What Trade Businesses Can Learn From the Corporate World | Paul O’Neill

[00:00] Cold open

Paul: People will always tell you before having a kid is the sleepless nights. And it's not until you live it, you're like, "Ah, okay, I get it." And I compare business ownership to the same.

Kane: You've got to try and enjoy the journey while you're living it, because this is life right now.

Paul: Yeah, 100%.

[00:20] Intro and welcome Paul O'Neill

Kane: Hey, I'm Kane Tyler Smith, the founder and CEO of Smartfix and Hypotential. This is Unlocking Business, where we have real conversations around business, leadership, mindset and personal growth. If you've been getting value from these conversations, please take a second to like, subscribe and follow our channels. It helps us reach more people, bring on more guests and share more stories. Now, let's get into this episode.

Today, I'm joined by Paul O'Neill from Plumbing Bros West Coast. Paul has taken a very different path into trades. After building a successful career in corporate leadership, including senior management roles with Optus, he made a leap into small business ownership and is now a director of Plumbing Bros West Coast. Today he's focused on building a trade business centred around culture, leadership and delivering a five-star customer experience. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Paul: No worries. Happy to be here. This is a very lovely setup you've got here, mate. Well done.

Kane: Thank you. It took a bit of work, a bit of time.

Paul: It's great. You got there. Well done.

[01:02] What corporate does better than trades

Kane: All right, I've got the first question for you. What's one thing the corporate world does really well that most trade businesses could learn from?

Paul: From my experience, it's the support culture. Before working in the corporate world, I worked in a couple of small businesses and there was a very blame culture. If you did something wrong or it wasn't right, it was blaming. And I found some of that in trade businesses that I've had visibility of. I'm not saying it's ours in particular. It's easy for me to say it's not ours, we're amazing. But it's very much the blame culture. If something goes wrong, people are dragged over the coals.

What I found in corporate is you had people that would wrap around you pretty quickly because your success was theirs and vice versa. That supportive nature throughout was something that I really enjoyed, and then it encourages you to operate the same, because that's all you know in that environment.

[02:06] Why tradies leave their employers

Paul: I'm sure we'll talk more about culture throughout this podcast, but that wraparound support is a big one. Learning to fail fast is a big one in corporate as well. Fail fast and move forward, don't dwell on the mistakes. It's only if the mistake happens again that it becomes a different conversation or a different process. But it's very much around that support culture, for sure.

Kane: So why do you think trades miss out on that?

Paul: I can't speak on behalf of other trades, but I can speak on visibility. We've had interviews with many people, and the common reason people want to leave is either money or their leader. Those are the two big factors in why people want to leave a business. So when you hear about this in other trades and how they're treated, and this doesn't go for everybody, it's probably less than it is more, but what I hear is they're brought on, put in the van on the road, see you later. Have you got your tools on the road, see you later. If you're not productive, it becomes a performance management conversation pretty quickly. Or not even performance management, we're just going to move on and hire someone else. And it becomes this rotational churn.

We've seen a lot of that in the industry. I think FIFO doesn't help that. I'm sure you've come up against FIFO, people leaving to go for the golden paycheque or the golden handshake, which we kind of get, if it suits the person. But going back to the question around support and trades, it's just what we've heard and seen in the industry in part, not in full. And the reason people are leaving their incumbents is because of that.

[04:12] Panic hiring and poor onboarding

Kane: Yeah, I agree. We've definitely been bad for that in previous years, where as soon as you need a tradie, you're like, "Oh, we need a tradie now. We've got jobs going now." Especially when a lot of our work with plumbing and electrical is seasonal. So we'll panic hire fast and not really have the proper onboarding training process. We'll get them in for a couple of hours, give them all the paperwork to sign and say, "Here's the keys. Give us a call if you've got any issues." We've been bad for that. And I think it's because...

Paul: Yeah, it's hard to get trades. When you find them, you just need them to be productive straight away.

Kane: Yeah. We don't do that anymore because it does not work. It's a nightmare.

Paul: Massively aggressive.

Kane: You end up just having a high turnover of staff and potentially causing issues on jobs, bad customer experiences, which is obviously the opposite of what we want to do. It's expensive to get clients. We want to do the right thing the first time. I think that's where you guys have done quite well, doing the right thing. Do you do a lot of real estate kind of work?

Paul: Yeah. I'd say real estate is most of what we do, so resi maintenance. We've got a fair, decent client base in relation to private as well, and there are other verticals that we're playing in, but real estate is our biggest at the moment.

[05:17] Working with property managers

Kane: And do you find it hard to deal with property managers?

Paul: Oh, talk about a loaded question. Are they difficult to deal with? I think once you understand them, they're fine. I'd probably rephrase the question: once you understand what a property manager does, you would understand how to work with them. We're one contractor across a property manager's portfolio. They have multiple contractors for plumbing, electrical, fencing, pooling, the list goes on and on, right? And some of these property managers don't even have assistants. So they're looking after the landlord, the tenant, all these different stakeholders.

From the perspective of working with property managers, once you understand them and their portfolio and how they operate, it's fantastic. Property managers operate differently. Some of them want everything via email. Some of them just want a quick phone call. Once you understand that, then it's absolutely fantastic to work with property managers, and that's the success that we've found in it. They're a good group of people because they're very hard workers, they really are. But they also just want things off their desk, so it's our job to make that as easy as possible for them.

Paul: What I will say about property management, and this goes for other industries, but property management and real estate in particular, is if you do get something wrong, it's very easy for them to switch you off. You work hard building this trust, working with them. And some property managers are not like this, some are. It's a real mixed bag, similar to our industry. But if you get something wrong and they turn you off like that, it's hard to win them back. You've put all that work in, you could do 10 to 20 work orders, fine, but it's always the one they remember that's wrong. And that's the same with private clients, let's be fair.

So you've got to earn that trust where it goes beyond that one work order going wrong. It's like, "You've done the right thing by me. You've helped me out here. This is a genuine mistake, it's an anomaly. Let's continue to work together."

What makes it difficult, because property managers work differently, is the scalability of a business. How do you operationally support property managers that operate differently?

[07:21] How Isabelle Charter's platform fits in

Kane: We recorded an episode a couple of weeks ago with Isabelle Charter, and they are building an app which is basically a new CRM for strata managers specifically. But from what it sounded like, it was quite similar between real estate property managers and strata. She was saying they're probably some of the most overworked people because of the number of touch points they have. Obviously, you're going to get good and bad tenants. You're going to get good and bad homeowners. They probably have to deal with insurance as well.

She was saying if you have one leaking roof, you get the tenant calling, emailing, probably spamming the property manager. The property manager then has to get approval from either higher up within their business or the homeowner, to go and get one, two or three quotes, because, as we know, some homeowners want multiple quotes. And when it's an emergency situation, there's panic across all stations. So they're building a platform that tries to help streamline that whole process. But from our experience, it has always been hard to deal with property managers. I think part of that is probably having the office staff internal in our business to be able to handle them. We probably need our own managers to be able to deal with their managers. Is that what you guys have?

Paul: Yes. That was what we were just discussing. To scale up to deliver the service that property managers expect, based on the way they work, is quite difficult, because you'd almost need to scale a team for x amount of property managers that work in a certain way. We've got a team at the moment. We have an operations hub that deals with the PMs on a day-to-day basis, myself included. But to roll out the red carpet and give them that service that is tailored towards them, we manage it, but it's quite difficult with the number of property managers.

In some real estates, and it might be the same in strata, they're empowered to choose within their portfolio which trades they use. There are other real estates that say you need to use one of these three, based on the portfolio or the location. And then they might have their notes where they want to use certain trades. The landlord has their own preferred plumber or what have you, which I'm sure you've come across as well. But our operations team is there to support all of our customers.

[09:26] Phone volume and the office to trades ratio

Kane: With that in mind, we have something similar, but we don't do much real estate. It's mostly private clients. We do have a lot of office staff, and part of the reason is to provide high level customer service to our private clients. We might get 100 to 200 phone calls a day. We need people in here ready to answer those calls, because as you know, when it is an emergency situation, if we don't answer, they're just going to call the next person, and the next person. Do you have a ratio between office staff and trades on the road?

Paul: We do, but it's being challenged all the time, based on the new customers you bring on board and the types of work that you do. You mentioned earlier that it's seasonal, and it's absolutely true. Winter for us is our busiest time with hot water units, for example, and summer dies off a little bit but it turns more to leaks. It's also a different type of client that engages our services.

[10:28] The office to trades ratio

Paul: The ratio, I think this is old now, but it used to be one in 10, so one admin person for 10 tradespeople. But I think that ratio worked if it was predominantly x amount of one kind of client. If it was mainly real estate clients, you could group them together and find it easy to manage. I think the reality now is more like one in three, maybe one in four, based on the needs and use of the customer. But I think that's going to change again.

Paul: Before this we talked about AI and how that's going to take so much operational workload off so many industries, and then it's about focusing on the human element and the human touch of the business, which is absolutely where it's going. Well, it's not where it's going, it's where it is now, and we've got to make sure we keep up with the times. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that ratio changes to with the operational help of AI, but that will still have the human touch.

Paul: What's your ratio? Is yours like one-on-one?

Kane: It was one-on-one for a long time.

Paul: Okay.

Kane: So that's obviously very expensive and hard. It's not sustainable long term, to be honest. I got told one to three, because I made some phone calls over east to the big players over there, and he said one to three.

Paul: I think that's fair.

Kane: So we're at one to two now. We're still trying to work it out. But for that high level customer service, which not many businesses provide, I do think we need it, because we don't want anyone overworked or rushing, because that's when things get missed again.

Kane: If there's a storm on the weekend, which there's planned to be one, our phones are going to go berserk. We don't do call-outs anymore, but Monday morning we're going to have loads of missed calls from the weekend and people panicking, calling us. If we've only got one person in the office trying to deal with all that, it's just not possible. So at the moment we've got four or five in the customer service team. Sometimes they'll be sitting there for hours waiting for the phone to ring.

Paul: Okay.

[12:35] AI voice vs the human touch

Kane: But AI is not good enough for voice, in my opinion. We've listened to a few.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: There's weird pauses, and the accents are not there. There are no Australian accents. English ones are better.

Paul: Yeah, but you can tell, right? And in Perth we're quite colloquial. So that local lingo, the local knowledge of where you are and what's going on. You mentioned a storm coming in. Having that knowledge, checking in on people, just that extra level of care, people will understand. So I think the one in three, one in four ratio is feasible, but I genuinely think that will change. I'm not even talking about the voice activated AI, I'm talking about the stuff that's going to manage all the operational piece, the auto-dialling, all the AI talking to each other and taking a lot of that workload away. It will still need human intervention to sense check and make sure everything's going well. But this thing is learning at a rapid rate, so I think that ratio is going to change rapidly.

I think the customer service point, which is obviously what you guys do as well, is that human connection. If someone does call and speak to an AI and they're in a panic situation, they've got a burst pipe in their roof, it's like, "Hi, how are you?" Could you imagine?

[13:37] After-hours virtual assistants and triage

Kane: Well, are you local? What area are you in? It's just going to throw it off straight away.

Paul: And you put the phone down, right? Let's be fair, your emotions are high. That's where we have virtual assistants who help us with our after hours stuff, and that's been a blessing. If you find the right ones, they are so good. We've got a husband and wife team helping us and their care factor is beyond anything I've seen from a virtual assistant.

Kane: A small business that helps you?

Paul: No, we went direct. We went online and recruited direct. I think the website's called OnlineJobs.ph. Look, it takes a bit of time to do. You're going to get an influx of applicants, but the website now has features that will whittle down applicants for you based on what you want. It'll tell you how many jobs they've applied for. They have to use points to apply, so the more points they use to apply for your role means they're highly interested in it.

Paul: This guy, his name is John, and in his presentation he delivered a full slide deck, which I was just like, "Wow, this doesn't happen that often." These guys are interviewing left, right and centre. His passion was there, and we listen to his calls after hours, and he's got me on speed dial 24/7 for when he needs me. You listen to his care factor, and then his wife's now joined the team, and they understand the area.

Part of the onboarding for any virtual assistant, albeit these are the only ones we have at the moment in our business, is learning Perth. You need to learn locations, north and south of the river. That's a thing, so you need to understand what that is. Postcodes are relatively easy to learn, because it's either 60 or 61. If you know 61, it's going to be south, 60 north. Then we learn bits about local Perth, like Rottnest, tourism, just the basic stuff so you can have a conversation with a customer. And then they go into terminologies for plumbing, like what's a breech, what's a mixer as opposed to what they think a tap is. That's been a big deal for us.

I've gone off on a tangent, but to bring it back, talking about after hours and that customer experience, that human element, virtual assistants will still hold their own and they lead with empathy, which is great.

[15:46] Why shared answering services failed

Kane: That's probably a better way of doing it, because we have tried services before after hours, but there's no way it's one or two people.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: It's a company, and they're answering the phones working between like 50 different businesses. As soon as our customers asked a question, it just didn't work for us. We were like, "Well, how are we supposed to train you if it's different people every evening answering the phone?"

Paul: So I suppose what you're saying is a shared service, isn't it?

Kane: Exactly. We only did it for a couple of weeks. It was terrible. But I suppose what you're saying, it sounds like they pretty much work just for you guys in those hours.

Paul: That's it. Yeah. They work after hours, so they do the rosters overnight, and they get their days.

Kane: And you are 24/7.

Paul: Yeah. So we do that and they're great. They're happy with it. They get their days themselves and they work for us. We always ask for exclusivity when anyone's working. They can't have another job with someone else. We pay them well enough to have a good life and enjoy it with us so they don't have to find other work. But exclusivity is an absolute must. We don't want their mind elsewhere and thinking about other things. We've seen that before with others and it doesn't work.

Kane: So they would operate from like 5:00 pm to 7:00 am or something.

Paul: Yeah, that's it. And then on weekends they'll do 7 am till midnight, and then we have a messaging service from midnight till 7, which still goes through to these guys, but there's just an extra filter so I can get some rest.

Kane: Yeah. And that would be something like, if you have an emergency now, press one, for general inquiries, press two and we'll call you back. How often do you do those 1 am, 2 am call-outs?

Paul: There's not many. There's really not that many. In the last few years I've been involved in the business, there's been a handful. They tend to be commercial, the ones that are relying on it. The after hours team have to triage as well, right? They're triaging the phone calls to see if it's an emergency or if it isn't.

[17:52] Triage questions and local terminology

Kane: Can you turn the water off at the meter?

Paul: 100%. Is it the only toilet in the property that's blocked? Do you have another one? There are all these questions they ask just to make sure that it's an emergency, because it's always an emergency in the eye of the beholder. But let's go through it and sense check it. And again, emotions are going to be high when there's any emergency call. What does that look and feel like? So those late ones are normally commercial related, where 24/7 operations are being affected.

Kane: And that would come down again to onboarding and training correctly, because then they know how to triage properly.

Paul: Yeah. And that does take a bit longer. I wouldn't say a language barrier, because their English is very good, but there is a local barrier that you've got to get through and educate. Terminology is a big one. I went through that too. I didn't know what a breech was two years ago. I just knew what a tap, a toilet and a shower was. That was the most of my plumbing knowledge. But these guys are trying to learn in a second language what these things are. It's fantastic. They've been brilliant.

[18:55] Moving from corporate into trades

Kane: So how hard was it for you to transition from the corporate world to trades?

Paul: It was the steepest learning curve of my career. I've always prided myself on climbing the ladder or working my way up wherever I was, from McDonald's back in the day to insurance, telco, anything I put my hand to. I always wanted to work my way up, and that just comes from a very working-class background, which is where that drive comes from. I'll always be a poor 16-year-old for the rest of my life. It's just the mentality I have.

Coming into trades, there was so much you can bring over, and I don't know if we'll delve into this, but I didn't realise that when you're in the corporate world, you're just dealing with the tools that you've learned and you're using them every day. When you come out of corporate into a small business, which is essentially what this is, you don't realise the tools that you have that you can apply, from your marketing to your sales to culture, coaching, people development, onboarding, one-on-ones, all these things.

Paul: The Achilles heel was the trade terminology. I was always very transparent when I came into the business, because I didn't want to pretend to be a tradie. I don't look like a tradie. My hands are the opposite of a tradesman's hands. I don't pretend to be one, and I was always transparent with the guys about that. I said, "I'll commit to you and grow this business. I'm going to need you to commit to me and teach me. There are terminologies I don't know, and I'm going to be asking you a load of questions. If you can commit to answering those questions, that's all I ask, and I'll take care of everything else, and together we'll grow as a team."

But the biggest learning curve was that terminology. Then it was learning and understanding trades and how they operate and how they work, and what makes them tick. That's been a huge unpacking, because it's hard to unpack with a lot of them. A lot of them don't even want to talk about it. You ask what's important to them, and it's "I just want to get in, do my job and go home." It's like, cool, but we're here for a reason. What is it you want to support outside of these four walls or outside of the van? What do you want to do?

[20:59] Learning every part of a small business

Paul: So that has been the steepest learning curve for me, and the third component of it. So, the terminology, understanding the trades, and the last one is learning every facet of the business. When you're in corporate, you have an accounts team, you do your expenses and send it to accounts. You've got marketing ideas, sales ideas, you send it to marketing and they'll execute it for you. You have all these departments set up for that. In a small business you're everything to everyone all the time, so 24 hours is not enough in a day anymore.

That's been the biggest learning for me. I knew zero. I knew zero at a basic level, but coming into business you have to learn it, whether it's Xero or MYOB or what have you. Learning about that and then prioritising accordingly, your accounts payable, your BAS and tax payments, all that stuff as well. I'd never heard about that in the corporate world. That was all taken care of. We took a salary. Now you're looking at all of those things, dealing with all of these people chasing you for everything, or being ahead of the curve and prioritising. So those have been the three biggest learning curves for me coming from corporate to trades.

[22:01] Leadership lessons from McDonald's

Kane: So where did you get your experience with culture and how to manage people?

Paul: That started at McDonald's. They joke about the five stars or the five badges you used to get back in the day, but the training systems they had, and I'm sure it's the same now, are second to none. You start as a 16-year-old, because it was 16 in the UK. I think it's 13 here, is it the youngest age you can work? You learn the fundamentals of dealing with people, dealing with money, dealing with complaints, processes, procedures, hygiene, compliance. You're learning about all these things, down to the temperature of a burger and what it should be stored at and what it should be cooked at and what it should look like. You're learning the intricacies of what makes something great and you just don't realise at the time, because you're just a 16-year-old earning £3.10 an hour, I think it was at the time.

Paul: Then you get promoted to training squad and then to management, and that was where I learned my basics of leadership. Then I went into sales, which I loved and still love to this day, dealing with people. But then I started to read a lot. I follow a lot of Simon Sinek and read a lot of his stuff. Leaders Eat Last and Start With Why is, to this day, the best book I've ever read, between that and The Secret. They're the two books I've read to this day that are genuinely life-changing for me.

Paul: That improved my EQ, and with that EQ I learned a lot of leadership skills, like how to listen rather than speak, how to read body language, how to read someone really quickly and what makes them tick, and then deliver on how we can collaborate. And then there's been coaching along the way. I've done some leadership courses. We did one recently with a company called Corporate Sherpers, who are sensational by the way, highly recommend. They bring a neuroscience aspect to learning and leadership, but in a tangible way that you can, like, psych, psychology.

Kane: Yeah, psychology.

Paul: But they're tangible. It's not just words on a page. It's go ahead and do that. So let's bring it in and relate it to your business. I got exposed to these guys at Optus under a different company called Illuminate, and it was one of my first re-engagements when I came into this business. I was like, "Right, I've got this team. We're growing this business. We want to get you in." So we had them in for the whole of last year. They come in once a month and talk about leadership, and then we got our leaders in. So, very long-winding answer to your question, but it's been a few milestones along the journey that have created the leader that I am today, and I'm still learning.

[25:09] Lead the leader approach

Kane: I think it's so important though. From some of the biggest podcasts that I watch, they talk about McDonald's being the most process driven company in the world.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: Because you go to one McDonald's, you go to one in a different country, and you get the exact same end product. So the process they go through for training is so significant. That's why it's probably one of the biggest companies in the world.

Paul: Yeah. It's a lead the leader approach as well. So it's not just that you have to go to the leader for everything. Everyone's a leader in their own right, and we've absolutely adopted that in our business. For example, a training squad member could teach an employee, and an employee could teach what they would call a rookie, which would be someone within their first few weeks. It's not just that the manager of the restaurant has to go and teach everybody and hold a seminar or a class. It's a real lead the leader approach, and Optus were very good at doing this.

I actually brought in something called the LEAD program, where they used insights from Harvard University. That was a 10 stage program where again it was all lead the leader, and it went right across the span of the business, from business to enterprise to retail. So you take on these nuggets as you go on your journey of life, and now I can bring that into the plumbing world, though some of it hasn't stuck, I'll be honest with you.

[26:11] How owners can learn leadership

Paul: Some of the one-on-one stuff, where I'm unpacking and they're just like, "What are you talking about, mate?" I'm like, "Fair, that's fair. That's me learning, right?" So I scale it back and think about what's more relevant in this scenario, and now it's really starting to gain traction.

Kane: So it sounds like you're definitely interested in self-learning and self-development.

Paul: Yeah, love it. Absolutely love it.

Kane: How do you think businesses can learn? I think that'd be the biggest shortfall in trades businesses specifically, management and proper leadership. There's not many big businesses around that do the same work that we do, residential maintenance.

Paul: Sure.

Kane: How can people start to learn without having to bring someone in that's obviously going to be quite costly in training?

Paul: How would they learn? It's the want to be self-educated, I think, in part. I also think it's utilising networks. It doesn't have to be expensive. If you know someone, I mean, we're in an age now where information is so readily available, if you have the ability to absorb it and then make it relevant to your team. But it's a different skill set, right, to learn it and then to deliver it. Some of the best coaches in the world have never played the game, and vice versa, right?

Paul: So I think it's the ability to reach out to your network. You mentioned earlier how you've called some people over east, some of the big players, around the ratio, stuff like that. Someone who's been there and done that. Be open to learning first and foremost, take that information in and then make it relevant to your business to deliver.

I think half the battle I've found since being in our business is the drive of people, which you can't really teach. It's actually the drive of people who want to learn, who want to do those things. There's only a select few I've seen or found that actually have that hunger and drive to want to grow. Some people just want to come in, do their work and go home, and there's nothing wrong with that. I call them plodders, and plodders are important in a business because you normally get the best out of the hours. And they have something that I'm very envious of, called a work life balance. That's great.

[28:19] Filtering outside training for your team

Paul: But to answer your question around the leader component, for them to bring it into their business, they've got to have the want to learn. And if they're not comfortable, then they have to invest in someone who's better than them at what they do to come in and deliver it. But I would filter it and sense check it first to make sure the content is going to be relevant to the team you're delivering it to, and how you deliver it. We gamified a lot of our stuff because that became way more engaging. Just sitting in a room listening to a presentation, especially after a full day at work...

Kane: Or 6 am in the morning.

Paul: Yeah, exactly. Either or, right? The guys aren't interested, and that's fair. So we gamify it. Same with our toolboxes, we gamify a lot of it. We do rewards for different trades. People get up and talk about our customer reviews. We get them involved. So they're all learning a part of the journey from a leadership perspective, but we empower everyone. They're a leader in their own right. We say it all the time. You're a leader in your own right, whether it's the manager of your van, your day, your time, your equipment, and obviously your personal circumstances.

[29:23] Gamifying team training

Kane: Can you give me an example of how you would gamify something like that?

Paul: So like a toolbox or a training session?

Kane: Yeah, training session.

Paul: Training session, we've done a few. One we did used an analogy of a pub, which is always a good start to any gamification, right? We had this tennis ball, and I'm the customer. I've got the tennis ball and I need you to pour me a pint with this tennis ball, right? But the tennis ball's got to touch every hand. So we would stand in a circle and throw the tennis ball. Sounds a bit cultish when I say, "Let's stand in a circle with a tennis ball."

Kane: But you throw it to each other. It's got to touch everybody's hand before it comes back to the customer.

Paul: Then we had to find a way to pour that pint faster and make it quicker. I'm not going to give the answer, just in case you do this and I can send all the details to you, but the idea is you're working as a team to satisfy that customer as fast as possible, but without compromising quality. There's a way of doing it where you can literally have the ball touch everybody in under two seconds, but you're starting in a circle throwing the ball to each other.

Paul: I know you're already thinking about the answer and how you do it. I can see the mind going. But there is a way you can do it in under a couple of seconds. It's about thinking differently and working as a team. Who's taking the lead? You always want a leader as part of this. And then who's the customer? That's one of them.

Other gamifications we've done in training were helpful and unhelpful cards. It's hard to explain on a podcast because you need to see the images, but the idea is you've got to get to the end of the game with as much money as humanly possible. You've got a pot of money to begin with, you've got to get to the end with as much as possible, and you're working in groups, and you have a helpful and an unhelpful card. It's not labelled that, it's just an H and a U card. If you play the U card, you can steal the money. If you play the helpful card, you share the money.

Again, I don't want to give away too much if anyone wants to use this, but at the end of the game the idea is you use the helpful cards, because if you use the unhelpful cards, one team tends to win. But if everybody uses the helpful cards, all ships benefit from a rising tide, right?

[31:28] Spotlighting what your team is great at

Paul: The game's worded in a certain way where it's quite funny. It's worded so you need to finish the game with the most money, and it's not talking about you as in your team, but it's divvied up that way. It's actually you as a group who finish with the most money. So there are little games that we've done as part of training. And we do MVPs and stuff like that as well. If someone's a weapon at a certain thing in our business, and they're comfortable getting in front of everybody else, whether it's leak detection, what is their process, or someone who's just amazing with their notes operationally, what are you doing, how are you doing it, what's your process, the team need to be aware of it. So we utilise that in our toolboxes a fair bit as well.

Kane: Yeah, it's a good idea. That's something that we have been wanting to do for a while, air con servicing, for example. We get a few of you young guys that don't know the full process. So we're thinking about getting one of the leaders in, but I'm not sure. We have to figure out who wants to show. Obviously it's different doing it yourself really well and then trying to show other people. I'm trying to think how can we help him present it better, because he would be able to service the air con better than me, but maybe he can't present it as well as somebody else. How do we help him present it? And does he want to?

[32:31] Monthly one-on-ones and development plans

Kane: How do you choose the people that want to do that, or do you just ask?

Paul: Yeah, we ask in the one-on-ones, right? We will unpack this as part of their development plan. We have one-on-ones with the guys every month. We might miss the odd month, depending how busy we are, but we have a toolbox every month and a one-on-one every month, and they have a development plan. So we can then leverage that as part of their development plan, and it almost answers it for you.

Paul: When you're looking at a development plan and saying this guy wants to be off the tools, or this guy's got a skill set and has shown passion in this area, then we could unlock those doors for him. If someone is passionate about air con servicing and he's just an absolute weapon at it, then it's like, cool, what else is on his why or his map that he wants to achieve?

Paul: And then relate it into that.

Public speaking is the number one fear in the world over everything, even death, which is crazy. So you think about that and their ability to get up. But if they're getting up in front of people that they know, in this case, then it's the environment we create. Do I want to stand up? Do we have them sitting down? Do we word up everyone that it's going to happen? We try and make it as easy as humanly possible.

Paul: We've done a huge amount of presentations over the last two years to conferences, a lot of property management stuff, and I tend to take a tradesman with me and they're always awkward. Now I'm not throwing them under the bus. They know what they're walking into, but that awkwardness in front of people is absolutely fair and absolutely real. It'd be like putting me in front of a toilet system to service, right? It'd be exactly the same. But the credibility they get and the integrity they get from the audience, because they're just being themselves and authentic, is something else.

Kane: So they're giving a presentation themselves?

Paul: Well, it might be a bit of a show and tell. I might MC it and talk about a few things, but the authenticity comes from the tradesperson, right? And there's no difference here. If you need someone else who's going to MC that presentation or just talk about it at a really high level, then that person who might feel a bit awkward, you're not asking them to be anything else. I don't vet them. I don't filter them. I'm just like, this is what we're going to talk about. You do you, because you're the expert. It's going to come across in such a way that people are probably going to remember more of what he said than what I said.

And it's so authentic, providing they're comfortable and they know what they're getting into. You don't want to just drag someone along and say, "Oh, you're presenting to 40 people today." I've worded them up. They've got a copy of the presentation. They've got everything they need to settle the nerves. But the authenticity that comes from that is second to none, and that works in a variety of fields in relation to people who have got different things on their development plan or different ways of engaging.

[35:41] People, retention and one-on-ones on the road

Kane: There's so much to take away from that. It's all about people management. Like we...

Paul: People are everything in the business.

Kane: I know over the last 12 months we've learned a lot. I said to you earlier we have scaled back a fair bit, and I've always said our top two things are customer service and staff retention. I think we've done very well for staff retention, even though our biggest downfall has probably always been training. We're in our ninth year of business now, and over the last two or three weeks is the first time we have ever done one-on-ones with the guys on the road.

Paul: Really?

Kane: Yeah. But we've had good staff retention.

Paul: That's great.

Kane: So I wonder if it could be even better by trying to level up on our...

Paul: Oh, I think so. Yeah, for sure.

Kane: Management.

Paul: I think so. That's huge. If you've got good staff retention anyway, then they're passionate about the business and they're enjoying it. This is going to be a deeper level of engagement for sure. It's one of the first things. Again, you talk about coming from corporate, that was one of the biggest things. It was one-on-ones.

Paul: We've taken on other businesses, as you know, and even before taking on those businesses, the first thing I did was have a one-on-one with each staff member. What's going on, what's happening, where are you at? Because I want to sense check, can I work with these guys? Business is always people and processes, but without the right people, that's what determines if you're going to be stagnant, go backwards or go forwards.

Paul: The processes can have a huge impact in that, especially if they're well thought out. But if you haven't got the right people pushing you in the same direction... I've learned a lot through that process over the last two years. Those one-on-ones will go a long way, talking about personal goals, professional goals, where do you want to be. I know all of the whys with every single team member. I could ask anything, and it's a different conversation you have with them when you bump into them in the corridor.

Kane: It's not just "How's your day?"

Paul: How's your day? Like, how's Jack going at school? Has he recovered from that collarbone injury? There are all these different things.

Kane: Connection. Yeah, absolutely. A deeper connection.

[37:45] Bringing outsiders into a trade team

Kane: I was going to say that when we're talking about going from corporate to trades, you've obviously done it very well. There have been some experiences in my past where we've tried to bring people in, in maybe HR or other roles in the business.

Paul: Sure.

Kane: And if they don't act correctly with the trades, the trades just hate it. They're not a tradie. If someone comes in and doesn't try to help or build the connections, and just comes in saying, "Nah, we're changing this, changing this," it can kill a business within a couple of weeks. Some of your best staff leave and you're like, "What is going on?"

Paul: It's so true. We're hiring a service lead at the moment for plumbing. My bandwidth is being stretched. You and I have probably lived this for however long. I'm so selective on who we bring in, but I'm also bringing people on the journey.

Paul: One thing that I trust more than anything is a woman's intuition. I trust a woman's intuition more than most things. I feel like I have a good read on things, and I'm going to back myself, but there's this woman's intuition that I can't tap into. So we interviewed a few service leads, and I'll get the operations team involved. I'll even get some of the trades guys involved, the ones that, again as part of their development, have shown leadership, a passion for the business and a passion for people, so that we protect them and protect our culture at all costs.

Paul: So we actually bring them on the journey, in part in the decision, so they're not coming in cold, because I've seen exactly what you just said. I've seen that in another trades business. Someone came in and they ruled with an iron fist. You saw it a mile off. It just never worked, and they were working with a lot of the younger generation, who just operate differently. I've had to unpack that, and there's a lot to learn, and it just never worked out.

[39:50] Hiring for culture over skill

Paul: It was unfortunate, because you never want to see something not succeed, regardless of who it is. But it was an older mentality versus a newer mentality, and it clashed beyond belief. So I've seen that happen. But for us, it's bringing people on the journey. You mentioned earlier the hires and the knee-jerk reactions. We have been guilty of that in the past, but now we're a lot more calculated in that space and we'll wait for the right hire before taking them on. The first thing we look at is culture over skill.

Paul: Are they the right fit for the business? Do they buy into the vision? Could they add value, and can they extract value from what we're doing? If they can answer those questions, along with a few more vetting processes, then they're in. But it does take a minute to join our business now, because, I'm sure you're the same, we want to get to a point where we're a gravitational pull for people to come and join us, as opposed to us having to go to market, whether it's through recruiters or SEEK or Indeed, or however you recruit.

Paul: We want people to look at our business and say, "That's the business you want to be in if you're looking at plumbing."

Kane: I think that's such a hard place to get to. It's hard, but I think it's achievable, because it is a mindset thing and you have to be consistent and present on things like this podcast, your LinkedIn, your social media. You have to be consistently telling the story of why you, but it has to have tangible actions underneath it. You see some of these adverts on SEEK, it's crazy, fast pace, gym membership, there's a great...

Paul: Work life balance. Yeah, like, and we say we have a high challenge, high support culture. So you're going to come in, we're going to work hard together, we're going to have fun doing it, but you are going to be fully supported. If you do need to take that appointment off, and I feel like this is turning into a plug very quickly, and I don't mean it to be, but if you need that appointment at the doctors, go for it. If you need to do school pickup, go for it, as long as you're going to make it back.

Kane: So it's give and take.

Paul: It is, mate. Yeah. And that's been a big learning for me as well. Some people you give an inch, they take a mile. Some people will just go beyond to pay you back. But we don't keep checks and balances with that stuff. There's a trust element that we've got to offer, and if it goes too much one way, it's a different conversation. But I think all of that comes into the leadership conversation that we're having, and bringing people on the journey in relation to getting good people.

[41:55] Hiring a service lead, keeping apprentices

Kane: So with a service lead, is that a tradie that you're looking for?

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: So how could you bring someone along the journey, like one of your trades, how would they have any input?

Paul: So I would initially interview them myself and get a sense check, because I'm not going to waste anyone's time. Once they pass the first interview at a leadership level, they're then going to present a 30, 60, 90 day plan to me, as to what does that look like? What I want to hear in that is how you are going to embed yourself in the culture. How are you going to listen before you act? I'm not interested in someone who's going to come in like a bull in a china shop. I'm all for ideas and challenging the status quo. We do that as a team and I encourage anyone in our business to do the same.

Paul: And we recruit to replace. We recruit someone better than ourselves, so then we could potentially move up the ladder or move into a position that we want to try, whatever it is, right? So recruit to replace all the time, in a positive way.

Then in the second interview, I would have an operations team member there and I'd have a tradesperson there. The tradesperson is there because they can ask those questions. How would you integrate with the team? How would you deal with someone who's more knowledgeable than you in this space? And then from an operations standpoint, how would you collaborate with us? Because it's almost a dotted line to operations. They're very much a service lead looking after the trades, with accountability on jobs, accountability on the margins, and making sure we're as productive as possible.

Once the team have met them, it's actually setting up that person for success, because they've met some of the team. I've met some of the guys, and these two people are already cheerleaders for you in the business.

[43:59] Why one interviewer isn't enough

Paul: They're saying, "I've met the guy, he's really good," or she's really good. "They're going to be an asset to our business. I'm looking forward to them coming on board." They're already doing that work for you to settle you in for success.

Kane: Yeah, that's so good. There have been times where we've hired, not in a role like service lead, but even as tradies, and sometimes if it is only one person that spoke to them and interviewed them, and they come in and it doesn't work out, everyone's like, "Who hired them?"

Paul: 100%. And you probably put them on a pedestal as well, right? This guy's coming from here, they're going to be this, they've done this, and...

Kane: Ticked the right things.

Paul: Right. And there are so many people that interview incredibly well and then you see them after the fact. That's why we go through two or three rounds before we're like, "Right, are you it?" And this 30, 60, 90 day plan is a significant document. So if it puts people off, I'm glad.

Kane: I was going to ask you that, because when you said it to me, I was like, would you get anyone that would apply?

Paul: Yeah, well, they apply. I don't put it in the original, but at a leadership level it comes with a significant salary and responsibility. You're a core pillar in our group, and the right person in that role is not only going to help us grow, that's not going to be their role for long. They're going to grow the business to another level, and then it's whatever's next, right? So we do want to grow, not for growth's sake, but for the right reasons.

Paul: But if it puts people off, I'm glad, because it just means, all right, fair enough, you don't want to put the work in at this stage. You're not taking it as seriously, or you're shopping around. And that's one thing I've seen in WA for years now, the shopping around looking for the next shiny thing.

Kane: From the employees' standpoint?

Paul: Yeah. Not from our own team, but just people that we interview. "This is my fourth interview this week." I'm like, cool. This might not be the right opportunity for you, because if you're interviewing with four people, which is absolutely kudos to you, you're looking for the best offer, you're taking care of yourself, fantastic. We want someone who's done the research on our business and wants to be a part of it and has read that job role and said, "That's a bit of me."

[46:05] Boomerang employees

Kane: How many people do you think don't read the job role?

Paul: Oh, minimum 50%. Minimum. There are people ticking boxes. There are people who just want to get in front and be like, "Right, do I like the feel of this company? What's the money like? Great, I can make this work." Whereas we want something a bit more. And look, we've had to open our criteria a little bit more in that space. We're not interested in chasing unicorns, but we will wait for the right people to come on board and join that business. For sure.

Kane: Such a hard one. You absolutely have to, but it's so hard sometimes.

Paul: I agree. Especially if you win that contract or you get an influx of work where you don't want to let people down and you want to commit to your KPIs of servicing those customers, you need bodies. And it is easy to make those knee-jerk reactions and say, "Right, I'll take you on." We've had a few of what I call boomerangs. People have left to see if the grass is greener, or not, and they've come back. And that's good. Some of them we've had to say no to, because you left for different reasons. But some we've said yes to, because they left on good terms and they wanted to see what was out there for the right reasons, and they've come back.

Paul: It sounds like you guys would be the kind of guys that wouldn't just burn bridges, like we hear so often. You probably hear it as well, when we're hiring, the stories that you hear from their previous employer. I'm like, why are people acting like this? They get absolutely shredded. They tell them to get lost straight away. You're going to cross paths again. It's pretty much guaranteed. You only need to go to one supplier convention or one event or just a pub on a Friday, right? You're going to bump into some of these guys. It's madness.

And you've triggered something else there. I hear this with apprentices becoming qualified. I wonder if you've heard this on your side as well, where an apprentice has been somewhere for four years, ready to get qualified, and the employer is like, "No, we're not going to keep you on," or "We can't afford to keep you on," because obviously there's a significant bump.

[48:11] Qualified apprentices and what they're worth

Kane: Yeah, the pay increase is significant.

Paul: In my mind, I'm like, you've just invested four years into this person, two years, three years, whatever it is, and they know your business. You've nurtured them and moulded them in a way that suits everybody involved. They're a good asset. I can't wait to pay someone when they're qualified. I'm like, this is fantastic. Get amongst it.

Kane: Licensed, you can do work on your own.

Paul: And there's also this as well, where as soon as people get qualified, there's the entitlement that comes with it. It's like, I get part of it, right? You've worked hard for four years, you deserve it. Kudos to you. Let's work together. And then while this tradesman's been dealing with customers for this long, their skill set is this, the ticket doesn't entitle you to it. You're not there yet, is my opinion, and this is subjective, right?

Paul: There could be some absolute weapons of apprentices out there who go above and beyond. We're taking on someone from a work placement, and the feedback we got from our tradespeople on him versus some of the apprentices we've had in the past is that he's a different level. This kid's 16 years old, and we're taking him on at the end of the year. So they are out there.

Paul: They're out there with the right mindset.

But going back to that culture of burning bridges and not paying people what they're worth or their value, it's something that I've never really got my head around, but also don't concern myself with too much, because we operate differently. Sounds like you do too, which is good.

Kane: Yeah, I think that definitely happens often, especially with small businesses, like maybe two to five people. When the apprentice does qualify, going from maybe $25 now to potentially $45, for a small business the owner's like, "Well, you're basically doing the same job."

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: But it doesn't work like that. We just had one qualify and I think they've gone from, yeah, 25 to 45 straight away.

Paul: Worth keeping. Like, you've already...

Kane: It's not worth trying, "Oh, we'll give you 30 and then see how you go." It's like, you know how I go, because I've worked here for three years. The trust is there, we know our systems, you know how we deal with customers. And you bring on maybe a different tradie that comes on at maybe higher pay and they don't know the systems. They don't know our processes. So it's a hard balancing game, but I think the open communication is something we've learned a lot this year. That's going to help us.

Paul: That's good. Well done.

Kane: Hopefully.

Paul: Yeah, it will. It'll steer you well for sure.

[50:19] Changing the perception of plumbing

Kane: I had a question about your tagline. Plumbing Bros talks a lot about changing the perception of plumbing. What does this mean?

Paul: Yeah. When I first came into the business and I did a lot of research, it was one of the first questions. I sat down with the leadership team and said, "What does that mean?" It was the same question. The response was around the perception of plumbers in general, whether it's untidy, being late to jobs, not a lot of care factor. We just talked about some of the trades in this conversation around bad practices. There are trades businesses out there that just don't do the right thing, so that's where the perception of plumbing comes from.

Paul: And it's so subjective, right? What is your perception? What is my perception? My perception has always been actually quite positive about plumbers, based on my experience. But I think the overall market, and the Plumbing Bros group are approaching 10 years now, so I think that tagline's probably evolved into something more. And what does that mean? For me, I get it, and I think that's what it means when I hear it. It's in our boardroom. It's in our building. Changing the perception of plumbing. It's about being on time, being tidy. It's about the customer experience.

To be fair, since my tenure, I have had friends of mine that we've done works for say to me, "I didn't expect a plumber to be like that," in a positive way. Like, they explain things. That's it, right? They explained it to me in layman's terms. That was really positive to hear. And I think that for me started to cement what is the perception of plumbing versus the reality of what we deliver, and trades in general.

[52:25] Pricing, inflation and the value of good service

Paul: So I think that's what that means. It's very much changing the perception of plumbers. But I think we've evolved since that tagline came out, and I would expect to see that be enhanced, and as I say, with the evolution of technology nowadays, I think that's where it's at. And the market changes as well, right? You think about inflation, the perception of plumbing might be, well, I just want it to be cheaper.

Kane: But then the cost of materials, labour, you name it, everything's gone up. You do have to pay for that level of customer service as well. I do think that's important to bring up, because I know a lot of small businesses don't charge enough, and that's why a lot of businesses do fail.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: But there is obviously a fine line between...

Paul: I know it's a hard one. I want to say overcharging. I don't want to say that. I want to say taking advantage, or lying, giving the incorrect information to sell a job that doesn't need doing. I think that's where people always get caught out. Whereas if you just do the right thing, it's a recommendation of this upgrade.

Kane: Yeah, like a hot water system. Maybe if they've got an old electric, you would recommend maybe a gas instantaneous, because it's a better unit, it's going to last longer, it's got more warranty, doesn't need servicing, and so on.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: I think telling them they have to have that done as a requirement is where a lot of people go wrong, as opposed to our recommendation, give them options. This is the option, this is the recommendation, your choice.

Paul: Yeah, we have zero tolerance for recommending anything that doesn't need to be there. It infuriates me when I hear about it. You talk about the perception of plumbing, that probably adds to it, where people treat it almost like a car service. You take a car in and you're just waiting for the mechanic to call you and say you need all of this work done, and you weren't in there for a $500 service, right?

Paul: I think sometimes plumbing can be in danger of that. We do a check and say this is recommended. If it's urgent, then we'll tell the client, this is urgent, this needs to be done, these are your options. If we've seen something that's non-urgent but we recommend it, this is what we've seen, you make a decision on that. But it's good as preventative maintenance, which is the game that we're in, to have a look at that as part of a home safety check, if you want to look at that.

[54:30] Price gouging and the value conversation

Paul: But yeah, the price gouging, I just see it as crazy, as you mentioned earlier, how businesses can last that long doing that. It's almost like they make hay while the sun shines for a very short period of time, churn and burn, move on and pop up as something else. It's madness, the immorality that comes with that. It's beyond belief.

But you're right, when it comes to charging, I think there's a value conversation there. People need to understand that there is a value in the cost of the vehicle, the cost of the overheads, the cost of their qualification plus additional tickets. You're paying for an expert in the field to come to your property to solve an issue that you don't know how to do, and a lot of these tenants, a lot of these customers, have their own expertise that I'm sure they're charging other people for, whether it's time for money or their own business. So there's a fine line, as you say. The fuel thing recently, we had to just wear it. It was just unfair to charge consumers for something that happened in Saudi. But it's all part of business, and hopefully it's people like us, where we've done the right thing when the wrong thing's happened by our customers, and they stay with us.

[55:33] How customers find a trustworthy trade

Kane: So what do you think is the best way for new customers to handle it? If they get a burst pipe or something, obviously they don't always have time to get two or three quotes. As you hear on the news and the radio, get three quotes, get three quotes, get three quotes. In an emergency situation, obviously the answer is going to be you need to choose a business that has that reputation.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: How would customers find them if they have no idea? How would they research who is a reputable business as opposed to Joe Blow off the street?

Paul: I think the obvious answer is going to be Google. But we've had leads in our business through AI. When we ask about a web inquiry and it's a lead source, we're seeing AI increase more and more and more. People are treating AI as Google, even though you've got the likes of Gemini. People are starting to treat it like a search engine, where they're asking that, and we're getting leads through that.

Paul: But I think Google reviews still hold a heap of value and a heap of weight for most businesses, from hospitality right through to trades businesses, as to what's their service rating, what's their star rating. And Perth still has word of mouth. I don't think people should rely on it by any stretch of the imagination, but people will still ask, "Do you know a plumber? Do you know someone?" And then there's the trust factor. You talk about reputable businesses, but I think it's trust. Who do you trust? Who do you know that you trust? People will tend to ask their mates first if they're around them, and then they'll start going on Google or AI search to find companies.

But I think AI will start to supersede a lot of this in relation to search, because it will give you options and you can ask it a bit more detailed information, and it's going to start giving you, well, it will give you an opinion, right? It's like, "I choose these guys because of this. They have a great five-star rating, but their online presence isn't the best," or "They do these types of jobs, but they don't have on call." There are all these different things that will give you pros and cons on...

[57:40] AI search and paid ads

Kane: It can dissect some of the more complex websites for you, so you can figure out and scroll through.

Paul: Yeah, it's going to make your life easier, but there are still people that don't use it at all, right? So depending on the demographic...

Kane: There's a percentage I heard recently. I can't remember. It was low. It's something like five, or between five and 20%, are using AI. So it's nowhere near the general population. But I do think in time it surely has to take over.

Paul: It will. It just gives you too much information for such little effort.

Kane: They're doing paid ads now in ChatGPT. You know that.

Paul: Yeah, I heard about that.

Kane: It's going to be interesting.

Paul: We'll see how that works. Netflix introduced it, right? They got a lot of push back to begin with, and then people started paying for ad free.

Kane: Yeah, the same. But it's an interesting time. It's good. It could disrupt Google. They've obviously had the power for so long with no competitors really for Google Ads.

Kane: We're heavy, heavy on Google Ads, and for us there's no choice. Our business model is probably fairly different to yours, where we don't have real estates, we don't have that consistent flow whatsoever. It's all private clients. We're heavily reliant on those Google Ads new clients and also repeat clients as well.

Paul: Yeah. Do you use Meta as well?

Kane: We have in the past. We are at the moment. We're just trialling it. It's different to Google Ads. I think the intent... if you see an ad pop up through Meta, you're not searching for that. Whereas Google Ads, it's usually high intent.

Paul: Emergency plumber near me.

Kane: Yeah. For an electrician, it's like high intent. They're looking for it. Whereas Meta, I do think it's more branding.

Paul: Yeah, sure.

Kane: Like if you scroll through, you see something that you might not need at that point in time.

Paul: Yeah. We tried it a long time ago. It was terrible for us. We're trying it again more recently. The branding and marketing is not my forte. We're working on it.

Kane: Here we are in a podcast. You're getting better, mate.

[59:49] The hardest part of ownership

Kane: What's been the hardest part of business ownership that nobody warned you about?

Paul: I think it's being everything to everyone, if that makes sense. There are better ways, and I'm learning to deal with this at the moment, putting what I call aces in their places. But it's being everything to everyone all the time, and the best people actually put boundaries in and say no to certain things. That's what the best do. I know I'm not there yet. I wouldn't say it's an Achilles heel, but it's absolutely something I'm working on.

I compare it to having a baby. Now, obviously you and I have never had a baby, but my partner has. And one thing that people will always tell you before having a kid is the sleepless nights. It's not until you live it that you're like, "Ah, okay, I get it." And I compared business ownership to the same. I've always had an entrepreneurial mindset, even as an employee, but starting to live and breathe business, you're like, okay, this is it, right?

Paul: There's good days and there's bad days, like anything. I suppose that sounds so cliche, but it feels like a grind all the time, right? It just constantly feels like that, and it's adjusting your mindset to be comfortable with that. Not just "it's a bad day after bad day after bad day." It's like, no, this is the reality of me getting to the crystallised version, the view and the vision that I've got in my mind that is so clearly mapped out. It's just every day getting there. So it's having that resilience to get through that.

I think, is it less than 1% globally are business owners? And ironically, something like the largest wealth creators globally are also business owners. We sit here as a small business and we're talking about the 1 percenters of the world, but I think that mindset of resilience and pushing through, that's been the biggest challenge for me. I've really learned a lot about myself as part of this. But yeah, that resilience has been the biggest for sure.

[1:01:56] Unteachable lessons and zooming out

Kane: I've been listening to other podcasts recently. I think it's Chris Williamson who talks about unteachable lessons.

Paul: Yeah. He's exactly sort of what you just said.

Kane: Like, you have a baby, this is what you do. It should be okay. And now you hear some people that don't have kids talk about it, and you're like, what do you even do with your time?

Paul: Yeah, 100%. So it's one of those, and business is the same. I keep telling myself I'm looking forward to it where it plateaus, but it won't. It never will, right? What will happen is it will be replaced with different challenges but also different wins. What I'm looking forward to is for it to be more strategic as opposed to in the business, you know what I mean? And if you have the ability to zoom out and understand it's a point in time, that helps the resilience.

Paul: It keeps you motivated. It's like, this is a point in time. This is needs must at the moment. It's going to be replaced with different challenges. And my surrounding family, they love it and they hate it, and I reckon you'd be similar in this case, just this ambition, this drive, want to keep going, and this version of success and what success looks like and what happiness looks like.

I realised about five or six years ago that I'll never really be content, but what I do have to do is enjoy those moments along the way. It's like if you've ever been hill climbing and you get to what you perceive as the top of the hill, then there's another hill and another hill. So I have to enjoy those moments along the way. My first recruit in the business, that was a moment for me, because it freed me up to do something else. Right, we go again. What is that? Taking on an additional business. Cool. We got there. Last month we had our best month for Melbourne since taking over that business last year. Great. That's the new benchmark. What's next? But we reflect. We enjoy that moment and take it in and savour it, and then we go again, rather than just chasing that unicorn of happiness, which is non-existent.

[1:04:02] Enjoying the journey instead of chasing a plateau

Paul: You can listen to all the podcasts in the world and the theme is similar, from Olympians through to business owners that have rung the bell and sold. It's like, what's next?

Kane: Yeah, it's all about the journey. I watched a podcast the other day with Dustin Poirier, the UFC fighter. He's just retired recently, and he has nothing to live for now. Obviously with kids, but he doesn't have that drive, doesn't have the purpose, which is all about the journey. So you're saying...

Paul: You want to get to the point where we get to that plateau?

Kane: No, because you'll get there, and this happened with me before. You'll get to a point like, cool, I'm good now. This is sweet. Let's cruise. You're like, you can't mentally do it. You're like, nah, let's do this. And you go and try and do something else. So I think you've got to try and enjoy the journey while you're living it, because this is life right now.

Paul: Yeah, 100%, and it is celebrating those moments. I was very poor at that growing up. I was in it, so I wanted to keep going, keep going, keep going.

[1:05:07] From 3 to 28 people, then optimising

Paul: I presented last week at a conference, and the journey was we started off with three people in May 2024. We're now at 28 people across three businesses right now. That's not sustainable, and I made it very clear that's not sustainable. It was some crazy growth through some fortuitous circumstances, some through grit. Now it's about optimising what we've got. Let's optimise. It's not growth for growth's sake, which is what I mentioned earlier. Let's optimise the processes and the people. We'll only employ nines and tens. If you want to be part of this special thing we're building, then it's special people that are going to want to join it, right?

So we will grow now organically, not for the sake of growing. We don't have ambitions to get to x amount of trades or x amount of people by x amount of time. We want the right customer base, the right people that go hand in hand, and we'll grow organically through that, and then we can service accordingly. So yeah, it's exciting but also knackering. I look poor for a 21-year-old, mate.

Kane: Hopefully you find a service lead soon.

Paul: Yeah, that's going to be a big one, and that'll be another one of those moments for me once that person's ingrained in the team and ingrained in the business. Cool. Right, what's next? Where are we going? You breathe for a second and then we go again.

Kane: Is that taking more of your role then? That specific...

Paul: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Service lead. It's going to be great. We talk about working in and working on the business, and that's going to remove some of the working in the business for me. But there's a period of time onboarding, setting them up for success. That's not going to happen overnight.

Kane: Yeah, of course. That's good. Before we wrap up, is there anything we haven't covered that you want to talk about?

[1:07:11] Culture, people and wrap-up

Paul: Is there anything we haven't covered? I think we've covered a lot. We've talked about people, talked about ownership of the business. I don't think so. We touched on FIFO a little bit and the challenges we have with that in relation to recruitment, but no, I don't think there's anything else to cover. I think I'm good. Yeah. Thank you.

Kane: I think a lot of it is culture and communication. It's all about the people.

Paul: Yeah, 100%. And I think those that do that well will get through any tide. When it comes to business, you had the COVID period that we went through, you had the GFC back in the day, you've got AI now, which is a very real thing. So culture, the ones that have it and foster it. I say culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? So it's having the right culture in your business that just will create longevity. People are everything. Protect your people and they'll in turn protect your customers, which is fantastic.

Kane: For sure.

Paul: Yeah.

Kane: Where can people find you and Plumbing Bros?

Paul: Online. Google us through AI. And phone, our office is based in West Leederville, so we're happy to speak to people there as well. Yeah, the usual channels, email, phone, online, socials.

Kane: Cool. Thanks for coming on.