Unlocking Success: The Power of Structure, Mentorship, and Collaborative Clients with Adam Wolfe | Ep 145

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Welcome to the Better Business better life Show. I’m your podcast host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. In this podcast, I interview business owners, iOS implementers, and business experts who share with you their experiences, tips and tools to help you create not only a better business but also a better life. At the end of each show, you will have three tips or tools that our guest share that you can implement immediately into your life. If you want more information or want to get in contact, you can visit my website, Debra dot coach. That’s D B ra dot Coach, please enjoy the show. Today I am joined by Adam Wolf, who is the co founder and visionary of builders of architecture, and also one of my EOS clients and colleagues. So welcome to the show. Adam awesome to have you here.

Adam Wolfe  00:46

Thanks, Debra. Good to be.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:47

Yeah. So you founded or co founded builders rocket ship back in 2009. That’s 14 years in business which you know, in the building industry, the way it is at the moment is certainly no mean feat. Tell me why you started on that pathway and and how you developed to where you are today?

Adam Wolfe  01:06

Well, when I think about my journey, I actually had a vision of always being a builder, I think I was always good with my hands, my sort of school or academic attributes weren’t that great. And I always did quite well with my hands. And so I had this vision that I would become a builder. I think when I was a young a young guy, I would tell my parents I wanted to build roads. Yeah. I don’t know why maybe it was on machinery and that sort of stuff. But

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:53

The Tonka Trucks, because I can relate to that.

Adam Wolfe  01:56

Yeah, so and then I found myself a forklift driver working for car radio company as a young guy left school early and Buddha a bit of a misfit. So partied and played up a bit and wasn’t was a bit of a rebel. And ended up leaving that job after five years and, and one of my mates asked, told me to come and work for him at a Cabinet meeting place. And so I was 26 at the time. And I went there, and they were actually struggling quite a lot to find people to support them with the shock feeding genre they were doing at the time, and I came in and I was sort of it was pretty easy for me. And I did it very quickly and easily. And they were really, really happy with what I was doing offered me an adult apprenticeship. And so I did that from 26 Till sorry on giving you the wrong, AGC, I was 22 when I started so I was an adult at 22. I did that till I was 26. And then instantly when I finished it i i actually had a friend, a close mate who died in a car accident just around that time, and it was a big deal for our group of mates. It was pretty significant. And I booked a flight within a couple of weeks of him dying to London. I was just like I need to go on with my life. So I quit my job after I got my certificate. And I flew to London and my now business partner was there already he had a British passport. And I had a few people over there that I knew, including my sister. And so I went to London and was a qualified Carpenter, our cabinet maker over there, live there, enjoy the life over there and learned quite a lot in terms of my trade. There was a company that I worked for who was affiliated with a builder as well. So I saw a builder and joinery company working together there. And I always had in my mind that I would be a builder. I didn’t realize that I was manifesting manifesting it at the time and sort of goal setting but came home from London did a building course with the master builders of Victoria I realized how little I knew and what I needed to learn and actually got a job with my cousin with a company called Bowden Corp, which was just amazing. James Bowden shout out to him. He’s a great bloke and supported me a lot and my job journey and enabled me to run projects for him. Hired architectural homes to get me the experience that I could to Go for the license that I needed and build that portfolio of projects amongst many other things that you need to get it. And, and then Craig and I, because Craig was came back to Melbourne as well at the same time as me. And he did the course with me as well. But we parted ways after we realized we weren’t ready to get their registration. And he reached out to me about four years in and said, I’ve built a little maintenance business. And it’s getting to a point where I’m doing things I probably shouldn’t I need a license. Can you get a what do you think you and I was really close to applying for my license. And so he was turning over 300,000 a year with his little maintenance business. And that was enough to set us up. And that was it, we kick things off. And I remember signing a contract for a project. It was a big garage for my wife’s hairdresser. And I’d still didn’t have my registration. But I got it. We got the registration, and the rest is history.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:15

Oh, wow. Okay. And so that so then that sort of started to form wasn’t always called builders of architecture was it was a business.

Adam Wolfe  06:24

Originally, the maintenance business was called Rock City resolutions. And that was craved previous business. And that was sort of formed around working from Richmond, and, and so it was solid constructions in the city. That was kind of the premise of the name. And resolutions because it was maintenance, I guess. And then we just kept that name because of the maintenance work that we were still doing. But we changed it to Rock City Building group and created it as a company. We that name never really sat well with me. I think potentially Craig as well. But in 2018, I think we we’ve rebranded to builders of architecture.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:15

And that is because obviously the business is very much about building architecturally designed homes. Is that right?

Adam Wolfe  07:23

Yeah, definitely. I think we talked about calling a born Wolf and we had all these different names that we came up with that always our catch cry was building builders of architecture. That was the the sort of slogan under the names that we came up with on them. You Craig and I were discussing it, we were like talking about calling our team pups, you know, like and because wolf volun or ballin, Wolf anyway, so there was of architecture. And then what I was doing, we were doing quite a lot of work in marketing and qualification. And we were to be honest, we were getting a lot of people call up saying, can you just come around and put us a little box on the back of my house? Or can you put up a goal for me? Are you can you do these maintenance, little jobs, and we wanted to get people to qualify themselves out from us. When we felt like our name was a good way to do that, because it speaks to what we

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:30

Do to sort of good size projects of potential value. Perfect. Okay. And so now these days, how many staff do you have? What kind of work do you do?

Adam Wolfe  08:41

Yeah, so we build high end homes in Melbourne. They range from a million dollars to $5 million. We do do some smaller jobs, we have some relationships with some architects that, you know, we’ve built such a great relationship that we work directly with the architect and the client from an early stage. We’ve got 11 team in Melbourne, we actually made some pretty significant changes through the COVID period in the business. We used to run a lot of carpenters and laborers and apprentices and found through COVID, that we weren’t able to keep up with the requirements put on us. So we had to outsource a lot of that stuff. And it was actually a real revelation for the business that changed how we operate and made us leaner but enabled us to reward our team that we’re performing to a really high level and give them more responsibility. And so in addition to those team members, we also have some team working in the Philippines and our finance manager Diego actually works from Vietnam. Which is cool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:51

Yeah. So I think you’re right, because you literally kind of changed the way that you do business. And in fact, the way that you approach building is quite different too, isn’t it? So you’d like to get in involved early on with the architect and the owner, and really get involved, which means you can then be more confident around pricing timeframes, etc, etc. Tell me a bit more about that process.

Adam Wolfe  10:13

I think the the root of that stems from the stories that I hear about the negativity in the industry. And I think every time that I’ve explored those challenges people face, you can drill it back to a decision that the clients made somewhere along the line. And majority of the time, the client hasn’t been given all of the information that they need to make an informed decision and, and it’s unfair for the client to be in that predicament, and then realize that if they had have had some more awareness to the budget from someone that was going to build it, they may have taken a different path. There’s a lot of things in this industry. And I don’t think people really understand the process to build a home, there’s a lot of red tape to cut through. There’s a lot of people that are involved to get a project to start on site. And by working with a team of professionals, you just get all of the information you need to make informed decisions at the right time. And so I think the builder needs to be treated as a consultant in the process, particularly for larger homes, I think that they provide a clarity and support an architect, in conversations as the architect might not be completely across in tune, specifically around budget, we have, obviously a lot to do with the pricing of projects when we price and so an architect’s jobs to design the home, they may have some idea of costs, because they’re seeing costs, but particularly in the environment we’re in at the moment, it’s very difficult to know what things are going to cost. And the client needs to be informed through every step of the way that they can afford it. Because I think statistics would say between 50 and 70%. Of projects don’t go ahead. Yeah, yeah, it’s quite significant that projects just get dropped, because there’s just lack of awareness to cost them. And there’s obviously other reasons that they stopped too. But it, it does lend itself to the decision making steps and the communication provider. And I feel like, if you’ve picked the right builder, obviously, you need to pick the right team. It’s like anything, you need to pick the right people in your environment to support you through the process. But the outcomes are far better.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:45

And that’s the proven process that we kind of talk about in the US as you’ve got the proven process, you know how to do it, that that gives clients some confidence that they’re actually going to get the results that they require. So I introduced you as being one of my EOS clients. And I know that we kind of we met through iOS or the Entrepreneurs Organization, and you had been self implementing iOS for a while. And now we’re working together. Tell me how did you come across EOS? And what was it that made you want to think about it for your business?

Adam Wolfe  13:15

Well, I guess, if I start from the beginning, early days of our business, I was I, I use this term quite a lot. I swipe and deploy, and I’d swiped and deployed a lot of paperwork and document from my previous employer had a box like an archive box full of folders and bits of paper and different things that I had acquired and was implementing into my business. And I got to a point where I was feeling like I don’t know what to do next. i i Yeah, I was I was stuck. And I remember getting a phone call from a lady named Julie. Shout out to Julie and Mick from builders business blackbelt but they are Julie obviously we chatted three or four times on the phone but they were a business coach and I was like this is this is just what I need, you know and so that was maybe 2014 And so ended up joining their organization and was with them and I just invested myself in a completely learn what they talked about as a personal success, ritual and all these different tools to help you grow and develop and that was probably my first real exposure to high level personal development. I really didn’t I didn’t have a lot of that awareness in my life up until then. So it was quite light and moving you know that that then sort of changed the way I was doing the world. So I was looking at different things in the social media channels. And anyway, I came across this what was called an unconventional Jack the Llosa from the entourage and And it was a free event in Melbourne. So I just went to it, I was just blown away by this event. Now now I realized clearly it was 100% a marketing event and but I wasn’t that in tune then and I ended up moving on from making business builders, which was called uncover hidden profits back then. But we moved to entourage, I did the entourage I was there for years and spent some time chapter Losar actually on a meditation retreat with Tom Cronin. And he mentioned to me to read the book rocket fuel. And I was like, Cool. So and I was obviously reading a lot like how important reading was and I was like, the develop these habits around reading and so I read rocket fuel and that was the foundations for me to understand the AOS process. And then I sure what year that would have been, it might have been 17 or 18. And and so from then, from there on, I was reading all the all the books. And I introduced level 10 meetings. We had them on paper, I was doing them for hours at one point. Yeah, it was really crazy. And then get a grip just changed that all for me, I read Get it Get a grip on my copier, get a grip is full of highlighters, and dog’s ears and underlines and underscores, and I use that whole book to self implement Ls into the business. And we definitely had some financial pressure prior to COVID. It was something that, you know, we needed to fix in the business. And so that was one of the real reasons I self implemented it because we needed to fix things and get it to a place that we could then sort of move from that point. And, yeah, I, if I had my time again, I wouldn’t have self employed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:02

Oh, no, I think you did a good job. But let’s face it, I mean, you had your best year ever, the year before I came on board. So obviously you did some things that made a big difference in the business. But it sounds like you’re for our level 10 meetings, probably doing your own version of

Adam Wolfe  17:17

well, actually, I joined EO and I remember putting and so I joined a to sort of mid COVID Because I couldn’t go to the entourage anymore. And because it was in Sydney. And that was a big thing for me being able to travel there for a couple of days every six weeks and get away from the office and do one of their seminars, caught trainings that they put on and and I’d been recommended to EEO by someone who I knew from the entourage that was no longer there. So I joined EO, which was amazing because it was in Melbourne, and I was putting a forum and I remember I was in there three or four months. And I was doing something with ALS. And I posted in a chat, which took me three days to write this post. Because I was just thinking, no one’s going to know this. I put it in I said something about templates for ALS. And Jenny, who is your friend was in my forum. She said, I’m an iOS implementer. And I went what? And so I was like I am in such a right space. And then so I talked with Jenny, I went through all this stuff. She then said to me, have you got software? And I said no. And so then we got the software and like it was just a game changer, the software that then enhanced our meetings that gave us a placeholder for our vi to it was really the catalyst for me to be able to really implement and do it well, because then we could just put all that information in somewhere. And because we were now in a COVID world all the time, we’re meeting online anyway, so it just worked really well. But my journey is all the people and networks and coaches and groups and that sort of thing that’s really supported me to get to here for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:09

And I think I mean, I always say that I think everybody needs like a personal coach or mentor, you need an operating system for your business. Personally, I prefer ELS and then you need to have a peer group as well. And I think your EO gives you that peer group. I know it’s an amazing organization for having those peer discussions for that training for that learning. And then of course ELS helps you to run that business. So tell me what you mean rocket fuel. I didn’t know that was the first book you read. I mean, that was a game changer for me because I think that I’ve run businesses most of my life either for people or for myself. And I’ve always tried to play both the visionary and the integrator role. I didn’t realize there were you know, there are two quite different skill sets. And of course, rocket fuel talks about that they go hey, look, the visionary is very much this kind of person. The integrator is this kind of person. And actually it’s best that you don’t try and do both because you don’t get the best results. So tell me how business has changed since you started them. For many iOS even from self implementation,

Adam Wolfe  20:04

Oh, where do I start? I mean, this having a structure to follow, I guess really what I would say on in response to that is the simplicity. So, all of the things that are in aos what you can find in majority of business books, building a business and a structure around a business is similar across that out, you know, you need accountability chart, right seats, right roles, you know, other terms, right, people in the right seats on the bus, all that sort of stuffs really real. But the simplicity is what’s really key. I mean, I think, initially, my business map for what was what we would have called it previously, probably had eight leadership seats on it. And I was doing them all. And now we’ve got three. And that’s all we need. And so in simple is, is easier. Things like being able to do the people analyzer gets at once a capacity to do it. I mean, that was just the biggest breath of fresh air for me, our team just use it left, right and center, they, you know, if there’s something going on, do they get it? Do they want it to have the capacity to do it, the Elevate and delegate tool just to work out what you need to offload how you can bring yourself up, what processes you need to build. The simplicity is, is the key. And we just didn’t have that before. I think what happens with most entrepreneurs building your businesses, they make it too complex. And I get that one 100% Did that made it so complex, that it was too hard to operate?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:02

I think it’s true. And I think depending on where you’ve worked beforehand, I remember that when I was in corporate world, you know, we’d have people their version of a people analyzer, which was performance development review process, it was 14 pages, it would take people three or four hours to fill it out, and then a couple of hours to go through it. And it’s like, that’s what we get toward is you have to have this level of complexity. Whereas in actual fact, as you know, that people analyzer, it’s a tool that doesn’t even need a piece of paper. And if you really want to do it formally, once a year, it’s a one page piece of paper. And yet, you can get everything out of that.

Adam Wolfe  22:35

Yeah, I think the key though, the one thing that I learned around that was that you can’t have that without having an accountability chart with the key core competencies, because you need to be able to build that out and know what it is that person needs to do for that seat for them to be able to assess them on the GW see, and so, you know, I would read a lot of these things and try and do them, but I didn’t have the other things. And so you and I think that when I imp self implemented, there was a little bit of a lack of clarity around that sort of side of it, which, you know, we’ve just enhanced enhance, as we’ve gone, and obviously with your support, taking it to another level.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:20

And I think it’s us, right? I mean, you actually you’re quite fortunate you read Get a grip, which does take you through the kind of the process and it goes through. Yeah, whereas track traction is the how to but what I find that a lot of clients that had been self implementing is they’ve actually focused on the video because that’s the easy part, right? The two page plan, we’ve got all that and that and it’s actually done by the visionary who just writes it all down goes, well, I’ve got a plan tick. Moving on. And really that’s the least important thing, as you said, the most important thing is that accountability chart, who what are the roles, the functions that the business actually cannot live without? What do we want to hold these people accountable or responsible for? And then it starts to develop into all the other things like how do we measure them? What are the scorecard? What’s the measurables for that person? And you can do the whole people analyzer, so yep, they share our values, but they actually do w the role. So I think that yeah, reading the Get a grip gives you a little bit more insight into that. But it’s still it’s it’s hard to do it when you’re working in the business yourself, don’t you think? Because I tried implementing EMS myself into my own business. And to be perfectly honest, even though I am completely trained at at done this, what 3040 times of people, I completely fucked it up. And so I had to get a buddy in from EOS to actually help me with this. And that’s just been a game changer as well in terms of having an external person come in and they can see what you cannot see.

Adam Wolfe  24:35

I mean, I’m glad you asked this question ever because I think the number one thing that I would say is that now I’m a participant and not a facilitator and I I want the accountability that you give me I need it. I need to see things that I couldn’t see and I need to get better. Amen. I’m absolutely super driven by my upon personal growth and awareness, and I want to be able to go into those sessions with an ability to contribute and learn and hear and give my team the freedom to challenge me and provide their thoughts and, and not try to facilitate it and fumble around and be I don’t know whether we should do this or, you know, like, because clearly, like, it’s not, we’re not trained in it. So I felt a ton of weight off my shoulders. I mean, the preparation I would have done for the quarter waves and things like that is pretty intense, you know, and I feel like just having that pressure off. And I, one of the things I would say is that doing them with you is, I had this tendency to want this so perfect. I wanted it so perfect. And like, there’s times where we’ve had sessions and it’s just let it go, keep talking, get it out, work through it. And I’d probably want to shut things like that down until we need to move on, we’ve got so just feeling feeling the room making sure that the environments getting the right outcomes and being a participants huge, such a difference. Yeah, that’s been great, been great to build out the Wii to. From everyone’s opinion, not just mine, and me facilitating so then everyone’s a little bit guarded and doesn’t really want to say stuff. Because we’ve made significant changes to it, you know, and prior to that, it would have just been all me and I think people would have sort of had opinions, but not necessarily said that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:59

And it’s funny, isn’t it, because I’ve done for this self implementing process with the number of clients now probably about some client number five that have self implementers. And they’ve all got a VTOL. And they’ve all got a version of accountability chart. And I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I do like to challenge it. And I do think there is merit, when you bring your team on the journey, and they have input, you don’t end up being a million miles away from what you thought it would be, you end up being pretty much on the same track as he thought but the beauty of it is everybody’s had their input. Everybody feels like they were heard. And so the the level of buy in is just massive, right? Because suddenly, it’s like, Oh, we got to put that together with as a team. So even if you’ve done it, it’s like even just reviewing it can be really beneficial, I think, with the team to make sure that they really are on the same page. I know we’ve we’ve tweaked little things on the VTR we tweak little things on the values just to make them really meaningful for the team.

Adam Wolfe  27:52

Yeah, I mean, the reason that we develop the relationship you have today was because you were comfortable to work with what I’d already built. And I was really anxious about someone coming in and changing it all. And sort of made me resist a bit. Getting, getting getting to where we are today. But that that was really refreshing. For me it really I think we changed, we changed quite a bit. But like it was still, like, I respect what you’ve done. And that was important. It was really important to me, because I put a lot of work into it. And so I mean, but just something simple, like we have 10, maybe between six, and seven, six to eight words in our values for each one. And we’ve just changed them all to two words. So we can remember them. Why because we couldn’t. And so just simple things like that, which have been fantastic.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:02

Hey, I’ll tell you do you have a favorite EOS tool?

Adam Wolfe  29:08

Probably have to be JW say I just it has just been so significant for my ability to my gut would always know but I would be caught up in Canada. I can’t deal with this right now. But as soon as you ask those simple questions, you just know. Next would be elevate and delegate just to be able to put activities into buckets and help people grow and learn and find out what they do and don’t want to do and goes side by side with guests at once and capacity to do it because that you might have someone in a seat that is not necessarily right for it, but there might be right for another one. And you can support that transition if need be. But we recently had a team member who’s moved from a site manager to a project manager and I’m in the conversations around him moving to a project manager was actually he would be a better project manager based on his attributes, like we could see it. And it was just clear, because we had the things, the components the font defined. But I mean, this, there’s lots like, there’s lots that I would the level 10 meeting has been amazing for our business. I’m a big believer in the term, celebrate Celebrate problems as opportunities to fix. And I’ve always been very, very stern, I guess, with the team that that, that a problem is an opportunity to fix. And we’ve built our business and systems around putting things that we learn into a place that fixes it forever. And that was, before we even knew about aos and the level 10 meetings and to have a structure where a team can place issues that they can then select in a meeting that then they can then fix the power that gives them an investment into the business is enormous, because they don’t have the ability to just complain, they have the opportunity to fix it. And everything is micro moments that turn into large outcomes. And I’m a big believer in that it’s it’s throughout throughout the world, little things make big things.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:07

That’s cool. I’m talking about about the scorecard as well, because I know that you know, the scorecard people think that it’s like a dashboard, you decide what you’re gonna measure, and then you just put it up there, and it’s there forever. We have I have a slightly different view of that scorecard. I believe that it actually takes a long time to get to a really good scorecard. And it should change depending on what the focus of the next 90 days of the businesses as well. So tell us a little bit about your scorecard and how that’s developed over time and what it does for you.

Adam Wolfe  32:35

Let’s say it’s still developing. It’s hard. It’s definitely hard. I think we’re still tracking a lot of lag measures rather than lead measures. And we try and we try and look for ways to improve that regularly. We’ve actually made some iterations to it just recently. I guess. We’ve gone from 25 scorecards, we went to about eight. And we’re now back to about 13, which I think is probably the right number. And I think one of the things that I’ve really found, and probably something I avoided a little bit early on was to use money as a tool. But it’s It’s something everyone believes deeply is real, which it obviously has power and everyone wants it. So it’s a good decision making component. And so we use the dollars, potentially loss of income for projects that are going over time. Which ism is a lead measure because it projects haven’t finished. And so we can we’ve got day rates that we need to earn per day. So we can track that. Obviously set revenue targets. And it’s a bit of a controversial metric revenue, I think, I think it’s a lag measure, but we also have forecasted revenue in there. So if we lose a job that we’re pricing, it shows up very quickly. And so, if to answer your question, what more I think what the scorecards do for us is they drive direction. And even though they need evolving, they are always being tracked and checked. A example operations manager,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:53

I think is one

Adam Wolfe  34:53

of the weeklies essential, yeah. So and I think so I’ll give you an example. So I allege and this is quite important in the construction industry is everyone would know. So occupational health and safety, but it is very challenging because there’s obviously we’re talking about generating revenue we’re talking about, like keeping jobs on track where, you know, there’s challenges all the time with things not quite right, whatever, like anything, I guess. But it can play a bit of a second sort of agenda. And so keeping guys motivated on it, you might have a burst for one month, and then it drops off. And so and I, I went to one of our sites whose was a very unique site. And basically, it’s three meters off the ground. And so it’s quite unique. And it’s not something we’ve done before it’s in a flood zone. So there’s all these requirements to elevate the property. And the team had pulled down the scaffold, and we’re getting up there with an extension ladder there was doors on a corner wide open is a three and a half meter drop. And I was just like, what’s going on? Where’s the oh, h&s here? And? I mean, they’re not complacent. But there just wasn’t checks in place. And so instantly, we put it in a level 10 meeting, we had a discussion about it, we’ve created checklists that now they do weekly. And what happens is that that checklist is reported on in a weekly scorecard in the operations, that that checklist has been filled out. And it’s online, it’s 15 dot points, and it’s making sure that the team is just walking around the site and doing an IHS inspection. And the number one thing that will make that happen every week is that that scorecards filled in. And so it just adds to that accountability piece. So you might build systems in your business. But if you don’t have something that they report on, it will drop off. Yep.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:02

I love it. And it’s really cool, because that brings the process to life. And it means there’s no, there’s no opportunity for it to be kind of swept under the carpet or forgotten about it’s part of the measurables. Yeah, I think you’re right minute, I think, you know, somewhere between five and 15 numbers is absolutely spot on. So for some businesses, it’s less. For others, it’s more just depends on what you’re trying to do. And I think it depends on where the business is up to what’s going on in the business. And what do we need. It’s, it’s designed, as you said, to drive, behavioral change set direction, keep us on track. So whatever their business requires, and that 90 days is what you should be measuring.

Adam Wolfe  37:33

Yeah, I’ve I’ve introduced a lot of processes and systems into the business, we use Trello. to track our projects, we’ve built a good turn that turned the projects into eight different stages. And we have like Trello boards that we create every job. And we’ve had team members that we want running these boards, we’ve got guys that have helped develop the boards that are very motivated to use it. But then new team come in, and they’ve got their own way of building and they use these lists in the after, rather than in the beginning. And they’re designed to prompt your thinking not to go I did that, but I kind of did it. And so having an ability to force them to do an action. So they report on those boards now, which then feed into a scorecard, which then we can then translate into a scorecard that we put in, we use 90 That extra action develops the habit. And what you need is to change habits. It’s it’s that simple. Like people were set in their ways they’ve done things a particular way. And so as a business owner, I’ve got to change their habits. And so that like adding something I mean, we we created quarterly revenue targets for the projects. And last quarter, they smashed them out of the park. And before we had we didn’t have that and because they were tracking that, like they pushed so hard in that last month to hit but in times gone by they would have just drifted out.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:20

And it’s interesting, you talked about finances and obviously you’ve got a lot of financial measures in the scorecard which is which is great helps keep that on track. I know a lot of people listening in might be thinking, oh, you know, but if we share finances with a team, they’ll know what we’re what we’re making or you know what they had the businesses doing? How would you respond to that? Because I get that question a lot from people but I don’t want to share the finances with the team.

Adam Wolfe  39:44

I think it’s a cultural thing. I’ve never been i i want I don’t want to be the bottleneck of this company. I want to free my time up and my goal is for it to grow. I’m on its own. So I can do other things to grow it in different ways, and our team run their budgets, they know all of the project. Margins, they produce all the invoices they do all of the variations are anything to do with the money and the project. I think transparency is really important. I feel like our bonus structures that we provide to our team, so our team have bonus structures based on performance. We call it making happen dollars, so their KPIs as a set, depending on different roles, and there’s a certain level of income they can earn in addition to their wage, and then there’s revenue reward. So if they generate certain levels of income from business, they get additional amounts. And so if, if they’re seeing profit, and they’re hitting their targets, they know they’re going to get extra money. And so I think my team and our culture, they want me, they want us they want the business to succeed, they’re motivated by that. And so I don’t think people can perform unless they have, unless you give them the your trust, and that they trust you. And that if you’re hiding things from your team, then culture will suffer. I do also agree, though, that there is a time where that might not be right, like my forum, my ao forum, you know, quite big businesses in there that have had times where they’ve had people seeing things that are incredibly exciting for a business owner. And so there are times where you might need to put more emphasis on percentage rather than Dawa.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:18

And I think generally on the VTA, you know, we have an overall income and amnesia percentage amount of GP or net profit, whatever people decide to actually put on there. But I think it gives an opportunity for you to actually educate the team as well, I mean, your team are very involved in the finances. But for a lot of businesses, a lot of people don’t have any clue about that. And it’s a great chance to actually see not only how the business becomes profitable, therefore we all benefit, but also where they can add value or ensure that that is actually being achieved, which I think is important. I have a couple more questions for you. They keep coming through. So the visionary integrator relationship, so Well, I’m very happy that we’ve now got you as a full time integrator starting this week. But before that, I kind of stepped into it a bit of fractional integrator work, just to give you a bit of a sense of what an integrator can add to the business. What you’ve already read rocket fuel years and years and years ago, but now putting it into actual practice. What’s the benefit? Do you think of having an integrator and having big meetings etc, in the business?

Adam Wolfe  43:22

Not doing it alone. I remember diverting rocket fuel and doing it I don’t know how long after but I obviously, was pretty interested in the content that was available online. So I did the assessment. And I remember being like equal visionary integrator with my responses, and I was like, All right, you know, and then I was like, is that even right? Turns out, it’s rare, but

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:59

5%, I think they say is people are like that. I’m one of those two.

Adam Wolfe  44:03

Yeah. And I was like, well, make sense. It makes a lot of sense, because I am Invisi, envisaging everything and turning it into reality. I’m bringing these things to life now. I have support around me. So that’s been, you know, really, really great. But it’s only quite recent, obviously, you you’ve been helping me there. And I would say that the reason that we’ve got Tom joining us as an integrator now is because you were in that fractional seat and you said to me, he’s your next integrator, and I said, Let’s make it happen in three months. And you said, Why not tomorrow? Why not? And so I mean, that’s an exam. ample of the difference, because that has just been a seat that I have thought was impossible not impossible to fill, but going to be quite challenging and to have done it now. And to have that support, I guess or that clarity, the clarity of roles will no doubt drive this business forward and free me up to do bigger and better things.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  45:40

Exactly the big picture stuff is, yeah, the hotel again, elevate that you talked about before, I mean that that whole point of that tool is to get people doing the things where they really add the most value to the business. And so if you’re doing what you love, and what you’re really good at, then you’re going to add huge amounts of value. And visionaries, generally add more value when they’re freed up to the big picture stuff.

Adam Wolfe  46:01

I also think that when you make decisions like this, and change that pressure that that generates forces the business to grow. And we were, you know, we’re seeing that across different departments where things have just got a little bit Cruzi. Or people are doing things for other people that they really shouldn’t be, because they’re not creating a process or a system to elevate and delegate that person. And by making change, you know, not every day, but you know, as you as you grow the business, you should be making changes to force people to get better.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  46:45

Yeah. And also, as the business grows, yeah, the roles that you need are different as well. And so like understanding your your seam, understanding what they are really good at and where they want to go in the business is invaluable, because then you can actually help them develop into it. Or for some people, it’s they’re actually quite comfortable doing that role and not wanting to go any further. But knowing that means you can make better decisions about how you use them. For sure. I am conscious of time I’ve got I’ve got one last question. I’m going to ask you for three top tips and tools. So my last question really is around. What would you say to anyone who is self implementing EOS right now? What would be your advice to them?

Adam Wolfe  47:24

Implemented? Get an implementer? Oh, look, I would I honestly, I I’m not. I’m not dwelling on the past. But I feel like there was a number of conversations in the business for a couple of years around, getting an implementer in to implement the system. And I think we got caught up on cost too much. And I guess I didn’t have an integrator at the time to really sort of. I mean, even even our team, like, felt like I was doing a great job and didn’t think we needed it. So it really drove was really me driving it because I wanted I wanted the space and I needed the freedom to participate. And I would 100% say it’s up there was one of the better decisions that we’ve made in the business.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  48:22

That’s awesome. Thank you. And I think you might be right, there was definitely a cost involved. But hopefully people will see that there’s value

Adam Wolfe  48:28

Value is next level. Yeah, cool. Okay,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  48:31

Three top tips or tools. So we’ve talked about heaps already, but if you just had to leave the listeners with three things they should do when they leave this podcast, what would they be?

Adam Wolfe  48:41

Well, I, I, when I got my first coach, he taught me the importance of reading. And he said that there is it’s, it’s your cheap path. You know, like there’s people that have done it before. And if you don’t invest your time in learning from others, you can’t get a kickstart. And so having make open my eyes up to the world of personal development, growth was a game changer for not only my business, but my personal life. It’s helped me everywhere, I actually just went to a Tony Robbins event, which was just incredible. I’ve signed

Debra Chantry-Taylor  49:24

Up to ask you about that, but I’ll ask that offline.

Adam Wolfe  49:27

But you know, I’ve got another coach with them. And I’ve really feel like I will never not have a mentor and, and that sort of environment in my world and reading would be a huge tip. And not reading anything, reading what you need. And the tip inside that would be that I learned from Jim quick, who’s a memory expert. If you’re reading a book, ask three questions. to yourself that you want to learn from that book before you read it so that they’re very prominent when you read it. And that I tend to pick up books that I need to learn that thing like I need to understand what it is, it’s in that book so that I can get that. That knowledge to then implement into my business or my Informatica and my integrator can implement into. Yeah, like that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  50:33

So ask for it. So get yourself three questions, the answers that you need to get from that book. So when you’re reading the book, you’re actually taking it on board, and you’ll get a coach or a mentor. As I said, that’s always my thing. I think everybody needs a personal coach or a mentor, it just personal development is huge.

Adam Wolfe  50:48

Third thing? Well, I think big business and what you do are quite separate. And I think a lot of people get into business from a technician mindset, because they’re good at something. But they’re two different things. So building a business and being good at like, for us building houses is they’re quite different. And so having a process to operate your business under is essential to be able to follow some sort of model that enables you to see the path for business can be very overwhelming. But if you’ve got clarity, and can see how you navigate things, so you can break through glass ceilings, it’s very, very liberating.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  51:48

I love it. I could not have prompted you any better. Thank you. But I hear you, I mean, all those things that I think are really important. And

Adam Wolfe  51:57

I definitely I definitely while there is some prompting the these are really important to me. I mean, having being able to follow a structure, I actually a coach for a small business owners in the accelerator group in Ayios, of businesses from $250,000. And pushing them to a million so they can be good to members. And I’ve done that for three years. And I have different themes for my, my, the people I coach this year, it’s structural success, because I have talked to him about profit. First, I’ve talked to them about the one thing, the book The one thing and determining what it is that you need to work on what’s most important. But ultimately, if you don’t develop a structure for your business to operate on that you will not, it’s not going to work, you need the clarity, to be able to develop the business so that you can foresee what you need to do in the future. Even if you’re filling every seat in the business. You need to be able to know what it is that you need to do in the future so that you can move that direction otherwise, it can be a real world. And particularly for us, we see a lot of trades businesses, they’re great plumbers, they’re great electricians, they do amazing work. And then they end up with 12 staff. And that just falls apart because they have no model no structure. And then they’re back to doing the work themselves with three guys. And it’s just this vicious circle. And you see it all the time.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  53:47

Yeah. So I mean, that’s a very lovely lead into if you want any traction or get a grip books that we know for you. People do coaching, but same for the listeners Like honestly, traction is the how to book Get a grip tells you the way that you should do it. I can’t even if you want to self implement, I fully supportive of that you’ve got to do something, otherwise the business falls apart. And that comes from somebody who’s owned businesses that have done really, really well and also had a couple of pretty massive failures as well. And that generally came down to lack of structure lack of measurables not really knowing how we’re operating it not getting the processes, right. So yeah, US is definitely a game changer. Hey, Adam, tell me a little about what is your ideal client because of architecture Who do you love working because you’ve got the architect side you’ve got the client side as well tell us a little about who you enjoy working with and why.

Adam Wolfe  54:33

Or from a personality perspective decision maker, you know, someone that’s, you know, really committed to the direction that they’re heading. Our clients, we call them forever home so we build we don’t work with people that are looking to make a quick buck because we don’t build homes that can be built to that level of quality there. homes last forever. So, you know, they’re professionals, we do a lot of work for doctors. And that sort of has just been a natural progression. We’ve worked with a few that refers to others and that sort of thing. We work with clients that are motivated by building a team around them. And they want a builder and a client and an architect to work together to get to a good outcome. Our demographic is a little bit, we were doing a lot of homes for people that were expanding their family and love the area that they lived in, loves the schools for their kids had been in the house for a little while and needed to grow it to suit their new lifestyle. So it was predominantly 35 to 40. Majority of the time it was the wife that was driving the decision to build because they needed more space. So yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  56:12

So somebody who really wants partners in the process, so we’re going to make sure you get the best possible result. And that forever hope it’s actually part of the proven process, right, your proven processes that even once you’ve built it, you’re regularly revisiting to make sure everything is still absolutely as it should be, and keeping everything on track, right?

Adam Wolfe  56:28

Yes. So I’m actually tweaked it a little bit after I came to strong in six with you, Debra, because I heard someone there say that they guarantee this company, it was an architectural firm. And their guarantee was that they would be friends at the end of the project, which I just loved. I just thought that was amazing. So ours is we’ll be friends at the end of the project. And we will do an annual inspection every year as long as you live there.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  57:01

That’s awesome. Cool. Okay, no, that’s brilliant. Hey, thank you so much for your time. If people want to get in contact with you, what’s the best way to get in contact with you?

Adam Wolfe  57:11

They can join jump on my LinkedIn page. Or they can give me a call.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  57:20

Yeah, okay. What’s your number?

Adam Wolfe  57:23

Yeah, my ship is a perfect salutely. Yeah, I can

Debra Chantry-Taylor  57:31

On the US give out their numbers and people who are really high profile kind of go get give me a call. Bob Berg. I don’t if you know who Bob berg is, but he wrote the Go Giver series. amazing man. He came on the podcast and also his writing partner as well, David. And they literally said, here’s our contact details. If anybody wants to get in contact with us, you can just call us. Okay.

Adam Wolfe  57:50

Yeah, well, it’s Adam, a builders of architecture.com.au and my mobile 0423660305. Please reach out happy to have a chat. I’m very motivated by people having a good experience building their home. So regardless of the situation you’re in, or you’ve just got a couple of questions on more than happy to support the journey because it can be an overwhelming one.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  58:15

Completely understand. I look forward to seeing you in our level 10 meeting later on today. But it’s been great to talk to you on. Thanks for your time. Thanks for sharing. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the podcast show better business better life. My name is Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m an EOS implementer family business adviser, business and leadership coach podcaster and speaker. However, I’m also a business owner with several current business interests. I’m fortunate to have lived the high life with all the lifestyle, the toys, you name it, and then I’ve lost it all. Not only once but twice in two spectacular train wrecks. I know what it’s like to experience the highs and lows. I came across EOS when they launched into New Zealand using my entrepreneurs playground at an event center in Parnell Auckland. I love the simplicity of the tools and their philosophies fitted my personal brand statement perfectly. The brilliance is in the simplicity. I’ve always been passionate about seeing entrepreneurs live the life they love. And now I help them live that EOS life doing what they love with people they love making a huge difference in the world being compensated appropriately and with time to pursue other passions. If you want more information or want to get in contact about using aos and your business, you can visit my website at Deb Deborah dot coach that’s dub dub dub Deborah D B ra dot coach. Thanks for listening.