Business Innovators Radio - Episode 21: Building Your Ideal Business While Preserving Your Valuable Time With Duane Johns

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Part of the Construction Executives Live Series The vast majority of building and remodeling business owners invest 20 to 30 years of their life in the grind and end up with nothing of transferable value at the end and they close the doors. They get stuck in the weeds hyper-focused on the day to day activities. Unfortunately, they never spend any time strategically thinking about what their ideal business could and should look like. In this live show, you will learn how to unlock your visionary potential.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-21-building-your-ideal-business-while-preserving-your-valuable-time-with-duane-johns

Welcome to In the Zone, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here are your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome to Construction Executives Live. I am your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements out in sunny, Northern California. I wanted to be clear from something right from the top. We are home of the Sacramento Kings, not the Golden State Warriors. If you happen to be a warrior fan, you can go ahead and drop off now. Just kidding. Welcome. Thanks for being here.

I see a lot of familiar names and faces as usual. Thank you for tuning in. I know a lot of us are getting out of spring break and vacations and getting back to the grind. So welcome back to the grind with me. And thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedules to hang out. We have another great topic to explore today and also have a couple more platform updates for you as well. I thought I'd share it with you so U.S. Construction Zone has opened up a store as well and I wanted to kind of quickly share that with you. When you go to U.S. ConstructionZone.com, you'll see a little link at the top. It's at shop.

What we've done is we've added just construction-related apparel and what we're going to be adding here. in addition to the things that we use every day, like job site signs and business cards and hats and shirts and all that stuff that we use every day, we're going to be adding products and services as well. So if you have a product to service, whether it's an educational platform or whether it's a tech or whether it is an actual product

that relates to the construction industry, you think it should be in our store. Feel free to email me, Jeremy, at usconstructionzone.com. We're always looking for new win-wins and partnerships, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I think the shop kind of was brought to me with a couple requests that, hey, Jeremy, you're pointing us in the right direction. You're showing us who to talk to, when to talk to somebody, and we also would like to see some products and services there as well. And that's why we did it. We're going to give it a try.

It's not really my wheelhouse, but it's fun to try new things. and that's what we're doing here at U.S. Construction Zone. So thanks so much for checking that out. I would appreciate feedback too if you take a look at the site and you have some feedback for me or some additional products and services you feel should be there. Please don't hesitate to let me know. We have a great show for you today called Building Your Ideal Business

while preserving your valuable time. The vast majority of building and remodeling business owners, we invest at least 20, 30 years of our life. on the grind, and at the end of it, we don't have a lot of transferable value when we close our doors. You know, I think often we get stuck in the weeds, we get hyper-focused on the day-to-day. I know for me personally, we're putting out fires, some literally, and the day-to-day tends to distract us from the strategic aspects of our business. And we need to put some more thought into that.

And with this live show, we're going to learn how to unlock our vision and potential with a great guest, Duane Johns, and he entered the construction industry, oh, 30 years ago, it says here. That's a long, long haul there, Duane. And he started working on Oceanfront Estates in the Hamptons in Long Island, New York. And in 1996, he moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and started a general contracted business with Roger Ketchum. And the two achieved success right away, and they've earned many industry awards and rig reviews from clients, designers, and trade partners. And Duane has always been dedicated to elevating professionalism in the construction industry,

and he has now shifted his focus from the day-to-day aspects of building and remodeling award businesses to building more rewarding and more valuable businesses. He believes the key ingredients to success are continuous learning, strategic planning, collaboration with like-minded peers, and elimination of egos. Tough one there. When he is not talking a shop, you will most likely find him outdoors. He and his family love to travel, hike, explore, explore, and discover new places and new things.

Please help me welcome Duane John's. Duane, thank you for being here. Thank you, Jeremy. I'm glad to be here. And when you said 30 years ago, that, you know, that kind of hits hard. You realize that was a long time ago. And then I'm noticing that Dallas Cowboys helmet at the top of your background there. And that's probably the last time they were really relevant.

Well, but hey, I say it as a fan. I was a Dallas Cowboys fan for many, many years. moved to the Carolinas and became a Carolina's Panthers fan, and that's been difficult as well. So anyway, I feel you pain. Are you a Hornets fan as well? You know, I try to be. I'm probably the world's most pathetic New York Knicks fan. You know, I still hang on to this day, and it is just, it's painful.

It's extremely painful. That one is right up there with the Kings. We've had so much peril, so it's the first time we're in the playoffs, so we're excited. We're playing on the Warriors and we're pretty jazzed about it here in Sacramento. So it should be. It's taken over our content, that's for sure. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me again, man.

I appreciate it. Yeah, I know. Anytime, man. So let's start with your 30-year career. And I'm really kind of interested in that working in the Hamptons component. I know that that was kind of your start. And what a strange start, right? Working with the mansions and with, you know, a different kind of construction.

So tell me a little bit about your upbringing. construction. Yeah, it's unique. I mean, I grew up about an hour and a half or close to 100 miles east of New York City in a place called the Hamptons, which is, it is beautiful. It's everything you may have heard about or seen when you hear the Hamptons. But it's also one of those places where you've got, you know, you've got a lot of luxury and vacation homes. And then you've got, you know, the everyday local people. And that that's who I was. I mean, I grew up out there. I had a family that, I think I have family that dates back to that area to to the six. 1600s. And I mean, you know, we had family, I've had a family of fishermen and people that were also in some of the skilled trades. And as I was going through high school, you know, that was one of the things that I did a lot. It was summer jobs. You know, that's really got me, what got me exposed to construction. And I realized that as I was getting through the later years of high school that, you know, college wasn't really for me because I didn't have an idea what I wanted to do. You know, I just, I wasn't in a position. to just go out and try it for four years. But I was really comfortable with construction. I mean, I was learning a lot of stuff.

And I had done everything from painting to trim work to cabinetry roofing. I mean, it just, I said, hey, I like what I'm doing. I can make a good buck doing this. And that's where I poured my energy. I was fortunate because, you know, you do get to work on some of just off the charts, crazy stuff, you know, ocean front of states. And, I mean, I saw craftsmanship at its highest level. So I was fortunate at an early age to get exposed to that.

that type of construction, you know, that level of craftsmanship. Right. And I think that that's what gave me an appreciation even more for the trades. And I was one of those people that was always observing, you know, even if I was doing one thing, I'm observing, you know, if I'm working on the frame, helping a framing crew, I'm watching what, you know, the foundation guys are doing. And I mean, what are the roofing guys doing? What are the trim guys doing? Man, look at those guys. That's just some great cabinet work.

I've always had an appreciation for all of it. Yeah. And I think that's what led me to, you know, I ultimately, as I said, worked as side jobs and then turned into a subcontractor for some great builders out there, started my own business. It moved down here to the Carolinas in like 1995 or 96, started a business, general contracting business with my still to this day business partner, Roger Ketchum. And just do all things, you know, related to residential construction, custom homes, renovations. and went from the guy that was literally hands-on doing it. Yeah. Wearing all the hats through the years.

You know, hey, well, now I have to stop actually working and spend some time on sales and then estimating. And then, well, now I need to build systems and processes. And, you know, so all the way through to the other end where today I don't really, I'm not that involved with my day-to-day construction business, a little bit more on the visionary side, trying to spend time focused on the, you know, the bigger picture. where is the business going, helping to build my team and support my team. So it's been a fun journey. Yeah. I mean, it's funny you talk about the college aspect.

It seems like based on what you describe, you've been to many different colleges along the way, right? In the beginning, it was trades. And before you know, you're learning how to do marketing and sales. And oh, my God, it's just, I know the feeling. Like, you just, if you never stop learning, you can pick up something new. And it sounds like that's kind of what you did, huh? That's for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. All along the way. way. I had good folks that I was around, mentors that I had learned from. And then, of course, you know, the School of Hard Docs teaches you probably more than, more than anything. Yeah, the painful ones, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it seems like you have kind of a common theme, too, that you have always enjoyed giving back to the industry that has given you so much. So where did that come from? I think when I, this goes back probably to the late 1990s, early 2000, and I really started to get involved in groups like NARI, NHB.

Because there was, you know, I was always, one of my beliefs is there's just always a better way. Always a better way to do stuff. And this is an industry that is slow to change, you know, slow to embrace new things. And I just, I wanted to collaborate and see what other people were doing, you know. And we all, we all, I think anybody that's in this industry also knows that there's a lot of people that, And especially 30 years ago, the sharing was not so much. I mean, you always had the one guy, you know, the one good builder or one good carpenter that was willing to share everything with you. But everybody else was really kind of standoffish.

You know, go to work, do your job. And a lot of fear of competition. And I think that still lives to today. You know, so I started getting exposed to some of these industry groups and things like that. And that just started to connect me with other like-minded people. And that's when I realized, hey, the challenge here is for us to elevate ourselves, you know, because the industry, it's viewed as I've got a builder friend that says, you know, it's a shame that from the outside looking in, people say, well, when you fail at everything else, go try construction. You know, and that's just, I've always, I've always wanted to fight that, that perception, you know, to where we can elevate ourselves to be professionals. I mean, all trades and everyone involved in this industry should be elevated to that level of professionalism.

So, yeah, anything that I could ever do along the way. I mean, I've learned a lot from others. And if there's anything that I can do along the way to get back, that's what I want to do. Yeah, I mean, it's so true that common theme about, you know, I hear it too. Oh, yeah, go try construction. And I also have heard what you said, too, about the competition. I think for those folks that have that fear of competition, usually they feel like they're on, unstable ground themselves. Obviously, they have some self-esteem issues with themselves personally

or their business. Like, hey, I can't give away a secret that could break me. And it seems like everyone was always thinking that if anybody hears out, I'm doing it, they're going to copy me. And I think you're right. You have to get involved with those groups like Nari and NHB to rub shoulders with like-minded people. Otherwise, typically, you're going to run into people who don't want to share any secrets or how they do things. yeah for sure yeah for sure so um you know i mentioned on this podcast and on my uh on my live show several times that my favorite uh podcast is the building nuggets podcast and i think that i gravitate towards it because your content is very similar of mine like i said it's it's it's very important

topics you know mental health and and diversity and you know the real issues that are kind of underlying a lot of the other issues in construction so i've appreciated you and dave young's genuine, I think, desire to give back to the industry. And I think that's obviously as an eight in you, that's definitely your kind of marching order right now. I also love collaboration over competition. I think it's so true. I think you're right that there's always a better way or somebody that can help you do it. Why not ask?

And so, you know, I had a couple questions about that. How did you meet Dave? And I think you said you're a couple of seasons in. I imagine you've learned a ton from other owners. And I guess you know, you love podcast days. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's all part of this evolution that I've gone through the years, you know.

I mean, coming out of the downturn in 2008, I was really accelerated my, you know, my thought of there's a better way to do this. I was going to get out of the rat race of bidding and estimating and just spending all kinds of time. frankly, doing work and not getting paid for it, you know. And then also at the same time looking at how do I, you know, had a good business, have a great reputation, a great client base. But, you know, you also come to that point of, all right, what am I going to do with this thing when I grow up, you know, what's the longer term plan for my business, you know, am I going to be able to get to a point where I could either sell it or, you know,

maybe hand it over to somebody on the team or just create something that wasn't so dependent on me. So through that process, I was just absorbing more and more information. I started to get involved with some entrepreneur groups. I joined a group called Vistage, which was great. It exposed me to lots of business owners outside of the construction industry. So I would say fast forwarding to like 2015-16, I was just on this exploration of all the things that I could do to better my business, you know, systems, processes, knowledge, all this. And I was approached by Dave Young. And he was with a group called Allaire, Allaire Holmes, that was actually founded in Canada. And they were looking to expand into the U.S. And they needed, they were looking for someone to partner up with

to open open market in the Carolinas. And at first, I wasn't sure. You know, I mean, I was open-minded enough to have the conversation, but I just wasn't sure. And mostly because I just didn't know what it was. But as I dug deeper in, I realized that this is a pretty cool concept. It's a, you know, a network of builders, remodels, very successful builders and remoders, that really had a very like mindset. They're convinced that, man, there's a better way to do stuff. And a lot of it is based on consolidation. You know, like, hey, if we get together and settle on a way to share maybe core services like accounting and payroll and marketing, training, man, that's a solve for all of us. It's something that, you know, now we don't have to worry about trying to figure that out for a

business and then we can collaborate together, share it, make it stronger. So anyway, it was, it was intriguing to me. We went through an exploratory process, joined Allaire, and through that, I was also offered an opportunity to become a regional partner with Aller, so I still own my business in Charlotte, a construction business with Roger. But I also now work to recruit other builders and remoders that might be interested in what we're doing and also act in a support role, I'm almost like a business coach for them to help them grow their teams. And it's just, it's a great culture. So through that, it's allowed me to get exposed to other, lots of other builders, remodels,

other industry leaders, business coaches, consultants. And I've been able to go through the steps necessary to give myself to a point where I was not, I didn't have to be so involved in my business on a daily basis. And of course, one of the things that I've wanted to do for a while, is to kind of spread the message a little bit. I mean, for me, it's troubling that so many people can put 25, 30 years or more in this industry and not have a whole lot at the end. You know, yeah, maybe they made a good living, have some great work and things to look back on,

but then they really, their options are generally like close the doors. You know, we're finding that children or, you know, don't really want the business anymore. Nobody really rides along, just comes up, knocks on your door, and strokes you that big check to buy your business. So it's kind of sad that a lot of these businesses just, like I said, they just kind of shut the doors and it goes away. And I was convinced there's just a better way to approach this. And that's really where the concept of the podcast came from. You know, we were, Dave and I said, hey, what if we could take all the things that we have learned, plus bring on other guests and share the knowledge of the people that have managed to pull it off? The people that have gotten to a point where they have really a truly successful business, you know, and as the title says, the ideal business. And that's different for everybody. I mean, for some people, it's pure up monetary gain. For others, it's freedom. It's time. And that's, you know, that's really where it came to be. So we've, and it was pretty quickly into the podcast, probably by our, I would say maybe our eighth or tenth episode that we were just blown away by how much others were willing to share.

share. You know, we're talking about other builders, other, you know, business coaches. We've had people outside the industry come on. I think you've found, one thing that I've found through this is that, you know, at first it seemed extremely daunting to do something like this, but you give people an opportunity to talk about themselves and they'll have at it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right. There's so much to that. I think it's great what you guys are doing because I struggle with this myself, being the third generation, like, trying to look ahead and be the visionary for our business. And I struggle with it because I do get bogged down.

And I do get lost and I go, holy shit, that was a year. Like, what happened to that whole year? I was going to do X, Y, and Z that year. And then you just push it to the next year. And you do almost need a mentor because if you don't have somebody that can help kind of guide you through these steps, I do think our industry is sad. up to lose multiple years and decades without you even. And I do think our industry is that kind of set up that way.

We're used to putting out the fires and you know, you have an idea when you go into your day what you want to do and sure is shit, you know, two minutes later, you get a call and you're going to do something else that day. And so I think you really need to figure out a way to manage your time, right? I mean, that's got to be step one with this whole process. It's time. it's, you know, there's a lot to it. And again, I think most of us that go into this industry go into it because we have a passion for some part of it, whether it's the actual craft, you know, whether it's seeing things come to life, a remodel, a custom home.

Right. And the business side always comes secondary. You know, we haven't really gone through maybe formal business school, business training. Right. So we spend a lot of time playing catch up, you know, patching the pieces together. Oh, I need this new and improved system or what am I going to do for software? How am I going to have an onboarding plan? And I've got to grow my business.

And so much time has spent the urgency is always today or tomorrow. Right. You know, like, oh, I've got a lumber delivery tomorrow. I got to make sure it's in the right spot. Oh, you know, I got a phone call. The Port of John got delivered to the wrong side of the street. You know, that's the urgent stuff where we need to get ourselves to the point where we're focusing on the important stuff. You know, the important stuff is generally some of that longer term stuff.

You know, what kind of things do I need to be doing to think about my business, six months a year, five years from now? Right. And most of us simply spend little to no time on that. Yeah, and I think for me, you know, I know a lot of people are in my boat. I'm a bit of a control freak, right? So I don't love handing over big pieces of business to others. I have a hard time with it because I know how I would do it.

And I know that it's a family business. And I don't know like, oh man, if I hand that over and they screw it up, then you know, you're going to get a crappy review. Like something's going to happen. So I think for me, I struggle with that aspect of like I need to be able to replace myself and, you know, struggled with how to do that. You know, so like I need a strategy session on just replacing me, please. Yeah. Well, it's getting it out of your head and getting it somewhere where other people can understand it. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. And I mean, I think starting with that, like what does. does building your ideal business mean to you? Because like you said, it's different for everybody. It's different for everybody. Something for me that really over the last couple of years has really resonated with me. And it's something that I said, wow, that was kind of like the two by four upside the head moment was I realized that, you know, as a business owner and as leaders, you know, where we should be spending the vast majority of our time is creating opportunities. for other people.

Right. You know, I spent so much time building my business and, as you said, just the weeds and just that stuff that I always felt. And granted, it's important, but it wasn't really moving the needle in the bigger picture. And then as I've gotten to that point, like I said, where I've built a pretty good, incredibly good and talented team, I don't worry about that stuff anymore. You know, the day-to-day stuff is kind of taken care of. I can, I'm comfortable in letting them make those decisions.

Do they stumble? Do they fall down sometimes? Sure, they do. But what I've found is when I give, and it has to be the right people, don't get me wrong. But once you, once you have a core group of good people around you, now I've shifted my energy to what's the next opportunity I can create for them? You know, if I see somebody that has the potential to grow.

Right. That's just going to come back to me at some point down the road. Right. you know, tenfold. And that's, for me, that's what's been exciting is to watch other people go through transformations, people that, you know, but maybe were challenged or kind of had that scarcity mindset around. They couldn't do this or they, man, I don't know how I could do that.

Or no, I could never, you know, run my own business or, or whatever the case, you know, but by being able to give them opportunities, that's, I mean, to me, I think that's what really makes an ideal business, you know, is you can start to put, team members and people in place to where they just do it better than you ever could. Right, right. That was our topic last month was, you know, investing into someone, bringing someone from the job site to the office. You know, what does that look like? But it's investing time into people.

And I think for so many, for me, generations, it's usually you keeping people under your thumb. And it's usually, you know, you don't want them to be better than you. You just want them to do their job. You want them to, you don't really want to even say they're doing it. a good job. You just want them to just keep their head down and keep going. But like you said, if you don't take the time to invest in them, then they're just a commodity. They're just a commodity. It's just a money. Then they're going to get picked off by somebody else. And you've messed up basically is what happened. Yeah. And when you come together like that as a team, you hear us on our

podcast, we'll talk a lot about freedom. That's something we talk about building freedom. What we mean by that is, you know, an ideal business is getting you to a position. I'd like to look at it as options, you know, I mean, that freedom gives you freedom of time. You know, maybe that just creates more time for you and other members on your team, the freedom to do other stuff, the financial freedom, freedom to, you know, kind of change on the dime things that you're looking at. The team might come together and say, hey, we need to move in a different direction here because we see something changing in the market. Right.

Whereas if you don't have those freedoms built in, you're beholden to everything. Right. You know? And then it becomes very inflexible. I think that's where a lot of the stress comes in. And it's just not fun. You know, so yeah, it's different. You know, the ideal business is different for everybody.

But for me, one that is creates those freedoms, which will inevitably become more valuable. Right. You know, it's just setting you up to where you have options. in your business. You may never ever sell it. You may never want to sell it. But if you've got your business to the point where you could sell it,

that's pretty healthy. Yeah. So I imagine, I mean, the biggest challenge that we're talking about here is getting, the business owner to just start to strategically think about what is your ideal business, right? Because so many of us, maybe they don't know or maybe it's just like maybe it's something in the recess of your brain that, oh, yeah, but that's for retirement years. you know, but like getting them to think about it because then you can't you can't set yourself up to be in a position to make that a reality when the time comes, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's why I challenge a lot of people when I talk to them, especially people that are early on starting their business. You know, I kind of ask them, why did you, why did you go into business? And one of my favorite quotes, I've heard it from a few people, but, you know, as entrepreneurs, you know, entrepreneurs will work 80 hours a week to avoid working. You know, I mean, that's just so true, you know, and that that's what we do. We don't want to go back to the job, so to speak. We want that freedom.

We want to be able to make our own decisions we want. But we also get into that hamster wheel, you know, and before we know it, we start to say, well, why did I go into business in the first place? You know, so I challenge everybody to really put a lot of effort into that. You know, think about what is, what's the whole point of the business? Where are you taking it? What is it going to do for you? You know, what do you want out of this business? this 10, 20, 30 years from now.

It's so much easier to build towards that than to go the other way and then try to figure that out in the last few years. Right. I think that's where most of us fall in that last section. And you know, and you talked about it before, why is having a vision so important? You know, a vision is that's really where you're going, you know? I like to look at it as, you know, if you packed everybody on a bus or on a train, I mean, you know, what would you do if you had no idea where you're going, you know?

And there's various ways to do that different exercises. You'll hear us talk a lot about EOS, the entrepreneur operating system, big proponents of that. I got exposed to that probably about 10 years ago. It's a great suite of tools that just walks you through vision and core values and living in the 90-day world, you know, having very specific rocks and goals. But the vision, I think, is what's so important about that is there's no way you're ever going to. get people to, you hear the term buy-in all the time. You'll never get buy-in for people if they have no idea where they're going. Right. And if you're the kind of owner that just is head down and coming to work every day and expecting everybody to just do their job, that's just

going to lead to a lot of frustration. But when you bring the team together and they clearly understand where we're going, and that, you know, that could be, again, that's different for everybody. But, you know, maybe the team knows that, hey, hey, this year we're doing a million dollars. We're going to do three million dollars. next year. I want to be a $5 million or $10 million company in five years. And then, you know what, by 20 years, we're going to have multiple locations. Now, sometimes that kind of thinking scares people, because again, it's back to that scarcity mindset, you know? Sure, sure. But think of how much that empowers your team. You know, if you've got a team that's starting to say, wow, this is where we're going. I want to be a part of that. You know, I want to, I know that we're talking about working towards a

company that, you know, is creating that freedom of time for all of us. You know, there's opportunities. I could have an opportunity to be invested in this business. Again, whatever that looks like for everybody, but having a vision of where you're going with the business is just, there's no doubt. It's one of the most important things there is. Without it, you're just coming to work every day. Yeah, 100%. Do you recommend having whatever this looks like as a team? Like, is this a retreat scenario where you're really open to feedback? Or are you coming in as a business owner like, this is our vision? You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, there's a couple different ways to look at it. Because in one case, it can be difficult if you're a small team. If it's just yourself or maybe just you and one other person, that can be a little difficult to go through deep exercises like this. But the concepts are still the same. But if you do have any sort of team, yeah, I do encourage people. to go through it as a team exercise.

One of the things you might want to consider doing first is maybe even having some sort of personality profile or assessment done on everyone. I'm a big fan of Colby, K-O-L-V-E, Colby assessments. It's very clear, but what they'll do is it'll quickly let you know what type of personality you are, you know, because some people are visionaries. They're big-time visionaries. They can see into the future. they don't need a lot of information.

They have a great idea. They're going to run with it. Others are not. They're just not visionary thinkers at all, you know? And if you're not a visionary, you're going to have a really tough time painting a picture for the future of your business. So in that case, you might need a little help, you know. Something like EOS, you can self-implement.

There's tools on the website to do that, but they also have like professional implementers, you know, people you could bring in as a third party to your company to help you go through this exercise of a dental. identifying, you know, what's your mission and vision are, core values. And what's cool, though, about doing it as a group is that you're not. And this is where that ego thing comes in that I talk about. I mean, I don't, ultimately now, I don't want this to be my vision, truthfully. I want this to be the teams coming together. And, you know, we have these healthy conversations around what is important to us, what's going to make a better business and a shared vision that, you know, everybody's vested

in it. Right. Yeah, I think it goes a big one, especially in construction. I think it, you know, a lot of us business owners have a big chip of it. And, you know, maybe that's maybe that's the hustle to get where we got or maybe that's partly because we have a lot of pride in the work we do. And like we see this from beginning to end and to completion. And there's like just a lot of ego involved. And I get it. I think a little slice of that is healthy. But I think getting people to put your you go aside and look at it as a team is difficult for a lot of folks. And we're at a generational change too, you know? I mean, I'm sort of Gen X a little bit in the middle, but, you know, let's face it,

a lot of our future workforce is going to be millennials and Gen Z. And I can't remember where I was. I might have been at an HPA function or something. And there was an older person that said, you know, the millennials don't want to work. They don't want to work. They don't want to work. And then one of the young folks chimed in and said, oh, yeah, well, maybe they don't want to work for you. That was.

It was. It was perfect because it's like, wait. Okay, that might have been the case years ago. You know, really the mentality of just come to work, shut up, do your job. Right. Those days are gone. Right. You know, I mean, talented people, which are going to be harder and harder to find in this industry.

Right. They don't want a job. Right. They want to be able to come to work, so to speak, but have a career where they know they're a part of something. They're doing this every day for some bigger reason. If you're not providing or helping them understand what that is, you're going to really struggle to hold on to talent. Yeah, I mean, I think that brings us right into the core value piece because I'm with you. I understand that the millennials had kind of got themselves a bad name in a lot of ways from getting their hands dirty kind of work.

which is fine, but you're right. If they don't have something to work for too, like as a business, you know, that's partly vision, partly core value of like, hey, what do we do on as a business? Are we giving back? Are we, are we not at all? Is that part of your business? Because I know a lot of millennials that won't work for somebody if they don't believe the core values.

If they don't believe that part, they're not going to apply. Like so not even to have that as a business is like, it's, it's, it's, it's bad, but also they don't understand how important it is for them. Money is not as important as the whole picture together. Yeah. No, no doubt. I mean, core values is one of the, after the vision to really the core values is the thing that, I equated to your belief, you know, as a, whether that's a business owner or even a team member, it's kind of the guiding, light, the guiding principles for the company.

Yeah, and that too, you know, you'll come around as a team to a team to a team, establish these. And you've got to go a little bit deeper. I mean, it can't just be, oh, yeah, you know, honesty, integrity, craftsmanship. I mean, it's on everybody's website in this business, right? But dive a little bit deeper into what are those core beliefs. And what happens then is it also starts to make every decision you make as a team a lot easier. Like if you're going to hire somebody new and that's all you have to do is run this person really up against your core values.

If it doesn't fit, well, there's your decision. Right. almost all the other decisions that you're going to make, these decisions that a lot of times you struggle with, if you've got to really define set of core values, that's going to really help you make a decision. Right. Yeah. I mean, my team, it's marching order, right? So like you said, you put it in front of your marching order. And if it doesn't fit, then, yeah, you're going down the wrong path. Yeah. And it also, it attracts good people, the kind of people that you want, but it also repulses. the ones you don't. Right. You know?

Why go through the pain of finding that out six months or a year later if you've got a strong set of core values that you're talking about early on, even when you're hiring. Right. You know, they might, they might just get up and leave the interview. Well, that's okay. Yeah. Better find out now, right? Better to find out now, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So on to the next part that you talk about is the highest and best use. What do you mean by highest and best use? that too is something that in the EOS world they call it there's an exercise they call delegate and elevate and I've seen several other types of exercises like this but in a sense it means really focusing on the things that you love to do when you're good at you know

and in the delegate and elevate exercise you know it's kind of got four quadrants and on the top left will be things that things that you don't like to do and things that you're not good at. And it works. It's way all the way down to the bottom right, which is things that you love to do and you are good at. And ultimately, that's where you want to be spending your time.

And that's all of us, not just as a business owner, but I mean, all team members, you should be getting to the point where the vast majority of your time is spent doing the things that you love and the things that you're really good at.

And I think too many of us get stuck somewhere else, you know, because we feel like we're the only ones that can do it. it's also why it's also why people get frustrated I think a lot of times as business owners it's the do it yourself mindset

but what's if you look back it's generally because we probably didn't set that person up for success in the first place right you know if you're looking at stuff as just handing it off like I just got to get this off my plate right it's good to do a B and C and you know

And then it comes back to you in worse shape than when you gave it to them. You know, now you've got twice as much work. Right. So that's, you know, you kind of recoil from that. And you go, man, I'm just not going to do this. I'll just do it myself. It's easier if I just do it myself. I mean, how many times do you hear that?

How many times have you said that? I've said it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But as you go through that exercise and start to get really embrace that mindset of delegating and elevating people, you know, finding your highest and best use. So, and every, every individual needs to go through that exercise to understand what that is, you know.

I'm not big on, I understand and I, I know the value of systems and processes, but boy, I don't like designing them. I don't want to sit there and create. If I had to create a, you know, standard operating procedure, it's just like eating worms for me. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I'm slow. It's probably going to be difficult for anybody else to understand. So I need to find somebody else that does that.

Find somebody else that loves, I call it like the eating your kale. You know, somebody will eat your kale. Somebody loves it. They'll take as much as you can give them. So yeah, that's really the whole point of highest and best use is when you can get to that point where everyone on your team has found their highest and best use and they're focused on it. Right. It's just, it's night and day when it comes to attitude and performance and everything else. Yeah.

How do they, because I don't, I imagine not everyone knows what they do love, right? You know, so like I think you get, like you said, you get pigeonholed. I use that like athletes a lot, right? So, you know, you get a kid that's good at playing catcher. And, you know, pretty much, you plays catcher the entire time, but that's not what he loves to do. But you get kind of like, you're pitching hold into a spot and like you're good at, right? So everyone just assumes, oh, he must like doing that. but maybe you don't even know that you hate it, for one.

And maybe you don't even know what you would be good at or love to do because you've never done an analysis like this. And it's another great team exercise to do together, you know, to just jot it down. Just list. And a good way to start is to even think, just start writing down all the things you do in a given day. You know, just write them down. And then maybe go back through that list and start to check, do I like it? Do I love it? Do I not like it?

Am I good at it? Am I not good at it? Right. Like me, I'm really good at obtaining building permits. I can't stand it. I don't want to do it. So again, there's a perfect example. If I had to do a lot of that, my battery would be drained.

I'd be exhausted by, you know, noon each day. So I need to find somebody else to do that, you know. So go through all the different tasks that you do. Another good way to look at it is to even tell each member of your team to just take a notepad or something. And maybe even do that for a week. You know, just next week, just jot down all the things that you do. Or if you think of something that you just don't like doing, jot it down. And then get together again, like I said, as a team to find out what you like doing or not doing.

Now, we all know that there's certain things that you just have to, you got to hunker down, you have to do it. It has to get done. I get that. But the point is to over time get yourself out of doing those things and find somebody else that loves it. Right. And so for for those that are like that are out there that are in the smaller business setting, you know, I know this is a tough subject because we don't have a big team, right? So, you know, you do have to wear those multiple hats. So it would become the discussion of, well, do you want to get to a certain level? If you do, then you do have to hire in order to take some of those things away. Or like you said, maybe their vision is not. Maybe their vision is like they just want to have a, a decent career and they're okay with like just shutting the door and and walking away and that's okay. I just don't know a lot of people that are are okay with that when you say that out loud. Right. And you know, it's also, you have to also understand there's a lot of these things that,

especially in today's world, you know, there are so many things that can be done on a fractional basis. You know, you can get people that will do bookkeeping and yeah, blog writing and just, I mean, they're all over. You know, all of this stuff. And in virtual and you don't have to invest tons in it. And they're good at what they do, really good at what they do. Right, right. You just have to find those people.

So it doesn't mean you would have to know. You might come down with a list of, say, administrative things, you know, that maybe takes four hours, eight hours out of your week. Right. Well, find somebody from, I'm on a part time or like I said, are on a fractional or contract basis to do that. They love it. That's what they want to do 60 hours a week of that. Right. Because they love it so much.

that's an easy way to get it off your plate without you making the investment of I've got to bring in a full-time person and create a job description and all that. I mean, it's probably not doesn't warrant that. So I think you have to look at it through the lens. There are a lot of options today for some of those fractional type services. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it brings me kind of this last one here where, you know, why do so many of us struggle with this, this subject in general, you know, building our ideal business well,

preserving our valuable time. We all struggle with it, it seems like. So why is that you think? I think a lot of it is because we haven't necessarily gone through exercises like we just talked about. You know, it's so, it's just, it's almost instinctive to just go back to the fire. You know, this is, I've got to get this done. I have to do this. This is important for tomorrow. And we never really, and what we do is we end up piling more of that stuff on our plate. If we can fill ourselves with 50 hours a week of that, we're busy, where we have to become very disciplined around our time management. You know, and you have to make sure that you've heard the cliche, you know, working on the business, not in the business. But it's true.

You know, you look at any successful entrepreneur, any successful business, it's either that business owner or they've got a leadership team dedicated to doing that. They're working on the business. Right. And maybe you need to get yourself around other people that are doing that. To me, I think that that's something that is transformative is because it's hard to gather that information and actually figure it out on your own. You know, and that's when you get frustrated with it. But immerse yourself, get in a room with other people, a mastermind we like to call it,

you know, people that have done it. And it doesn't have to be in this industry because a lot of what we're talking about really as simple business sense. Right. And that was something for me about 10 years ago, too, that was eye opening is, you know, I started to, and I'd heard it from a few others, but, you know, started to look at myself. As I said, hey, at some point here, I have to start looking at myself as a business owner first. Right.

And I just happened to be engaged in construction. Sure. And that's really, really hard for us. Right. You know, because it's for most of us, it's construction first. It's the trade first. That's first. And everything else comes after that.

And it doesn't mean if you switch your mindset to business first, some people will think, oh, man, that means I'm going to give up quality or I'm not going to, like you said before, I'm afraid now I'm letting go of stuff. I'm not going to be touching it. Right. That's not the case. If you really dedicate yourself to thinking that way, thinking of this is a business, the business needs the attention first.

Right. You know, it needs the right people, the right part. pieces, systems, processes, all that, all that other stuff will work itself out. Right. But you'll be in an extra, you know, you'll drive yourself mad if all you do is start trying stuff. Yeah. You know, without having all that other foundational stuff in place first.

Right. And I think that's it. That's where the frustration comes in. Somebody heard about something. They tried it. It went sideways and then, I'm not doing that again. Exactly. I can picture it right now.

So in your consultant side of your, your, your, business. Do you get involved with helping teams get set up with something like this? We do. We will talk to folks and take them through a bit of a business assessment that we have. And again, everybody's different. We've got people that are just starting out and they might be doing a very low volume all the way up to people that are large volume looking to scale grow. And we try to understand, we try to paint a picture of where they are today. and look back at what have, obviously some of the core fundamentals of the business, but we'll dive into things like, have you had any formal coaching? Are you involved in industry groups?

What kind of collaboration do you do? Because we want to peel the onion a little bit to find out who it is we're dealing with. Some people, I mean, some people have just not done any of that, and they've never been exposed to it. And all they really need is to get a little bit of that exposure. we've had some folks that that's really all it took was some exposure to a few industry groups or a mastermind or two and their business was just changed night and day. Right, right. Yeah, I think that's, you know, maybe the people who need to hear this the most are the ones

that aren't going to take the time to watch, right? Or to do it because they are going to get bogged down. But, you know, you just hope that you have that mentor or friend that can push you in the right direction, whether that's a Vistage group or whether that is a mastermind group or whether that's NARI or NAHB or just NARI NFV, you're a remodeler's advantage and you've got builder 20 groups. There's all sorts of stuff out there. I know. Or yeah, or maybe it's pushing to someone to know like now.

I know you that you help with stuff like this. So I'm going to be able to push people in your direction. I think this is one that honestly I hear so often as a common struggle for us. And I imagine it is a little bit unique to construction because of the way we enter business usually. you know, like you said, we don't enter through a typical channel. We're not entering through a business school usually or, you know, a lot of times it's like, oh, crap, I'm going to just go take my contractor's license, you know? Yeah.

And then before you know, you get back in the mail and you're like, well, I guess I've got a business now. And then you just, you figure it out as you go. And that is, what's what we do? We build stuff. We figure it out. We figure it out. We figure it out. We're the best of the world of doing that.

but I think that that is also a struggle because there's a lot to figure out and like especially with what businesses like you just think of like just think of the tax code and think of a PPP and ERC and all this shit that's coming out you're like that there's so much to think so much yeah right and there's only again that's back to the time thing I think the time probably is the most valuable of all the things out there is time right and what you do with it is the most important. Right. You know, because again, a lot of us are just, it's inherent in us to just, well, if I do a little more, you know, if I work a little harder. Right. That's, that can be an endless loop. Right. So how do you recommend on that time management piece? Is it, is it, you know,

at the end of the day, take two hours, shut your phone off, and like, we'll go through this series of steps to be able to get in the right direction? What does that look like for a lot of folks? You know, for me, something that was, and this goes back almost 20 years ago, I really, I was exposed to a time blocking, I guess it was like a seminar. I can't remember what it was. I think it was through some builder function. But somebody came in and really talked about time blocking at a very high level. And I think that's when I, and when I look at people's schedules and I can just sometimes see people that. the chaos that they're living in on a day-to-day basis. And everyone else has control of their schedule except them. Yeah. And it's really hard, and people don't quite understand. Or what I'll see, too, is people will grasp the concept.

And again, the whole concept of time blocking is you have some very specific things set on your calendar that you're going to do. You know, all right, I've got two hours carved out on Thursday for, you know, working on my sales process or whatever. Where it falls short is people block the time, but then they don't protect it. They easily go, oh, yeah, I'll run out there and meet with that client or go do this. Or they just, something else, again, that urgency trumps the importance. Yeah. I think it's talking to me on that last one. It's hard.

It's hard. I can walk the things out and I've been great to do lists and organizing. But, yeah, I mean, it's that phone call that I picked up. And then it's the thought that I need to do it right, the second, that kind of thing. And it's retraining yourself and it's training folks around you. I mean, when I first started doing it, I just, I wasn't taking calls from certain people. Some of my project managers and site managers, I mean, I had to get it to the point where if it's not on fire, don't call me. Right.

And yeah, okay, there was a few rough patches in the beginning. But you know what? It got to the point where they understood, hey, if you've got the information, if you've got access to figure this information out, I'm going to support you and making that decision. Right. But I had to, like I said, for the longest time, they would just come to me, come to me, come to me. And the worst thing, one of the worst to me, inventions in our industry was the, you remember the push to talk nextel? There was no bigger distraction in this industry ever.

Nobody would even stop to think about something. They'd just push that button. Hey, do you have? Do you know how? Can I? Where is? you know, that's, and you have, that's the kind of stuff you have to shut off. You have to block time for you to work on these things in your business and then protect it.

Just don't let people violate it. You know, you have to say no. Do you know what's getting in pretty close to second is texting, though? Yeah, it is. And now you even have Foreman's with a smart watch or an Apple watch and you're like, why are you looking at your text right now? You're on a ladder. Like, is it that important? but like they feel like everything's so important.

Like that text comes and like, we have to answer it. Yeah. It's kind of like the push talk crap. It's annoying. And it's annoying. It's distracting people. And it like makes you,

when you're talking to someone, it makes them divert their eyes down. And you're like, you're not talking, you're not listening to me right now. And that's something you have to work. You have to work on it yourself and you have to work on it with your team. You have to always be thinking about moving to how do we become a more proactive team versus reactive?

You know, I mean, most of us are reactive. That's kind of the world we live in. And I get it. This industry does have its surprises. We know that. But you can limit those by being really proactive.

You know, if you're having good team meetings, maybe one thing we have every week is it's just kind of a kickoff meeting. A Monday morning kickoff. Everybody knows what they're doing, where they're going. What kind of resources do we need? Right. It saves a lot of those random phone calls during the week. Right. Right.

Yeah. Good point. Well, I mean, a couple last things here. I mean, I know you wear a mini hats. A lot of your hats are on the more strategic and doing things like this side. You know, podcasts or consultant, speaker, advocate, builder. You know, what gets you out of bed the quickest in the morning these days with all those hats you're wearing? I would say now it's working with new teams.

Like I have, you know, fortunately working with a layer, I have the opportunity, like I said, to bring on some new, business owners and their teams and that time I spend with them to really understand their business, what they've done over the last five years, 10 years or more, helping them solve a lot of things we just talked about today. You know, they've got a good business, but there's some pieces missing. They can't quite connect all the dots. They want to get to the next level. How do they, how do they, and helping them figure that out.

Yeah. And what I love about it is by doing things the right way, by going through some of these exercises I've talked about, is you're actually empowering these folks to ultimately figure it out on their own. I don't come in and tell people what to do, you know. I try to give them the tools and some of the knowledge from my experiences of how they can come to those conclusions on their own. It's really cool to watch. You know, it's great to watch teams get out of their own way, you know? Yeah. Because everybody, if you hear that talked about with business owners a lot, like business owners get stuck or business owners are in their way.

I've found that almost everybody on a team is sort of in their own way, you know, because they do. They have to go through some of these things and understand what gets them up in the morning. Right. Until everybody really goes through that and then understands it as a team. Yeah. So that's what fires me up. Cool. Awesome.

And then one last thing on the Allaire thing. I've seen some really cool write-ups on kind of that franchise model. And honestly, the more you talk about it, the way you're talking about it, it just makes so much sense for a lot of folks. So, I mean, I think that that's something that a lot of people should look at is how do you pull resources together like Aller is done and make some of these giant hurdles that are in our way? You know, just think of like the insurance component. And like you said, payroll, all these things that are decisions that we have to make, changes we make, you know, through the years and how much time it takes. To me, that's probably the most attractive part of that, right?

Is that let's just take some of your time away so that you can invest it in the big business part of it. Because I don't know, that's part of what bogs us down. It's just those day-to-day decisions do. Yeah, it's an interesting, you know, it's an interesting, business model and what I think is most powerful about it. It's the

tough part to explain. It's the culture. But the culture comes from what we're doing. It's just an incredible group of people. And it's like anything else. I mean, there's all sorts of things out there that you can explore and learn about, you know, to better yourself and better your

business. This is just another one. And I mean, certainly if anybody wants to reach out to me, I can let them know more about it. But Yeah. You know, really what we're, what we've done is it's the, it's the consolidation play is the big thing, you know, because you look across all industries out there, the automaking industry. I mean, you know, chain stores, lumber yards. Every business out there has consolidated to some form or fashion, but that has not happened in residential construction.

It just doesn't happen. Right. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be gobbled up by some big entity, you know, and that. But what it does mean is you can start to utilize some of those benefits and powers of a bigger team. And that's what we've done. You know, we've gotten together and said, hey, if we bring the best and brightest together and we just share our knowledge as much as we can. Yeah. And then share some common, as I said, core things behind the scenes.

Right. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, we all know we need really, really good accounting. We want more than bookkeeping. We don't all just want to flounder around trying to figure out how to use our QuickBooks program. We want world-class accounting. But that's hard to do maybe for any one-off company. But if together, we say, hey, let's share this service and support this service, that's powerful. We do that with a lot of the other core services within the business.

So it just allows us as business owners to focus on the things that we think are important, which is building relationships and then building custom homes or renovations. Right. Yeah, the collaboration is off the charts with the layer, and it solves a lot of those things that people are out there trying to do all the time, you know, find a new system, find a new process, develop this, grow my team, training. Right. I equated to, you know, when I was looking at it and considering,

and I said, you know, I would rather use the mousetrapped than spend my time building the mousetrap. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so well said. It was frustrating for me. That's something that really was frustrating me. It was just trying to assemble all the parts and pieces, And it was just... Yeah. Crazy.

Yeah. It's like going to shop IKEA and... Yeah. Yeah, business. Yeah, for sure. Well, so how do people get a hold of you best, Duane? If they want to talk about a layer, they want to talk about your consulting work on what? The best way, the easiest way is probably to find me through the Builder Nuggets platform.

I go to BuilderNuggets.com and it's got all the information about the podcast, plus it's got my bio and contact information on there. Builder Nuggets on Facebook, Instagram, and wherever you listen to podcasts as well. Awesome. Well, I'm a big fan. I have been for a long time. Thank you for what you do for the industry and for the time that you invest, doing things like this. I'm getting people to the next level of success, not only in business, but really just

like making people happier in our industry. So for that, I thank you. Well, thanks for the opportunity, Jeremy. And also I want to thank you because I know as a, I know, I know, I know it goes into doing this. A lot of effort behind the scenes. And yeah, so just

you're providing a valuable, a valuable platform out there for a lot of people. So thank you for what you're doing. All right. Thank you. All right,

take care. All right. See you. Thank you guys for tuning in another episode of Construction Executives Live. We will be back next month.

It'll be the first Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m. Pacific time. And you'll be seeing an invite from me here very shortly. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone with Jeremy and Valerie Owens.

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