6 Steps to Structuring Your Building Business.

Who is your ideal client? Who do I want to be working for every single day? We'll make a massive difference to your life and your business when you identify what your ideal types of projects are. How you struck your team is really, really important. Identifying the type of work that suits you and your team best, again, is going to help your business thrive. I'm a massive fan of visualizing. Like I write in my journal all the time. I can visualize it in my head. (Music) G'day guys. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in the shed this afternoon for another episode by myself to give you guys some insights and information about things that have got me to where I am in my life. And yeah, look, this is going to be another cracking episode because today we're going to be talking about setting up your business structure and figuring out what it is you want to do. I see you now from everything I do that. So many people in the construction industry are just following me all the fashion way that everything has been done and they don't realize that it's their business. You can set your business up and structure it however you want to. So we're going to cover quite a bit today. It shouldn't be a real long one but I want to start right at the beginning and that is the name of your business. And the reason I want to talk to you about this is because I at a very like if you've heard my story like you know that I basically jumped in the deep end, went out, started subbing. And so I was in a position where basically I went from just invoicing the guy that I was working for. Like I had one of those duplicate books that you bought in the bloody news agent and I would literally just write my hours on there right down the task that I've been doing and yeah give him a handwritten invoice and it would just have my name on it. And when I got to the point that I had to like you asked me to start subbing to him, I had to change structure. So like I reached out to my bookkeeper at the time and they're like I you're about to you probably should do this and like I can't remember how old I was. I think at this point I was only like 21 or 22 or something and like no one had given me any real advice on this and to be honest I wasn't interested in any advice on this. I'd never even thought about the business side of my job. And I remember it clear as day like I literally got to a point where I run I think I actually run my finance broker at the time who I've had for a very long time. We've actually done a podcast with him and his wife was a accountant and she's like oh yeah no you're gonna have to set up a company and I was like well I don't know and she's like well what do you want to call it and I'm like fuck I wouldn't have a clue and like literally DPS constructions was spoken about within 10 minutes and that is what we still call my business today. And look if I had my time again I would probably put a lot more thought and effort into the name but because I think your name is so valuable but the one thing that I've learnt is if you tie your personal name to things and you build successful businesses it can be very hard to sell those businesses if everything is built around your name and your personality and you. So having a name that turns into a I guess that starts add to value and people know what that name reflects and means gives you more options possibly in the future with your business but look there's definitely people that are sold businesses and we've been approached for our business even though it's my personal name doesn't stop you from doing it but I just think your name is the first real important step and so many people including myself don't take it seriously enough and I sort of have a little gigal to myself now when I like you go to a if you're out or you go to a pub or you're at a hardware and concrete is seemed to have the best ones like there's all these names around that when you're young you think it just awesome I'm not going to mention some of the names because people might correct the shits but oh fuck it I probably should but like get hard concrete in and I saw one when I was on that rally recently up at early beach and look no offense against concrete is but I just see so many trades that have these names and like I said when you're when you're young and you just get in the business and you're out on the piss of the tall with your mates and like it's funny and it sounds cool and it's but if you want to be in business for a long time yeah you've got to get more creative with your name and your name has to be more about what you want to achieve with your business and your lifestyle instead of just a name that is funny when you're on the piss with your mates and having a joke around so because your name will also have a lot to do with the type of clients that you attract with the type of work that you attract how you get paid the amount you can charge like all of those things can be affected by the name that you call your business so yeah and yeah like I said I've seen some some funny ones around so that would be my first thing is to have a think about your name don't rush into it and yeah just take the time look you may not I think a lot of people put too much time into things don't waste time trying to come up with a name that you'll hang on to if forever because the reality is you can change your name if you want to but knowing what I know now from having multiple businesses and being very successful I think your name should reflect like you for me you need to think about like what why do you do what you do like what gets you out of bed every day what drives you where's your passion come from why you're doing what you're doing and if you can come up with a name that can reflect that then it will be very powerful for you and your business the next thing on from that is your structure like are you a sole trader are you a trust are you a company like there is so many different ways you can set yourself up and obviously depending on the way you set yourself up depends on the amount of tax you pay it can change insurance structures it can change like lots and lots of things gst like there's so much around the structure and that's probably one area where I again I went wrong in the early days I like for a while there I was I was actually trading as a DPS building trust and as we grew it created a few issues for me along the way and we actually still have that name and like right now as it sits Camille and I have I can't even tell you off top of my head I think it's like 12 or 13 different business structures across all the investments and businesses that we have so just because I set that one up very very early in my early 20s and it got to a point where that trust wasn't working for my carpentry business I didn't shut it down we kept it and it ended up turning into quite a valuable asset because we've been able to use that in the future but if I knew what I knew now that probably one of the biggest almost valuable pieces of advice that I can give to a younger person starting in this industry and and I would I would suggest I tell my apprentices to do this when our apprentices are getting to a point where they're about to finish their time and they're going to be starting to be on salary or wages or possibly subcontracting the advice that I give to them is go and spend the money and get advice from a good accountant you don't want to be just going like paying an accountant that charges whatever it is 330 bucks or 660 bucks and just does your tax once a year like go and spend the money and look it could cost you a couple of grand but spend the money go and talk to someone and talk them through like you want to go and work with someone that is interested in where you want to go what do you want to be what size business do you want to have what's your goals and like across the board like do you want to have investment properties do you want to invest in shares like how do you want to grow your business what is your ideal position like you really want someone that's going to sit with you and go right a right now what's your 12 month gold what's your three year gold what's your five year gold what's your 10 year gold and that we all know gold's changed constantly and that is something that you should be reviewing all the time but that's the type of people that you want to be dealing with so the best advice I can give to a young person who's just coming out of their trade or possibly young contractors you don't if you've just sort of gone with the flow ticked and flicks and boxes come up with a random name and just gone with a structure because that's what you mate or your dad or another person in the industry told you I would recommend going and spending the money investing in yourself and getting good quality advice about your structure and because like I said depending on whether you're a sole trader a trust a company all those types of things it affects how your business operates it affects insurances and work covers and all all those types of things that you have to pay, it affects the tax, it affects the UST, all those types of things. So, and look as usual with all my podcasts. These are all, all these stories and all this information that I give is all from my personal experience. And it's definitely up to you to get your own financial and legal advice on all these types of things. So, all right, so that's, we've talked about your company name, we've talked about the financial structure of your business. I guess to just wrap up on that, when it comes to the structure, like your financial, whether you set yourself up to the trust, the company, soul trader, and those types of things, the most, the reason it's so important to get someone that wants to know your future goals is because it can, if you set yourself up as one thing, and then you have a goal to get to somewhere else, it could be investing in property or shares or whatever, the way that you structure yourself could affect your borrowing capacity, it could affect how your income gets structured. Like there's a lot more to this. And I didn't know any of this when I first started. And it took me a long time, like I've been in this game now since I was 15, so whatever that is, 29 years now. So, and I've always had a passion for investing in property, a little bit in shares, all those types of things. And the early days, the way that I structured myself did cause me to a little bit of trouble over the time. And there's been situations where I've had to spend money to get a property out of a structure and put it into a different structure because the different structure was going to get me to the next level and where I wanted to be. So, yeah, really, really, really important that you spend the money, you invest in a good quality account or financial advisor or both. Even if you're young and you haven't put a lot of thought into these things, try and put some thought into your goals. And yeah, set your structures up as early as you can to help you achieve those goals. The next thing is, like again, going back to your business. So, as your business grows, you can structure it however you like. And I have these conversations a lot with members in my live life, Bill Business now because to have a successful business, and look, these are my personal opinions, but I know my business have all been very successful because I'm the face of them. I'm the real deal. I've been through shit that other people shouldn't have to go through our learning a lot of lessons and I still run a very successful building business and I'm in the trenches and everything that I speak and that I talk about, people in our industry relate to. So, it's really, really important that you learn to do like struck your business the way you want to. And so, for me, why I think it's important for the business owner to be the face is I know that my clients get a huge amount of value and come to our company because my face is all over social media. I'm sitting here doing these podcasts and they get so much value at a me doing the site meetings, me doing all the initial, quoting and estimating and all the design meetings, me being the one that meets them to sign all the contracts and me doing the handover. And look, obviously, this, if you, like I got some mates that run really large, very successful, volume building businesses and look, it's impossible for them to have that sort of personal relationship with every single client when you're talking 150, 200, 300 homes a year. But like one of my mates in particular, Chris from CMA Holmes, man, like he's going close to building 300 homes a year now and he still makes it very, very personal. And I believe that's a big reason why he's business is so successful. So there's a lot of stuff going on in our industry at the moment and like a lot of younger generation coming in and a lot of them are going in the path of like, they all want to have these successful businesses and earn the money, but they want to sit back behind the scenes and they want to just live the high life and have people in their business doing a lot of these tasks like the handing over and the signing of contracts and helping out with selections and doing the meetings and those types of things. And personally, I think your business won't be successful long term doing that because that's what attracts people, especially in the custom residential building market. And it's the same, this isn't just about builders, it's about trades as well. When you have a plumbing or electrical business or a carpentry business like every single level of my business is based on relationships. It's very few times to do with the price. It's the reps that I deal with for hardware stores and plumbing suppliers and landscaping yards. It is completely based on a personal relationship, my relationships with my trades. Like I will not work with a trade if they're a dickhead. If I can't shake the hand, have a beer with them and just sit down and have a chat. If I get to put it this way, I couldn't work with anyone that I couldn't run into at a concert or an event or a camping and sit down around a fire at a bar and hold a conversation with. So for me, relationships across the board are super, super important. So, and the reason I'm talking about all this is when I talk about structuring your business, like we've talked about name, we've talked about all the comforts, the legal financial sort of structures. A lot of builders feel that to grow their business, they need to step back off the site and trade ease. And nine terms out of 10, that is our passion. The passion is being outdoors, being on the tools, physically doing the work, having the banter with the team and cranking the tunes, having a sing along. And like, 'cause it doesn't feel like work, it feels like you're on site with a bunch of mates and you're having fun. And they lose their passion when the business grows and they step back from the site and they get stuck in the weeds, doing all the administration and phone calls and all the other shit that goes with running a business. And like I use my business as a perfect example, I have structured my business to operate around what I love doing, what I enjoy doing. And I firmly believe that if it doesn't matter what business you have, whether it's trades, architectures, designers, like builders, like you name it, anybody in the construction industry. If you structure your business so that you're always doing the tasks that you love doing, your business will be successful. So you construct your business however you like. If you like the administration side of things, then build your team to allow you to do that. If you like being on the tools, then build your team to allow you to do that. So to give you a couple examples, like if you like doing, like in my business, I'll talk about that first, but I love the client. I love meeting the clients. I really love design. Like if I hadn't been a builder, I probably would have been a designer and I wouldn't have been an architect because I wasn't smart enough at school. But it would never have gotten into uni. But I probably would have got some sort of design job. And so now in my business, having the ability to do the pack process and go to all the design meetings, interact with the clients, interact with the designer in the architect and understand why things happen the way that happen, why things go where they go. I do the quoting and estimating. Like I like numbers, I like working things out, I like seeing things come together. So my business is completely structured around me, doing all the preliminary process, through the pack process, all the quoting and estimating, meeting new clients. And then once we start, the jobs get handed over to my team. My wife runs the office, does all the administration. We've got an incredible supervisor. He keeps the jobs running. We've got incredible teams with lead carpenters and sight crews and apprentices. So they take over and things run like clockwork most of the time. But then I still do the weekly sight meetings. So at our weekly sight meetings, I'm still the one there, liaising with the client, doing the meeting minutes. My supervisor, all-relead carpenters, or sometimes both, is always at that meeting, then we walk around as a team. So everyone knows what's going on. But I know the data in my business. I know my numbers, I know my overheads, and I've structured my business, and I've priced my jobs for me to allow me to have the staff to run my business like that. So then if you go the other way, if you're a builder that wants to be on the tools, there will be a period that as a business grows, you do need to step back at a little bit to spend some time. You're possibly going to hire a VA, or you're going to hire some admin staff, or a bookkeeper. And you will have to step back a little bit from sight to spend time with them in the office to make sure things are getting quoted correctly, tonight. Sure. Everyone knows the numbers to make sure contracts are getting done correctly, all those types of things. And then once you're confident that that's all working, there's absolutely no reason that you can't go back and be on the site and smashing the work out with the boys and all the females on site these days and getting shit done. That might mean that one day a week you're not on site, you're doing structure that one day a week you do all your client meetings, you do all your design meetings and you do all your reviews with your administrations task. And then the other four days you go to site and you do all the work on site. So don't believe that you have to structure your business the old fashioned way and as the business grows you need to get tied into admin roles or project management or being the face of business, all those types of things. But you have the ability to structure your business however you want and it all comes back to understanding your numbers and allowing the business to have cover the cost of employing the people in the roles that you need to structure the business the way you want to allow you to do the tasks that you enjoy doing the most. Like I said that that actually flows right through your business like the key to a successful business is having every member of your business doing tasks that they're good at that they enjoy doing and they like turning up to work every day to do that and if you can do that including yourself you will have a very successful business. So that's the third one structure your business right down right it on paper visualize it I'm a massive fan of visualizing like I write in my journal all the time I can visualize in my head what I'm doing what my goals are what it's going to look like when I achieve them. So write it down the your ideal structure for your team what you want to achieve and yeah it will happen. We touch on a little bit then but the next one is team so like I just touch on a little bit like. It's I hear so many builders and and myself for a very long time in my business the team and look to be honest even today like team is the hardest thing I don't care what anyone says anyone that hasn't run a building business or trades based business. I don't care if you're an admin type business you're an office type business that's got hundreds of staff. I don't believe that there is any business that's that is as hard as managing teams in a building business or a contracting business or trades based business because I talk about this all time there's so many different personalities your religions values opinions all these types of things and it's not like you're sitting in cubicles or you can walk away from people like. You're physically working together you're leaning over each other you're sweating on each other you your work and your outcome is dependent on the people you're working with. If they if they're not cutting shit and getting it back to you in time then then it makes you look bad if if you're a plumber and you're there's multiple plumbers laying a drain like. And you're in the trench laying the drain and the person that's cutting the pipes and giving you the glue isn't keeping up with you like it's hard like and if you haven't worked in our industry you honestly you won't you'll never understand it but. Yeah you can structure your team like how you struck your team is really really important and. I like something that's really accelerated my business is like not just hiring. What I thought I needed so like you have a plumbing business you're going to put ads out there and you're going to advertise that you need a plumber for your electric like electrical business you advertise that you want electricians and. I do it all the time if like we're building business we advertise for carpenters you need to find people that are good at. Specific things because there's always going to be people that just love their trade and they love showing up every day and just doing their trade. Then there's going to be people that are really really good at their trade but they want the next level they want to they want a little bit more authority they want to. They want to run things they want to be a supervisor or a leading hand or they like that they crave that little bit higher I guess position in the business and then it just keeps growing up there then you're going to get people that want to run the business you want to go and get people that want to. Manage the business like there's all different levels and one thing that I've learnt is that we are all so different we all have different strengths and weaknesses we all have different things that set us off whether it's anxiety whether it's worrying about things like. So building your team and allowing your team to thrive in environments that allow them to be comfortable is really really important and. Over the past few months I've spoken about this on a few podcasts but like our building business is absolutely booming at the moment we got enormous amounts of work on incredible clients great jobs and so we've really been pushing hard to build our team again and like at the moment I think we're sitting around 14 or 14 odd people. And so there was a period there where we I think we bought four or five new captors apprentices and lead captors in like within a couple of weeks and one thing I've always been very proud of with my building business especially over like there's this tool three period that we've just come out of through covered where we got an incredible amount of work done with a very small efficient team. And everything was just running like clockwork and then all of a sudden we're ramping things up we're growing we're bringing all these new staff in and it was just like the wheels fell off and there was a tool three months period there where like I would just lease I was so pissed off I'd be so frustrated I'd come back to the office I'd talk to the supervisor I'd be winging about everybody and I'd be like what the fuck are they doing like honestly like they've done like this seven people. And there's seven people on site and they've done less work than like I could do within apprentice like what is happening and it was because everyone was trying to like fight for authority and they were trying to find like the new guys that come in with without physically fighting or doing anything but they were all battling for authority and trying to find their positions in the team. This ties in so much with what I believe in there like my one of my biggest beliefs now is we we have to understand that we are nature we are no different animals like we we have tribes we like we thrive with different groups like it's no different groups of animals and those types of things and I saw it in my team how they were operating with each other and it wasn't until I had a chat with Helen Roddison so Helen Roddison is our leadership expert in my team. She's also been on this podcast she's an incredible human being a really great friend and I just value her her professionalism her experience her knowledge so so much so through this period I was doing a lot with Helen we got her into do a couple of workshops with our team. I was personally talking to her a lot getting a lot of advice and it's incredible how when she got me to sort of stand back and see what was going on and realize that they're all sort of fighting for their positions in the team and go to site and have one-on-one meetings and figure out where each person sort of wanted to be and then sort of split them up into different groups and give them different roles. And honestly within a four-week period it was chalk and cheese like they went from six seven eight guys on a job doing very little work to having three and four guys on each job and just absolutely killing it and turning up the site the sites are all immaculate the lead carbon knows what's going on like it's it's chalk and cheese so yeah structuring your team is huge figuring out your team strengths and weaknesses and like I said if everyone in your team is able to do or work towards doing what they are passionate about what they get at a bed every day to do your business will be very successful. Alright moving on a little bit I thought this is going to be a short podcast but that's alright we've got some good information out here so the next one is structuring your business around the types of clients that you want. So I see so many trades builders and actually like even architects and building designs like so many people just taking on work because they're just chasing they got no cash flow they don't understand the running of the business and they take on every single job that comes across their desk whether they're a shit client a good client a client that's got the money a client hasn't got the money and at the end of the day they're creating all their own problems there. They're dealing with people that they really shouldn't be dealing with and then they wind you about the outcomes so a really really important thing to understand is again like we said at the beginning it's your business so the saying I say all the time like your business is only as good as what you accept your life is only as good as what you accept Tires in perfectly with this one because if you just accept any client that comes your way if you're running a business that is struggling with cash flow you struggle to pay bills and you're struggling with the money. you spend more like you live beyond your means, you spend more money than you're physically making because you don't understand your numbers, you don't understand how tax works, you don't understand a DST works, all of those things, that gets you in a position where you're taking on clients that you shouldn't be taking on. And learning this has been incredibly valuable for my business. And again, I talk about where we should all the time, but it works. Like for every client that you knock back, it empowers you. And it says something to the universe that opens doors and allows the next client to be a dream client. And so I encourage every single business in the building industry to find your ideal client. Like sit down, do some journaling, scribble some notes down and think to yourself, like who is your ideal client? And it can be anything. Like you can be working with, like if you really refined it, you could build your business to, this is going to be a bit of an out there exaggeration, but this is how refined you could get it. Like you could be running a business that only works for professionals, whether it be doctors, lawyers and architects. Like if you get that nitty-gritty on it and you market yourself and you talk about it all the time and you, like you will attract those types of clients and that type of work. Because that's how it works. And like I know this because we've done it so many different ways in our building business and we know it works so well because we just keep improving on it now and to a point where attracting clients that are exactly like us. They love camping, they love family time, they love to go to the beach, they love chilling out, they love having a few beers, they like the environment. So our clients are becoming really good friends. Like we can actually go out to dinner, we can go on, I've talked about this a few times like when people don't believe me. Like we've been on overseas holidays with multiple clients. We've been on camping trips with multiple clients. We've got clients that have become really, really close friends that we catch up with regularly. Look, and that is because I figured out the type of people that I want my businesses dealing with. And that is so important. So yeah, the next part of structuring your business is identifying the perfect client that you want to be working with. And like I said before, it's not woo-woo. Like for every client that you dismiss, like I guess to touch on this a little bit, like it's okay for you to say no to a client. Like I think this is a really, really powerful message. And I know from all our live-life bill members when they do this for the first time, like they get on our Friday wins on our Facebook group and they talk about it and they feel energized and empowered. Businesses in the construction industry, just because a client has been referred to you, has reached out to you, has followed you on Instagram, has sent you messages, does not mean that you have to take them on as a client. And look, it's a whole other podcast, but figure out your ideal client. The best way to manage that is to set up an inquiry form that has questions that are focused on finding your ideal client and knock back the clients that don't fill out your inquiry form, that don't answer all your questions, that don't sit well with you. If you go to a meeting and your gut's is telling you, this is an ideal client. If they're asking questions that are annoying you and pissing you off, they're not your ideal client. If you're doing jobs for clients that are questioning what you charge, they're not your ideal client. If you're taking on work for clients and they're questioning your payment terms, they're not your ideal client. If you're taking on jobs and or you're doing jobs and the clients arguing with you about the amount that you've, or how quickly you've done the job and it shouldn't be like, they shouldn't be paying you that much and all those types of things, they are not your ideal clients. So you need to reflect back on every single one of those situations and figure out, like where did that go wrong? What, why did I take that client on? What, like, and nine times out of 10, I guarantee you that you'll be able to reflect on that and you'll be able to go back to a situation where your gut said to you that they were going to be a bad client and you might have even had conversations with someone about it, but you took them on because of the financial situation you're in and needing the cash flow. And so, again, like my grant head owns, my favourite saying, nothing happens to you every single thing happens because of you. So, to move on, the next part of structuring your business, so we've talked about name, we've talked about the financial setup, we've talked about ideal team, we've talked about your ideal role, we've now talked about your ideal clients. The next one is the ideal job. So, just like the ideal client, you don't have to accept every single job. This is another really, really powerful thing to knuckle down on and figure out whether you're any type of trading, whether you're a designer, whether you're an architect, an engineer, town planner, builder, whatever you are, you need to figure out the types of jobs that you want to be involved with. And again, knuckle down, like get right down into the nitty-gritty of it. Do you want to only do healthier homes? Do you only want to do energy efficient homes? Do you only want to do sustainably build homes? Do you only want to do a certain size home? Do you only want to do architectural homes? Like, do you want to be prefab? Like there is dozens and dozens and dozens of types of jobs out there. If you're a trader, like you're a plumber, do you want to work for builders? Doing the under-slave, the rough ends, the Fedoffs, and everything that goes with building work. Or do you just want to do maintenance? Or do you only want to work for mum and dads? Do you not want to work for any builders? So you only want to do maintenance and random plumbing work for existing structures and those types of things. If you're electrician, again, do you want to do work for builders? Or do you want to do work for just mum and dads or companies doing maintenance or refits and those types of things? So you can-- Like, when you knuckle down on this and you figure out your ideal work or job, and a lot of this will come-- like, if you work on all these things we've talked about today, it all comes together because when you're trying to find your ideal projects or the work you want to do, it's quite involved because you need to figure out the type of work that your team are at, and that could change over time as your team grows. And maybe right at the moment, if you're electrician, your team is only suited to smashing out rough ends and fit off some working on new builds. But as your team grows, you might get some guys that are a lot better at dealing with clients, doing work on their own. And so maybe over time, your ideal work might expand and you might actually be able to do some maintenance work or expand into solar installs or something like that. So your ideal work is, like we've talked about with everything today, it will change as your business grows and goes to the next level. And it will change based on the team members that you bring into your business. So figuring out the ideal work and the type of job you want to do, I know builders that will only work on-- I'll-- like, here in Brisbane-- like, they will only work on old Queensland. And as like their work is, lift and build, renovation, refurbs on Queenslanders. That's their niche. And they are flat out all the time, because they're specialist at it. I know other builders that just will not go near a renovation. Like, their specialty is new homes on flat blocks of land in new housing estates. I know other builders that only do work on more difficult sites. Like, their specialty is works with bulk earthworks and I form concrete and all those types of things. So it's huge. It will make a massive difference to your life and your business when you identify what your ideal types of projects are or the type of work. And like I said, it works for any trade. It works for-- like, it can work for a tree-lopper. You might be like, we have really good friends that have a tree-lopping business. And like, it's called all tree and palm removal. So like, they're specialists in coming in and clearing sites and removing all the trees and doing stump grinding. Like, they don't do trimming hedges and all little work. So they've identified the type of work that their business strives on. So it doesn't matter what type of trade or what type of designer or architect or builder you are, identifying the type of work that suits you your team best, again, is going to help your business thrive. The last one I want to talk about with structuring your business, because if you do all the things that we're talking about today, you will see massive, massive differences in your business, in your cash flow, in your profitability and all those types of things. But the last one, which I think is very, very important, is structuring your cash flow. And again, I'm banging on about all the time knowing your numbers, but we have Katie from Profit First, Australia. She's our Profit First, she's our accounting expert in my Live Like Bill business, she's our mentor. Then there's obviously Sean Vendoye, Profit First for contractors in the States. But the reason I mentioned them is I believe the Profit First structure is the best way to start understanding how the cash that your business needs. So look, I'm not going to bang on about this one for a long time because you can go and read, like Katie's got a book, Profit First, go and listen to that book, Sean Vendoye's got the Profit First book as well. Once you get your head around Profit First and structuring your bank accounts, it's an absolute game changer. And look, you're going to get kicked back from your account and saw your bookkeepers because they're going to have to reconcile multiple accounts. And it's like, I find it funny all the time. Like, the better you want to be calm and the better you want to do, the more people you've got to argue with and butt heads with, everyone wants to just fucking go along the same straight road. They don't want any wines and bands and they just want to fucking do what they've always done. They've always been tall and they've always been taught. And so, yeah, you'll get kicked back from people that will winj about having to reconcile too many bank accounts or winj about having to transfer money around to too many bank accounts, all those types of things. But if you want to get ahead, you've got to push back on those people that push back on you. And so Profit First, having those bank accounts too when the money comes in, putting the money aside, shows you so quickly and easily what's left and it really, really helps you identify that you need to charge more. And so, setting up your bank accounts for your GST, for your tax, for your salaries, for your suppliers, for all your outgarned, like all those things and your profit. Yeah, it's so simple and you see it's so quickly and easily why you don't have good cash, why you're not making money. So, that's my last tip. Check out Profit First. Katie's is Profit First for Trades. Sean Endokes is Profit First for Contractors. Highly recommend you listen to those guys and take their advice on board and look, reach out to Katie from Profit First. She does a really, really good job here in Australia. But yeah, look just to recap on them. So, I'll have to pull me up if I forget any of these, but it was spending some time to figure out the name of your business. Don't be afraid to change it. If you've been operating for 10 years, it is what it is. If you've got a change, you've got to change it. Your financial structure, massive one, whether you're just starting out or whether you've been in business for 10, 20 years, massively important that you go and spend the money with someone that's going to get you to the next level and set your structures up correctly. I cannot recommend highly enough. You need to go to someone that wants to know your goals. Where do you want to go? What do you want to invest in? What do you want to do? What sort of money do you want forecasting you want to make? Because that makes a big difference to how you set your structures up. The next one was structuring your role. Identifying what you do best in your business and structuring your business the way you want to structure it. The next one was team. Identifying your team structure and employing the people that are going to get your business where it needs to go. The next one was clients. Identifying your perfect client will absolutely change the way your business operates. The next one was types of projects. Again, spend the time and identify this. It will change your cash flow. It will change your profitability. It will change your team, your life, everything. The last one is a profit first. I highly recommend you sit down with a journal and you do these one at a time and you just go nuts. You write down as much shit as you can and you get as clear as you can on all of those things. You will have an incredible life and an incredible business. As usual, I hope you have loved this podcast. Reach out if you have questions, keep them coming. Please like, subscribe. Make sure you go and check out the new website. Seriously, our merch is absolutely fantastic. If we want to keep changing this industry, we have all got to be walking around with the keeps smashing it on the backs of our backs. That is going to show people that we are on a mission to create a new building industry. As always, thanks very much for listening and watching. We'll see you on the next one. Cheers guys. Are you ready to build Smarter, Lit Better and enjoy life? Then head over to LiveLightBuild.com/Elevates to get started. Everything discussed during the Level Up podcast with me, Duane Pierce is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you attain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.