, to the side that
it's I need adaptive, andadaptive, the return on my
investment with adaptive islike, it's such a no brainer
(19:30):
that I should be doing that Ijust I might not be coming from
the place of an entrepreneurialmindset,
right? You might not understandthat that's that's the
potential, or that kind of goesback to, like, needing the clear
vision, right? It's like youmight not even understand that
that's what you need. But it'sno slight to the builder,
(19:52):
because it's like, that's notnecessarily their wheelhouse, or
they haven't spent the time orfelt the pain to move into that
world. Of thinking is what Itypically
see. Yeah, well, and let's,let's touch on vision for a
moment. I think most of us,well, this is a simple human
nature. Our vision to thinkbeyond what we've currently done
(20:16):
is extremely difficult. So to gowith a a bigger vision than what
we think is possible based onwhere we've been and where we
are today, you know? So the pastis dictating our ability to
think of a vision greater thanwhere we are, right? So if you
put that into context, it'slike, look, it's taken me 10
(20:37):
years to get to here, and I'mdoing 2 million in sales, 2
million, right? And I always askthe question, where do you want
to be in the next, you know,three to five years? And the
answer is, typically, hey, I'dlike to get to, you know, maybe
double that. Maybe I can get to4 million. But it's typically
like, maybe I'll do anothermillion dollars in the next
(20:59):
three years, right? Really?
Interesting. And the truth is,it's like, you know, it might
have taken you 10 years to getto here, but when we move
forward, when you put the fourlevel success system into play,
you start dealing with these 10Reasons. You start exponentially
multiplying what's possible,right? It's no longer, you know,
two, you know, 10 years to getto two. It's, you know, we've
(21:23):
done this several times, and atthe end of the day, it's
possible to get to 10 million inthe next three to five, but it's
so beyond our imagination ofthinking that we end up with
this really small vision. Now, asmall vision, all I have to do
is just keep showing up the wayI've already showed up. Nothing
(21:44):
really has to change in order toget to that incremental vision.
So my vision isn't big enough toactually move the needle and
make the changes that I need tomake totally right? If I have a
bigger vision, then I have tomove the needle today if I'm
ever going to get there. So I'vegot to get more serious about
(22:05):
the actions that I take. Theactions are driven by our
vision. I'll take no freakingaction totally. Yeah. I won't
invest in adapt, adaptive. I'mnot going to put the time and
money into that, because I don'treally need to to get to my
vision. My vision is smallenough that I'll just keep doing
(22:26):
what I'm doing.
Vision is, do you think there'sanything real scalability? Do
you think there's anything wrongwith that? Anything wrong with
what, with with not necessarily,like, not having, like, a big
enough vision? Well, it there'snot a big enough
vision. Or if, if you want morethan what you currently have,
(22:49):
yes, there's somethingdrastically wrong with that,
because you will all always onlyhave what you already have if
you don't have a big enoughvision. Yeah. So there's nothing
wrong with it, if what you haveand what you where you're at is
what you want, right? If you'recool with your life and your
lifestyle and the time that youspend in that business and the
(23:13):
frustration most look most arefrustrated about their their
their time and their lifestyle,and you know, the 60 plus hours
a week that they work. So if Iwant that to change, yes, that's
a problem. If I'm okay withthat, then, no, that's
fine. Totally, totally. I alwaysthink about this. I think, like,
(23:35):
from a vision standpoint, do youthink that vision should be as
like, simple and pointed aspossible, as it should like. And
I'm thinking about thistactically for the listener,
right? Because like this islike, this makes a ton of sense.
Like, if you don't have thevision, you're not going to be
motivated, and you're not goingto have the clarity to make like
action, to take action. But Ithink a lot of people, they kind
(23:55):
of get right action, the rightaction, and that's what I'm
saying. Thisis the difference, though, too.
I want to make sure that that'sclear, right? Because this
industry takes more action andworks harder. Like, it's not
about more action, it's theright action. And I know you,
you and I are on page. I justwant to make sure for the
listener that makes sense. Like,this is the hardest working
(24:16):
industry on the planet. It's notabout action. Just clear, clear
thatup. Yeah, it's about the right
action. And that's where Ithink, like going back even like
the simplicity of the vision,right? Is like having a clear,
simple vision of, I'm tired ofworking the 60 hour weeks in my
business, I want to scale backinto 40 or 20. Do you see that
(24:38):
as being like, reasonable?
Maybe, like, baby steps into abigger vision? Or do you think
that people should be saying,like, I want to be $10 million a
year at a 30% net on aremodeling business, and I want
to be completely removed andjust do this like big package
(24:59):
deal vision? What do you suggestwhen people are struggling with
thisgreat question? I think it has
to be done in incremental steps,because we cannot wrap our mind
around it. Our job is to helppeople wrap their mind around
it. And how this typically worksis one. We need courage. We need
the courage to think bigger thanwe are already. And it takes
(25:20):
real courage, because I'vegotta, if I, if I'm true to
that, I've gotta do thingsdifferent. That is going to make
me extremely uncomfortable,right? So I gotta have the
courage to have a vision thatgoes beyond my current
capabilities, right? If I havethat vision, I have to make
commitment now to that vision.
So if I can go beyond and, Imean, we don't have to go to 10
(25:43):
million. Let's go a littlefurther than our, our doubling
of size. Let's go to triple.
Let's say, call it 5 millionfrom two, and say I can do five
and three. And this is what I'mgoing to do. I'm also going to
work not 60 hours. I'm going toget down to, you know, 30, you
know, maybe I'll cut that inhalf. Maybe, could I get to 30?
And, believe me, all of it's100% possible, but our mind has
(26:03):
to be able to think that. But wehave to have to have enough
courage to, you know, Believe init and think it and go after it.
We got to make commitment to it.
Now, we don't have thecapability, and nor does our
team, and that's the beautifulpart. You don't have to, you've
got to be able to makecommitment to the vision, and
then your team, then everyaction we take, everything that
(26:26):
we're moving towards, everyneedle mover in the business,
when I'm talking not justaction, but needle moving action
actually builds ourself and ourteam's capability. That then
gives us more confidence tobelieve in a bigger vision
again. So it's incremental stepstowards a bigger and bigger
vision, but we got to go beyondwhat starts with courage. We got
(26:48):
to make commitment. We got toget our confidence based on our
new capabilities. Yeah, and thenthat will fuel more courage.
Yes, it'll almost like, justkind of like, create an
environment of the process thatyou had just outlined, right?
It's like, it's like, it's like,once you, once you, it's like,
(27:08):
it's just momentum, right? It'slike an adaptive even, like,
it's like, we have a ton ofmomentum right now as an
organization, internally, right?
Sales pipeline exploding,product humming, like engineers
ripping like, you can feel it inthe organization. Isn't even a
remote environment, right? Rightpoint being is, like, that's
because, like, the vision wasclear, like leadership was
(27:29):
committed to it. We started todrive and had the courage to go
after what it was going to taketo get there, and now we've
accomplished it. And youincrease
capability along the way, youdid not have the capability to
do what the vision was in thefirst place, but you're
increasing capability now,right? Totally. And you're
getting that momentum, whichthen kicks in confidence. And
(27:52):
the fact, my guess is your teamis more confident than it's ever
beenbefore. Incredibly, night and
day, you look at thisorganization from 12 months ago,
and it is a completely differentorganization. It's
incredible. Bingo. There's theyou just hit the nail on the
head of what happens. So whenyou join four level coach, and
you join our ecosystem and oursuccess system of everything we
(28:12):
just talked about to this is thestuff that has to shift. You
make this bigger step, you makethe commitment, you increase
capability, you get moreconfidence, you increase his
courage. I can then thinkbigger, and I then the engine
turns. We call it the successwheel. When this success wheel,
this fly wheel, is starting totake action, like you're seeing
(28:33):
with adaptive what you justexplained is exactly how it
works. Builder, modeler, world.
When they get that this is whenyou can go from 2 million to 10,
so much faster you ever believepossible, because your world is
completely transformed. You saidyour business does not look like
it didn't feel like it theconfidence 12 months, yeah,
right, totallyquarter after quarter, year
(28:57):
after year, and the momentumthat that kicks in three years
from now, you're, you're off thecharts,
totally, 100% 100% and I thinkthat that is, like, an important
piece. And then I think, like,even, like, bring it back into,
like, the tactical bit, youknow, I, for whatever reason,
(29:18):
like this is resonating with me.
I hope I'm not just like,ripping the E break on this you
can, we can jump back if we needto, no but go ahead. But I
think, like, part of whatprevents this momentum from
happening is the day to day,right? Because it's like, one
thing to listen to a podcast, acouple of guys that have seen
it, that have executed on it,right? And like, of course, we
can get excited. And like, Yes,this is what it is. But then for
(29:38):
the guy that's in the guy that'sin the truck that's driving the
job site, that's working 60hours a week, getting his ass
kicked by all the day to daystuff that's happening is like,
I think part of it, from asolution standpoint, is going
back to your comment of the 25to 30% of these products that
get used comment, and I havebeen saying for like, years at
builder trend even, probably.
(30:00):
It's like Job tread. People barkabout price at Procore, right? I
say all these companies havebeen priced so low comparative
to the value that they couldpotentially bring. Like, that is
my God's honest truth. Like, ifyou're actually using job tread,
the way that job tread can beused, if you're actually using
builder trend or adaptive orwhatever, to the fullest, like
those, those upfront costs aretruly like pennies compared to
(30:22):
what they do. But I saw it atbuilder trend, 25, 30% usage,
and you sit here and you scratchyour head like, why are people
not motivated more to startleveraging these systems and
processes capturing data ontheir businesses, to actually
start getting out of thismomentum. Okay, so
what do you think the reason islike? And I've got my belief
(30:45):
around it, and I'm curious ofyours,
so I think that, like, fiveyears ago, I would have answered
this of like, you've got amarket that's, like, primarily
resistant to tech five? Yeah, Iwas probably close about 10
years ago, like, right when Istarted at builder trend. And
like, mind you, I was like, 300around their employee. They've
(31:08):
got 800 employees now they have,like, maybe like 10,000
customers. I think now they'relike 25,000 just to like, kind
of give you a perspective. Andlike, builder trend was, like,
this was before job tread. Thisis before all that well, I mean,
you'd call builders, and they'dbe like, I'm not running
software, right? There was likethat resistant to software. But
now, as I like, I start to seelike the number of competitors,
(31:30):
the resios, the build tools, thebuild books, the builders, the
builder pads, the whatever,insert project management
software, dime a dozen, as italways comes down to like user
interface and ability to adopt.
And I think that now you've gotan industry of builders that are
comfortable and familiar andhave been sold and bought and
shifted and changed software,but it's so challenging for them
to get their business to adoptit that it prevents them from
(31:56):
ever fully ingraining it. Andthe people that do adopt it
really well, totally bought in,use every feature as much as
they can. They see a ton ofvalue out of it. And they're
like, this is totallyinvaluable, right? But that's my
answer is, I think, like, Ithink it's the products that are
available are extremelydifficult to adopt from a
(32:17):
functionality and a process anda piecing together standpoint,
and it's easy to lose sight ofit, and it's probably because
there aren't sound businessprocesses in place before, so
they're biting off so much atthe beginning of the front end
of these processes of I've gotthis really cool piece of
software now that is basicallyproviding a framework for me to
execute workflows in but I don'thave those workflows today in
(32:41):
place. That'smy take you to me 100,000% nail
on the head. And this is exactlywhy at four level, when I'm
looking at how we help peoplebecome as successful as possible
to get to the absolute pinnacle,and peak, which is a level four
(33:04):
business in our world, thatsellable business that removes
yourself from day to day. Thething is, peak, it's flowing,
it's profitable. It's, you know,it's a well oiled machine,
right? So, simply put, in orderto get there, systems and
software is a critical keycomponent. It's one of the 10
(33:26):
Reasons systems and software,without it, you will get to a
certain point, but you will notget beyond that, right? So what
we realized is there was amassive gap in how much people
are using their software and howwell they use it, and then the
adoption, you said, adoption oftheir team, right? So we created
four level integrators, so weare integrating these project
(33:51):
management software solutionsinto businesses that once that
happens, it's a whole new world,right? But it's completely built
out. It's a done for you typesystem, because they don't have
time to build it. They don't tieone. We're also not like if you
ask me to build it, it ain'thappening. That's not my that's
(34:16):
not my expertise. That's not,but I, but if I, you know, if
I'm on job site, I'm a, I'm a,I'm a builder mindset to start
with. I'm trying to be anentrepreneurial mindset. I'm
trying to shift from that righttransition from contractor to
entrepreneur, right, and now youwant me to become a software
expert as well, and set that Ijust that's completely
(34:39):
ridiculous. I also don't thinkif, unless you're a marketing
expert, you should be focused onyour marketing. So, you know, we
need to get the help we need,and then we need to get our
teams to adopt it. The challengewith that, and in large part, is
the training, right? So you knownow we've got to be trained and
our team's got to be heldaccountable. Right? So, you
know, we believe it in a rolecalled the system CIA. The CIA
(35:03):
is creator, implementer andaccountability. It's what it
stands for. But we need to dothe same thing with our
software. It's the, you know,creating the the software to be
leveraged and used the way itshould be following. And I don't
believe in just standardizedtemplates that, you know, we can
get anywhere because thoseworkflows, they're not That's
(35:23):
not how you run your business,it's not how you think, and
it'll get you, you know, maybehalfway home, and then you're
going to be pissed off, becauseit's, it's, it doesn't work for
you, the way you think and howyou operate, right? So we have
to customize our workflows, andit's been a game changer our
whole integration side. And, Imean, it's like, it is so busy
(35:45):
too, and they're just going fulltilt, doing this constantly for,
you know, clients. It's, it's,yeah, but it's also, I love what
you said, right? Neil, is there510, years ago, this wasn't a
big as big a deal. Everyonepretty get pretty well gets
today that this is a criticalcomponent, and it needs and and
we just got to take it over theedge. We got to go further with
(36:09):
it,totally, totally and I think,
you know, when it comes to, likethe integrator side, like that
was a lot of what we were doingat builder trend with the on
site consulting service. It waslike me Daniel Martinez, who's
actually adaptive now on ourcustomer success side, and then
Brett Jones. He's still at He'sstill at builder trend, but we
(36:30):
would do like 60 consultations ayear. Is what we would call him.
It was like a 60 day service.
You would like do pre work. Youwould go out for two days. You
would sit down with them, havethem implement, I don't
implement, identify SOPs, headback 60 days of rollout,
building workflow charts andlike, how people actually
execute, move through thebusiness, and it would still be
(36:51):
like a toughadoption. Yeah, tough adoption.
Do you gotta work? Oh, yeah,that's you've gotta. We have to
work with them and their teamsafter the adoption, or it
typically will fall off thetable and again, not use it as
well as they, you know, theycould, you know, they'll,
they'll go way further, butthey're still not taking getting
(37:12):
the full value. Yeah, right,that you know that that that
tool, you know, we need to lookat our software as one of the
most important tools in ourtoolbox. I mean, we've got a lot
of important tools, but that's,there's not one that's much more
importantthan that, yeah, well, and I
think, like, that's like, I, tome, it seems like a goofy
(37:35):
cliche, but it's so accurate. Islike, the tool in the toolbox.
And I think it's goofy because,like, we sell the contractors,
right? And we work withcontractors, and they're kind of
like, okay, yeah, software. Butit's like, seriously, if you're,
if you're, are you gonna try anddrive screws with a hammer?
Like, the answer is like,obnoxiously, no, right? Like,
(37:55):
that is totally ridiculous. Andit's like the guys that you're
talking about, like in thefield, who are like tradesmen,
craftsmen, decades ofexperience, like, that's where
they go, and then they get theleap of faith to start their own
business as like, if you're notviewing establishing process, if
you're not viewing applying andadopting software, if you're not
(38:15):
viewing that as any moreimportant than am I using a
Phillips head screwdriver on aPhillips screw? Or, am I using,
what is it? Is a torque? Orwhat's the weird, whatever?
Right? A wrong screwdriver onthe screw? Right? I'm not a
contractor. Point being is,like, that would be ridiculous
(38:36):
in any other component of yourworld. But when it comes to
software, like it gets devaluedon and then that's where I say,
like, in terms of, I'm superbullish and excited about, like,
the innovation and thedisruption and the moves that
products are making, because Ithink there's a huge opportunity
for project management solutionto become more compelling.
Honestly, like, I think, I thinkright now it's I struggle with
(38:57):
this, and actually I want yourtake on this. I actually think I
have someone. I talked tosomeone this morning. I need to
get an answer back to him. I'mconnecting with another builder.
But he was like, I talked tobuilder trend. I talked to
resio. I've talked to Job trap.
Like, literally, he's talkingabout project management tools.
He's pretty stoked aboutadaptive, but he's like, how
does all of it play together?
And like, how should I go aboutshopping and choosing and
(39:20):
designing project managementsoftware, I always come at a
loss, not necessarily a loss,but it's like, it's a nuanced
answer, because they all,they're all very similar, but
they all do certain thingsdifferently, right? And they're
like some of them are known likeCO construct and builder turn
with a historic competition,right? It's like CO construct
was known for having tighterfinancials. Builder turn was
notorious for having betterproject management. Project
(39:42):
management, right? That was aneasy delineation for people to
make. The comment on there wasreally two people to choose
from, co construct, buildertrend. Now you're off. Now when
you're kind of flooded with allthese different solutions, how
do you go about that Randy? Howwould you handle that
conversation? How do you choosejob code over builder trend over
Procore, over resi overwhatever? Or,
yeah. I mean, I think it'spretty straightforward today in
(40:04):
terms of just, how do you do youenjoy the user interface? Is it
really, at the end of the day,it's you have to find it easy
enough for you to use, not socomplex that you can't use it
right, or don't want to use it,your team won't want to use it.
(40:27):
What we find, as well as even,you know, builder trend will do
certain things one way. And youknow, somebody moves from
builder trend to Job trend, andtheir whole world blows up
because Job trend doesn't dothings and think that, it's
almost like I gotta rethinkbackwards as to the way I
thought before, right? But atthe end of the day, I don't give
(40:48):
a shit what software you use,use the software to its fullest
potential, and, and, and youwill like, because they all are
going to have their nuances, butthey will all get the same
outcome, right? So at the end ofthe day, you're going to get the
same outcome, I think, as well,it depends what, what size are
you? What sort of enterpriselevel are we looking at? Are we,
(41:12):
you know, our commercial side?
Of course, Procore is theCadillac. And if you, you know,
over in, in the small builderremodeler world, there's
certainly, you know, the jobtreads flying off the shelves
and builder trends strugglingbecause they're keeping price
point up and right, you know.
But the the larger custombuilder, you know, is going to
(41:35):
be the builder trend fan, right?
So I to me again, I don't, Idon't really. Doesn't matter
which one you use, use it fully.
Get dialed in. And you know, Iwould say the components that I
think we also need to look at,though, is the support. Customer
Support is so critical for them,right? Like we'll do full, full
(42:01):
integrations of the software. Soyou need a lot less support if
you you know work with fourlevel on the integration side,
because it's all going to bebuilt out and done for you, and
then we'll train you through it.
But if you're not doingsomething like that with any
with anyone, then you're goingto need the customer support in
a big, big way, right? So, youknow, I think if you're choosing
(42:23):
software, you you need to belooking at the customer support
size and what's what side andwhat's available, and how deep
and how far they go with you.
Totally. I couldn't agree more.
I mean, that was like, so when Istarted to build, I was on the
BDR, like, cold calling, closingdeals that type of side. And
then when I was on the on siteconsulting that was more on the
(42:44):
customer success side. It was avalue added service, right? It
was like the premiumimplementation integration. It
was probably like a lightversion of what you guys do
coupled with their customersuccess. And dude, we it was six
to 18 months. Was like normal,normal for like, six, six
months, if you have someonelike, full on dedicated to doing
an implementation rollout,sharper business, some type of a
(43:08):
hierarchy or org chart with likeresponsibilities and process
outlined, and something that youcould, like, map and like, tie
in, and then you could trainpeople on 18 months for the guy
That's like, I bought it forscheduling and to do's, and then
I always wanted to get into thisstuff, but I never had the time.
So I couldn't agree more, like,the customer success side there,
but that's why I also say, and Idouble back down on this, like,
(43:30):
super optimistic about, like,the solutions that are out there
and that are hopefully beingdreamed up when it comes to
project management. Because Ithink, like, today, like, just,
I think a six to 18 month, twoyear, whatever it ends up being,
implementation set up to time tovalue adoption is totally
ridiculous with the technologythat's available today. And you,
(43:50):
like, the very first thing thatyou had mentioned when it came
to, like, how do you approachthis project management
conversation is user interfaceis like, that should be like,
just the standard at this point,because the way that like,
artificial intelligence ismoving and workflows are getting
automated, and the technologythat's available is like, is, is
UI even going to be the sellingpoint in the future, or is it
(44:12):
going to be how, how artificialintelligence is taking and
leveraging available data toexecute workflows. So,
yeah, yeah. I mean, we're justobviously scratching the surface
of AI and what's possible. So, Imean, it's, it's, it's like,
(44:33):
scary, exciting of what'spossible and what's coming. And
the truth is, if we're notjumping on to that today, man,
we're missing opportunity in abig way. Like, you've got to be
adapting, adopting fast, right?
You know, you just, you do haveto, yeah,
(44:55):
I'm kind of over the, like,scared of AI phase. Obviously, I
work for, like, an AI native. Ofproduct, right? But I think,
like, there was certainly, like,a component of that. You see
some of the stuff that comesout, and you're like, oh shit,
like, AI can make cold calls andsell stuff, right? It's like,
that's pretty well, yeah. Andit's like, no one's safe. But on
the other hand, you look at itand it's like, the way that AI
(45:15):
is getting traction is it's notgoing to go away. And I think
the way that AI is being appliedto reduce the tedious, mundane
tasks that people typicallydidn't want to do is the
exciting part,but, but here's what's beautiful
about our industry, right? Theindustry of builders,
remodelers, trade subs, right?
(45:40):
Our sub. This is not, this isnot an industry that's going to
be disrupted, right? We will, wewill be building homes. We'll be
remodeling home. There's so muchinventory that needs remodeling.
We need a lot more homes beingbuilt, right? And so like, and,
you know, of course, there, youknow, there's 3d printing, and
(46:00):
there's going to be some that,like, we're going to have all
kinds of product shifts andtechnology inserts, but we still
need human beings to build thisindustry 100%
and I think, like, just liketoday, even Before AI, what was
the differentiator betweenFinnish carpenters 20 years ago,
(46:24):
right? Yeah, yeah. Who can do itbetter? Right? It was like, what
human is a better finishedcarpenter who has the better eye
for detail, who has the mostprecise cuts, who's thinking
about the functionality ofwhatever they're getting ready
to finish, right? It's alwaysbeen that way. You're so far
away from a robot or RPA fromactually, and I know we're
(46:48):
coming up on time here, I canlet you jump in a minute. No,
no, but, but it's we're so faraway from like robots,
automating this stuff again, itgoes back to the tedious task.
It's like, you see the, I think3d printing is too early, but
you see these big, likemachines, and they're like, they
pour concrete and they setrebar, and they're typically
used on, like, big interstatejobs, right? It's like this big
(47:08):
machine that, like, just movesand does it? It's like, how many
people and how much skill doesit take for humans to tie in
rebar and pour concrete? Right?
That seems like something that'sreasonable for a robot to do,
right? At a probably, like, moreconsistent output and a more
quality like, that makes senseto do when it comes to our
industry with residential and,like, actual, like, hands on
contractors, is like, you'restill the differentiator is the
(47:31):
human, and there's so and that'sthe argument now, is like the
trades, like, the trade pool isso low because there's not that
many skilled people, it's like,we'll start training them
like, well, and if you think offuture here, right, like we're
private if you look at whereprivate equity money is going,
the big capital money, it'sgoing into this industry and the
(47:53):
trades. And why is that? Becausethey see it as the long term
future, the undisrupted businessthat is so beautiful for us in
our world that it's just, youknow, we need to build our
machines out. And I mean ourbusinesses as machines totally
(48:13):
like, you know, we've got tothink about it differently. And
you know, if we leave, you know,your your listeners, with
anything, I think, like, to me,biggest takeaways here, there's,
there's two keys, becomefinancial literate, like really,
really understand the Dows inyour cockpit. We use the
(48:35):
terminology all the time. Youwould not jump on a plane right
if the pilot did not understandhis or her dials in their
cockpit, right? Totally. Yet,we're flying the plane of our
businesses every day notunderstanding those dials so so
we are very unsafe in ourbusiness if we don't have
(48:55):
financial literacy, it'simpossible to make intelligent
business decisions that help yougrow and scale without financial
literacy, it's completelyimpossible. So if, until we have
that, we are going to struggle,no matter what, we're probably
never going to get to where wewant to go ultimately, and we're
(49:15):
going to have that smallervision. And we may achieve that,
but we'll never get to a visionthat was beyond our, you know,
wildest dreams today, and thetruth is that's available. If we
get this the, you know, thesethings dialed in, financial
literacy, business savvy, we'vegot to be able to transition
from contractor toentrepreneurial leader. If we
(49:37):
can do those two things, ourwhole world can change, because
we're going to see thingsdifferently that we could never
see before. Without financialliteracy and business savvy,
totally, I couldn't agree more.
I couldn't agree more. Andagain, like, that's that's just
kind of our world. So I guessthere's maybe some, like,
assumed bias here, but it's thetruth. It's like, if you don't
(49:57):
know what. Scaling what in thehell are you do scaling it if
you don't know your financials,if you don't have an
entrepreneurial mindset, it'stough building a lifestyle
business. I was at the Sunbeltshow just literally this week,
and scbc the week before, and alot of the builders I was
talking to, I asked them aquestion, there are typically
(50:18):
two buckets, either you'remonetizing a hobby or you're
building a business. Which onedo you fall into? And they're
like, Well, what do you mean? Iwas like, monetizing a hobby is
like you're making money, you'resupporting a lifestyle, like
it's not like, necessarilyrepeatable, or you're looking at
p and l's and balance sheets,can't really make sense of it,
whatever it might be. And thenwhen you're building a business,
is like you are creating andproducing and selling a product
(50:41):
to the decimal of a percentageprofit margin, product in,
product out, and your goal is toscale and grow. And it was like
60% of them were like, I'mdefinitely monetizing the hobby,
sure, and it's like,none of that, no fault of their
own, of where they were, wherethey are. But when you hear this
podcast, or you hear otherpeople talking about this, what
(51:03):
I always want to do is I just,we have to drop this message in
so that, hopefully that itshifts a mindset. It says, Oh,
it that clicks. I might haveheard it several times before,
but it just clicked today. And Ihope for someone it clicks today
to go shit that makes sense orthat that's something I get. I
need to take that to that nextlevel, and I can do extremely
(51:27):
well. The other thing in thisbusiness, I can make a really
good living, you know,monetizing my hobby, as you say,
right? But, but I will nevermake a fortune. And if you're in
the four level world, we're hereto help you make a fortune, not
just a living.
I love it. I love it. I think weleave it there. Randy, this was
(51:49):
great. Dude, awesome, man.
We'll, we'll have to get, we'llhave to get in touch again. This
was good. It's good. Yeah,please chatter back and forth.
Yeah, yeah. There's lots ofroads we can go down. And I wish
we had a lot more time,honestly, because, yeah,
there's, there's so much touncover in this
world. Totally, totally, I'llreach out to you actually, and
(52:10):
before we let you go, where canthe listeners find you guys?
Find us at website, the numberfour level coach.com, you can
reach out to me directly andhappy to to chat with anyone my
email. Randy Stanbury, S, T, a,n, b, u, R, Y. Duck at Gmail,
(52:30):
sorry. Randy at four levelcoach.com man, I was all messed
up there. Yeah. Randy at thenumber four level coach.com.
Yeah, please reach out to mehappy to jump on a call. I love
doing assessments right, lookingat a business and saying, hey,
where do I have holes in it?
What would have to changewhether you want to work with us
(52:51):
or not, or move forward or not,we can always do a quick 30
minute assessment call. Yeah,I love it. I love it. I
appreciate you, Randy. I'll letyou get back to it. Thanks for
jumping. For jumping onthe pod. Cheers and appreciate
you too. Thank you guys, seeyou, dude.
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