March 10, 2025 • 67 mins
GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE LEVEL UP EXPERIENCE HERE - https://duaynepearce.com/events/
#131 Breaking barriers in the construction industry is at the forefront of our discussion. Claire shares her journey from growing up surrounded by construction to running her own successful business.
Check out Duayne's other projects here...
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE LEVEL UP EXPERIENCE HERE - https://duaynepearce.com/events/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
it shouldn't matter who we are, where we come from,
who we love, who we live withlike that should make no
difference.
If you want to do the thingthat you enjoy doing, just do it
g'day guys.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome back to another cracking episode of
level up.
Australia's number oneconstruction podcast and voted
in 2024 in the top 25 percent ofour category worldwide, so we
are absolutely pumped about that.
We've got a cracking podcastcoming to you today.
Um, we have claire from axiomaxiom axiom, axiom axom.
(00:43):
Axiom Axiom Construction group.
So I'm really looking forwardto this chat.
I love getting females on thepodcast and spreading the word.
I'm a big advocate for gettingmore females in the construction
industry, but also supportingthem and, I guess, just talking
about some of the challengesthey face.
But Claire is just not anyordinary female.
That's in our industry.
(01:04):
She's run sole tradingbusinesses.
She's started multiplesuccessful construction
companies.
She's consulted to failingconstruction companies to make
them profitable again.
She also has a diploma ininterior design.
She's earned a certificate inbuilding and construction and
attained her low-rise buildinglicense.
(01:24):
But you also have won multipleawards and you sit on the board
of some of the associations todo with helping women in the
industry.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, someone's done their homework.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You have a lot going on, so massive welcome and
thanks for reaching out.
I guess to get us started,Claire, Claire reached out to us
on Instagram and we startedhaving a bit of a chat through
there.
But what made you reach out?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I have been listening to your podcast for quite some
time and a lot of what you sayand speak about with your guests
my husband and I talk about ona frequent, so it feels a lot
like we're having the sameconversations.
I just want to get in on it andI want to make a change in the
construction industry, so themore I can get out there and the
(02:07):
more people like us can bandtogether, I think the better.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So before we dive into everything you're doing, a
bit more of that, Tell us.
Can we go back a little bit?
How did this all start?
Where did the passion come fromfor the industry and that type
of stuff?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So I grew up in Christchurch, new Zealand, and
my dad was a builder and I usedto go.
I didn't hang out on the jobsite with him, but one thing
that stands out in my memory forme is he put another level on
my auntie and uncle's house andhe did it on the weekends.
So I went with him, we hung out, uh, there, and I watched him.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I remember watching him vividly uh, throw a jib
board on the on the walls or jibrock plaster sheets we've just
employed another kiwi in ourteam after christmas and we
started demolition job yesterdayand he's like do you want me to
bring the yard whacker?
And I'm like what are youtalking about?
And he kept going on about hisyard whackers and I'm like
(03:11):
explain to me what you mean.
What are you going to do withit?
And he told me I was like youmean a whippersnipper?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah we have funny names like the Dwangs.
Yeah, yeah, I get that all thetime.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
But it was fascinating for me to watch and
I remember sitting there playingwith dolls, actually in the
corner, watching him throwsheeting on the walls, and it
just absolutely fascinated me.
But I went to an all-girls highschool and I was taught to you
know like I was trained ontypewriters and be a
receptionist or a teacher or anurse or anything girly.
(03:48):
So the opportunity.
Nobody ever handed me a hammerand said have a go.
That was just not anopportunity for me back then and
, to be honest, I was prettymeek and mild at that time
anyway, so I probably wouldn'thave done it.
But I just didn't have theopportunity.
And that's the thing that Iwant to change now, which is why
(04:11):
I've done what I've done withmy career.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so it is something that gets overlooked,
I guess, and missed, isn't it?
Because, like, I talk about alot when I was back at school,
but I guess I've never reallythought about it from a female's
perspective, like, if you're atschool and you're actually
getting the opportunity to havethose discussions about going
into whether it's mining,construction, those types of
industries, and it's notsomething you're going to
(04:35):
probably have on your radar, no,definitely not, and I think
going to a girl's school was,you know that, a disadvantage
for me at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I don't know what it's like now at a girls' school
, but I definitely know I'vebeen to a lot of schools where
they do try a trade and theyhave, you know, careers expos
and we have trades there who arepresenting and it's open to
boys and to girls and I thinkyou know like that's a massive
turning point for our youngpeople.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so how did you go from then to getting into the
industry?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So I did what all Kiwi kids do and ran away from
home when I finished high school, moved overseas and kind of I
got some experience in admin andbookkeeping, so sort of
clerical roles which I wastrained to do and actually it
was was really really good forme.
And after I finished sort ofoverseas I came back to New
(05:31):
Zealand where it was too smalland then moved to Australia
where I met my sole traderhusband.
So I had that clericalbackground with the bookkeeping
and you know plenty of nousbehind me.
I was, you know, pretty smartstudent, pretty switched on, and
essentially I took over thebusiness and yeah, we built it
from there.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So was he a trades or was he a builder?
He was a carpenter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So it was back in the olden days when we had the BSA
and I did the, he and I did thebuilder's license together and
it was, you know, you had thatbig thick booklet and you had to
write and then you had to drawthe trusses and you know like to
get your builder's license.
So we did that together.
He was on the tools, I was athome with my babies and yeah.
So I did all the theory, wroteall that out, and he came back
(06:18):
and did all the technical stuffthat I didn't know because I
didn't do a trade certificate.
So we, we did that together andthen built our first business
together.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Awesome, so how long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That would have been almost 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, Because I did it.
I think this year I've had mine19 years.
I did mine through the BSA.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, so you'd remember.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Big, thick shit book.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I can't remember the guy's name.
There was a guy that he sort ofkept ringing you, touching base
and you could go in and spendsome time with him if you had
questions and things.
But it wasn't done too bad.
But yeah, definitely I wouldn'tlike to be trying to get it
these days.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I just did mine.
Yeah, that was.
It wasn't actually as bad as Ithought it was going to be and,
uh, I just had to.
Well, I guess I was qualified,right.
So, if it, if I wasn'tqualified, then I probably would
have had a shit time, butbecause I knew what I was
talking about.
They could obviously see that.
And yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So, you did.
So what did you do 20 years ago?
It was his license.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then you both run thecompany and now you've gone out
and actually got your ownlicense that's it, yeah yeah,
awesome.
So what type of work have youbeen doing over the last 20
years?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
so new builds and renos and trying to sort of
steer into that larger scale umrenovation extension.
We do a fair bit of houseraising and build under yeah in
brisbane, yeah in brisbane yeah,we did go back.
we did do some work in in newzealand after the earthquakes,
(07:57):
um, but that was mainlyconsulting work.
So a lot of constructioncompanies grew way too fast for
what they could manage andeventually would go tits up.
So we went in as consultants.
Sorry, I would go in as thefinance and the admin side and
(08:17):
then Jay, my husband, would bethe operations side and
essentially we would get themback up and running and
profitable again.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So is that what you mean by consulting failing
companies?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's what we did in New Zealand.
We did that for seven years.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that, because that's like
I'm really passionate about that.
Like, obviously there's a hugeamount of quality trades and
builders in Australia and NewZealand, but the business side
is lacking.
So what sort of stuff did yousee?
Like I'm imagining it waspretty similar across all
(08:53):
businesses.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, just, I guess for lack of a better term
hemorrhaging money, so justspending money on things that
weren't necessary, overpayingfor materials, um, keeping staff
who weren't effective, uh, sothat was the.
They were the main things thatwe went in and looked at
immediately and then, um, justjust knowing the figures,
(09:16):
knowing, knowing your tax,knowing and paying, just paying
on time, right yeah, but so manybuilders just don't.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
They have no idea what it's costing them to run
open the doors every morning.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Is that like a problem that you saw?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, definitely yeah , most business owners were good
chippies but didn't know how torun a business, and I think
that's the same for most.
Which is actually one of thethings that cheeses me off about
our pathway is you go into yourapprenticeship, you do your
four years.
You come out the other endthinking you're shit, hot, you
(09:52):
can go out and run your own, yourun your own thing and then you
go into business or you knowlike, or you do your time and
then you go out on your own.
Why do we have to do that?
Why do we have to have thattrajectory?
Why can't we do ourapprenticeship, stay with that
company and be a really goodcarpenter and then go into
(10:13):
leading hand positions andproject management positions?
I don't know why.
Our culture, and that in ourculture, is that builders and
carpenters, we have to go out onour own.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Tyrone we actually talked about this on last week's
um podcast as well like itseems to be a hot topic.
But I look, I don't know ifit's the way I was brought up or
I sort of lean more towards.
I think it's a old,old-fashioned type thing.
Like I finished my time and,yes, I wanted more money, but I
knew I had to work my way up,yeah.
(10:44):
So like I finished my time, Istarted contracting to a builder
and then I had to work my wayup the ranks and like you didn't
move to the next rank until youhad proven yourself, whereas I
feel these days it's just like,yep, I've done my time, I've got
my piece of paper, I'm prepared, I can go and run my own
business, I'm going to make ashitload of money, yeah.
(11:07):
And I think all that's doing isadding to all the issues we
have in our industry withdefective work and businesses
going broke because they're nottaking the time to learn.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
No.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I even heard a story well, it wasn't a story.
I had a conversation withanother builder I know only a
couple of weeks ago about a pastemployee of ours we put through
his time was an incredibleyoung carpenter, was very
skilled.
Yeah, I really wanted to.
(11:34):
We had conversations.
I wanted to work him up throughmy business.
But he's very ambitious.
He had a lot of drive.
We sort of come to an agreement.
I was going to help him out,set company structures up and
work him up through the ranksand things sort of.
Three weeks later he's like Iknow I'm out of here, mate, I'm
gonna do my own work and like 18months later, like now he's
(11:55):
hitting building companies upfor 140, 150, 200 thousand
dollars a year because he thinkshe deserves to be that as a
supervisor with 18 monthsexperience out of his time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I think we've just got too greedy.
And you know like I was talkingabout this actually after we
listened to one of your podcastswhen we did when we started out
20 odd years ago and even whenmy dad started out would have
been 40, 50 years ago, it wasyou went into carpentry or a
trade because you wanted thatsecurity of work.
(12:27):
If you had your trade, you hadwork forever, regardless of
whether you're employed oryou're out on your own.
Now people are going into thesetrades and carpentries
especially to become rich andmake money and all of this, and
then they think they're going todo it by going out on their own
.
I can tell you here and now itdoesn't work like that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Well, if you've got a switched on head and you get
into it, you need the experienceand you need to know how to run
a business.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is a whole other beast.
Yes, you might be a gun chippy,but if you don't know how to
run a business, you're fucked.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and look like I said.
I don't know if it's just theway I was brought up or that's
just how we are a bit moreold-fashioned, I guess 20 years
ago.
But the guest we had on thepodcast last week, he really, I
think, had a good point.
He's like you have to proveyourself.
I feel these days I guess it'sthe influence of social media.
And I feel these days I guessit's the influence of social
media and I was actually havinga conversation with one of our
contractors this morning abouteveryone's trying to live.
(13:30):
Everyone is living so faroutside their means.
They all, see all this shit onsocial media and everyone puts
shit on social media thatthey're out for dinner all the
time.
They're out shopping, they'vegot the flash car.
They're out on the boat.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They don't show you that they're living in a shit
box or they can't pay theirbills or and so like this.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It's this real false sense of what reality is.
Yeah, and so the conversationwe're having this morning was, I
feel like we've we've gotten toa point where people are living
beyond their means and andexpecting a lifestyle that they
actually can't afford, and theykeep wanting all their employers
to just keep paying them more.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Whereas that's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You have to prove your worth and if you sit back,
bite your tongue, put in theeffort and prove that you're
worth that.
You've probably heard me talkabout it on the podcast before.
Prove that you're worth that.
Yeah, like you've probablyheard me talk about on the
podcast before.
Like, employees don't realizelike they have to add a minimum
of two to three times theirvalue to a business for the
business to be able to afford tohave them yeah so there's all
(14:37):
this stuff that just getsoverlooked and, like you touched
on experiences is a big one,like you can't.
Like you touched on experiencesis a big one like you can't.
I don't feel in our industrythere is no way like you can
read all the books you want, youcan do all the tapes you want,
you can go to all the seminarsyou want, but like there is a
lot of stuff that you justphysically can't pick up without
doing the hard yards on siteyeah and working underneath a
(15:00):
supervisor or a contract manageror a project manager or a
builder that has done the hardyards we had, um, we had this,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, you're exactly right, we had in new zealand.
We went through a phase wherewe're like, maybe we just need
to, like you know, we missbuilding.
Essentially, we didn't reallywant to run other people's
companies, we just sort of fellinto that.
We missed the building side ofit.
And we had a business coach atthe time and we were saying, oh,
we want, we want to get backinto building and we would have
(15:32):
been well, jay would have been30 ish at the time and he said
to.
He said to us to, and I was,I'm 28 at the time.
He said to us I probablywouldn't employ you to build my
house because you're so young.
And we really took that onboard and got more experience
and did more stuff and did whatwe had to do.
(15:52):
For people to look at us and goactually yes, you know what
you're talking about which wefelt like we did at the time.
In somebody else's eyes, thatwasn't the case.
So I don't know how you know,these 20 year olds, 25 year olds
are going out there gettingwork from people who just trust
them to build a house or do anextension or whatever it might
be I think back like I was.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I was 27 when I got my builder's license.
Because of the history, I hadmy carpentry business.
Like we, we were buildingmulti-million dollar house
within 12 18 months of gettingmy license and look, those
houses are still great housestoday.
But, like I think back, there'shalf a dozen of them that I
(16:36):
think back to quite regularlyand think shit like I could have
.
I should have done thatdifferently or I could have done
that a lot better, and it'spurely because of what I've
learned in the the last 15 yearsor 17 years.
I just didn't have theexperience but, that's all it
come down to like.
I could read the plans, I could,I could get on google, I could
search things up, but I justsimply did not have the
(16:58):
experience.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I think as well.
It's really refreshing to hearyou say that, because it means
you actually give a shit rightif you're thinking back at those
on those jobs.
I do it all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, I talk to my team, like I talk to my whole
team about it, like I I.
One thing that I try and do nowa lot is take 100 ownership
yeah and so yeah, oh, quiteoften during a site meeting or
when we're discussing somethingsay like I know jobs where I
fucked that up, but I just Ithought I knew what I was doing,
but I just didn't.
Yeah again, you just can't.
(17:28):
There are things you can'tlearn without being on site
spending the time listening topeople that have done it before.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Or doing it a few times yourself and figuring it
out.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, just getting that experience.
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But it's like what's your thoughts on how the
industry is going to end up ifwe keep going down that path?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I'm really frightened for the industry for multiple
reasons, and one of the reasonsis that we're bringing people on
who just know how to frame,they just know how to do fix out
, they just know how to doroofing, and we're signing them
off and sending them out intothe big wide world as a
(18:07):
carpenter yeah, as a carpenteror a plasterer that's only ever
done sheeting or setting, or itdoesn't.
It doesn't thrill me that we'relosing our craft.
Um, and that's one of our.
One of our things that we focuson really heavily is is
training our young people andour apprentices to be able to do
everything.
So we do our own set outs, wedo our own, pour our own
(18:31):
concrete, tie our own steel.
Well, we do all our own on-sitewelding, roofing.
Um, I'm pretty handy at cabinetmaking.
We don't do a lot of tiling,but every now and again we might
get hang our own sheets like.
We do all of that, and we trainour young people to do that as
well, so that at the end, whenwe sign that kid off on their
(18:52):
fourth year, we know that eitherwe're keeping them in the
business or we're sending outsomebody who actually knows why
you need to make a concrete slabstraight, why your framing
needs to be level and deadstraight and plumb, and, and you
know so.
Um, that is something thatscares me about the future of
the building industry yeah,definitely.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Uh, worries me.
I I'm not sure if you saw likethere was um.
So, whatever it is, I think inthe last week of january 2025,
the prime minister I think lastweek and announced this $10,000.
Have you seen this?
Keep going $10,000 subsidy tokeep apprentices employed.
So over their four yearsthey're going to get $2,500
(19:36):
extra a year in their pocket.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I did hear this.
Yeah, I don't know the ins andouts of it though.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I don't know the ins and outs of it, but a
journalist't know the ins andouts of it.
But a journalist rang me he'dheard it in the morning and he
rang me up and goes hey, duane,have you heard about this?
This is what's happening.
What's your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
And I don't hold back anymore when people ask me
questions.
I'm like mate, you've only justtold me this, but to be honest,
I think the government doesn'thave a clue.
They haven't done enoughresearch and giving apprentices
an extra 10 grand isn't going toachieve what you want it to
achieve.
And I said, I've got and haddozens of apprentices that get
(20:13):
to their third and fourth yearand they haven't even got a lot
of tools and they can't even dothe job correctly because they
haven't spent their tool out onbuying tools.
If you ask me that, two and ahalf thousand should be getting
given to the employer and theygo and meet them at a tool shop
and you load them up with thegear they need so that when
they're on site they're notpissing the tradesman off
because they're using their gearall the time.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, they just throw money at it, and anything else
is too much admin, so they don'tbother.
You're dead right, though.
That's what needs to.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
All the other options , I said we need to look.
And oh, the other option I saidwe need to look and look, I
don't know how you'd I guess thething they don't.
There's so many parts to it.
I guess it's bigger than whatwe actually think.
But you go give the extra 10grand to an employer and there's
a good chance that a fewemployers will just put it
straight in their pocket.
But, like I said, the otherthing, that like part of it
should be tools, but the otherthing should be using that money
(21:02):
to book them into additionaltraining, get them to seminars,
get them to business coaches.
Like, yeah, like 10 grand wouldcover 12 months for a business
coach, for an apprentice, likethat would be so much more
valuable than just trying togive them 10 grand just to keep
them in a job yeah, um, that's,but that seems to be the
government solution, though,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
just Just throw money at it?
Yeah, that's for most things,not just that, but just throw
some money at it and hope forthe best.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It really excites me because you're one of a lot of
people at the moment.
I feel like every builder Italk to at the moment that runs
a decent business.
The key thing that we're alltalking about is training our
younger people better.
Yeah, we have to.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, it's the future of our business.
It's like raising children.
You don't raise kids to beassholes.
So right, we want people tolike our children and we want
them to succeed in the world.
It's and and I feel like thatwith my apprentices I want them
to be good people and to knowit's a reflection on me.
(22:07):
So that's just how I feel aboutit.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I like the way you put that.
Yeah, 100%.
So what are you doing in yourbusiness to allow, I guess, them
to get the appropriate timespent with them?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, so we take on complicated jobs.
We have taken on complicatedjobs and then jobs as well that
expose them to as many different, you know, types of trades that
we don't have on site.
They do it themselves.
So new builds, for example,like site set out.
So how many people, how manychibis do you know, don't know
how to do a site set out?
That's a lot um.
(22:42):
So, yeah, we, we just try andtake on interesting jobs that
make them think, make us thinkas well.
We're not.
We don't know how to do a siteset out.
That's a lot um.
So, yeah, we, we just try andtake on interesting jobs that
make them think, make us thinkas well.
We're not.
We're not boring carpenters.
We're not going out there justslapping up houses and then
moving on.
We, um, we don't do waffle podslabs, um.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
We don't do prefab frames, um, yeah, everything we
do is from scratch and rightfrom the beginning yeah, but how
do you get, like, how do youget your carpenters and your
tradesmen to understand thatsometimes they need to slow down
and spend more time with theyounger?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
we only take on carpenters who will do that.
That is part of the jobdescription.
You must be able to teach, youmust be able to train our
apprentices and it's not ineveryone yeah, teaching that's
something that I've realizeddefinitely in the last 12, 18
months.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Like we're not taught to be teachers yeah, no I see
it in my trades when they theyget so frustrated and I have to
keep telling them, like youdidn't know once, yeah, like you
can't just yell at him becausehe's taking his time or doesn't
know what tool to use.
Like yeah, we have to keeptelling them, like you didn't
know once, yeah.
Like you can't just yell at himbecause he's taking it so long
and doesn't know what tool touse.
Like we have to slow down.
We've got to spend time withthem.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, I think as well like being on site myself and
Jay as well being on site withthe apprentices and actually
slowing everything down, stopand watch and then do.
We're teaching our leadinghands and our carpenters to
(24:08):
actually then mimic thatbehavior as well.
So, coming right from the fromthe top down, everybody knows
the apprentices are there tolearn and, to be honest,
sometimes we get carpenters whodon't know stuff as well,
especially when we do everything.
We often get carpenters whohaven't had that experience
throughout their careers, sowe're quite often teaching them
as well.
It's hard get carpenters whohaven't had that experience
throughout their careers, sowe're quite often teaching them
as well it's hard.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Like carpenters, I guess I'm not sure on the words
for it, but like, because likeyou don't, like a builder
doesn't employ a plumber or aplasterer, like builders employ
carpenters, so, and then so alot of people think carpentry is
just all the frame, fit out,fix um cladding and things.
But like, we do the exact same,like in our business, our
(24:51):
carpenters do everything.
Um, so it's almost like, like Idon't know, they need to have
another apprenticeship and theymay be called a building
apprenticeship.
Um, like, if you want to be acarpenter, you're going to work
with a carpentry gang that justsubcontracts and just does
carpentry.
But if you want to work with abuilder, like, it's almost like
(25:11):
it needs to be another, um, adifferent type of apprenticeship
maybe yeah, yeah, I don't knowI don't know.
But yeah, I think about it allthe time because, yeah, we, we
get, like you say, we getcarboners come to us, we say we
want to lead carboner and theyapply yeah.
And then when you ask them oh,can you do set out, can you do a
slab prep?
(25:31):
Can you do driveway prep?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I've never done that before.
I've never done any of that.
But yeah, and it's more andmore frequent, we're recruiting
at the moment, and that's youknow.
It's so hard to find somebodywho has had a taste of
everything, because it's justnot how they're taught anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, it is frustrating and but I the the
flip side of that is like I tryand really drum into my team and
and to my especially myapprentices.
Like you have an incredibleopportunity.
Like any and I think for any, Iguess, younger trades or
apprentices that are listeningto this podcast if you're
working for a builder that isdoing the entire lot, it is an
(26:09):
incredible opportunity.
Don't fuck it up.
Take it on board.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It's so hard to tell kids that they come straight out
of high school and they stilllive with mum and dad right
through their apprenticeship.
They don't understand thatuntil afterwards, when they
actually go out on their own andthey go.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
oh shit, actually that was probably pretty good,
eh so, um, like I want to goback to the business side of
stuff, because that that's whereour industry falls over a lot
like, do you think that yourbusiness has been a lot more
successful because you did that?
Like you had a bit of abackground in administration and
stuff before you got involved?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So having that knowledge behindme was paramount.
So I um sort of in the adminjobs, worked my way up into
management type positions whereI was, you know, analyzing,
analysing figures and runningreports and you know, doing all
of that kind of stuff.
(27:07):
I tended to stick to sort ofmale dominated industries too.
I'm not sure how that's comeabout, it just seems to be that
way.
And then so I was always thetoken girl and I was always the
one in the office, so generallyI was left to run everything.
So that's sort of how I, how Istarted, and and it was um, I
(27:28):
don't know, I just it's just inme to have I guess, I don't know
, maybe my parents instilledthat in me, I don't know just to
to understand the figures, knowif you're profitable, know if
you're wasting money onsomething and how you can do it
better.
Like that it's just, it's justbeen in me forever.
Yeah, yeah, so, and practicingon other companies was great.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I could take it into my own situations and yeah, it's
um look I think the industry Isay all the time like the
industry would definitely fallover if it wasn't for the wives
and partners that are doing allthe admin behind the scenes like
definitely fall over if itwasn't for the wives and
partners that are doing all theadmin behind the scenes.
You think of how many tradesand builders are out there that
their wife's probably got theirown career or busy with young
(28:13):
kids and things and yet theyspend a lot of time after hours
and stuff getting theirhusband's businesses out of the
shit, helping them out with allthe admin and book work and
stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that was my mum , Except back in the day.
She had that big ledger bookand she put it on the kitchen
table after she had done herfull-time job and come home.
And she would.
She would balance everythingfor my dad when he had an
attempt at having his ownbusiness, which didn't last all
that long.
But, um, yeah, that was, thatwas my mom.
I'm not quite like that it thatI found that quite boring,
(28:45):
which is why I've gone out andgot my builder's license and I'm
way more hands-on.
I don't actually have an adminperson at the moment.
I just do fucking everything umbut um.
But I have had admin andbookkeeping help in the past,
which has been a godsend.
It means I can do my actual job, um, but yeah, look, I don't
(29:07):
think we need to stereotype the,the gender or or the
relationship, but havingsomebody in that back end,
knowing what they're doing is,is what we, what we need for
every business.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, yeah so what's your role in your business?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I do fucking everything.
So I am usually the first pointof contact.
So I take all of the inquiries.
I do all of the initial siteconsults, client meets and
greets, talk about the project,what's possible, what their
budget is, what they can achievefor the budget, go through all
(29:44):
of that.
I organise all of thepre-construction documentation.
So architectures, engineering,building approvals, whatever we
need to get the buildingapprovals, take clients through
that whole process.
I quote the job, do all theinterior, fit out selections, do
all of that stuff, quote all ofthat.
It's all part of our fixedprice quotes.
(30:05):
We open book our quotes as wellso the client gets to see where
every single cent is beingspent how many nails we need,
how many sticks of timber.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
How does that work for you?
Really well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, really well.
Our software is built for theconstruction industry and
flipping variations through isso easy, and when the client
gets to see um, what we'reswapping in and out just makes
life so easy and admin so easyand do you have a separate line
item for supervision and aseparate line item for your
(30:38):
overheads?
Um, yeah, we have apreliminaries category where all
of that is included.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
yes, yes, yeah and then how do they like, how does
the clients take it when theysee what margins you're making
or what those preliminary costsare?
Because most people are happyfor a builder to make their 10%
or 15% profit.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But they don't understand what the overhead and
the preliminary costs are ofrunning a business.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, so that's included in there, and I have
never had anybody kick back onit.
And then we also have ourmargins in our material costs
and our labour costs as well,yeah, so, for example, framing
is a line item.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
This much framing, this much labour this many
deliveries, so does that includethe cost of the material and
your margin on top of it?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, and, and the labor.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, so it's not.
It's not like itemized this ishow much money we're making, you
know.
It's um.
It's enough that the clientsees where their money is going,
but it's also enough for usthat um, you know the clients
don't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
clients don't need to know what you're making and
what it's taking to run yourbusiness and what you're paying
your carpenters and what yourcarpenters, and they don't know
that.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
That's not how specific we get, otherwise the
quote would be like a whole reamof paper.
No, no, not quite like that,but it's more for things like so
you're showing categories.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You're showing all your main categories.
Yeah, and what's in there?
So, so you're showingcategories.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, yeah, you're showing all your main categories
.
Yeah, and what's in there?
So, for example, because I gothrough and do all the
selections, so I've got thevanity type, the finish, the
handles, the sinks, the tapsthat we've selected, so I do all
of that.
Included in that price is mylabor to install whatever needs
(32:24):
installing and the deliveryselect, like my time, to select
said item.
You know so they don't sit,don't necessarily see a
breakdown of that, but it's justthat particular item.
How much, how much it costs meessentially?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
yeah um, sorry, and then we went off track there.
That's all right, I saw youprick up up.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
actually, I know you love to give advice to people.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm huge on people understanding their costs.
We know from the thousands ofwe're over a thousand builders
now with Live Life Build thatwe've worked through with their
overheads.
I can honestly count on onehand the number of builders that
have been close.
That's why I'm adamant over 80%of the industry is trading in
(33:06):
solvent.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, People just don't really understand the
numbers.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, and it's the overheads and getting in the
mindset that you're an employeeto the company and you should be
getting paid a salary for yourrole and that the company needs
to make profit on top of that.
So we can have a conversationlater about that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, no, we're all over it.
Yeah, pretty comfortable, butyeah, so after the quoting then
I go to contract, do all thecontracts administration and
then I project manage it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And sometimes I'm on the tools.
Sometimes I'm too slow and theykick me off site, which is most
of the time.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So how do?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
you time manage like how do?
you.
Oh fuck, I don't know, um, yeah, yeah, some days it's hard,
some days it's hard and I'll behonest, yesterday I did freak
out and have a meltdown and Ican't do all of this on my own
and yeah, it's, it's fuckinghard, um.
And then other days I sailthrough it and I make a list and
(34:05):
check it off and cruise through.
So it's just about juggling andmanaging.
I'm really lucky that you knowJay is extremely supportive of
what I do, obviously, because ithelps him out a bunch.
But and you know, if I needhelp, I just say I need help.
You need to stop what you'redoing and help me do this.
And then, as well, my kids areteenagers now.
(34:28):
My eldest left school.
He finished year 12 last year,um, so I'm not needed at home as
much as I used to be, so thatdoes make it a little bit easier
.
I don't work it is a lot.
Yeah, I don't work weekends andI don't work after five.
If that makes you feel anybetter, it makes me feel better.
Yeah, and I still manage to goto the gym every morning and
(34:52):
play netball on Wednesday andcook dinner and all of that.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So, yeah, I just manage it.
It's hard because and look,this is why I like to dig a bit
deeper into things, because it'sthe number one thing that
people complain about all thetime is time management and
having no time and those typesof things.
So again, I think it's anotherbig thing that's overlooked,
like time management, schedulingpersonal scheduling all that
type of stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm not always the best
at it and there are times, likeI said, when I do actually fall
apart and I can't cope, and thenthere are times when I'm good
with it.
I do need help in that adminand bookkeeping stuff.
It would be great if I couldfind somebody who knew what they
were doing in that space andunfortunately, the way our
(35:39):
software works is very specificto our business and they have to
be in the office to do it.
I can't like just send it off tosomebody remote it's not
software using so it's calledbizprac.
I don't know if you've heard itit's developed in in brisbane
and it is specific for theconstruction industry.
It handles accounting,variations, project management.
(36:03):
Yeah, all the reporting it'sall in one place.
It's really really good yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, and that, like it is a because, since COVID,
people don't want to work inoffices, do they Like people
want to be able to do everythingremotely, so it's hard.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, and as well.
I just need help in that.
Well, no, I probably need morehelp.
Really, let's be honest, I wasgoing to say it's probably only
two days a week and that's notenough for most.
So I have struggled with that alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Have you ever tracked your task and written them all?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh, no, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You have to do that oh my God, I think that would
freak me out when people sign upto Live Like Build and they do
an onboarding call, like Irecommend.
We did it for years, a longtime ago, but I recommend
everyone should do it for aminimum of 8 to 10 weeks, 12
weeks, because if you don't like, it's all in your head, like if
(37:01):
you write down everything youdo every single day and then at
the end of each week sort ofcategorize them into whether
it's a well, a lot of the billsI'm talking to and trades.
We get quite a few trades now.
They're either on the tools,supervising or project
management, which we just classthat as all the admin stuff.
So generally they can put alltheir tasks into those one of
(37:22):
those three categories.
But if you write them all down,it's it's really easy to go
back through and identify whichones are really easy to palm off
to, like either a junior adminor a senior.
Like you can figure out who youneed to hire yeah and the reason
I get people to do thatexercise is when you, once
you've identified, like I tellthem.
(37:43):
Once you've identified, like Itell them, once I've done that,
and they put them in thesecategories, I then tell them to
put them into another twocategories, which is ones that
you love and you get out of bedfor every day and if that's all
you could do, you could do.
And the other category is onesthat if you could pay someone
today to do, you would push itoff straight away.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Because when you do that, you can figure out who
that person, who that high, isgoing to be, um, and you work
that into your overhead like abig thing.
I'm really pushing all of ourelevate members to understand is
and I think this is across thisisn't just construction
industry, this is everyone likepeople wait to, like they think
they need to get to a certainsave a certain amount of money
or get a certain amount of workto grow the business or whatever
(38:28):
the case may be.
And the reality is they get tothat doesn't happen.
They get to a point where theycan't handle anymore.
They put someone else on andthen that salary just starts
coming out of their salary andthey're actually earning less
money.
Yeah, but if you figure out whoyou need say it's an admin
person, $60,000 a year you putthat $60,000 a year in your
overhead and you work it intoall your future jobs.
(38:49):
Reality is clients are comingto us as a professional company
to do work for them and for usto be able to do that work, we
have to be able to run ourbusinesses a certain way
efficiently and all those typesof things be profitable.
So it's okay to play aroundwith your overheads to cover
those types of costs.
A lot of people don't do that,but I would definitely recommend
(39:10):
you do that exercise Write allyour tasks down.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Oh, that would scare me, and half the time I'm doing
multiple things at once.
How?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
do you?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
categorize that I'm on the phone, I'm drawing
something on SketchUp and thenI'm yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I can try it, but yeah, I would.
I have actually tried before tomanage my time when I've got
like massive deadlines or youknow something's getting behind,
to sit down in the morning andschedule out time blocks for
certain things.
Because I know that if you, you, you know, um, you work more
effectively if you do things fora certain period of time, and
(39:47):
so I've tried to do that before,but I get so off track and then
something you know like thenthe phone will ring and I'll
have to go out and picksomething up and take it to side
, or you know, like it's, it'smy job is not linear, it's it's
like mental yeah, I think that'sanother thing that people, if
you haven't worked in ourindustry, like I, get into
arguments about this becausepeople just say, oh, it's no
(40:08):
different to accounting or it'sno different to admin work, but
like if you haven't worked inour industry and understood all
the different angles that shitcomes from.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's hard to explain, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I find it hard to explain to not that I try to,
but I would find it hard toexplain to my staff what I do,
because there's some times whereI don't go to site and they
can't see me and I don't knowwhat they think I don't really
care what they think, to behonest and I go there and then
I'm there for half an hour or anhour or whatever and then I
nick off again, so I don't knowwhat they think I do, but the
(40:47):
only reason that they're thereis because of me you do.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, actually this comes full circle back to what
we're talking about withapprentices and things like
those young guys that are on thesite and finish their time and
think, oh, I'm out of here, I'mgonna go and do my own show that
they've only seen that yeah,like a lot of them have only
seen that the trucks rock up tosite and have the gear delivered
and the concreters show up yeahum yeah, well that like when,
(41:11):
when I'm there and I'm there forhalf an hour, I'm actually
taking 14 phone calls duringthat half an hour sorting
everybody's shit out.
Yeah yeah, and so, like, theyjust think, like and this is
what I picked up with a few ofthe young carpenters that we've
had move on and then think allof a sudden they can run jobs
and they're supervisors.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Like the trades show up, like the Sparky shows up to
do his rough in.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, they don't know where the stuff's going, they
just think all this stuffhappens and no, it's fine, I can
manage this.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I've told the Sparky to go and just do what he needs
to do over there, but they don'trealize that there's been six
to twelve months prior tocontract signing of all this
other information, planning,scheduling selections yeah, um
costings and then once you go tocontract, scheduling the job
out, doing work orders, like allthis stuff.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's fun.
(42:05):
I do think it's quite funnythat people on site you either
get the ones on site that areinterested and understand as the
lot goes on, or you get theones that just think, fuck, I'm
the important one.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's all me, it's all on site.
I'm doing all the work.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, I'm doing all the work.
Yeah, I'm doing all the work.
Yeah, I think there's a lot ofthem out there, yeah, so let's
move on, because I really wantto get into all the stuff you're
doing for women in the industry.
So can you tell us a little bitabout that and how you got into
that space?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
So I started our businesses business businesses
by myself or with my husband,obviously, but by myself.
I didn't have a coach, I didn'thave someone standing there
telling me how to do things.
I read a lot, I Googled a lot.
I made lots of mistakes.
(42:55):
And when we came back toAustralia after being in New
Zealand and we started Axiom, Idid it again.
This time I was pretty good atit because I'd done it a couple
of times and I'd done it forother companies as well and I
thought you know what I know?
There's other people out thereand women who are trying to
(43:18):
start their own thing, trying tonavigate this minefield, and
they don't know what they'redoing and they're making
mistakes.
If I can help them, what, like?
I've got all this knowledge inmy head.
Why can't I like share it?
Which is when I started gettinginvolved with organizations
like AWIC and a little bitNARWIC and Women Building
(43:42):
Australia.
I'm a mentor for them.
Master Builders have beenreally supportive and I'm
involved in a lot of initiativesthat they're doing EWIC so yeah
, that's kind of what started it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
What's EWIC?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I haven't heard EWIC Emerging Women in Construction.
So it's an organisation puttogether by Master Builders
Queensland for which I am anambassador, and it's essentially
a mentoring position or amentoring program, I should say,
for the first two years of ourwomen coming into trades.
So we're losing girls inparticular after the second year
(44:20):
, or like in that second year,and obviously there's an issue
there.
So master builders wants to getto the bottom of it why, what's
the issue, what's the hang-up,why, how come we can't keep
these kids in apprenticeships?
Speaker 2 (44:32):
why do they have, like they got any ideas, why
that is?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
um, I think that's why they've started this program
.
They know the statistics.
They need to now get to thebottom of it yeah, look, I
imagine it's hard like I've.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I've definitely put my hand up a lot in the last 12
months because there are so manythings that I just have not
even considered like.
And we are starting to see alot more women on our sites.
Um, our trades have got womenworking for them.
Yeah, um, we've had a couple ofwomen apply for, um carpenter
roles that it hasn't panned out,but there's just things that
(45:05):
I've completely overlooked,haven't even thought about.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, but that's not like I don't think we should
feel bad for that, because youknow, like we're undoing
hundreds of years of somethingbeing a certain way which is men
are the builders, men are thetrades.
That's just how we have been.
So, yes, it's a turning pointin our industry, but I don't
(45:30):
think we need to beat ourselvesup for not being on board with
that.
We need to acknowledge, be opento it and embrace the future.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
That's good, I like that.
Make sure you remember that forthe seminar that you're, uh,
the event you're coming to, okay, but I guess you're right, like
we are, we're changing the waythat things have just been done,
so, um it's pretty.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
It would be pretty easy for me to go on site and
have a chip on my shoulder aboutevery dickhead that comes on,
you know, and when they don'tanymore because I've just sacked
them.
But, um, and you know like itlooks past me, are you the owner
?
Like, how many times have Iheard that?
Are you the owner?
They just assume because I'mthe girl and half the time I'm
not in.
(46:13):
Um, I'm not in PPE or not in myAxiom shirt or whatever.
Um, sometimes I am dressed togo to a client meeting or go and
do a selection with anotherclient or whatever it might be.
So it's an easy assumption tomake.
And you know, I don't, I don't,what's the word for it.
You know, it's just how it isand I'm prepared to take that
(46:38):
shit to undo it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's fantastic.
So, but you're um, you're anambassador also for AWIC.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I am the chairperson on the board at AWIC.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
New appointment as of September last year.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Excellent Congratulations.
Thank you, just getting thehandle on it, sorry.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Just getting the handle on it.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
So what's involved in that role?
What?
What's the plan?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
So we've I've just done a bit of a restructure of
our committee and hopefully Ican get things humming along.
We can increase our membershipand create more events, which
would be nice, get morenetworking going and just bigger
and better things.
Amanda Buelow is an incredibleperson and, um, I just need to
(47:26):
be her support so she can go offand do the amazing things that
she's doing.
So I'll run the normal part ofa week while she goes off and
conquers the world is a weekaustralia wide not yet.
Not yet watch this space I likeit.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
I like it now.
Look for those that arelistening.
Um, we actually had amanda onthe podcast a long time ago, but
, um, yeah, go and search umamanda up and yeah, have a
listen to what she had to sayamazing she's gone leaps and
bounds since we spoke to heryeah, she's, she's one of a kind
.
Yeah, she's unrelenting, justloves it so much because they,
(48:03):
like you, have the big awardceremony each year, which I've
seen the last two years has beenmassive yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, international women's day is a big one.
We've just sold out 500, uh 500seats.
Yeah, on international women'sday, so that's pretty exciting,
which is really like a huge feat, because it is on international
women's day and there aremultiple associations having
events on that actual day, butwe've sold out the end of
(48:30):
january 500, 500 seats, sothat's incredible that is huge
yeah so when's that?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
this weekend or tomorrow?
March, 7th internationalwomen's day, dwayne oh, but
you've sold out by the end ofjanuary.
That's yeah, yeah, sorry my bad.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah, we've sold out now as of now.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah that's really really cool.
Yeah, that's something to bevery proud of yeah do you like?
Can females call you up andlike how do they get involved
with these programs, like themaster builders thing and stuff?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
yeah, so, um, yeah, they can call me sure, um, I
actually you got a lot on yourplate, so I don't want everyone
just calling you.
Like send me an email, then umno, look, the ewik program is is
run through master buildersqueensland, so you can
definitely go on to that website.
Uh, women building australia isis another one I've been in
(49:18):
with for a few years, so you canjust google, google Women
Building Australia.
They have a whole mentoringprogram there.
Narwic as well, the NationalAssociation of Women in
Construction.
They also have a mentoringprogram.
I'm not doing it this year, Ijust serve so much on my plate
and I'm still mentoring thepeople who I mentored, like
(49:41):
years ago.
I've kept up with theirrelationship.
So, um, there's quite a few ofthem busy, busy person oh, it's
boring if you're not busy.
So like?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
do you know some of the struggles like what?
What are some of the the keythings I guess that females in
the industry struggle with?
From your from what you'rehearing yeah, um, not knowing
stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
We feel like we need to know everything.
We need to have all of theanswers right now on the spot
when the question's asked.
Um, that's one I struggle with.
I still struggle with that if Idon't know the answer.
Or you know like, if you, ifyou kind of stun me with some
technical information I don'tknow, I just go.
You know like I feel like Ineed to know the answer to
everything.
I feel like a lot of womenstruggle with that.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Um, does that and does so, does that have a
flowering effect and makes youfeel that you're not achieving
things or you're not able to doyour job correctly?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
You just feel at, you know out of your depth who am I
to?
I still feel now I've had mybuilder's license for a year now
and I've been in the industryfor 20 years I still feel like
they shouldn't have given methat builder's license and I
shouldn't be in charge of awhole company all by myself like
massive imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Where does that come from?
Is that a?
Do we want to go that far?
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, Like a deep-seated childhood trauma of
not feeling seen, not feelinggood enough.
Yeah, it's definitely what thatis.
I don't feel good enough, and Iknow a lot of people feel like
that as well.
You just don't feel good enough, and then when you're tested,
it's reaffirmed that you're notgood enough, so it just keeps
that trauma going.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, I think that's huge and that's.
I don't think that's just afemale thing I agree, it's a
person thing it's um, I thinkwe've all got just so much shit
that's instilled in us that weneed to just get out there like
we've got to figure out who weare.
Be our own person, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, I think as well .
We all need to understand thatwe're all struggling and we all
struggle especially with thatone.
Most people struggle with that.
I'm not good enough, or I'm notenough.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Yeah, yeah.
What's some of the others thatare holding women back?
Like, is it a comfort thing?
Like, do females that arewanting to get in the industry
struggle?
That it's all males and beingaround males?
Speaker 1 (52:07):
Potentially Not me I could give two shits.
I don't care.
I'm used to being the only girl.
I don't know, like I don't knowwhere that comes from.
I'm happy that doesn't botherme at all.
It's often in my career, Iguess.
There are times when it can beintimidating.
When I am, and if people lookto me for questions or advice or
(52:32):
solutions, then maybe I dostart to freak out.
Maybe other women feelintimidated also.
I would imagine that's a realthing.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, yeah, like I hope we get to a place where
it's just all equal.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Yeah, that would be good eh.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Like for me I've put it out there heaps of times it
shits me what's going on in theworld when it comes to gender
and all that sort of stuff.
Like, for me it's simple.
Like, if you love something,you want to do it, you're good
at it, go and do it it shouldjust be a human thing, shouldn't
?
It yeah, exactly human.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Did you see my speech at the Master Builders Awards?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, you should look at that.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I say words to that effect.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, Well, go for it , oh my.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
God, I don't think I can repeat it.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Go, and I can repeat it Go on my socials and check it
out.
On your Instagram.
Yeah, I did go back through alot of your socials but I don't
remember seeing that one.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
So the Queensland or the Brisbane Regional Master
Builders Awards, I won the Womenin Building Award and I had to
make a speech and I was veryunprepared, so I just opened my
mouth and it just all went blah,but essentially, yeah, well it
was.
The people still come up to menow and say, oh, you made that
(53:51):
speech, didn't you?
So it resonated with a lot ofpeople.
But basically I said that itlike it shouldn't matter who we
are, where we come from, who welove, who we live with, with,
like that should make nodifference.
If you want to do the thingthat you enjoy doing, just
fucking do it.
(54:11):
Yeah, doesn't, doesn't?
Speaker 2 (54:13):
none of that other shit should matter I personally
believe that's how simple itneeds to be yeah like there's
just so much other crap thatpeople throw around, like let's
just keep it that simple.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
If you want to do something, do it.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
So after the reaction from that speech, I then went
on to win the Queensland Womenin Building Award and then I had
to make another speech and Iwas like Jesus the pressure, I
don't know.
I can't really remember what Isaid.
Then I had a few champagnesafter that one.
But yeah, no, definitely weneed to embrace, and how boring
(54:53):
would it be if, like, we go toour job and see the same type of
person every day, like, come on, we need that diversity,
whether it's male and female, oryou come from another country,
or you're transgender or whoeveryou are.
We need that diversity to makethings better.
We all think differently, weall have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Let's just collaborate yeah, I think that,
like, whether it's male orfemale, like we, everyone brings
a lot to the table, yeah, um,and whether you're a hands-on
female, like you are, or you'rea female that is sitting behind
the scenes or in the buildingbusiness but doing the admin
work yeah like I I can't put adollar value on how much wealth
(55:39):
having females in my buildingbusiness has created us like
it's just I guess I'm not sureon the words for it but like,
exactly like you said, we're alldifferent yeah like my wife,
brings very different opinionsto certain situations like um,
like just being able to havethose round, those conversations
(55:59):
with like because myself we'vegot a construction manager, now
we've got a supervisor, likewe're all males, and then my
wife and our accounts managerare females and then we've got a
va like being able to haveconversations on a regular basis
like it's I.
I think it's just part of us.
(56:21):
Naturally, men handle thingsdifferently to how women handle
things.
And when you combine the twoyou get really good outcomes.
So why do we have to fight that?
Speaker 1 (56:31):
it's got to be one way or the other, Like I just
yeah, I'm quite often reliedupon for my intuition, which I
don't think no offense.
I don't think a lot of blokeshave the same level of intuition
as as women do yeah, sorry,that was really gender specific
(56:51):
and that's I agree.
But that's and and that's whatI'm relied on in our business
like we'll, we'll do aninterview and straight away
they'll leave.
And or a job interview straightawayaway they'll leave.
And so what do you think?
You know, like it's my job tobe?
No, that person's going to be apain in the ass.
We're not employing that person.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
And I think that's what I'm trying to articulate.
I don't know the words for it,but look, we naturally have
different abilities, and there'sdefinitely abilities that
females have that men will justnever be as good at, and vice
versa absolutely why not play toour strengths and work together
?
Yeah um, yeah, I just thinkthere's a huge, huge space for
um females in the industry and II really it really excites me
(57:34):
seeing like I'd love to see morefemales on site um running
trades and building businesses.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
And yeah, um, be good wouldn't that?
Yeah, it would just make makethings so different and equal.
And yeah, yeah, I can't waitfor that day, yeah yeah, look, I
think you're doing incrediblethings like um.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
I just think, keep doing what you guys are doing,
especially with Amanda in yournew position in that set-up.
I think that's going to bepretty exciting to see where
that goes.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
I don't feel like I'm doing anything outstanding.
I'm just doing what comesnaturally.
So if that's inspiring somebodyor if it's working for someone,
I'm going to keep doing itanyway, because it's what I love
and it seems to be what I'mgood at, so I'll just keep
pegging away.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
Yeah, I imagine it's become a passion.
That's what's driving you to doeverything.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, yeah, yes, the probably women in construction
and training up thoseapprentices are definitely my
two two passions, for sure.
And the work as well.
Like look, I'm not, I'm notgonna lie.
I do love going into an emptyblock of land, envisioning it
(58:55):
and then being able to create itlike that's something else, and
that really blows my hair back.
But along way I get to do theseother amazing things that are
going to be good for theindustry.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Before we start to wrap it up, what advice would
you give for young females outthere that are considering
coming into the industry?
Speaker 1 (59:17):
Keep interviewing for the right place.
So there are people who willshaft you and there are people
who are not going to beaccepting of you.
It's not nothing to do with you, it's everything to do with
them.
So don't take it personally.
You can do it.
There are people out there whoare going to love and accept you
(59:37):
.
You just have to keep peggingaway and find that right person,
that right company.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
Yeah, and what about advice for if there is females
out there that are in theirsecond year and considering
throwing it all away?
Like what advice for?
Speaker 1 (59:52):
them.
Yeah, first, can you give me acall and just let me know why,
so I can add that into um, somegovernment grant or incentive or
something that we can let's fixthat.
We need to fix that.
Um, yeah, if it's, if it's whatyou want to be doing, then
stick at it like don't, don'tgive it up, it's hard, it is
hard.
(01:00:13):
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it,it's fucking hard.
But if you stick at it it willbecome easier and you will get
better at it and and it will beso rewarding in the end.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, jeez, your phone's going to be running hot
after that.
Sorry, no, please don't call me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
My phone number is no .
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Look, I really appreciate you taking the time
out to come and have a chat.
I definitely am excited to seewhere you end up.
I can't wait to have you at ourlevel up event.
Um, as part of the um board offemales we're going to have
there.
So, um, yeah, stay tuned forthat.
There'll be more informationcoming out soon.
But, um, yeah, reallyappreciate your time.
(01:00:55):
I know it's been hot sittinghere in the shed, but, um, it's
been a pleasure having a chat toyou.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
So well done thank you for having me all right guys
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Well, um, if you've liked that conversation, please
like subscribe all those typesof things.
Remember that you can go to theLevel Up website or the Duane
Pierce website and purchase theLevel Up merchandise.
And, yeah, please keep watchingand listening to this podcast
so we can continue to make thisAustralia's number one
construction industry podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
We'll see you on the next one.
Are you ready to build smarter,live better and enjoy life?
Then head over to live likebuildcom forward.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Slash elevate to get started.
Everything discussed during thelevel up podcast with me, duane
pierce, is based solely on myown personal experiences and
those experiences of my guests.
The information, opinions andrecommendations presented in
this podcast are for generalinformation only, and any
reliance on the informationprovided in this podcast is done
(01:01:57):
at your own risk.
We recommend that you obtainyour own professional advice in
respect to the topics discussedduring this podcast.
it shouldn't matter who we are, where we come from,
who we love, who we live withlike that should make no
difference.
If you want to do the thingthat you enjoy doing, just do it
g'day guys.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome back to another cracking episode of
level up.
Australia's number oneconstruction podcast and voted
in 2024 in the top 25 percent ofour category worldwide, so we
are absolutely pumped about that.
We've got a cracking podcastcoming to you today.
Um, we have claire from axiomaxiom axiom, axiom axom.
(00:43):
Axiom Axiom Construction group.
So I'm really looking forwardto this chat.
I love getting females on thepodcast and spreading the word.
I'm a big advocate for gettingmore females in the construction
industry, but also supportingthem and, I guess, just talking
about some of the challengesthey face.
But Claire is just not anyordinary female.
That's in our industry.
(01:04):
She's run sole tradingbusinesses.
She's started multiplesuccessful construction
companies.
She's consulted to failingconstruction companies to make
them profitable again.
She also has a diploma ininterior design.
She's earned a certificate inbuilding and construction and
attained her low-rise buildinglicense.
(01:24):
But you also have won multipleawards and you sit on the board
of some of the associations todo with helping women in the
industry.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, someone's done their homework.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You have a lot going on, so massive welcome and
thanks for reaching out.
I guess to get us started,Claire, Claire reached out to us
on Instagram and we startedhaving a bit of a chat through
there.
But what made you reach out?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I have been listening to your podcast for quite some
time and a lot of what you sayand speak about with your guests
my husband and I talk about ona frequent, so it feels a lot
like we're having the sameconversations.
I just want to get in on it andI want to make a change in the
construction industry, so themore I can get out there and the
(02:07):
more people like us can bandtogether, I think the better.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So before we dive into everything you're doing, a
bit more of that, Tell us.
Can we go back a little bit?
How did this all start?
Where did the passion come fromfor the industry and that type
of stuff?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So I grew up in Christchurch, new Zealand, and
my dad was a builder and I usedto go.
I didn't hang out on the jobsite with him, but one thing
that stands out in my memory forme is he put another level on
my auntie and uncle's house andhe did it on the weekends.
So I went with him, we hung out, uh, there, and I watched him.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I remember watching him vividly uh, throw a jib
board on the on the walls or jibrock plaster sheets we've just
employed another kiwi in ourteam after christmas and we
started demolition job yesterdayand he's like do you want me to
bring the yard whacker?
And I'm like what are youtalking about?
And he kept going on about hisyard whackers and I'm like
(03:11):
explain to me what you mean.
What are you going to do withit?
And he told me I was like youmean a whippersnipper?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah we have funny names like the Dwangs.
Yeah, yeah, I get that all thetime.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
But it was fascinating for me to watch and
I remember sitting there playingwith dolls, actually in the
corner, watching him throwsheeting on the walls, and it
just absolutely fascinated me.
But I went to an all-girls highschool and I was taught to you
know like I was trained ontypewriters and be a
receptionist or a teacher or anurse or anything girly.
(03:48):
So the opportunity.
Nobody ever handed me a hammerand said have a go.
That was just not anopportunity for me back then and
, to be honest, I was prettymeek and mild at that time
anyway, so I probably wouldn'thave done it.
But I just didn't have theopportunity.
And that's the thing that Iwant to change now, which is why
(04:11):
I've done what I've done withmy career.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so it is something that gets overlooked,
I guess, and missed, isn't it?
Because, like, I talk about alot when I was back at school,
but I guess I've never reallythought about it from a female's
perspective, like, if you're atschool and you're actually
getting the opportunity to havethose discussions about going
into whether it's mining,construction, those types of
industries, and it's notsomething you're going to
(04:35):
probably have on your radar, no,definitely not, and I think
going to a girl's school was,you know that, a disadvantage
for me at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I don't know what it's like now at a girls' school
, but I definitely know I'vebeen to a lot of schools where
they do try a trade and theyhave, you know, careers expos
and we have trades there who arepresenting and it's open to
boys and to girls and I thinkyou know like that's a massive
turning point for our youngpeople.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so how did you go from then to getting into the
industry?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So I did what all Kiwi kids do and ran away from
home when I finished high school, moved overseas and kind of I
got some experience in admin andbookkeeping, so sort of
clerical roles which I wastrained to do and actually it
was was really really good forme.
And after I finished sort ofoverseas I came back to New
(05:31):
Zealand where it was too smalland then moved to Australia
where I met my sole traderhusband.
So I had that clericalbackground with the bookkeeping
and you know plenty of nousbehind me.
I was, you know, pretty smartstudent, pretty switched on, and
essentially I took over thebusiness and yeah, we built it
from there.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So was he a trades or was he a builder?
He was a carpenter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So it was back in the olden days when we had the BSA
and I did the, he and I did thebuilder's license together and
it was, you know, you had thatbig thick booklet and you had to
write and then you had to drawthe trusses and you know like to
get your builder's license.
So we did that together.
He was on the tools, I was athome with my babies and yeah.
So I did all the theory, wroteall that out, and he came back
(06:18):
and did all the technical stuffthat I didn't know because I
didn't do a trade certificate.
So we, we did that together andthen built our first business
together.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Awesome, so how long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That would have been almost 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, Because I did it.
I think this year I've had mine19 years.
I did mine through the BSA.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, so you'd remember.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Big, thick shit book.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I can't remember the guy's name.
There was a guy that he sort ofkept ringing you, touching base
and you could go in and spendsome time with him if you had
questions and things.
But it wasn't done too bad.
But yeah, definitely I wouldn'tlike to be trying to get it
these days.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I just did mine.
Yeah, that was.
It wasn't actually as bad as Ithought it was going to be and,
uh, I just had to.
Well, I guess I was qualified,right.
So, if it, if I wasn'tqualified, then I probably would
have had a shit time, butbecause I knew what I was
talking about.
They could obviously see that.
And yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So, you did.
So what did you do 20 years ago?
It was his license.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then you both run thecompany and now you've gone out
and actually got your ownlicense that's it, yeah yeah,
awesome.
So what type of work have youbeen doing over the last 20
years?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
so new builds and renos and trying to sort of
steer into that larger scale umrenovation extension.
We do a fair bit of houseraising and build under yeah in
brisbane, yeah in brisbane yeah,we did go back.
we did do some work in in newzealand after the earthquakes,
(07:57):
um, but that was mainlyconsulting work.
So a lot of constructioncompanies grew way too fast for
what they could manage andeventually would go tits up.
So we went in as consultants.
Sorry, I would go in as thefinance and the admin side and
(08:17):
then Jay, my husband, would bethe operations side and
essentially we would get themback up and running and
profitable again.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So is that what you mean by consulting failing
companies?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's what we did in New Zealand.
We did that for seven years.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that, because that's like
I'm really passionate about that.
Like, obviously there's a hugeamount of quality trades and
builders in Australia and NewZealand, but the business side
is lacking.
So what sort of stuff did yousee?
Like I'm imagining it waspretty similar across all
(08:53):
businesses.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, just, I guess for lack of a better term
hemorrhaging money, so justspending money on things that
weren't necessary, overpayingfor materials, um, keeping staff
who weren't effective, uh, sothat was the.
They were the main things thatwe went in and looked at
immediately and then, um, justjust knowing the figures,
(09:16):
knowing, knowing your tax,knowing and paying, just paying
on time, right yeah, but so manybuilders just don't.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
They have no idea what it's costing them to run
open the doors every morning.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Is that like a problem that you saw?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, definitely yeah , most business owners were good
chippies but didn't know how torun a business, and I think
that's the same for most.
Which is actually one of thethings that cheeses me off about
our pathway is you go into yourapprenticeship, you do your
four years.
You come out the other endthinking you're shit, hot, you
(09:52):
can go out and run your own, yourun your own thing and then you
go into business or you knowlike, or you do your time and
then you go out on your own.
Why do we have to do that?
Why do we have to have thattrajectory?
Why can't we do ourapprenticeship, stay with that
company and be a really goodcarpenter and then go into
(10:13):
leading hand positions andproject management positions?
I don't know why.
Our culture, and that in ourculture, is that builders and
carpenters, we have to go out onour own.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Tyrone we actually talked about this on last week's
um podcast as well like itseems to be a hot topic.
But I look, I don't know ifit's the way I was brought up or
I sort of lean more towards.
I think it's a old,old-fashioned type thing.
Like I finished my time and,yes, I wanted more money, but I
knew I had to work my way up,yeah.
(10:44):
So like I finished my time, Istarted contracting to a builder
and then I had to work my wayup the ranks and like you didn't
move to the next rank until youhad proven yourself, whereas I
feel these days it's just like,yep, I've done my time, I've got
my piece of paper, I'm prepared, I can go and run my own
business, I'm going to make ashitload of money, yeah.
(11:07):
And I think all that's doing isadding to all the issues we
have in our industry withdefective work and businesses
going broke because they're nottaking the time to learn.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
No.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I even heard a story well, it wasn't a story.
I had a conversation withanother builder I know only a
couple of weeks ago about a pastemployee of ours we put through
his time was an incredibleyoung carpenter, was very
skilled.
Yeah, I really wanted to.
(11:34):
We had conversations.
I wanted to work him up throughmy business.
But he's very ambitious.
He had a lot of drive.
We sort of come to an agreement.
I was going to help him out,set company structures up and
work him up through the ranksand things sort of.
Three weeks later he's like Iknow I'm out of here, mate, I'm
gonna do my own work and like 18months later, like now he's
(11:55):
hitting building companies upfor 140, 150, 200 thousand
dollars a year because he thinkshe deserves to be that as a
supervisor with 18 monthsexperience out of his time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I think we've just got too greedy.
And you know like I was talkingabout this actually after we
listened to one of your podcastswhen we did when we started out
20 odd years ago and even whenmy dad started out would have
been 40, 50 years ago, it wasyou went into carpentry or a
trade because you wanted thatsecurity of work.
(12:27):
If you had your trade, you hadwork forever, regardless of
whether you're employed oryou're out on your own.
Now people are going into thesetrades and carpentries
especially to become rich andmake money and all of this, and
then they think they're going todo it by going out on their own
.
I can tell you here and now itdoesn't work like that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Well, if you've got a switched on head and you get
into it, you need the experienceand you need to know how to run
a business.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is a whole other beast.
Yes, you might be a gun chippy,but if you don't know how to
run a business, you're fucked.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and look like I said.
I don't know if it's just theway I was brought up or that's
just how we are a bit moreold-fashioned, I guess 20 years
ago.
But the guest we had on thepodcast last week, he really, I
think, had a good point.
He's like you have to proveyourself.
I feel these days I guess it'sthe influence of social media.
And I feel these days I guessit's the influence of social
media and I was actually havinga conversation with one of our
contractors this morning abouteveryone's trying to live.
(13:30):
Everyone is living so faroutside their means.
They all, see all this shit onsocial media and everyone puts
shit on social media thatthey're out for dinner all the
time.
They're out shopping, they'vegot the flash car.
They're out on the boat.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They don't show you that they're living in a shit
box or they can't pay theirbills or and so like this.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It's this real false sense of what reality is.
Yeah, and so the conversationwe're having this morning was, I
feel like we've we've gotten toa point where people are living
beyond their means and andexpecting a lifestyle that they
actually can't afford, and theykeep wanting all their employers
to just keep paying them more.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Whereas that's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You have to prove your worth and if you sit back,
bite your tongue, put in theeffort and prove that you're
worth that.
You've probably heard me talkabout it on the podcast before.
Prove that you're worth that.
Yeah, like you've probablyheard me talk about on the
podcast before.
Like, employees don't realizelike they have to add a minimum
of two to three times theirvalue to a business for the
business to be able to afford tohave them yeah so there's all
(14:37):
this stuff that just getsoverlooked and, like you touched
on experiences is a big one,like you can't.
Like you touched on experiencesis a big one like you can't.
I don't feel in our industrythere is no way like you can
read all the books you want, youcan do all the tapes you want,
you can go to all the seminarsyou want, but like there is a
lot of stuff that you justphysically can't pick up without
doing the hard yards on siteyeah and working underneath a
(15:00):
supervisor or a contract manageror a project manager or a
builder that has done the hardyards we had, um, we had this,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, you're exactly right, we had in new zealand.
We went through a phase wherewe're like, maybe we just need
to, like you know, we missbuilding.
Essentially, we didn't reallywant to run other people's
companies, we just sort of fellinto that.
We missed the building side ofit.
And we had a business coach atthe time and we were saying, oh,
we want, we want to get backinto building and we would have
(15:32):
been well, jay would have been30 ish at the time and he said
to.
He said to us to, and I was,I'm 28 at the time.
He said to us I probablywouldn't employ you to build my
house because you're so young.
And we really took that onboard and got more experience
and did more stuff and did whatwe had to do.
(15:52):
For people to look at us and goactually yes, you know what
you're talking about which wefelt like we did at the time.
In somebody else's eyes, thatwasn't the case.
So I don't know how you know,these 20 year olds, 25 year olds
are going out there gettingwork from people who just trust
them to build a house or do anextension or whatever it might
be I think back like I was.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I was 27 when I got my builder's license.
Because of the history, I hadmy carpentry business.
Like we, we were buildingmulti-million dollar house
within 12 18 months of gettingmy license and look, those
houses are still great housestoday.
But, like I think back, there'shalf a dozen of them that I
(16:36):
think back to quite regularlyand think shit like I could have
.
I should have done thatdifferently or I could have done
that a lot better, and it'spurely because of what I've
learned in the the last 15 yearsor 17 years.
I just didn't have theexperience but, that's all it
come down to like.
I could read the plans, I could,I could get on google, I could
search things up, but I justsimply did not have the
(16:58):
experience.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I think as well.
It's really refreshing to hearyou say that, because it means
you actually give a shit rightif you're thinking back at those
on those jobs.
I do it all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, I talk to my team, like I talk to my whole
team about it, like I I.
One thing that I try and do nowa lot is take 100 ownership
yeah and so yeah, oh, quiteoften during a site meeting or
when we're discussing somethingsay like I know jobs where I
fucked that up, but I just Ithought I knew what I was doing,
but I just didn't.
Yeah again, you just can't.
(17:28):
There are things you can'tlearn without being on site
spending the time listening topeople that have done it before.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Or doing it a few times yourself and figuring it
out.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, just getting that experience.
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But it's like what's your thoughts on how the
industry is going to end up ifwe keep going down that path?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I'm really frightened for the industry for multiple
reasons, and one of the reasonsis that we're bringing people on
who just know how to frame,they just know how to do fix out
, they just know how to doroofing, and we're signing them
off and sending them out intothe big wide world as a
(18:07):
carpenter yeah, as a carpenteror a plasterer that's only ever
done sheeting or setting, or itdoesn't.
It doesn't thrill me that we'relosing our craft.
Um, and that's one of our.
One of our things that we focuson really heavily is is
training our young people andour apprentices to be able to do
everything.
So we do our own set outs, wedo our own, pour our own
(18:31):
concrete, tie our own steel.
Well, we do all our own on-sitewelding, roofing.
Um, I'm pretty handy at cabinetmaking.
We don't do a lot of tiling,but every now and again we might
get hang our own sheets like.
We do all of that, and we trainour young people to do that as
well, so that at the end, whenwe sign that kid off on their
(18:52):
fourth year, we know that eitherwe're keeping them in the
business or we're sending outsomebody who actually knows why
you need to make a concrete slabstraight, why your framing
needs to be level and deadstraight and plumb, and, and you
know so.
Um, that is something thatscares me about the future of
the building industry yeah,definitely.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Uh, worries me.
I I'm not sure if you saw likethere was um.
So, whatever it is, I think inthe last week of january 2025,
the prime minister I think lastweek and announced this $10,000.
Have you seen this?
Keep going $10,000 subsidy tokeep apprentices employed.
So over their four yearsthey're going to get $2,500
(19:36):
extra a year in their pocket.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I did hear this.
Yeah, I don't know the ins andouts of it though.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I don't know the ins and outs of it, but a
journalist't know the ins andouts of it.
But a journalist rang me he'dheard it in the morning and he
rang me up and goes hey, duane,have you heard about this?
This is what's happening.
What's your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
And I don't hold back anymore when people ask me
questions.
I'm like mate, you've only justtold me this, but to be honest,
I think the government doesn'thave a clue.
They haven't done enoughresearch and giving apprentices
an extra 10 grand isn't going toachieve what you want it to
achieve.
And I said, I've got and haddozens of apprentices that get
(20:13):
to their third and fourth yearand they haven't even got a lot
of tools and they can't even dothe job correctly because they
haven't spent their tool out onbuying tools.
If you ask me that, two and ahalf thousand should be getting
given to the employer and theygo and meet them at a tool shop
and you load them up with thegear they need so that when
they're on site they're notpissing the tradesman off
because they're using their gearall the time.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, they just throw money at it, and anything else
is too much admin, so they don'tbother.
You're dead right, though.
That's what needs to.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
All the other options , I said we need to look.
And oh, the other option I saidwe need to look and look, I
don't know how you'd I guess thething they don't.
There's so many parts to it.
I guess it's bigger than whatwe actually think.
But you go give the extra 10grand to an employer and there's
a good chance that a fewemployers will just put it
straight in their pocket.
But, like I said, the otherthing, that like part of it
should be tools, but the otherthing should be using that money
(21:02):
to book them into additionaltraining, get them to seminars,
get them to business coaches.
Like, yeah, like 10 grand wouldcover 12 months for a business
coach, for an apprentice, likethat would be so much more
valuable than just trying togive them 10 grand just to keep
them in a job yeah, um, that's,but that seems to be the
government solution, though,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
just Just throw money at it?
Yeah, that's for most things,not just that, but just throw
some money at it and hope forthe best.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It really excites me because you're one of a lot of
people at the moment.
I feel like every builder Italk to at the moment that runs
a decent business.
The key thing that we're alltalking about is training our
younger people better.
Yeah, we have to.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, it's the future of our business.
It's like raising children.
You don't raise kids to beassholes.
So right, we want people tolike our children and we want
them to succeed in the world.
It's and and I feel like thatwith my apprentices I want them
to be good people and to knowit's a reflection on me.
(22:07):
So that's just how I feel aboutit.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I like the way you put that.
Yeah, 100%.
So what are you doing in yourbusiness to allow, I guess, them
to get the appropriate timespent with them?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, so we take on complicated jobs.
We have taken on complicatedjobs and then jobs as well that
expose them to as many different, you know, types of trades that
we don't have on site.
They do it themselves.
So new builds, for example,like site set out.
So how many people, how manychibis do you know, don't know
how to do a site set out?
That's a lot um.
(22:42):
So, yeah, we, we just try andtake on interesting jobs that
make them think, make us thinkas well.
We're not.
We don't know how to do a siteset out.
That's a lot um.
So, yeah, we, we just try andtake on interesting jobs that
make them think, make us thinkas well.
We're not.
We're not boring carpenters.
We're not going out there justslapping up houses and then
moving on.
We, um, we don't do waffle podslabs, um.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
We don't do prefab frames, um, yeah, everything we
do is from scratch and rightfrom the beginning yeah, but how
do you get, like, how do youget your carpenters and your
tradesmen to understand thatsometimes they need to slow down
and spend more time with theyounger?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
we only take on carpenters who will do that.
That is part of the jobdescription.
You must be able to teach, youmust be able to train our
apprentices and it's not ineveryone yeah, teaching that's
something that I've realizeddefinitely in the last 12, 18
months.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Like we're not taught to be teachers yeah, no I see
it in my trades when they theyget so frustrated and I have to
keep telling them, like youdidn't know once, yeah, like you
can't just yell at him becausehe's taking his time or doesn't
know what tool to use.
Like yeah, we have to keeptelling them, like you didn't
know once, yeah.
Like you can't just yell at himbecause he's taking it so long
and doesn't know what tool touse.
Like we have to slow down.
We've got to spend time withthem.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, I think as well like being on site myself and
Jay as well being on site withthe apprentices and actually
slowing everything down, stopand watch and then do.
We're teaching our leadinghands and our carpenters to
(24:08):
actually then mimic thatbehavior as well.
So, coming right from the fromthe top down, everybody knows
the apprentices are there tolearn and, to be honest,
sometimes we get carpenters whodon't know stuff as well,
especially when we do everything.
We often get carpenters whohaven't had that experience
throughout their careers, sowe're quite often teaching them
as well.
It's hard get carpenters whohaven't had that experience
throughout their careers, sowe're quite often teaching them
as well it's hard.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Like carpenters, I guess I'm not sure on the words
for it, but like, because likeyou don't, like a builder
doesn't employ a plumber or aplasterer, like builders employ
carpenters, so, and then so alot of people think carpentry is
just all the frame, fit out,fix um cladding and things.
But like, we do the exact same,like in our business, our
(24:51):
carpenters do everything.
Um, so it's almost like, like Idon't know, they need to have
another apprenticeship and theymay be called a building
apprenticeship.
Um, like, if you want to be acarpenter, you're going to work
with a carpentry gang that justsubcontracts and just does
carpentry.
But if you want to work with abuilder, like, it's almost like
(25:11):
it needs to be another, um, adifferent type of apprenticeship
maybe yeah, yeah, I don't knowI don't know.
But yeah, I think about it allthe time because, yeah, we, we
get, like you say, we getcarboners come to us, we say we
want to lead carboner and theyapply yeah.
And then when you ask them oh,can you do set out, can you do a
slab prep?
(25:31):
Can you do driveway prep?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I've never done that before.
I've never done any of that.
But yeah, and it's more andmore frequent, we're recruiting
at the moment, and that's youknow.
It's so hard to find somebodywho has had a taste of
everything, because it's justnot how they're taught anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, it is frustrating and but I the the
flip side of that is like I tryand really drum into my team and
and to my especially myapprentices.
Like you have an incredibleopportunity.
Like any and I think for any, Iguess, younger trades or
apprentices that are listeningto this podcast if you're
working for a builder that isdoing the entire lot, it is an
(26:09):
incredible opportunity.
Don't fuck it up.
Take it on board.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It's so hard to tell kids that they come straight out
of high school and they stilllive with mum and dad right
through their apprenticeship.
They don't understand thatuntil afterwards, when they
actually go out on their own andthey go.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
oh shit, actually that was probably pretty good,
eh so, um, like I want to goback to the business side of
stuff, because that that's whereour industry falls over a lot
like, do you think that yourbusiness has been a lot more
successful because you did that?
Like you had a bit of abackground in administration and
stuff before you got involved?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So having that knowledge behindme was paramount.
So I um sort of in the adminjobs, worked my way up into
management type positions whereI was, you know, analyzing,
analysing figures and runningreports and you know, doing all
of that kind of stuff.
(27:07):
I tended to stick to sort ofmale dominated industries too.
I'm not sure how that's comeabout, it just seems to be that
way.
And then so I was always thetoken girl and I was always the
one in the office, so generallyI was left to run everything.
So that's sort of how I, how Istarted, and and it was um, I
(27:28):
don't know, I just it's just inme to have I guess, I don't know
, maybe my parents instilledthat in me, I don't know just to
to understand the figures, knowif you're profitable, know if
you're wasting money onsomething and how you can do it
better.
Like that it's just, it's justbeen in me forever.
Yeah, yeah, so, and practicingon other companies was great.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I could take it into my own situations and yeah, it's
um look I think the industry Isay all the time like the
industry would definitely fallover if it wasn't for the wives
and partners that are doing allthe admin behind the scenes like
definitely fall over if itwasn't for the wives and
partners that are doing all theadmin behind the scenes.
You think of how many tradesand builders are out there that
their wife's probably got theirown career or busy with young
(28:13):
kids and things and yet theyspend a lot of time after hours
and stuff getting theirhusband's businesses out of the
shit, helping them out with allthe admin and book work and
stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that was my mum , Except back in the day.
She had that big ledger bookand she put it on the kitchen
table after she had done herfull-time job and come home.
And she would.
She would balance everythingfor my dad when he had an
attempt at having his ownbusiness, which didn't last all
that long.
But, um, yeah, that was, thatwas my mom.
I'm not quite like that it thatI found that quite boring,
(28:45):
which is why I've gone out andgot my builder's license and I'm
way more hands-on.
I don't actually have an adminperson at the moment.
I just do fucking everything umbut um.
But I have had admin andbookkeeping help in the past,
which has been a godsend.
It means I can do my actual job, um, but yeah, look, I don't
(29:07):
think we need to stereotype the,the gender or or the
relationship, but havingsomebody in that back end,
knowing what they're doing is,is what we, what we need for
every business.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, yeah so what's your role in your business?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I do fucking everything.
So I am usually the first pointof contact.
So I take all of the inquiries.
I do all of the initial siteconsults, client meets and
greets, talk about the project,what's possible, what their
budget is, what they can achievefor the budget, go through all
(29:44):
of that.
I organise all of thepre-construction documentation.
So architectures, engineering,building approvals, whatever we
need to get the buildingapprovals, take clients through
that whole process.
I quote the job, do all theinterior, fit out selections, do
all of that stuff, quote all ofthat.
It's all part of our fixedprice quotes.
(30:05):
We open book our quotes as wellso the client gets to see where
every single cent is beingspent how many nails we need,
how many sticks of timber.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
How does that work for you?
Really well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, really well.
Our software is built for theconstruction industry and
flipping variations through isso easy, and when the client
gets to see um, what we'reswapping in and out just makes
life so easy and admin so easyand do you have a separate line
item for supervision and aseparate line item for your
(30:38):
overheads?
Um, yeah, we have apreliminaries category where all
of that is included.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
yes, yes, yeah and then how do they like, how does
the clients take it when theysee what margins you're making
or what those preliminary costsare?
Because most people are happyfor a builder to make their 10%
or 15% profit.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But they don't understand what the overhead and
the preliminary costs are ofrunning a business.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, so that's included in there, and I have
never had anybody kick back onit.
And then we also have ourmargins in our material costs
and our labour costs as well,yeah, so, for example, framing
is a line item.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
This much framing, this much labour this many
deliveries, so does that includethe cost of the material and
your margin on top of it?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, and, and the labor.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, so it's not.
It's not like itemized this ishow much money we're making, you
know.
It's um.
It's enough that the clientsees where their money is going,
but it's also enough for usthat um, you know the clients
don't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
clients don't need to know what you're making and
what it's taking to run yourbusiness and what you're paying
your carpenters and what yourcarpenters, and they don't know
that.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
That's not how specific we get, otherwise the
quote would be like a whole reamof paper.
No, no, not quite like that,but it's more for things like so
you're showing categories.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You're showing all your main categories.
Yeah, and what's in there?
So, so you're showingcategories.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, yeah, you're showing all your main categories
.
Yeah, and what's in there?
So, for example, because I gothrough and do all the
selections, so I've got thevanity type, the finish, the
handles, the sinks, the tapsthat we've selected, so I do all
of that.
Included in that price is mylabor to install whatever needs
(32:24):
installing and the deliveryselect, like my time, to select
said item.
You know so they don't sit,don't necessarily see a
breakdown of that, but it's justthat particular item.
How much, how much it costs meessentially?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
yeah um, sorry, and then we went off track there.
That's all right, I saw youprick up up.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
actually, I know you love to give advice to people.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm huge on people understanding their costs.
We know from the thousands ofwe're over a thousand builders
now with Live Life Build thatwe've worked through with their
overheads.
I can honestly count on onehand the number of builders that
have been close.
That's why I'm adamant over 80%of the industry is trading in
(33:06):
solvent.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, People just don't really understand the
numbers.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, and it's the overheads and getting in the
mindset that you're an employeeto the company and you should be
getting paid a salary for yourrole and that the company needs
to make profit on top of that.
So we can have a conversationlater about that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, no, we're all over it.
Yeah, pretty comfortable, butyeah, so after the quoting then
I go to contract, do all thecontracts administration and
then I project manage it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And sometimes I'm on the tools.
Sometimes I'm too slow and theykick me off site, which is most
of the time.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So how do?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
you time manage like how do?
you.
Oh fuck, I don't know, um, yeah, yeah, some days it's hard,
some days it's hard and I'll behonest, yesterday I did freak
out and have a meltdown and Ican't do all of this on my own
and yeah, it's, it's fuckinghard, um.
And then other days I sailthrough it and I make a list and
(34:05):
check it off and cruise through.
So it's just about juggling andmanaging.
I'm really lucky that you knowJay is extremely supportive of
what I do, obviously, because ithelps him out a bunch.
But and you know, if I needhelp, I just say I need help.
You need to stop what you'redoing and help me do this.
And then, as well, my kids areteenagers now.
(34:28):
My eldest left school.
He finished year 12 last year,um, so I'm not needed at home as
much as I used to be, so thatdoes make it a little bit easier
.
I don't work it is a lot.
Yeah, I don't work weekends andI don't work after five.
If that makes you feel anybetter, it makes me feel better.
Yeah, and I still manage to goto the gym every morning and
(34:52):
play netball on Wednesday andcook dinner and all of that.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So, yeah, I just manage it.
It's hard because and look,this is why I like to dig a bit
deeper into things, because it'sthe number one thing that
people complain about all thetime is time management and
having no time and those typesof things.
So again, I think it's anotherbig thing that's overlooked,
like time management, schedulingpersonal scheduling all that
type of stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm not always the best
at it and there are times, likeI said, when I do actually fall
apart and I can't cope, and thenthere are times when I'm good
with it.
I do need help in that adminand bookkeeping stuff.
It would be great if I couldfind somebody who knew what they
were doing in that space andunfortunately, the way our
(35:39):
software works is very specificto our business and they have to
be in the office to do it.
I can't like just send it off tosomebody remote it's not
software using so it's calledbizprac.
I don't know if you've heard itit's developed in in brisbane
and it is specific for theconstruction industry.
It handles accounting,variations, project management.
(36:03):
Yeah, all the reporting it'sall in one place.
It's really really good yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, and that, like it is a because, since COVID,
people don't want to work inoffices, do they Like people
want to be able to do everythingremotely, so it's hard.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, and as well.
I just need help in that.
Well, no, I probably need morehelp.
Really, let's be honest, I wasgoing to say it's probably only
two days a week and that's notenough for most.
So I have struggled with that alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Have you ever tracked your task and written them all?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh, no, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You have to do that oh my God, I think that would
freak me out when people sign upto Live Like Build and they do
an onboarding call, like Irecommend.
We did it for years, a longtime ago, but I recommend
everyone should do it for aminimum of 8 to 10 weeks, 12
weeks, because if you don't like, it's all in your head, like if
(37:01):
you write down everything youdo every single day and then at
the end of each week sort ofcategorize them into whether
it's a well, a lot of the billsI'm talking to and trades.
We get quite a few trades now.
They're either on the tools,supervising or project
management, which we just classthat as all the admin stuff.
So generally they can put alltheir tasks into those one of
(37:22):
those three categories.
But if you write them all down,it's it's really easy to go
back through and identify whichones are really easy to palm off
to, like either a junior adminor a senior.
Like you can figure out who youneed to hire yeah and the reason
I get people to do thatexercise is when you, once
you've identified, like I tellthem.
(37:43):
Once you've identified, like Itell them, once I've done that,
and they put them in thesecategories, I then tell them to
put them into another twocategories, which is ones that
you love and you get out of bedfor every day and if that's all
you could do, you could do.
And the other category is onesthat if you could pay someone
today to do, you would push itoff straight away.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Because when you do that, you can figure out who
that person, who that high, isgoing to be, um, and you work
that into your overhead like abig thing.
I'm really pushing all of ourelevate members to understand is
and I think this is across thisisn't just construction
industry, this is everyone likepeople wait to, like they think
they need to get to a certainsave a certain amount of money
or get a certain amount of workto grow the business or whatever
(38:28):
the case may be.
And the reality is they get tothat doesn't happen.
They get to a point where theycan't handle anymore.
They put someone else on andthen that salary just starts
coming out of their salary andthey're actually earning less
money.
Yeah, but if you figure out whoyou need say it's an admin
person, $60,000 a year you putthat $60,000 a year in your
overhead and you work it intoall your future jobs.
(38:49):
Reality is clients are comingto us as a professional company
to do work for them and for usto be able to do that work, we
have to be able to run ourbusinesses a certain way
efficiently and all those typesof things be profitable.
So it's okay to play aroundwith your overheads to cover
those types of costs.
A lot of people don't do that,but I would definitely recommend
(39:10):
you do that exercise Write allyour tasks down.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Oh, that would scare me, and half the time I'm doing
multiple things at once.
How?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
do you?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
categorize that I'm on the phone, I'm drawing
something on SketchUp and thenI'm yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I can try it, but yeah, I would.
I have actually tried before tomanage my time when I've got
like massive deadlines or youknow something's getting behind,
to sit down in the morning andschedule out time blocks for
certain things.
Because I know that if you, you, you know, um, you work more
effectively if you do things fora certain period of time, and
(39:47):
so I've tried to do that before,but I get so off track and then
something you know like thenthe phone will ring and I'll
have to go out and picksomething up and take it to side
, or you know, like it's, it'smy job is not linear, it's it's
like mental yeah, I think that'sanother thing that people, if
you haven't worked in ourindustry, like I, get into
arguments about this becausepeople just say, oh, it's no
(40:08):
different to accounting or it'sno different to admin work, but
like if you haven't worked inour industry and understood all
the different angles that shitcomes from.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's hard to explain, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I find it hard to explain to not that I try to,
but I would find it hard toexplain to my staff what I do,
because there's some times whereI don't go to site and they
can't see me and I don't knowwhat they think I don't really
care what they think, to behonest and I go there and then
I'm there for half an hour or anhour or whatever and then I
nick off again, so I don't knowwhat they think I do, but the
(40:47):
only reason that they're thereis because of me you do.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, actually this comes full circle back to what
we're talking about withapprentices and things like
those young guys that are on thesite and finish their time and
think, oh, I'm out of here, I'mgonna go and do my own show that
they've only seen that yeah,like a lot of them have only
seen that the trucks rock up tosite and have the gear delivered
and the concreters show up yeahum yeah, well that like when,
(41:11):
when I'm there and I'm there forhalf an hour, I'm actually
taking 14 phone calls duringthat half an hour sorting
everybody's shit out.
Yeah yeah, and so, like, theyjust think, like and this is
what I picked up with a few ofthe young carpenters that we've
had move on and then think allof a sudden they can run jobs
and they're supervisors.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Like the trades show up, like the Sparky shows up to
do his rough in.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, they don't know where the stuff's going, they
just think all this stuffhappens and no, it's fine, I can
manage this.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I've told the Sparky to go and just do what he needs
to do over there, but they don'trealize that there's been six
to twelve months prior tocontract signing of all this
other information, planning,scheduling selections yeah, um
costings and then once you go tocontract, scheduling the job
out, doing work orders, like allthis stuff.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's fun.
(42:05):
I do think it's quite funnythat people on site you either
get the ones on site that areinterested and understand as the
lot goes on, or you get theones that just think, fuck, I'm
the important one.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's all me, it's all on site.
I'm doing all the work.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, I'm doing all the work.
Yeah, I'm doing all the work.
Yeah, I think there's a lot ofthem out there, yeah, so let's
move on, because I really wantto get into all the stuff you're
doing for women in the industry.
So can you tell us a little bitabout that and how you got into
that space?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
So I started our businesses business businesses
by myself or with my husband,obviously, but by myself.
I didn't have a coach, I didn'thave someone standing there
telling me how to do things.
I read a lot, I Googled a lot.
I made lots of mistakes.
(42:55):
And when we came back toAustralia after being in New
Zealand and we started Axiom, Idid it again.
This time I was pretty good atit because I'd done it a couple
of times and I'd done it forother companies as well and I
thought you know what I know?
There's other people out thereand women who are trying to
(43:18):
start their own thing, trying tonavigate this minefield, and
they don't know what they'redoing and they're making
mistakes.
If I can help them, what, like?
I've got all this knowledge inmy head.
Why can't I like share it?
Which is when I started gettinginvolved with organizations
like AWIC and a little bitNARWIC and Women Building
(43:42):
Australia.
I'm a mentor for them.
Master Builders have beenreally supportive and I'm
involved in a lot of initiativesthat they're doing EWIC so yeah
, that's kind of what started it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
What's EWIC?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I haven't heard EWIC Emerging Women in Construction.
So it's an organisation puttogether by Master Builders
Queensland for which I am anambassador, and it's essentially
a mentoring position or amentoring program, I should say,
for the first two years of ourwomen coming into trades.
So we're losing girls inparticular after the second year
(44:20):
, or like in that second year,and obviously there's an issue
there.
So master builders wants to getto the bottom of it why, what's
the issue, what's the hang-up,why, how come we can't keep
these kids in apprenticeships?
Speaker 2 (44:32):
why do they have, like they got any ideas, why
that is?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
um, I think that's why they've started this program
.
They know the statistics.
They need to now get to thebottom of it yeah, look, I
imagine it's hard like I've.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I've definitely put my hand up a lot in the last 12
months because there are so manythings that I just have not
even considered like.
And we are starting to see alot more women on our sites.
Um, our trades have got womenworking for them.
Yeah, um, we've had a couple ofwomen apply for, um carpenter
roles that it hasn't panned out,but there's just things that
(45:05):
I've completely overlooked,haven't even thought about.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, but that's not like I don't think we should
feel bad for that, because youknow, like we're undoing
hundreds of years of somethingbeing a certain way which is men
are the builders, men are thetrades.
That's just how we have been.
So, yes, it's a turning pointin our industry, but I don't
(45:30):
think we need to beat ourselvesup for not being on board with
that.
We need to acknowledge, be opento it and embrace the future.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
That's good, I like that.
Make sure you remember that forthe seminar that you're, uh,
the event you're coming to, okay, but I guess you're right, like
we are, we're changing the waythat things have just been done,
so, um it's pretty.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
It would be pretty easy for me to go on site and
have a chip on my shoulder aboutevery dickhead that comes on,
you know, and when they don'tanymore because I've just sacked
them.
But, um, and you know like itlooks past me, are you the owner
?
Like, how many times have Iheard that?
Are you the owner?
They just assume because I'mthe girl and half the time I'm
not in.
(46:13):
Um, I'm not in PPE or not in myAxiom shirt or whatever.
Um, sometimes I am dressed togo to a client meeting or go and
do a selection with anotherclient or whatever it might be.
So it's an easy assumption tomake.
And you know, I don't, I don't,what's the word for it.
You know, it's just how it isand I'm prepared to take that
(46:38):
shit to undo it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's fantastic.
So, but you're um, you're anambassador also for AWIC.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I am the chairperson on the board at AWIC.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
New appointment as of September last year.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Excellent Congratulations.
Thank you, just getting thehandle on it, sorry.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Just getting the handle on it.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
So what's involved in that role?
What?
What's the plan?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
So we've I've just done a bit of a restructure of
our committee and hopefully Ican get things humming along.
We can increase our membershipand create more events, which
would be nice, get morenetworking going and just bigger
and better things.
Amanda Buelow is an incredibleperson and, um, I just need to
(47:26):
be her support so she can go offand do the amazing things that
she's doing.
So I'll run the normal part ofa week while she goes off and
conquers the world is a weekaustralia wide not yet.
Not yet watch this space I likeit.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
I like it now.
Look for those that arelistening.
Um, we actually had amanda onthe podcast a long time ago, but
, um, yeah, go and search umamanda up and yeah, have a
listen to what she had to sayamazing she's gone leaps and
bounds since we spoke to heryeah, she's, she's one of a kind
.
Yeah, she's unrelenting, justloves it so much because they,
(48:03):
like you, have the big awardceremony each year, which I've
seen the last two years has beenmassive yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, international women's day is a big one.
We've just sold out 500, uh 500seats.
Yeah, on international women'sday, so that's pretty exciting,
which is really like a huge feat, because it is on international
women's day and there aremultiple associations having
events on that actual day, butwe've sold out the end of
(48:30):
january 500, 500 seats, sothat's incredible that is huge
yeah so when's that?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
this weekend or tomorrow?
March, 7th internationalwomen's day, dwayne oh, but
you've sold out by the end ofjanuary.
That's yeah, yeah, sorry my bad.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah, we've sold out now as of now.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah that's really really cool.
Yeah, that's something to bevery proud of yeah do you like?
Can females call you up andlike how do they get involved
with these programs, like themaster builders thing and stuff?
Speaker 1 (48:56):
yeah, so, um, yeah, they can call me sure, um, I
actually you got a lot on yourplate, so I don't want everyone
just calling you.
Like send me an email, then umno, look, the ewik program is is
run through master buildersqueensland, so you can
definitely go on to that website.
Uh, women building australia isis another one I've been in
(49:18):
with for a few years, so you canjust google, google Women
Building Australia.
They have a whole mentoringprogram there.
Narwic as well, the NationalAssociation of Women in
Construction.
They also have a mentoringprogram.
I'm not doing it this year, Ijust serve so much on my plate
and I'm still mentoring thepeople who I mentored, like
(49:41):
years ago.
I've kept up with theirrelationship.
So, um, there's quite a few ofthem busy, busy person oh, it's
boring if you're not busy.
So like?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
do you know some of the struggles like what?
What are some of the the keythings I guess that females in
the industry struggle with?
From your from what you'rehearing yeah, um, not knowing
stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
We feel like we need to know everything.
We need to have all of theanswers right now on the spot
when the question's asked.
Um, that's one I struggle with.
I still struggle with that if Idon't know the answer.
Or you know like, if you, ifyou kind of stun me with some
technical information I don'tknow, I just go.
You know like I feel like Ineed to know the answer to
everything.
I feel like a lot of womenstruggle with that.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Um, does that and does so, does that have a
flowering effect and makes youfeel that you're not achieving
things or you're not able to doyour job correctly?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
You just feel at, you know out of your depth who am I
to?
I still feel now I've had mybuilder's license for a year now
and I've been in the industryfor 20 years I still feel like
they shouldn't have given methat builder's license and I
shouldn't be in charge of awhole company all by myself like
massive imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Where does that come from?
Is that a?
Do we want to go that far?
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, Like a deep-seated childhood trauma of
not feeling seen, not feelinggood enough.
Yeah, it's definitely what thatis.
I don't feel good enough, and Iknow a lot of people feel like
that as well.
You just don't feel good enough, and then when you're tested,
it's reaffirmed that you're notgood enough, so it just keeps
that trauma going.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, I think that's huge and that's.
I don't think that's just afemale thing I agree, it's a
person thing it's um, I thinkwe've all got just so much shit
that's instilled in us that weneed to just get out there like
we've got to figure out who weare.
Be our own person, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, I think as well .
We all need to understand thatwe're all struggling and we all
struggle especially with thatone.
Most people struggle with that.
I'm not good enough, or I'm notenough.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Yeah, yeah.
What's some of the others thatare holding women back?
Like, is it a comfort thing?
Like, do females that arewanting to get in the industry
struggle?
That it's all males and beingaround males?
Speaker 1 (52:07):
Potentially Not me I could give two shits.
I don't care.
I'm used to being the only girl.
I don't know, like I don't knowwhere that comes from.
I'm happy that doesn't botherme at all.
It's often in my career, Iguess.
There are times when it can beintimidating.
When I am, and if people lookto me for questions or advice or
(52:32):
solutions, then maybe I dostart to freak out.
Maybe other women feelintimidated also.
I would imagine that's a realthing.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, yeah, like I hope we get to a place where
it's just all equal.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Yeah, that would be good eh.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Like for me I've put it out there heaps of times it
shits me what's going on in theworld when it comes to gender
and all that sort of stuff.
Like, for me it's simple.
Like, if you love something,you want to do it, you're good
at it, go and do it it shouldjust be a human thing, shouldn't
?
It yeah, exactly human.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Did you see my speech at the Master Builders Awards?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, you should look at that.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I say words to that effect.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, Well, go for it , oh my.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
God, I don't think I can repeat it.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Go, and I can repeat it Go on my socials and check it
out.
On your Instagram.
Yeah, I did go back through alot of your socials but I don't
remember seeing that one.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
So the Queensland or the Brisbane Regional Master
Builders Awards, I won the Womenin Building Award and I had to
make a speech and I was veryunprepared, so I just opened my
mouth and it just all went blah,but essentially, yeah, well it
was.
The people still come up to menow and say, oh, you made that
(53:51):
speech, didn't you?
So it resonated with a lot ofpeople.
But basically I said that itlike it shouldn't matter who we
are, where we come from, who welove, who we live with, with,
like that should make nodifference.
If you want to do the thingthat you enjoy doing, just
fucking do it.
(54:11):
Yeah, doesn't, doesn't?
Speaker 2 (54:13):
none of that other shit should matter I personally
believe that's how simple itneeds to be yeah like there's
just so much other crap thatpeople throw around, like let's
just keep it that simple.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
If you want to do something, do it.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
So after the reaction from that speech, I then went
on to win the Queensland Womenin Building Award and then I had
to make another speech and Iwas like Jesus the pressure, I
don't know.
I can't really remember what Isaid.
Then I had a few champagnesafter that one.
But yeah, no, definitely weneed to embrace, and how boring
(54:53):
would it be if, like, we go toour job and see the same type of
person every day, like, come on, we need that diversity,
whether it's male and female, oryou come from another country,
or you're transgender or whoeveryou are.
We need that diversity to makethings better.
We all think differently, weall have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Let's just collaborate yeah, I think that,
like, whether it's male orfemale, like we, everyone brings
a lot to the table, yeah, um,and whether you're a hands-on
female, like you are, or you'rea female that is sitting behind
the scenes or in the buildingbusiness but doing the admin
work yeah like I I can't put adollar value on how much wealth
(55:39):
having females in my buildingbusiness has created us like
it's just I guess I'm not sureon the words for it but like,
exactly like you said, we're alldifferent yeah like my wife,
brings very different opinionsto certain situations like um,
like just being able to havethose round, those conversations
(55:59):
with like because myself we'vegot a construction manager, now
we've got a supervisor, likewe're all males, and then my
wife and our accounts managerare females and then we've got a
va like being able to haveconversations on a regular basis
like it's I.
I think it's just part of us.
(56:21):
Naturally, men handle thingsdifferently to how women handle
things.
And when you combine the twoyou get really good outcomes.
So why do we have to fight that?
Speaker 1 (56:31):
it's got to be one way or the other, Like I just
yeah, I'm quite often reliedupon for my intuition, which I
don't think no offense.
I don't think a lot of blokeshave the same level of intuition
as as women do yeah, sorry,that was really gender specific
(56:51):
and that's I agree.
But that's and and that's whatI'm relied on in our business
like we'll, we'll do aninterview and straight away
they'll leave.
And or a job interview straightawayaway they'll leave.
And so what do you think?
You know, like it's my job tobe?
No, that person's going to be apain in the ass.
We're not employing that person.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
And I think that's what I'm trying to articulate.
I don't know the words for it,but look, we naturally have
different abilities, and there'sdefinitely abilities that
females have that men will justnever be as good at, and vice
versa absolutely why not play toour strengths and work together
?
Yeah um, yeah, I just thinkthere's a huge, huge space for
um females in the industry and II really it really excites me
(57:34):
seeing like I'd love to see morefemales on site um running
trades and building businesses.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
And yeah, um, be good wouldn't that?
Yeah, it would just make makethings so different and equal.
And yeah, yeah, I can't waitfor that day, yeah yeah, look, I
think you're doing incrediblethings like um.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
I just think, keep doing what you guys are doing,
especially with Amanda in yournew position in that set-up.
I think that's going to bepretty exciting to see where
that goes.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
I don't feel like I'm doing anything outstanding.
I'm just doing what comesnaturally.
So if that's inspiring somebodyor if it's working for someone,
I'm going to keep doing itanyway, because it's what I love
and it seems to be what I'mgood at, so I'll just keep
pegging away.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
Yeah, I imagine it's become a passion.
That's what's driving you to doeverything.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, yeah, yes, the probably women in construction
and training up thoseapprentices are definitely my
two two passions, for sure.
And the work as well.
Like look, I'm not, I'm notgonna lie.
I do love going into an emptyblock of land, envisioning it
(58:55):
and then being able to create itlike that's something else, and
that really blows my hair back.
But along way I get to do theseother amazing things that are
going to be good for theindustry.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Before we start to wrap it up, what advice would
you give for young females outthere that are considering
coming into the industry?
Speaker 1 (59:17):
Keep interviewing for the right place.
So there are people who willshaft you and there are people
who are not going to beaccepting of you.
It's not nothing to do with you, it's everything to do with
them.
So don't take it personally.
You can do it.
There are people out there whoare going to love and accept you
(59:37):
.
You just have to keep peggingaway and find that right person,
that right company.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
Yeah, and what about advice for if there is females
out there that are in theirsecond year and considering
throwing it all away?
Like what advice for?
Speaker 1 (59:52):
them.
Yeah, first, can you give me acall and just let me know why,
so I can add that into um, somegovernment grant or incentive or
something that we can let's fixthat.
We need to fix that.
Um, yeah, if it's, if it's whatyou want to be doing, then
stick at it like don't, don'tgive it up, it's hard, it is
hard.
(01:00:13):
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it,it's fucking hard.
But if you stick at it it willbecome easier and you will get
better at it and and it will beso rewarding in the end.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, jeez, your phone's going to be running hot
after that.
Sorry, no, please don't call me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
My phone number is no .
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Look, I really appreciate you taking the time
out to come and have a chat.
I definitely am excited to seewhere you end up.
I can't wait to have you at ourlevel up event.
Um, as part of the um board offemales we're going to have
there.
So, um, yeah, stay tuned forthat.
There'll be more informationcoming out soon.
But, um, yeah, reallyappreciate your time.
(01:00:55):
I know it's been hot sittinghere in the shed, but, um, it's
been a pleasure having a chat toyou.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
So well done thank you for having me all right guys
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Well, um, if you've liked that conversation, please
like subscribe all those typesof things.
Remember that you can go to theLevel Up website or the Duane
Pierce website and purchase theLevel Up merchandise.
And, yeah, please keep watchingand listening to this podcast
so we can continue to make thisAustralia's number one
construction industry podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
We'll see you on the next one.
Are you ready to build smarter,live better and enjoy life?
Then head over to live likebuildcom forward.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Slash elevate to get started.
Everything discussed during thelevel up podcast with me, duane
pierce, is based solely on myown personal experiences and
those experiences of my guests.
The information, opinions andrecommendations presented in
this podcast are for generalinformation only, and any
reliance on the informationprovided in this podcast is done
(01:01:57):
at your own risk.
We recommend that you obtainyour own professional advice in
respect to the topics discussedduring this podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.