Business Innovators Radio - Episode 30: Find Success on the Other Side of Discomfort with Spencer Powell

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Construction Executives Live Find Success on the Other Side of DiscomfortWe have all heard the quotes on what could be found after going through uncomfortable, stressful and fearful situations – success, pot of gold or business and personal growth! Learn from industry expert and CEO of Builder Funnel – Spencer Powell – as he shares his journey from overcoming fear to finding success!Powell will also share his strategies on the importance of relationships, business culture and creating the kind of content that breaks through our distracted society.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-30-find-success-on-the-other-side-of-discomfort-with-spencer-powell

Welcome to In the Zone and Construction Executives Live, 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's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to Construction Executives Live. I am Jeremy Owens host of this podcast, as well as owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements in that. Northern California. Hey, welcome everybody. Happy holidays. I know that this is a kind of a crazy week for a lot of us. Usually a lot of family things and things going on. Hey, with this holiday season, I want to just remind everybody that this is a joyful time for most of us, but not everyone. So please make sure to reach out to somebody who maybe lost a loved one this year or is more alone than they're used to make sure that we kind of spread that joy around a little bit more. and I just want to make sure that we finish strong this year and not only personally but professionally.

So thanks again for being here. We have a great show for you again and I'm excited about this. We have a lot of eyeballs on this one. I'm happy to be going out with a bang. If you saw on LinkedIn, there's almost 600 people signed up for this today. So I'm super excited to bring you some cool content today. A couple things to note before we dive in, you know, at U.S. Construction Zone, we're doing our best to deliver some good content, whether that's podcast or this

live show or articles. We may even mix in some live events this year. We're doing our best to bring content to you and we need to connect with you. So if you haven't done so already, please go to our website, usconstructionzone.com and sign up for our newsletter just to make sure that you stay in touch with what's going on on our platform and with our content. Also, if you want to reach out to me personally, if you want to set a meeting with me, next year if you want to make it a goal to take more meetings. I mean, I did that this last couple of years where I was taking meetings like Matt and meeting new people and creating a real robust network of people that I can trust in this industry.

If you want to do that with me, feel free to do so. Jeremy at usconstructionzone.com, please do reach out to me. I take meetings. I don't care who you are. or what level you're at. I think everyone provides value in this industry, and I'm open to it. So today we're sponsored again from the great folks at build12.

Build12.com automate your construction business into a revenue generating machine. You can go there for a free demo. I am signed up at build12.com for my small business at three generations. I'm telling you, it is robust, and it's really going to create a lot of efficiencies for us going forward. You know, it is something when you're when you're a small business, when you're struggling with people, you know, we lost an employee this last year trying to figure out, hey, do we replace this person or do we try to really create more systems and processes? And we're going down that rabbit hole of being more efficient with our every single lead we get, being more efficient with every single sale, every single review.

So check them out and find out a little more information about Bill 12. So we have a great show today. It's titled Find Success on the Other Side of Discomfort. And we have all heard the quotes on what could be found after going through uncomfortable, stressful and fearful situations, you know, success, pot of gold, or maybe business and personal growth. Learn from industry expert and CEO of Builder Funnel, Spencer Powell, as he shares his journey from overcoming fear to finding success. Powell will also share his strategy.

on the importance of relationships, business culture, and creating the kind of content that breaks through our distracted society. Let's all take a step forward and prepare for those New Year's goals. Spencer Powell is founder and CEO of Builder Funnel. His family has been building homes for over 100 years. And growing up around the construction industry and his family business helped him learn the value of hard work and he learned the basics of the construction industry, born out of a need to attract customers after the 2008 recession. Spencer built his agency from direct mail operations to

focus solely on helping remodels and home builders market their business effectively. Powell is a sought after speaker. He's a successful podcaster and industry influencer, and he's always looking for new ways to help businesses and remodels that are frustrated with their marketing efforts and help drive more qualified leads to their businesses. And I'll raise my hand for that and I need your help with that one too. Please help me welcome Spencer Powell. Spencer, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Jeremy.

I'm excited, yeah. Yeah, happy holidays to you. I know that you're in the Colorado area, right? Yeah, we're in Colorado Springs, just an hour south of Denver. And, yeah, we're fingers crossed for a white Christmas. It's supposed to be cold that day. I'm not sure if we'll get the snow, but we'll see. All right.

In Northern California, we don't have that, but we go to Tahoe if we want that snowy weather, and we're okay with not driving you in the snow because we suck at driving. So they know that one. But thanks for being here. I know we got a lot of stuff we want to dive into. So please share with us a little bit about your journey. And I know you're like me growing up in the construction industry. When did you decide to kind of start out on your own and create your own legacy?

Yeah. So I come from a long line of builders in the Seattle market. And so it goes back to my great-grandfather. And then my grandfather got involved. built hundreds of homes out there and apartment buildings and all kinds of stuff. I was born there. And so my dad and his siblings got involved with that business, did lots of different things over the years.

And then really, I didn't get into the industry, really, other than just like being a kid, watching it from afar, not really understanding what's going on, not having a lot of context. and my dad moved out to Colorado Springs to buy a totally different business from his father-in-law, and that was a direct mail company. And so that was when I was in fourth grade. And so fast forward, I got out of college and started getting into social media for business, figuring out online marketing for business. And it was at that time where I clipped back into my uncle's business at the time.

and they had a custom home remodeling business. And so we started figuring out all their digital stuff. And that was kind of the intersection of, you know, where I was starting to get excited about, you know, the digital side and then the intersection of construction. Right on, right on. I mean, I think we're similar in that, you know, growing up maybe a little bit more on the shy side, you know, where did you learn, I guess,

you know, being a kind of a shy kid and, you know, when did you kind of start to overcome that and kind of, face that fear of being shy because obviously as a business owner and a manager and a speaker and a podcaster it's not it's not for the faint of heart is it i would not have predicted any of that side of it for sure um yeah for context i i have some early very vivid memories i think one was in fourth grade and we had to i just we had just moved um so that was maybe some of it but i was definitely very very shy and we had to give a presentation you know, just basic, like, hold up a board and kind of explain a few things.

I remember crying, you know, just having to, like, the thought of going up in front of the class and having to speak. And then through high school, I was just had, you know, a couple really good friends, but didn't really, you know, socialize a ton, you know, didn't like to raise my hand in class. And, yeah, just like to keep to myself and not draw attention. And anytime I had to give a presentation, you know, it's just like butterflies for, a month before you just don't feel good. It's just, you know,

you're just nervous. Right. And I think the, the turning point, well, I would say one major turning point was when I went to college and I, I don't know how I recognize it, maybe just luck.

But I realized, I was kind of thinking about, I was like, no one there is going to know kind of this version of me that's shy, a little more reserved. And so I was like, well, I can just,

continued to be who I am, but I can put myself out there a little bit more. And then they'll see kind of that other side of me. And so I was like, I'll join the football team. That'll be a great way to like, you know, meet some people, had never played before. So that's the whole other story. But really, I think going and just deciding that and then also putting myself in a new situation where I knew I would instantly get connected. When you're on a team, you're going to form some friends. So that was a big decision to just say, I'm going to kind of transform myself a little bit. And it's weird because like I said, it was kind of lucky that I recognized that, but I remember making a very intentional choice to try to do that.

That's like a clean slate kind of thing. Like, you know, so did you go away to college or was this local college? Yeah, I left the state. And so that was held. I knew there would be like nobody from my high school. There was no way that they would be there. And yeah. You said clean slate, and that really resonated.

I was like, this is a chance to kind of reinvent myself, you know, and what I didn't really like some parts of me, right? Like, I don't like being shy and feeling this way. It wasn't easy, but yeah, that was a turning point for sure. Yeah, I mean, that's obviously it's easier said than done, right? So making that decision is one, but then how do you go about honing those skills, right? I mean, is it just like just doing it, you know? or was there like a book or a mentor or what was there something else that helped you get through it?

Or was it just repetition? Yeah, I think I think in college it was just winging it. I don't know that I had a real plan other than like, hey, I'm really just going to be actively thinking about this and working on trying to put myself out there a little bit more. When I got out of school and started the business, I recognized that speaking was going to be important. if I wanted to, you know, build an audience or get out in front of people, spread the message that we were trying to spread, and just, you know, presenting in front of small groups, in front of clients, you know, if you're in sales, you're in those situations. So one book that I remember kind of latching onto early on was Steal the Show by Michael Port.

And so that helped give me like a little bit of framing around speaking. and everything, but honestly, just reps, lots and lots of reps. Even in those early years of the business, I was still, you know, a little bit more reserved. And, you know, I think it's a journey, right? It wasn't just like, I flipped the switch all of a sudden and went to college and now I was like, you know, super extroverted. You still are who you are, but I think you just kind of learn how to project a little bit differently.

Yeah, I mean, wouldn't it be nice if it was just flipping a switch? Yeah. Yeah. A lot easier. I mean, in the intro, I kind of talk about it. We've all heard the quotes and cliches about what's on this other side of fear for all of us. And I know that a lot of times we talk about business, but obviously it's personal life too. But what was on the other side of it for you?

I mean, obviously you graduated college and things like that. But what was it for you that you were like, wow, if I wouldn't have made that decision, I wouldn't be here. I think what I recognized is that you can. you can choose what that future looks like. So for me, I didn't like that shy component, the feeling nervous, all of those. And it was almost like, okay, if I don't want that, what would it look like?

And then you have to kind of force the actions behind that, right? Like, okay, I'm going to join this team that I maybe wouldn't have done before. I'm going to, you know, prep a whole bunch for these, you know, presentations in class and I'm just going to like embrace that and then you start taking those actions and then the more you take the action the more skill you build in it and then you build that confidence and then all of a sudden you are turning into that future vision that you originally had and so I think a lot of it is just deciding what do I want to look like and you can just say like in a year in three years and five years, but who do I wish I kind of was more like in the sense that you're

picking maybe traits that you want to say like, oh, I have this trait, but I really wish it was a little more magnified or, you know, I really, you know, I'm a little hot-headed in certain situations. I really don't want to do that. Well, okay, how am I going to work on that? And then all a sudden you start taking active actions, but I think it starts with intention. Yeah. And like Jeffrey said here, you know, consistency, like, right? If you don't have that consistency, if you're just kind of like on and off and like, oh, I'll kind of ebb and flow, then that improvement's not going to be made. But it's tough to make changes, especially personality, right? I mean, we all have personalities we're born with and things that we don't love about ourselves.

It's just human nature. But to try to work on those, it's so much easier said than done. And not, you know, you could read all about it, but that taking that step of action is, it's not easy, I can tell you. 100%. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, as a speaker and a podcaster, I know that, you know, being on this side of it, it's difficult to bring content to listeners, right, or articles, whatever that may be. And are you like me in that if you are not talking with others, if you're not learning from others, and that content doesn't flow quite as freely. Yes and no. Yeah. I think, I think you do get a lot of content from exchange of ideas. and networking or peeking inside somebody else's business and kind of, you know, learning that way. I think there's a ton there. But then I guess the other side of it is just through doing, right?

So everything you just asked me about, I'm not an expert on, you know, changing from a shy person to a little bit less shy. But like that, that was what my experience was. So I think you can a lot of content and I think some of the best content is just born from your journey and what you're doing and what you're learning. And you have a lot more confidence sharing that because you did it. Right. So it's not like somebody can be like, no, Spencer, you know, you didn't, you know, go and, you know, put yourself out there in college and, you know, join a team that you had never, you know, played the sport before. Nobody can kind of fight me on that. So I think you do get it from both those angles, you know, some is the exchange of ideas.

and then some of it is just looking at what you're learning through mistakes and lessons and trials. And then when you do come out the other side, you can go, oh, well, this is something that I could share. And maybe that would help somebody either go through it faster or dodge a big bullet, you know, if you made a big mistake. Yeah, totally. Now, you have a unique situation in your upbringing where you started construction,

you kind of went to marketing, and then you were kind of pulling back into that construction field. You know, how did that all prepare you? Did you see a lot of holes in your family's construction businesses in terms of like, hey, how difficult it was to market? So were you drawing on that experience when you created builder funnel? Definitely. And I think I was kind of at that. The intersection of like construction, you know, remodeling company, a custom home building company,

grown through a lot of word of mouth and referral. So I think the challenge, a lot of times is in this industry is just embracing marketing and understanding, hey, this is a core function of the business. Because so many were built, you know, handshakes, word of mouth referral over decades of time and you just get work and it kind of comes to you. And then sometimes you feel like, well, if I'm marketing, then my customers are paying for that marketing.

And, you know, there's a lot of head trash, I think, that gets baked into why you maybe shouldn't spend on marketing or, you know, well, if you're really that good, you shouldn't have to tell anyone about it. And it's like, well, that's, that's not really how it works. We always love referrals. But I think there was that component. And then there was the digital side that was really new. You know, most construction companies maybe had a basic website. Lots of them still didn't at the time. Not all of them were on Facebook, you know, at the early innings. It was kind of like blogging, Facebook and Twitter. And so, yeah, I think I kind of was like sitting in the middle of that and just navigating a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny the comment

about the referrals because I see this in our own business. Like the power of referrals is very difficult now. Like it's used to be where, you know, the neighbors would talk to each other or you would ask your friend who did the work. Now it's all internet. Now it's like even if you get the referral, you're not done. You're still going to go online. You're still going to check them out. You're still going to, it's just, I don't know, I wish it was as powerful because it's such a good lead source. But man, if you're not doing the other work, you're going to miss. Yeah, it's so true. And I mean, when you think about the internet too, and especially with social media, it kind of becomes that digital version of word of mouth.

But you're right. We're so accustomed to doing research on Google and controlling our own research that even if you get a referral from a friend, you still want to do your own. Research. Like, we love doing our own research. So you're going to, you're still going to land on the website. Go check out the Instagram, you know, vet that company for yourself. Yeah, totally. So what problem is Builder Funnel trying to solve for our industry?

Yeah. Right now, I feel like the big problem that we're solving is creating a holistic, sustainable marketing program. I think there's. I think there's a lot of ways you can approach marketing. And there's a lot of like lead gen sites and you can do one-off campaigns. What we are really strong at is seeing the big picture, putting all the pieces together and building a machine that isn't just like, hey, this is this three-month campaign. Like we want to build something that you can start to rely on month over month.

Like I know this is going to produce me regular lead flow, steady lead flow. And then obviously over time as you build metrics, you want to know, like, where's those leverage? So if I really want to start growing faster, I can kind of pull on that. But that's the big problem we want to solve is avoiding the like, I got to 2 million, then I dropped to 1.5. Then I got up to 2 and a half. And then I dropped to 2. And then I had a $1 million a year. Like, that's because you don't have steady lead flow.

And so how can we just provide more stability to a project-based business where you don't have like somebody that does a large scale kitchen, they're not coming back to you for a large scale kitchen. Right. Yeah. You pretend 15 years unless they buy another house, you know, and they loved you. So you really have to go get new customers almost all of them every year. Yeah.

And I can tell you from experience, there's so many businesses out there that are, that are not looking at the end game. Like, so your program is all about looking at this is a long game. And SEO is super long. Like, this isn't, this isn't a, like, two social posts a week and I know, an email, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's, you've got to look at it at the long game. And if you look at it at the short game, it's just, that's where I think people get stuck. And then they think, oh, this doesn't work, you know.

And then they're like, ah, you know, I'll just go back to what I was doing before. So, you know, what you're talking about, you know, I know you guys kind of create a package in the system that, based on the analysis of the website and the and the and the company itself you got to look at this as something that's going to be long term not this next month yeah yeah and i think um it's it can be hard when you're at that stage of the business when you're just thinking about next month and it's hard to think about one two three years down the road if you're like but i need to sign something in the next 30 or 60 days um But yeah, you want to move away from that as quickly as possible because then you're just chasing the next 30 days, 30 days, 30 days.

It gets really tough to get ahead. So, yeah, we're very interested in playing the long game with people that want to build stable, robust businesses. They want to grow big things, but they understand that, hey, the growth is going to come in in chunks and waves. You know, everyone wants to double their business in a year. That's like the most common thing I hear, you know, when people come to us. It's like, okay, like maybe depending on where you are. But also, what if you doubled in two or three or four years? And then you did that again in two or three or four years.

And, you know, so. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, I told you before that I've been watching your guys' videos for years. And you're the one behind the camera most of the time. But was that always part of the strategy for Builder Funnel? Or did you guys kind of introduce videos as you got going? And then for those of us who kind of struggle with this, maybe we've starting out or haven't done it, what advice would you give for the power of video these days?

Good question. So we started really with, I would say, more written content. So it was a lot of blogs. And we did that for many, many years. Did a few one-off video stuff, some webinars. I would say that was more how we did video in the earlier days. But then, yeah, we started the podcast. And at that point, that's probably been, I don't know, five, six years or something at this point.

And then pretty quickly after we realized more and more internet consumption is video, right? And it doesn't take long. All you have to do is hop on the internet, pull up social media, almost everything you're consuming has video. And so we just saw that trend and pair that with that kind of word of mouth discussion. we had earlier in referrals. When you get a referral, you know, if it's like Jeremy, you tell Spencer go work with ABC remodeling, well, you worked with them, so you have trust built in. And you basically handed me your trust and said, I trust these guys.

So now I inherently have this trust. Yeah. But video can actually do a very similar thing where if you get to know somebody and you watch their content, you know, let's say somebody subscribed to my YouTube or my podcast, they probably have dozens of hours with me throughout the year. And so they get to know me. They know kind of, you know, who I am and what we believe and all of those types of things. And so we kind of saw those two things happening, just that trend of video and then just how powerful it was from a, you know, connection standpoint. Yeah, it's difficult.

I mean, I think a lot of us struggle with, okay, what kind of video, right? So, you know, yours can be very personal and it could be, you know, very simple a lot of times. But I think a lot of us struggle with, all right, so what am I talking about? And then being consistent, right? It's not like a one-off like, hey, look at this job site. This is what we're doing. It has to be like you're making a commitment to consistency. You definitely do.

And I would say you do have to commit to it. You can't be like, well, well, try out some video. I would say like this is probably going to be a core part of your brand and company strategy is we're going to embrace video and you want to figure out who's going to be behind the camera. Could be one person, could be a few people. You definitely need to think that through. But then after that, I would, you know, pick your channel. So are we going to start a YouTube or are we just going to do a ton of Instagram stuff? You know, is it more shorts? Is it more medium length? you know, that sort of thing.

But usually the best source of content is questions and conversations you're having in the sales process and then questions and conversations you're having with active clients and active projects, right? Like you run into a problem. Hey, this is a problem we ran into recently. Here's how we solved it. Like that's a five, seven minute video right there. And that can build a lot of trust with somebody doing research with you.

Like, oh, wow, yeah. I could see how there's lots of problems on a job site. Like, yeah, that was cool to see how they navigated that and solved it. It's adding that level of transparency and connection with the prospects that are visiting your side and your channels. Yeah, that makes sense, a lot of sense. I mean, so how are you guys navigating it from a content, you know, marketing strategy? You know, we're becoming more and more distracted. You know, social media is definitely doing this to us where we're like, we need something now.

You know, our attention spans are getting even shorter. I mean, I know that there's actual, actual science behind this that now you only have a few seconds to get attention. So how are you guys navigating that? Because I know a lot of us are just like, it's just so quick to scroll, right? How do you, how do you capture the attention? Yeah. So I think the first thing I would say is you're not going to change human behavior probably. So just embrace the way it is.

And so if you know people have short attention spans, then, okay, we. We have to have a really strong hook. We have to have a really compelling title. And then after that, you have to have enough stuff going on in your video that's changing pretty rapidly. And so, yeah, we've been having a lot of conversations just in the last 60 days about how can we continue to put out helpful educational material, but doing it in a way that's maybe a little bit fun. but it was also thinking about like, how can I hold somebody's attention every five, ten seconds,

have something changing on the screen, maybe a jump cut, maybe, you know, a different scene or something like that. But definitely the title and the first hook are the most critical. Because if you don't get them hooked for the first two, three, four, five seconds,

they just, like you said, they just scroll by. And then once you got them, you usually bought yourself a little bit of time, but not that much more. You might have bought yourself another 10, 15 seconds. You got to do something good during that. So it gets really complicated to think, like, wow,

I'm trying to just share something that's helpful. But even that's not enough. You have to work within the way people are operating today. And so, yeah, it takes the input level to create something like that, like 10 or 20x. How do you stay on top of those trends? Because it seems like we're changing as people as a species, like, very, rapidly. And then also programs are changing. And, you know, how are you guys staying on top of that? Do you have a team just for the video at this point? We're, yeah, we have a couple of people that are,

yeah, I would say like not all 100% dedicated, but very dedicated to learning about that stuff, staying on top of the trends. But a lot of it is the sort of thing where, you know, we're, we're in it all the time. We have about 25 full time. And we're, paint like this is all we do so it's in a way we're in a better position to stay on top of the trends it's it's not like i you know i'm not running a remodeling business and then trying to stay on top of all of those trends with like new products energy efficiency you know all those types of things and all of these other you know market digital marketing trends right with you know AI and you know tools and software and you know all that stuff so i would say we naturally are able

to keep on top of it because we're following those blogs, we're listening to those podcasts. That's what gets us excited. So I think it's a little bit through osmosis of just like passion and enjoyment, but we're also trying to always improve. So then you're going, well, okay, we're here. If we want to get here, then you kind of look at what's working. And then when you look at what's working, it's usually, well, people are using really good hooks. Then they're using all these editing things in the video to keep people's attention. And so you kind of get there within a couple of steps. Yeah, gotcha. Are you guys a lot on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube? Or are you getting into the TikTok space and some of those other kind of ancillary ones?

Yeah, I would say primary is Instagram and YouTube for us. Yeah. For clients, like remodels, custom builders, Instagram's the primary. Facebook would be secondary. We love if people would get on YouTube. But, again, not many people are willing to dedicate the time behind the camera. and the consistency. TikTok, we're not doing a ton there.

I guess what I'll say about TikTok is you have to kind of look at where is your ideal target clients and then, you know, what are they doing when they're on the platform? And so really for a lot of our design build clients, they're doing projects that are typically, I would say, like 80,000 to, you know, several hundred thousand. and custom homes you get into the millions. Yeah. That demographic is, that's kind of Instagram. It's like what happened with Facebook,

where it just, the demographic moved up and up and up, and now a lot of that has moved over. So TikTok is still on the younger side, and it is still more entertainment based. Whereas Instagram, there's actually quite a bit of education, business stuff,

you know, and then obviously tons of design and inspiration. So, yeah, we're not doing a ton on TikTok yet. Okay. Now, that's good to know. You know, and as a, you know, we talked about the products and services you have, but so much of what you do is your team. And I know that you've spent a lot of time assembling the team that you have and you said you put a lot of thought into it. And so what, you know, you talked about everything's of relationships.

You know, we can talk about we have a great product of service, but without the great team and without good relationships, you don't have a lot. So was that always a strategy of yours or did you have? have to kind of learn to develop the relationships as you got going. Yeah, I think it was pretty early on, just reflecting back as you asked the question, that I recognize that people were everything. I think my first year or two, I was very much like, business is numbers in the spreadsheet. And, you know, like, let's forecast out. And I'm a math guy, so I love that.

But then all it takes is you land your first few clients, you hire your first couple people. and you go, oh, it's all about people. And so from that point forward, we've been very intentional about how we can continue to build, you know, a strong culture pour a lot into the team, you know, establishing core values that we live by and we bake into our meeting structure and the way we make decisions and all of those types of things.

And one question that really hit me early on as I was building the company was always like, what would I want this to be like if I was the employee working here? And that question kind of manifests itself into a lot of different areas within the company. And you can't always do all of the things. If you're like, oh, it'd be great if we do this, but maybe you don't have the budget for it or you just don't have the bandwidth for it at certain times. But you kind of keep this running list and you just kind of keep nudging yourself in that direction. But I think that has helped a ton too. is just thinking about, like, is their growth opportunity?

Is their autonomy? Is their flexibility? Like some of those benefits that you do get as an owner. Obviously, the team isn't necessarily going to have all the benefits because they don't have all the risk like you do as the owner. And so there's tradeoffs. But that question, I think, has guided a lot of that team building aspect. Yeah.

And you talked about culture. I mean, this is a big one in our industry. This is one that honestly, me being a third generation industry, was ignored for most of of my early childhood is culture isn't it's hard work it's it's shut up and do your job and yeah how do uh how does that culture piece it does the core values lead into the culture like you can't have one without the other right otherwise it just seems like you're doing going halfway there yeah 100% yeah the core values i feel like are the foundation and the base of that that culture you know so we have a handful, you know, do the right thing, always be teaching, always be learning,

you know, and they can just be posted on a wall and then that will do just about nothing for you. But if you actually live by them, you know, so I mentioned earlier, like we make decisions based on those. I recently had to make a pretty big decision based on one of those. but if you actually do that, then people see, oh, this is how we operate here. Oh, this is who we are. And then when you hire, we used to do it reverse. We used to go through like resume, skills, interviews, you know, and then we do a culture interview at the end.

We're like, hey, let's all do a quick breakfast or go to lunch and, you know, see if it's a fit, you know, as kind of the final. And then we realize, like, if this is a deal breaker, this should actually be first. And so now we actually interview for culture first. And then if you check through there, then, okay, let's make sure skills are aligned and you fit the role and all of that kind of stuff. And you'll go through some interviews after that. And so then as you build that flywheel, you go, okay, well, everyone you're bringing on is in line with these core values and, you know, those types of things. Then it does start to solidify.

But, you know, you mentioned the old style of business was more like not really thought about it. It's hard work. Just go for it. Building culture is really hard work. You're talking about long game, right? Yes. Yeah. So do you guys have like a list of questions to help guide you to that culture piece?

Because that's obviously a tough one, right? You can't just say, do you fit into this culture? Right. And they're going to be like, yes. Yeah. How do you just have kind of work around questions or open-ended questions that help you guide? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, depending on your core values, like always be learning.

An easy question is, you know, what's the, you know, personal development book you're reading right now? Or what's the last one you read and what did you learn? You know, so you can ask questions like that or what podcast do you listen to and, you know, things like that. So you can, okay, I can kind of gauge that. And then for do the right thing, you can set up some sample scenarios. Hey, this situation happens. You know, how do you handle it? what kind of is your thought process?

And so, yeah, you basically can look at whatever your core values are and then backtrack and go, okay, I'm going to ask, you know, two or three questions about these that kind of lead me to indicate, okay, yeah, this probably somebody is in line with these or, oh, they actually, you know, operate a little differently and maybe it's not a match. Gotcha. And that's say that they're a bad person, if they're not in line, they're just not in line with whatever your core values are. And they might be a perfect match for somebody else's.

Right. Yeah, and then it brings you back and then to the client. So it also helps you make decisions there. Right. So like if you're in a I can just think of us when we get to our core values, it's usually a problem, right? Something happened on a job. And then some of you have to go back to those core values and go like, hey, listen, who cares if who's right or who's wrong? You know, if integrity is one of our main core values, then, you know, what do we do when no one's looking? And and then it helps you kind of, it's like a market. order, right? So it's not just about who you hire, it's about the decisions you make for your business, right? Absolutely. Yeah, I totally agree. And yeah, when you benchmark conversations and decisions off of those, then you do start actually living by it. And then your team can see that, especially if you say, hey, had this tough conversation with a client based on one of our core values, this was the action that I took and you share that, then everyone can see, oh, okay, this is how we operate here at Builder Funnel. Okay.

So if I get in the situation that's similar, now I know, like, that's good. I want to act. I want to be acting in accordance with those core values. Yeah. And how do you reinforce it with your team, though? So you said, you know, wall, maybe it's, how do you continually, I don't know, spoon-feated or give it to your team so that it's something that they know that this isn't just something we have on our website or, you know, it looks shiny.

like how do you keep it top of mind? Yeah. So Danielle, who is the president at our company, and she runs pretty much all of the team side at this point. I would say she has really taken that and run with it. And she puts a lot of time and energy into, if there is a conversation, sharing that in, you know, the team monthly newsletter and communicating how we did that. She spotlights a core value in that and says, hey, this is how I saw this person living it out or this person living it out.

We have Slack for kind of our internal communication. So she's always dropping examples within that on all of our like quarterly engagement surveys for the team. There's like pop quiz, what are our core value? You know, just like remind over it. And like we do a state of builder funnel every January where we kind of talk about what happened the last year, what we're doing this year. and, you know, that sort of thing. And we always go through all the core values again. Everyone's just getting hit over and over and over again with them.

So it's repetition of the communication, but it's also using the real examples of how you're actually making decisions in communicating via the core values. Yeah. Again, getting the long game, but keep hearing this. But it's true. And it's like, I think there's a tendency in construction. Sure, other industries is that we get busy. we get distracted and we get focused on the day to day. And it's very easy to lose sight of your overall brand and what you're going to look like in five, ten years.

And pretty much, pretty soon as five years goes by and you're like, oh, shit, I didn't do any of the stuff that we wanted to do. And I think that there's a huge tendency for that in our industry. And I know that's something that you coach people through and help guide them through in their own businesses. And so, you know, what can you speak to that? I mean, obviously, we know it's a long game, but how do you get owners like myself to focus in on things like that don't really mean sales today? Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying because it's funny. I was just thinking about this recently.

It feels very much like a waste of time in the short term because you're like, I got to go get another project or like we got to be on the job site or, you know, whatever it is. but if you do have that long-term vision you realize like well if that increases uh your decreases your employee churn rate by 10 20 30 percent right well how how much money is that actually saving you um and so i would say start small one thing that we did early on um well two two things that uh still semi exist they're kind of morphed since then. But one, we had a once a week, we had what we called a jam session, where we jam out on marketing topics. I think there were three of us in the company. And we would

go to Chipotle. Everyone would bring an article. This is a trend in SEO. This was a new thing that popped up on social media. And we would literally just kind of like go through the high points of the article so that we could share. And that was always be learning. And so, and then we also had, We started a basically an internal book club. And it was called Client Service because that was the very first book that we read as a team. But we would once a month, we'd get together. We'd usually read, you know, a couple of chapters a month, go through it pretty slow. But then get together for 45 minutes and just open discussion on that.

And so you can do little things to say, okay, how can we start really living this out and just start building it? And over time, you'll have a bunch of things. and it'll really get baked in. But just pick one or two things to start and just say, hey, this is one of our core values. We're going to start doing X. It could be anything. But if you just do it regularly,

then people will kind of get latched on to that. And they'll go, oh, okay, I see this is important. Because if you start it and you do it for a few months and then you stop because you're busy or whatever, you'll lose everything that you just did. Yes, consistency. Damn it. I know.

You know, as a big networker myself, I see that you guys have a remodeler growth community. And I know that's a lot about peer connection. Tell me a little bit about how that works and why you feel that networking with your peers is important. Yeah. Yeah. So remodeler growth community, we basically have it as an apply to join. We just want to make sure that people that are joining are actually in the industry.

They're either running businesses or in a construction business. They can be other team members. They don't have to be the owner. or we want to make sure it doesn't just get filled up, you know, just with a bunch of people. So you go through the apply and then it's free to join. And we've broken it out with different conversation channels and everything. Our whole team's in there.

Obviously, there's marketing questions. We're happy to jump in and answer those. But peer networking, I feel like I think there's value in learning from coaches, you know, people from outside the industry, definitely get a lot of value there. but then there's a different kind of value that you get from learning from a peer who's literally like in your type of business but just across the country and usually everyone's doing something a little bit different and usually everyone has something that's like wow that's really cool

that would help me and vice versa and so yeah i just saw that early on in business and just realized like hey as we're starting to build kind of an audience and a platform like can we help facilitate more of that. And wouldn't that be cool? Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's super valuable. I mean, obviously there are people sometimes get afraid of competition, but a lot of us are very local, right?

And knowledge sharing is huge and, you know, not stepping in the same landmines that most of us do. I think it's just being willing to be open and vulnerable and putting yourself out there and saying like, hey, this is what we did at work. Here's where we completely fell on our face. got to be willing to share, right? Yeah. Yeah, the pie is big enough.

You know, there's so much more to be gained from collaboration and sharing than just like holding all your cards to the vest and just trying to go go it alone. Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, back to one thing I wanted to ask you about the kind of the trends that you're seeing, you know, because you guys are kind of on top of this stuff. Where do you guys see marketing going? I mean, it's really hard to predict now with AI and with so many things that are coming at us, it's way faster than you can keep up with.

What are you guys seeing is like, where are we going to be marketing in the future? Are we still going to be videos or is it going to be something different? Yeah. Well, I think the global one that's fairly easy to like high confidence is more and more digital, right? That trend, when you look at overall advertising spend, just on like a national global. scale. It keeps going up and up and up to digital. So that's an easy one.

So, okay, within the digital landscape, you've got all these different channels. Video is definitely going to be a big part of it. That has only gone up over the last, I would say seven, eight, nine years video consumption. And so you think about, okay, where are my customers? If your customers are, you know, a family in a certain neighborhood in your town,

like, okay, are they on Google? Yes. Are they on social media? Yes. Maybe they browse like some other, you know, local websites, local newspaper, stuff like that. So you can start to figure out like where these people kind of hang out and live online. But I think the answer is still primarily for the next several years, Google or search engines. Like that's how we find stuff.

Right. And social media. That's where we spend, you know, an exorbitant amount of time. Social media may some platforms may start making a little bit of. shift towards having more local search engines in them that people may start to use, but we still trust Google. And so I don't see that being the big change. The way people shop and buy is still, the big shift was going online, doing your own research. But now that we do that, like everyone's pretty comfortable with that. And so I think what we're really going to see is just technology

changes within that. So does Instagram just die? Because TikTok takes over. Is it a new platform? Like, sure, maybe that happens, but it's social media. It's kind of like that. And then same with search. And so then you look at things like AI and you go, okay, that's really just really, really fast, powerful technology.

So, okay, that's going to make things a lot more efficient. You're going to be able to move a lot faster. But you're still going to need a human directing the AI in a lot of instances. I don't know, maybe in six months that statement will be irrelevant. And it would be like, no, you just tell AI one sentence and it just produces everything. But that's where I don't know, right? It's a crystal ball. But I think generally the big macro trends are like more and more digital and still Google and social as like two big primary channels.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. You know, we talked a little bit about this before, but, you know, we both have active minds difficult to reflect back on our journeys as we go through business. business life. And you've said this in a couple articles and interviews that were, you know, maybe not quite imposter syndrome or anything like that, but you struggle with what have I done, you know, and then you have to actually stop and like look back in order to see it. So, you know, do you struggle with that like I do? And I guess how do you overcome that? Do you have like a time that you can focus on that, maybe retreat or something? I'm not sure.

Yeah, it's, it's funny you ask that because I just, had a long dinner last night with a close friend and same topic came up of just yeah i i still really struggle with that i feel i always feel like i should be a lot further than i am today and i feel like yeah sometimes it's like why am i not further or like i've put in a lot of time to learning and you know growing that i feel like based on that i should be for but it's all obviously in my head around some number that I'm just picking out of thin air. So I don't know that I don't think I've solved it for myself. I still struggle with it because I yeah, I can see the future and where we're going.

And so then it's just this race to get there. But I also do have enough perspective to say, okay, but look back to five years ago and look how much progress you've made, right? And look back to 10 years ago and look at that progress. So typically when I'm feeling a little down about like, I feel like we could have made it farther this year or whatever, you know, whatever the thought crosses my head,

I feel like I'm able to then within a few minutes, then go, okay, and then maybe look back, see the progress and then kind of refocus. So I feel like that's probably more of a, you know, weekly,

monthly struggle that pops up. You know, maybe once a year, it really gets me down for a few days and you're kind of really like grappling with it. But I'm a very optimistic and future-looking person. So I think I am able to bounce out of it quickly. But typically year-end is when I really sit down and kind of just go, okay, like, what happened this year and reflect on progress made, big moves that we made, you know, milestones, stuff like that.

But I think it is tough. If you're a high achiever, you're trying to build something, whatever that is for you. there's a little bit of that like pull or nagging feeling that's like like like totally like I should be further so I don't know that I'm the best person to provide the best solution on that and I'm still working through it I feel you there I think it's so common that I hear it from so many so it seems like if we're all common a very similar to both where you're like oh I wish I would have done this that or the other and you know I mean I think that's why planning is so important right um because if you don't have a plan or a goal or something in mind, then it just doesn't, you really just don't achieve it, right? So, you know,

I guess the beginning of the year, that's a, that's a huge focus for all of us. Yeah. And I will say, a book that that has helped me with some context on that is 10x is easier than 2x. So I would recommend that one. But a core thought out of that and concept out of that book is just, is anytime you set a goal, say my goal is like, I want a 10x in whatever time frame, right? Then anytime you're here and not there,

you feel like you're failing or you're behind the target. But if you, anytime you look backward, typically you've made progress or hopefully, right? And if you look back far enough, you can find progress somewhere. And so I think it's like, plant that flag way out there,

use it as inspiration to keep building and going, but then rewind the clock. to look at, hey, I've made progress. And this flag that I threw out there, I just made it up. There's nothing that says that I'm guaranteed to get there or that I will get there or that that's the right number for me and my situation. And so I think that's been helpful in just saying, hey, what I can control is my actions and my intention for progress and then try to just be grateful for progress made reflecting back.

So again, I'm still working on it, but that's been helpful. Yeah, no, I hear you there. You know, I mean, one question I like to ask a lot of our high achievers is that work-life balance conundrum that we all face. You know, can you share any tips there? I know that you get into athletics. You have a good balance. It seems like of things outside of your business life. So how have you done with that?

Is it a work in progress where are you at? Yeah. I think I've gotten, I think I've made progress in that area since I started. I'll say that. Yeah, when I first started the business, I think it's classic. You're in the grind. You're working 60, 70 hours a week. You're working every day nights and weekends.

Yeah. But I would say over the last few years, I've made the most progress than maybe the previous 10. And I think due to a couple of things, one is getting better at delegating. Two is getting better at drawing and creating my own constraint. and sticking to them. And so the best example I have of that is, you know, pre-kids, just my wife and I both worked a whole bunch, like both work in careers.

So, you know, great, go for it. We both wanted to do that. We got a lot of time together too because we could work alongside each other in the evenings, you know. But then when my first son was born, he was like going to bed at like 4.35 in the evening. And it was like, well, I got to get home before that to at least get like a half an hour, an hour with them. So I started drawing my lines. I just said, okay, you know, 8 to 430 or whatever, that's work and then I'm getting home to get that time in. And then what I realized was that if you

actually commit to that and you don't go, oh, well, I'm busy today. I got to stay an extra hour. Like, I'll miss it. But if you don't do that. Just commit to what you draw to. You start self-optimizing. And so stuff starts falling off the list that just wasn't important. And on only, the important stuff starts to move to the top of the list. And so then I did that again. I had the opportunity to attempt it saying, I'm going to do Monday through Thursday. And Friday is Friday with Dad.

And I have two boys. And like, we're just going to hang. We're going to do stuff. Because in a few years, they're going to go to elementary school. And I'll be back to five days, right? But for this short season, can I do that? We've grown faster than we ever have since I've done that. And again, I think it's this self-optimized.

You only work on the important stuff and then you delegate and find a way to pass off things to other team members. And so, yeah, I feel like right now I do have a good balance, but I don't view it as balance. It's more balancing because even within a year, you have seasons where you're like, hey, like these two weeks, big push or maybe I'm traveling for something. But then you can kind of back it off, you know, at other times. And so I don't think there is ever, you know, that perfect balance. And I think it will balance back and forth. Balancing is the term we use here at Builder Funnel. But then even within a span of a few years,

it might look different depending on what's going on in your life. Right. And so when my kids go back to school full time, then I'll probably change my structure around that. And so I think it comes back to being really intentional around what you want to push. Like if fitness is important, if family is important, if friends or what, you know, hobbies. making space for those and then drawing that constraint around the business. And now it's kind of

become a challenge of like, can I still grow the business the way I want it to within this box of time, you know? Yeah, I know you're so right. I mean, once you create those lines and boundaries, again, back to the consistency thing. If you're not consistent, then it really isn't. I guess it's not important to you. You know, and I know that I think the tendency is that you think that, you have to work in your business for it to grow or, you know, if you step out, things are going to, you know, blow up. So there's that tendency to. So having the right team around you to be able to, you know, delegate, you know, confidently. And when you walk away, you're not like, oh, shit, do I got to follow up? You know. Right. And that's where I think it comes full circle with.

If you pour into your team, then you then have the confidence that they're going to act in accordance with the core values that if you've provided all the training that, you know, everything's going to get fulfilled and, you know, the way you would want it are very close to, right? And, you know, customers will be happy. And yeah, so it's all connected, I think. So there isn't like a magical easy answer, but that's how I've seen it unfold for me. Yeah. Right on. So how do you stay, you know, kind of sharp with your leadership and management mastery? Are you a podcaster, you know, conferences, reader? What are you doing? one to stay sharp. Yeah, podcast for sure and then books for sure. Those have been big

staples of mine for many, many years. I've typically gone to conferences here and there, but I'm not a huge conference person, not trying to go to X number of conferences for year. But yeah, and then honestly, following people on social media, YouTube and Instagram, finding those people that are, you know, 10x, 20x further than I am and saying, okay, what can I learn from them? What are they teaching? What are they talking about? It's so cool. What we have today with the internet, you know, you can have all kinds of mentors that you've never met that you didn't have that opportunity maybe, I don't know, 20 years ago or whatever. Yeah, I guess the important thing is you got to control the content you're selecting, right? So try to keep those

positive influences coming because before you know it there's a lot of negativity and the negativity wants to be there for whatever reason that's another podcast but you know to try to just keep it positive but yeah I hear you it's it can be very positive if you kind of you know control it that way yeah I think that's a that's really well put you really have to curate who who you're following and just keep that list pretty tight and say okay like I this stuff is good I'm going to stick with this stuff and then maybe we find it. a few new people over the years. Totally.

Well, I appreciate you being here, Spencer. Wealth of knowledge. I'm a big fan of yours. Keep doing what you're doing. How do we get in touch with you? Are you a LinkedIn guy or how do we stay in touch with your content? Yeah. I would say, you know, if you love podcasts, Builder Funnel Radio.

If you love YouTube, Builder Funnel TV. Our website's easy to find, builderfunnel.com. And then, yeah, if anyone's listening, love to send you a free copy of my book. If you email S. Powell at builderfunnel.com, just put book in the subject line and then put your mailing address in the body of the email. And my team will pick that up. So, yeah, however you like to consume content, you'll probably find us somewhere. If you like Instagram, we're on Instagram as well. Right. I appreciate you being here. Happy holidays to you. And good luck next year. Cool. Merry Christmas. Thanks, Jeremy.

Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks again for being here, guys. This has been in the zone and construction executives live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens. Merry Christmas, happy holidays to all you guys. Thanks again for the team at Bill 12 for sponsoring this event. We'll be back next year. We'll keep doing this every month. And next year, we're going to get into culture to start the year and really get into our goals. So thanks again for being here. And we'll see you guys next year. Take care. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone and Construction Executives live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction industry news. Be sure to visit usconstructionzone.com.