E06 - A daughter and father building combo!

[00:00:00]

Hamish: Now, Beth, Beth and Greg, thanks for joining us on another episode of, the Mindful Builder. Matty, good to see you. Beth, I've got a question for you.

Beth: yes.

Hamish: You could have been anything, absolutely anything that you wanted to be.

And I reckon Greg might have had something to do with this. Collingwood,

come on.

Beth: we would have been kicked out of home in our house if we didn't barrack for Collingwood. So

Matthew: I don't know if we should stop this conversation now, hey? I'm a Carlton supporter, so

Beth: Oh no,

Hamish: Yeah, I, I, I knew I was gonna open up a can of worms. Obviously I'm a Melbourne supporter, but, um, yeah, I, I, I must admit Joel jokes aside, I think I mean this is definitely not like an A FL podcast, but, uh, I think Collingwood got a pretty special thing going on at the moment with, uh, Craig McCray at the

Beth: they do. Yeah.

Hamish: look, I'm, I'm always at the view that, you know, change comes one death at a time. And hopefully all those old school Collingwood supporters that I see at the game, uh, are not there in a few years time. 'cause it's a, it's an interesting place to be.

Greg: Who's,

Matthew: alright, so

Hamish: Beth, you, um, you started your career in

fashion.

Is that right?

Beth: I did. [00:02:00] Yeah. Yeah. I used to work in retail

Hamish: and then, I mean, how did you then make the, Left turn, right turn, however you want to do it into, to Carbon Room

Beth: Um, I'd been working in, in like fashion retail for like eight or nine years since I was about 14. And then when I finished school, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I just kind of fell into managing and working in the shop full time and I was pretty good at it. So I kind of got promoted quickly.

, I think my strengths is like managing people and, , organizing and that kind of thing, so I, I love that side of it, but I just got to the point where I was so unfulfilled, like going to work every day and just like, it just felt so. Yeah. I'm fulfilling basically. So I, I, I kind of fell into carpentry.

Like I did it. I always used to joke around saying, Oh, I wish I was a tradie. Like, looks like fun. And the hours are good. Like I wish I could work with dad, blah, blah, blah. And then yeah, it was just really unhappy at work and looking for a change. I applied to like a few brands kind of house sort of jobs doing like a bit of a pivot, which is what a lot of like retail people end up doing.

But yeah, in the end, I, I just. Decided to do my apprenticeship. But I actually, if I'm honest, like I never had the intention of, or not intention, I just never thought that I would actually finish it. And then I sort of, I'm pretty stubborn. So I gave myself a goal, like, even if I was hating it, I would promise myself I would do 12 months, like I wouldn't let myself quit.

And I definitely wanted to quit a few times, but yeah, at the end of the 12 months, I was there. Yeah, I finished it and then I, I just kind of ended up really enjoying it, the lifestyle and I got really into it and now here I am.

Matthew: So day one, did you start with dad or you started, you work with someone else before?

Beth: Yeah, I started with dad. Well it's kind of, I did my apprenticeship with an agency, so, Apprenticeship Groups Australia and [00:04:00] they, like you, you actually work for them and they're your employer. And then other like host employers hire you out from there. Yeah, and Greg's Lost Apprentice. Was with them as well.

So I did, yeah, Greg was like my host employer, but then I think the first, maybe 12 months, I was mostly just with him and other chippy that worked with us. And then we worked for another company. So. I got an experience, like experiences with other, guys. Actually, Simon who, Simo, who you would know from Instagram, who works for us he was one of the supervisors that I worked for

Matthew: so day one on a building site, what do you remember?

Beth: Oh, I don't know, that's not, I don't really think anything. I mean, obviously my dad is a builder, so I'd grown up like, I can remember being a little kid on my school holidays and going like Greg used to have a really big business back in the day. Now we don't. Just work together, but I can remember growing up and going to work on, like, big building sites in the holidays and, like, running around taking people's lunch orders and stuff and sweeping up and always, hanging around reno's and stuff.

So I don't think I was really. super shocked when I first started, but I don't know, maybe I've forgotten.

It feels like,

a long time ago.

Greg: Yeah, I can't remember what it was like for that first day for both of us, but I remember, you know, a lot of that early days stuff. I mean, as Beth mentioned, we were subbing at one stage there to another company and we were doing a lot of hospital renovation work and a lot of what we were doing was demolition work and Beth just really grew to hate the demolition component

Beth: Yeah. It was pretty hard work. Like this one job we did, we're working upstairs in a hospital and like, obviously being a live hospital, you have to have minimal impact. So, We're not allowed to use lifts or anything like that. We have to use like fire stairs to take rubbish out.

So we're demolishing like double brick walls and we've got all these like lead lined plaster and stuff, [00:06:00] because depending on what part of the hospital you're working on and you've got to carry all these materials in like buckets down the stairs. So I was literally just like doing. I don't know how many flights of stairs a day I would have been doing, just carting rubbish.

Matthew: and that's the moment that you're like, Oh, maybe I should quit. Don't know if I'm going to do this.

Beth: Basically, yeah, I say this to my apprentice all the time. You know, like not everything that we do is fun, but it all kind of evens out and I guess you've got to just sort of, Learn to deal with some of the stuff that isn't that fun. And then I try to find like a positive in every single thing that I do, but I'm a pretty like perky person, I guess.

Like, you know, if I'm doing demo or something like that, I remember when I was an apprentice hating it, I would just be like, Oh, well, like at least I'm super fit. Like I'm getting like free exercise at work.

Matthew: And then you go home and you're absolutely fucked and you just crash.

Beth: Yeah.

Hamish: how long have you been a carpenter builder

for, what, 10 years, 12 years, 15 years?

Beth: will be 11 years this year. Yeah,

Hamish: So I think I've been in the trade for about 20 odd years now, and you know, if I think back to when I first started, and just for the record, I'm so glad this has changed now, like women on site was not something that you even thought of. And I think that when Beth came to you and said, Hey, I want to do this, like, 1, what was your reaction?

And 2, what was the people around his reaction? Like, was, was that a really positive thing?

Greg: strangely enough, Beth wasn't my first female apprentice. I think I've had 18 apprentices over the years, and Beth is the second female. So back when we were large our first, um, female apprentice. Her name was Sarah that was a commercial site, really tough for her but she managed to get through it.

And, um, I guess that sort of helped to understand what I needed to do to create a decent environment for Beth, but Beth can tell you [00:08:00] so many stories about the attitudes of workers, delivery drivers, it's just a very difficult place for women. And as you said, Hamish, it's so much better now. it's still tough, but 20 years ago, or when I started, I started in 1976, there was just You may as well fly to the moon as be a woman and go into the trade

Matthew: find yourself getting like really protective because it's your daughter?

Greg: sometimes. Yes, absolutely.

Hamish: I mean, I don't really want to try and make this about like, you know, well, Beth Sebilde and all that kind of stuff, because, you know, I really feel that that's changing now. Like, I think we're at a point in time where, it's not uncommon to see multiple women on site, I guess the point I was trying to make, 10, 15 years ago, like, it was always a lot of different atmosphere, like a lot, lot different landscape back then.

Beth: Yeah, 11 years ago,

ago when I started the trade school that I was at across every single trade. So plumbing, electrical, carpentry that had boiler making then I was the only girl at the school

Matthew: And

Beth: years ago. and then I look at like, I've got a a young girl that works for me now.

And the experience that she is having is like, so awesome. she's got like a few mentors and there's another girl in our class, like, I can't be bothered getting into all that unless you really want to talk about it. But like, I've moved trade

schools.

Hamish: no, no, no, no,

no.

Beth: I, I had got absolute hell at my school. Like, yeah, so

Hamish: Yeah. No, I mean, let's, let's focus on the awesome things you do now, Beth, and not, not about all that, crap back then. Cause. You know, thankfully things are changing.

Matthew: so Greg, I've got a question for you. So Beth loves Instagram. When she sort of started filming her content on site, what was running through your head? Like she's getting a camera out, filming what she's doing. You've been in the industry for how long? Like, were you just like, what the fuck are you doing?

Beth: was qualified when I started doing that though. So I will say I was on my own dime then.[00:10:00]

Matthew: dads

Greg: we discussed it prior because I was of the time where you didn't get your phone out during work hours. And we actually had a situation with some of the guys who worked for us. I remember at one stage we did the tram lining behind the tennis center and Myself and a couple of others were setting out the alignment of the rail and I stood up and looked up and I reckon I counted 20 blokes standing there on their phones.

So we brought a company policy in where no one was allowed to be on their phone outside of their crib times. But now it's totally different. And many cases you can tell by the bad shots, I'm the one who's actually filming Beth doing what she's doing. So it's a very different world in which we live now. Yeah. Well,

Matthew: when you look at that and the filming, like that education that other people like encourages like continual learning. So putting that content out there, like, like it just encourages so many people to go, Oh, I can do that too. And I want to learn to be better and stuff like that.

Like I find it really, really powerful. And I know that's why Hamish and I, we love educating people on social media. And I think it's, I think it's really, really important for our industry to share the knowledge because we all want to be better.

Greg: That's wrong.

Hamish: massive fan of Beth's Instagram account for, I don't know, probably three or four years now. Content you're putting out.

Matthew: Thumbs

Hamish: Give it two thumbs up now, but, uh, yeah, it's really good. Hey, Beth, I just got a question for you. Tell us a little bit about your business. You, you say you've got an apprentice. I know Greg works for you guys. who else is your team made up by?

Beth: So it's kind of growing pretty quickly, actually recently. So yeah, there's me, Greg my apprentice Ruby. I've also got my sister in law, I admin person, but now my sister in law works for me part time as well. So she does like stuff in the office. about 15 or so hours a week, but I need her to be doing more.

So we'll see

Matthew: And you're on the tools, you're on the tools whole time.

Beth: [00:12:00] I am, but I have to spend a lot of time on the computer as well. So like, technically I'm on the tools, but depending on what stage a job is at or what's going on, I'd be spending like two or three hours. Lately on the computer every day.

Matthew: How have you found that transition? Have you found it? I know most tradies typically find it hard to go from being on the tools to then having this in front of a computer,

Beth: I find it pretty hard and I think as well, it's just like, I've been definitely in the last 12 months, I've been struggling with the balance of it. And what I used to do was be on the tools all day and then I would get home and I'd be on my computer till like 11 o'clock at night. And I'd be sending emails at like all hours and yeah, not ideal.

So,

um, I've been trying, to spend more time during the day, like in my work day, doing that, which has been good, but then, it's annoying not being on the tools. But it's kind of like a transition that everyone has to sort of make.

So I get it.

Hamish: kind of projects that you're doing, Beth. Is your projects usually renovations, extensions, new builds, mixture of it

Beth: and extensions only normally. I've done like a few kind of like little commercial things and I, I definitely like that sort of style. I've done a few Pilates studios and that kind of thing. But my favorite things, Reno's and extensions.

Matthew: with Greg, is that where your, like your expertise has come from in the past as well? Like, is that what you've brought through to now working with Beth?

Greg: Well, I think it's just an old person's knowledge, really. You've lived life for this long and you've made some mistakes along the way, so, you know, I did it like this once and this is what happened. Let's think about this.

Beth: People that work with us know Greg as what I, cause I call him Building Yoda. he's done like really high end architectural homes. [00:14:00] He's done, the sort of larger scale construction stuff. He's done trams, bridges, like, Alright, guys. He's done everything.

Hamish: I would crave to have someone like Greg in my business, just to tap into that knowledge. my dad was a banker and you know, hadn't, he's got no fucking idea about building. I don't know where I got my talent for it from, but I'd crave to have that wealth of knowledge to tap

Greg: Yeah, but all the same, he, he can bring very valuable information to the table as well.

Hamish: absolutely. I'm not, not, not sheet canning my dad at all. He's an amazing person. And look, my background, I've got a Bachelor of Business in Marketing and Tourism. I kind of have come into building in a different way. But that knowledge base would be incredibly valuable, Beth. And I'm curious to know when.

When the relationship switch from Beth being the apprentice and subcontracted to Greg to Greg working for Beth builds like when did when did that all happen?

Beth: When I became qualified, we went and worked, I think that was when we were working for Carbon Light for a little bit. And then my Instagram page started, like, gaining traction. And then I started getting a lot of followers. Leads through that. kind of just started doing a couple of those and then yeah, it just kind of grew pretty sort of quickly. And now I'd say. We really only do. Um, but we sort of present like a team, like, I know that I wouldn't be able to tackle the things that I tackle without Greg and we wouldn't probably get, you The sort of clients and jobs that we get, well, Greg wouldn't without me.

So we kind of like work really well together in the sense that we both bring something really different to the table and we kind of compliment each other. So we make a good team.

Hamish: That's what it's all about. Right? I mean, I know Matt and myself, our teams are built up by. Multiple different people with different skill sets, and you know, it's not just me or it's not [00:16:00] just Matt that is the success of our businesses. And yeah, it's that that whole sort of team atmosphere.

That's, um,

by the sounds of things, makes what you're

successful.

Beth: probably only in like, I'd say like 2020 is when things kind of really ramped up and I started doing just renos and extensions more with me. And then we had like a little bit of a lull after COVID while we were sort of waiting for contracts and stuff to go through, but then, yeah, basically since then.

Yeah.

Matthew: being qualified. What was the first time that you can recall that she proved you wrong? And then something that she did was, like, better method than what you were doing or outwitted you in some certain way on the building site?

Greg: Well, I'm not sure about the first time certainly she proved me wrong when she was a kid many times, but really the, uh, project management side of stuff. Like, I'm very old school, I would still do my quotes on a, uh, Excel spreadsheet, I mean, that's probably quite technical for me but, you know, Beth brings so much more to the table, she's unbelievable with her communication with the clients and the consultants, et cetera. Leaves me for dead. I'm just an old carpenter who, you know, you had to be registered to do a job. So, back in the old days, you got registered for one dollar.

Matthew: It's not that anymore.

Greg: nah, it's

Matthew: You probably got more, you probably got more value for that 1 from the VBA than you do for the 1600 you pay now.

Greg: Well, thankfully, it didn't exist back then. All my biggest bane of life, actually. Yeah, so, the skills that Beth brings from that point of view, or from my point of view, are just unbelievable. Whereas, because I don't like computers, and I don't like learning new stuff on the computers, I'm probably never ever going to go there properly.

So, um, that's another thing, as we were saying before, that you reach, bring your skillset to the table.

Matthew: did you say that [00:18:00] was something like dad was not like that, that you could be better at? Did that encourage you to be better at doing so the backend stuff, Beth, or is it something naturally just came to you?

Beth: I definitely saw it as a gap in his business model.

and just like little things like knowing your business and knowing what's going on. Like, like, it's good to be hands on, on the tools and like, that's probably like what we all love. Like, that's why we become carpenters and then builders like that's because that's where our passion is.

But in reality, like, you have to kind of know your business and you have to know how much money you're making and how much money you're spending, like, you know, I think learning all of that stuff so that at any given Moment I could tell you how much money a certain job is making and you know, do we need to hurry the fuck up because we're behind and we're losing money or , can we sort of say to the client, Oh, Hey, do you want me to do this and this for you?

Because we know that we've got like a bit of extra time and we can get some good kind of will with people and that kind of thing. So I think, making sure I understand everything in that sense and even like contracts and that kind of thing. you have to know that shit.

Matthew: you think that you end up being in the office full time? Like, is there a world where you're not on site, like, now, but I've gone

Beth: I wouldn't like to be doing that, but I do think it might happen. But yeah, I think I'd rather structure the business in a way that I can still be half and half or maybe the business is so successful that I don't have to work for any clients and I can just flip my own houses because that's what I want to do. Like I'm just working so I can pay for my rentals.

Hamish: I suspect that you and I might share a very simple personality trait and believe me when I say sitting in front of a computer all day is the

Beth: Yeah.

Hamish: fucking thing to do. Um, I've got to sit stand desk and I'm literally fidgeting and like rolling my feet out while I'm talking and you know, I still always got to keep moving and yeah, I'm sitting in front of the computer all day is just, it's not what I'm [00:20:00] made for.

Yeah, I think I'm very much

like you you want to get out there and start swinging hammers and stuff

Matthew: I'm literally the flip side, like, I was a fucking shit carpenter. I think it's awesome that you can identify that, Hey, at some point you do need to look after the business because without you running the business, the business is not there.

And I think that transition for so many trades really, really struggled to move into that next phase of their building career. And It's not that you can't still be on the tools. I think you just there's other things that you have to worry about. So you can keep building and do it well.

And I know there's a lot of education out there on running businesses now, probably, especially in the last two to three years, like previously there was nothing, but now there's so many groups you can join. Everyone's sort of happy to share information with each other, which I, I think is really powerful.

Do you get much coaching or do you, have you just learned from mistakes?

Beth: I will say Tara she's not actually a part of my, like my payroll team, but. I consider her as part of the team, um, but she is a subcontractor. She's from art house. I don't know if you know her.

Matthew: Yeah, I've started, I've literally started working with her as well. She's fucking awesome. Yeah.

Beth: an absolute legend.

Hamish: Can tell us a bit more, how has she changed a

Beth: Uh, She basically given me like a lot of processes for my business.

And taught me, like, I've got a really good accountant as well. So we have like where like he'll motivate me and make sure I'm like, Doing the right things and that kind of thing, but kind of like a combination between him and Tara. Like she's given me a lot of processes on like tracking things.

she introduced me to Buildings Act, which I now use. And even with my quoting and estimating charging like I was already charging for quotes before I started working with Tara. it's just like a good sounding board. Like, I feel like sometimes when you're like, I'm still young and I'm still new to this and I have a lot to learn.

So like, it's good to have a sounding board. Sometimes I'll be like, Oh, you know, I'm [00:22:00] worried about, you know, putting my price up for a quote and Tara's like, nah, fuck that. Like you work hard. You deserve it. Like, you know, it doesn't touch the sides. What we charge for what. the time I spend. So like, I should be charging more.

so it's just nice to have someone to kind of bounce ideas off and kind of be in your corner a little bit.

Hamish: from the outside looking in, like you've created a brand, right? Like Beth builds is like its own little entity now.

Matthew: From

Hamish: I see. Fuck yeah, you should charge for your time. Fuck yeah, you should charge, you know, more to be involved in that pre construction process.

just on, , on that whole brand thing, like, where did the thumbs up thing come from?

Because that's really quite iconic

now, this whole Beth builds thumbs up thing. Like, who would have thought that a thumbs up would be somewhat logo? Like, I

think it's awesome. Where did that come

Matthew: I

Beth: of just happened I used to post videos on my personal Instagram account of me at work, like just for my mates. it kind of started with me just sort of like waving my hand in front of like whatever I was doing with a thumbs up. then I started my work Instagram and I just kind of always did it.

And then, I was involved with a company, total tools, everyone would know total tools. I became an ambassador with them pretty early on in my Instagram sort of thing. And yeah, I went to like a networking conference. They flew me up. They have this like big conference that they do where all the tool brands come and stuff.

And they flew me and some other Instagram people. at the time up to this thing. And we did like a kind of, we were on like a panel talking about social media and stuff. And for that, I was like, Oh, I really want like branding and a t shirt to wear so that I can be networking with all these brands and stuff.

And yeah, one of the guys from that group was like, mate, like everyone knows you for doing the thumbs up. Like you have to make that your [00:24:00] logo, like you should do it. And then that's kind of where it all started. Greg's wearing the t shirt.

Hamish: I saw that you actually posted tonight. I'll, maybe I'll drop my address in

the, um, in the chat box here and I'll send us one over.

Beth: The hats are cool. I well, I got all my branding and stuff done back in 2020. And like, when I got a website and everything, when I started, like, became a company instead of just a subcontractor. I met with someone who helped me like do my professional branding and I really wanted to change the name of the business because I didn't want it to be Beth builds.

I just wanted like, in case I wanted to remove myself from the business at some time, or if it grows, like people will be like, well, I've got Ruby or I've got Greg, like where's Beth kind of thing. But. The feedback that I got from her was that I already had so much traction, so it makes sense just to keep it and that it's okay to have other people working in the business and that kind of thing.

So I actually wanted to change it, but now I'm kind of glad that I didn't.

Hamish: No, I think, I think

Beth: Yeah.

Matthew: And you've attached your name to it. Like I think it's something you should be super, super proud of

Hamish: this is a true story. I once upon a time had a business called Hamish built.

Beth: Did you?

Hamish: This is not even a word of a lie, I'll dig up a logo just to prove this, but I'm not just giving out lip service, but once upon a time, I actually had that and then I went to partnership and, went out the window, but I mean, I think the best brand because that's what it is. Now, I actually think it's a bigger than you now, Beth, like, which is a good thing. Like, you know, you actually want your brand to be much more than you. So if Greg rocks up or Ruby rocks up or someone else rocks up, it actually doesn't matter because people are buying into that brand that you've built.

So good on you for, keeping it. I think it's awesome.

Matthew: But you, you, I think you don't get [00:26:00] to where you are today without making mistakes. So I want to hear from both of you the biggest mistake you've ever made on a building site or running a business. Is there something that comes to mind

Beth: yeah, I know one.

Matthew: you happy to share it?

Hamish: Well, you know, one for Greg, you know, and for Greg, you know, for

yourself,

Beth: mine. Greg probably knows what mine's going to be. I'll start

Hamish: could you

Beth: I'll start twitching. like one of my first I had done started off well but I learned with that I should have trust my gut with things. And now since then, I've always trusted my gut.

Like there was a lot of the gnarling about pricing and, and this and that. And I kind of should have trusted my gut with what direction it was going to go. And it the relationship at the end wasn't, As great as what every other relationship I have had with a client is so, it's really sad that that happened but it's something that I definitely have learned from in the sense that now I won't say yes to things unless it's something that aligns with me.

, you know, like I'd rather. Not have work then be doing the wrong kind of work.

Matthew: But without going through that, you're not in the position you are today. there's so much learning from that mistake

Beth: 100%. I think every builder has, at least one job that they're like, oh, that was a tough.

Matthew: yeah, like I think like Greg's experience and his thing, like the, the experience comes from, you've just made millions of mistakes and it's like, Hey, don't do it that way. Do it this way. Like that's how we gain knowledge.

Hamish: said this a bunch of times and I actually said it to my team last Friday, but I'm the son of every time that I fucked up and like, I would not be where I am right now if if I didn't make mistakes and then I met and I'd like talk offline so much about shit that goes wrong. Like, we're not perfect.

But it's all about kind of unpacking and learning from it, like if you just constantly making those same mistakes again, like if you've got a spidey sense about a client again, now you're like, hang on a minute, I remember, I know where this goes, so I'm going to, I'm going to check [00:28:00] myself, I'm going to work through it, yeah, what about you, Greg,

Greg: well, the first thing I'd like to say is in the building industry, as we all know now, it's not that mistakes or things like that don't happen, it's how you recover from those and how you deal, how you work your way through them , is whether you're a good builder or not. But I think for me personally, the biggest mistake I've ever made was.

Getting into bed with a group of lawyers who were a developer. And for me personally, you know , whole scenario where there's lots of legislation in play from the various government bodies that protect clients from builders. And that's fair enough. There are plenty of bad builders out there, but where's the legislation protecting the builders from the bad clients and in particular developers?

There are lots of people who are a developer, but don't have the funds to do the project

Matthew: I think we've seen that over the last few years. Like, I think, I'm open. I think our whole industry needs to totally reform. Like, I think we need to be flipped on our head and there needs to be some protection. We rerun so much risk in what we do, and there's so much stress that's associated with it.

And look, we might be biased cause that's what we do for a job, but it's the reality. , we're not just builders. We're marriage counselors. We're psychologists to people we work for. We're, we're marketing. We were HR where we got to deal with everything. And I, and I think. for most people, Where the biggest investment they're going to make other than buying their home.

And there's just not enough, I think, help from our side of things. I think that we just need to look at COVID where it was all fine and dandy when everyone was at home, we're at work, but it looks great. And all the funds have been hounded out to every other business. But once that stopped, we were the ones that pick up the shit and our industry just collapsed and we got nothing.

look, I could go on all day about how I think the VBA are a piece of shit. They don't do enough to support us. I think I'm very open about the industry bodies like master builders and HI. They're in bed with the big volume builders and stuff like that. They're not here to support us. I'm so happy to piss people off about that.

Hamish: if I was to give one little bit of advice to anybody it [00:30:00] would be to ask for funds to complete from every single client that you are going into contract with, get a bank statement, get a letter from the lawyer, get a letter from the accountant, get a letter from the bank and say, and prove that there is money to finish that

project

Beth: it's in our contract. There's actually a line item in our contract that says

you are entitled to get proof of funds.

Hamish: but do you know what, Beth, I mean, I've been doing this for a little bit longer than you, it has only been the last four years that I've started to ask for that, right? And like, I take my hat off to you, I'm, I'm 42 this year, you know, you're 33, like, I was nowhere near where you are when I was, as I was 33.

And I say the same thing to Matty too, because Matty's pretty young, like, like I see you guys coming through and like, where you guys are sitting, like the next 10

Matthew: I think we're lucky. We're going to get to see everyone else's mistakes and we're going to benefit from it. I think that we're going to get quite lucky in an industry where social media is starting to become a bigger player. Like, I don't connect with Hamish without social media, like we don't connect with you without social media.

And as much as it's, it can be a negative life and have all these sort of problems that it creates, it also has a lot of positive. And I think it's something that I'm sort of thankful for in our industry that it's helped propel me to where I am today. And I can probably say the same about probably the three of you as well. Sorry.

Beth: Social media gets a bad rap. I think it's a lot of positive things, especially in like, I mean, we're in like this little kind of niche bubble, but in, in that little niche bubble, it's so great, like I've made some really good, builder friends and like. Being able to connect with like minded people, like I've been down to the pub with Jack from Nook and sat and chatted with him about stuff and been like, Oh, what's your advice on this?

And like, we'll just like, talk about stuff. We'll openly talk about like, there's other builders. I'll talk about markup and margins and this and that. And it's like, it's nice to be able to have those kinds of relationships and sharing knowledge [00:32:00] and that kind of thing. Otherwise it's a bit of a lonely road and you kind of just fumbling in the dark.

Matthew: How does that go from your time, Greg? Like, where does that, like, from when you were Beth's age, being a builder, is it just totally different?

Greg: yeah, absolutely. In the old days, you had to actually go and work for someone who did things differently to learn from them, and you had to actually be like a trusted employee for them to take time to teach you stuff. whereas nowadays you can hit up people on Instagram, it's as simple as looking at a different way of hanging a door or something, you learn things from other people.

Beth: I've been showing Greg your posts Matt. The post about how you stop the rodents from getting into the batten.

Greg: We're always trying to explain to Ruby, the apprentice, that there are 101 ways of skinning a cat. And I do it the way I like to do it because that's best for me. Then Beth does it in a different way because that's best for her. And so you've got to work out what's best for you and then make that work for you.

information is so much more accessible now. And, and as you touched on earlier, Matt, It comes down to emotional intelligence too. If you can look at what someone else is doing and learn from that without having to make that mistake yourself a couple of times, that's a very intelligent person who can do that.

Matthew: it's saved me thousands and thousands of dollars across the years by just being like, Oh, that is a better way of doing something. And then my, my team will even come to me and be like, Oh, check out what this person did. Like we should implement that. I'm like, that's a great idea. Like it empowers them to come to work and be a little bit more excited about what they're doing.

and for them looking at stuff outside of work shows interest. It shows that they're keen. They want to learn. So then you invest more time in them to learn because they're coming to you with stuff. So it becomes this whole cycle. And once that snowball keeps rolling, it just grows and grows and grows.

Beth: That's the what. about where it's going in this, in the industry. It's not that mentality of like, Oh, let's not reinvent the wheel. Like, it's cool that everyone's open to that kind of thing.

Hamish: I feel, I mean, this is probably something different you know, what we're [00:34:00] experienced and what you've experienced, Greg, like this whole non competitive environment in that tender process and the openness in sharing information. I'm speaking to it in like a high performance and passive house space because that whole space is pretty collaborative.

But from what you're saying, Beth, it's sort of outside that as well, which, which is awesome. Like 20 years ago, like that was not heard of.

Everyone's keeping their cards so close to their, chest.

Matthew: it wasn't even that long ago. Like I, I finished my apprenticeship and I was like, I'm the same age as Beth. And I went and worked for a builder, like Greg said, to learn how not to do something. Because that was the way you learn. And I wanted to learn.

I knew that they didn't treat people well. So I went and worked for them to learn, to make sure I didn't do that. So I think our generation is still like, I'm only 34, I think. So we're still at that. We sort of got that reality and work of not having. social media where kids these days, that's all they know. Like, so I'm super interested what happens in say five, seven years when you got new apprentices that are born in the, now and they've had social

Beth: Mindfulness.

Matthew: Like, I find it weird. I got someone, a new employee recently and their birth date was like 2001 and I was where'd the 90s go?

Hamish: Hey, um, Beth builds. Where's that in five years?

Beth: Oh, that's a tricky question., I don't want to get too big. So I'd like to be doing this high end, but like a little bit quirky kind of renovations and extensions. And then maybe in 10 years. Maybe I don't have to work for other people. I would love to just be able to buy old places and do them up.

Like I'm loving working on my house. It's so good. And

like being able to do some cool stuff and use cool products and have these really collaborative things with suppliers and it's a cool space to be in. So hopefully. I can head that way.

Hamish: there's something very satisfying about working on your own home. Something very, very satisfying about that.

Matthew: so, uh, [00:36:00] but Greg five, five years, where are you?

Are you still working? Do you want to retire soon?

Greg: I'm the sort of person who can't sit around and do nothing. So, It'd be nice to be retired, but still to come and help Beth or our sons also in the building game as well. You've always got to have something to do to keep you occupied, but then you also need enough time to get on your motorbike and go up a road you haven't ridden down before.

Matthew: me, like looking at you, your relationship here, it's awesome. Like, I think it's so unique that you, like father and daughter get to work together on a building site and just watching you two communicate and feed off each other.

Like, I love listening to both of you today. I feel great about where our industry is at with conversations like this. Really, TAMISH,

Hamish: Yeah. Beth, you know, you should be so incredibly proud with what you've created. And Greg, you should be very proud Of your daughter, because I think what she's doing is absolutely incredible and is really paving the way for a whole bunch of young women to get into the industry. I know our apprentice Salina does look up to Beth.

And sees it being a real option for a career path. So good on you, Beth, like keep doing what

Beth: Thank you. Thank you. Well on Instagram at Beth Builds or email Beth at BethBuilds. com. au.

Hamish: Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us. It's been awesome.

Beth: Thanks for having us.