Episode 454: How Cody Scaled His Custom Home Business to Increase Profit and Win Back His Life

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How do you go from being the problem in your construction business to being the reason it finally grows without you involved in the day to day? How do you hire the right who’s in your business so you can step into a real CEO role, still be at home, be present and not glued to your phone all while your projects run without you? How do you go from being the problem in your construction business to being the reason it finally grows without you being involved in the day to day and

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How do you convince prospects to pay you for a structured pre-construction process when you’ve always been doing free estimates and it seems like everybody else around you does? You’re listening to the Construction Leading Edge podcast from constructionleadingedge.com where we are all about systematizing your construction business so you can maximize freedom, impact, and wealth. My name is Todd DeWalt and my team and I have helped hundreds of construction business owners

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put systems in place so they can eliminate chaos, grow their profits, build stronger teams and get their lives back. This episode is a case study of how one of our clients, a custom home builder named Cody Reimer, owner of Okan Builders in Southern Manitoba, went from a two man operation, being stuck in the day to day, burned out and close to quitting to now leading a 12 person team.

01:25
taking real time off and actually feeling like a CEO. There’s a few things we’re going to walk through that you’ll take away from this episode. How Cody realized his business was unintentionally designed to fail because everything depended on him. We talk about a few of the specific systems that he installed to turn things around. We also talked about how he sells pre-construction as a paid service. Some of these specific things he says so that clients happily say yes.

01:55
to him getting paid for pre-construction. And then we dig into the who, not how mindset that let him hire the right people, get out of the day to day and be present at his family instead of staring off at the space as he described. So if you’re a construction business owner and you feel like you own a job, not a business, this episode shows you what it looks like to fix that in real life. And we also talk about some of the…

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the side effects of success, some things you need to be prepared for when it works. Some people are surprised by that. And be sure to listen to the end when we talk about the belief that was quietly holding Cody back, how he broke it and what changed when he went from, as he said, sanding nail holes to operating like a CEO while his 12 person teams keeps things moving without him.

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Quick public service announcement if you’re thinking about scaling your business, all right? A company studied why successful contractors fail and they found two things. Number one, they found contractors don’t starve to death. They get too much work too fast with inadequate resources and then they run out of cash. The second thing they learned after studying a couple of hundred successful contractors that failed, this is a pretty depressing study by the way, they also found that contractors

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are actually more likely to go bankrupt during a growing economy than during a downturn. So, how do you know if your construction business is ready to scale? How do you know when it’s time to hire more people, go after bigger projects, sell more, take on more overhead? That’s a question that I get a lot. So I created an online assessment called, is your construction business ready to scale?

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And the link is in the show notes or you can go to construction that leading edge.com forward slash ready R E A D Y take the assessment. takes a couple of minutes and it’ll give you a customized report. So with that being said, let’s get to my conversation with Cody Reimer owner of Okan builders. Enjoy. All right, Cody, welcome to the podcast, man. How are you doing today? I’m doing really well. It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

04:08
Let’s start with this. Tell us a little bit about your business, the name of the company, where you’re located and what kind of work you do. All right. So we run Okan Builders and we are a small uh custom home builder based out of Rosenort, which is a small town in Canada, 30 minutes south of Winnipeg. We kind of run a really tight knit company here, very relationship focused. And yeah, that’s the business we have here.

04:38
How did you get started in business and when did you start? My dad was a firefighter, a career firefighter and he, on his off days, he would pick up carpentry projects, that kind of thing. And he’s always been a carpenter by trade as well. And so when I was about 14, I started going to job sites with him and working with him, decks, fences, siding projects, just little things. I’ve also always been a dreamer at the same time and had an entrepreneurial mind.

05:07
like starting new things. so I eventually started, we started uh our company, just me on the tools by myself. That’s where it all started. After I got married, my father-in-law was a general contractor and he managed his jobs all from off the tools. And so I saw a brand new side of construction that I hadn’t seen. And so when I started to synthesize the two worlds is when I realized, oh, this could become something bigger. My construction experience plus learning to manage from.

05:36
away from the tools. so the business dreams started growing from that. And that’s kind of how I really got into it and developed the vision for it as well. You mentioned you were entrepreneurial. Was the construction business the first business that you started? Was it your first entrepreneurial venture? It was, and I’ve started a few since, but that’s kind of the original dream. We talked originally back in early 2024, I believe, maybe a little bit.

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earlier than that, you started working with us, I think in fall of 2024, summer, of 2024. So it’s been a couple of years now. What was going on back then? What were you dealing with in the business that led you to reach out to us initially? That was a low time ah in my career. So we had a lot of work. I was still a guy on the tools for the most part. I had built up a crew and had just kind of gotten off the tools and one guy after another.

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my crew left. It was a low point. was really searching and wondering what was the next step. I was even considering hanging up the belt and just going into a different career. But I really felt like there was more to this. I felt like there was a calling in my life to serve uh people and the community with our business and to give glory to God. um so a new spark was formed.

07:03
And I had just kind of started listening to your podcast. You had recommended on there reading the book, E-Myth. I read the book, the light bulb started going on. I’m like, oh, this is what I’ve been missing all this time. At the same time, I didn’t know how to implement. I did not know how to get going with building a business. I knew how to build houses, but I did not know how to build a business. It was at a low point, very stressed, without a clear vision.

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And also the next steps to really start walking towards that vision. That low point is, a tough place to be where things aren’t going well. have this vision for where you want to be. You feel this calling. You just, you just know there’s, there’s something more. should be doing something else, but when you look around, it’s things are good. think a lot of people have felt this way, uh, where you have this vision.

07:59
And not only are you not making progress toward the vision, but maybe you’re going backwards. Things are going in the opposite direction and we can only connect the dots looking backwards. Right. It’s really tough in that spot. But as you look back on that now and you can connect the dots, what, what were the good things that were going on when you look back on it? Are there any like, Oh, I see what I was being prepared for. I see what, what was going on.

08:28
I had tried a few times to kind of get off the tools and, and, you know, scale the business to the point where we could have multiple projects going and that kind of thing. I had tried multiple times and, and had failed each of those times. There were some good foundations as far as like, you know, we’ve always emphasized communication and follow-ups and, you know, trust in the, in the client relationship and all these things. A business is,

08:57
is structured, whether intentionally or not. And, and our business was structured in a way that it was impossible to scale it. There was no way because at the end of the day, and this was one of the biggest realizations I had, and it was pretty humbling at the time. The realization was that I was the problem with my business. I was what was wrong with it. The reason it couldn’t grow was because of me. Because as long as I was the everything to the business, um,

09:26
It couldn’t go anywhere because for one, I’m not good at everything. Um, have weaknesses, I have strengths. And secondly, um, there’s just no way that amount of, of. Execution can run through one person. So you realized that the business, was impossible to grow the business because of, because it was designed around you. And what I would tell people is most construction businesses are unintentionally designed to fail. Right. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.

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Nobody does this on purpose. They don’t actually design their business to fail. They actually don’t even design their business. Maybe they don’t even think about having a design for the business. One more realization would be that yes, I’m the problem. Secondly, I didn’t have a clear definition of what entrepreneurialism was. I thought being an entrepreneur meant starting new things and I am a vision guy. I’m a dreamer.

10:22
I have a hundred different ideas in my head all the time. Acting on those ideas is not being an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a builder of an idea. And I think that was something I had to learn the hard way because generally when I would start to step off the tools, I would immediately start something new, either related to the business in a different direction or something completely different. And in doing so, I was trying to push on too many wheels at the same time.

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And what I needed to do is focus my energy on building one thing, turning one wheel, and then starting to bring in people to start pushing on that same wheel until that wheel starts to spin on its own. What were some of those other things that you started or attempted to start? We got into some crypto trading. We got into some, what else? There was some uh real estate and land stuff that uh worked out to varying degrees. We started doing some.

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more stock market stuff as well. But again, it’s just the divided attention and not focusing one’s energy a hundred percent on one thing, but it’s amazing. It’s amazing what you can get done when you do actually start channeling that energy. Right. That’s a challenge for the classic visionary types, the lots of big ideas, sometimes organizational whiplash this direction. And then 180 degree turn, we’re going to go this direction. Just lots of ideas. And I’m glad you said that being an entrepreneur is not about.

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having ideas, it’s about actually building something and focusing your energy, which is really tough when you’re a visionary and to completely agree about divided attention. You only have so much focus. You only have so much decision-making. You have only so much creativity. if you disperse, if you defuse that out among seven or eight projects, you dis

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don’t really go anywhere. And the same thing can happen even in the business itself, right? Like too many initiatives in a business is like, only get as far as you bring your team at the end of the day. Even just less is more, more energy focused on a few things, do them well, get them executed well. And, and then, and then we start looking at the next, the next goals. That’s really good. You mentioned some light bulbs went on when you read the E-Myth.

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Maybe you’ve already covered this, but I’m curious, what were some of the big light bulbs, the big realizations you had from that book? The fact of being able to visualize and organize a business on paper from an accountability chart standpoint, that was one of the big light bulbs to envision, to actually sit down and like define what all the hats in the company are or all the seats and write down what the responsibilities are and like.

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structure, build a structure for the business that you can actually execute on. The whole concept of being an entrepreneur, what that actually means and what an entrepreneur needs to do with their time. And that was another big piece that came from that. I would highly recommend it as a, anyone who’s starting off in business. oh So back in 2024, he joined our systematize your construction business program and then moved on into our CEO Alliance.

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So let’s go back to the first couple of months of work together in our systematize your construction business program. When you were putting the systems in place, take us to the moment when you realized that this work you were doing, the systems that you were implementing were actually working. probably wasn’t during the program. Honestly, I would say it was in the months that followed. Uh, once we had kind of started implementing systems, the biggest one, think being the, handoff.

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pre-construction process. That was the first real process we ever built for the company. And I think the first moment where I was like, started to feel like, Oh man, this is working. Was there was a Monday morning and, uh, I got up, went to the office and my phone was quiet and nothing happened. And I didn’t hear anything. And it was kind of eerie.

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And kind of refreshing at the same time. And I remember lunch rolled around, I hadn’t gotten a single text message or call. Now at that point I had hired a project manager, but I wouldn’t have hired that project manager had I not had the big five in place for them to operate on and the accountability chart to help me see that and all these things. so that’s when I was like, oh, wow, this is the first time I’ve had taken a breath during the work week. That was energizing. And then.

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And then getting that first uh feeling of maybe I own a business, not just a job. And that was very energizing and motivating to keep going. And from there, I feel like the momentum is just built. were the top two or three systems or processes or changes that you made that have had the most impact and the most positive effect for you? The Nail The Handoff has been absolutely the biggest.

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Having uh a system in place to design a house on paper and it’s become one of our biggest marketing and sales tools as well. And we’ve developed, know, we talk about it on our website, we present it, we have presentations built around it. It’s absolutely like a value proposition in our company now and everything comes down to that pre-con process. And we continue to, every quarter we have, you know, we

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We innovate on it. we meet, we talk about how can we improve it? How can we improve it more and continue to implement an improved process. The next one would probably be just the strategic planning framework, learning to step back as a CEO, 10,000 foot view and envision what a couple of years from now is going to look like. Like really lean into the dreamer side that most entrepreneurs have, but just don’t give themselves space.

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to operate in and man, is that fun. It’s really fun to dream and then tied to that is the accountability chart and like envisioning what the business could look like. I just get so energized doing that kind of work. And then lastly, I would say the CEO calendar would be, I guess, a system that I use and I constantly refine. And again, it’s talking about that, keeping your energy focused on the right wheels, the right things in the business, staying in that quadrant too.

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You know, as per Eisenhower matrix, staying on the important non-urgent things is so huge because they eventually will become urgent if you don’t think about them. then tied to that would be more of a CEO Alliance thing would be the Wefie Pulse has been a massive, massive tool and that ties into my calendar, right? So every week just like stepping back again, what’s important, what are my goals for this month, for this quarter and making sure that my calendar reflects. Those things have absolutely just completely

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180 to our business. Nice. I want to talk a little bit about the pre-construction process. And you, you said that you’re marketing that some people would say, okay, I need pre-construction for myself just to eliminate chaos on our projects. But the idea of marketing that to, to customers. In fact, some people would say, I don’t want to go put requirements on my clients because

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You know, they get a custom experience and I don’t want to like put guardrails around them and force anything on them. But you said you’re marketing your pre-construction process. So here’s my question. Now that you’ve been doing this for a couple of years, what’s in it for your clients to follow a pre-construction, fairly rigid pre-construction process. What’s in it for them? So the first few times I proposed pre-construction, uh, as a service to people.

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I was the one who was more anxious about the idea and what are they going to think about this? But in every single situation, I have seen how clients respond so positively to the idea of paying someone who’s a professional to properly plan their house because what it gives them is peace of mind. A lot of people have had.

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all sorts of experiences with contractors and we don’t always have the best reputation when it comes to timelines and budgets and some of that stuff, like contractors as a whole. But planning out a build and having a client be a part of that process so intimately allows them to have that peace of mind that what they are hoping for is what they will get and that the budget will align with their expectations and.

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that they can be a part, they can be a partner in that process, not just receiving a house, but they actually get to be a part of building that house. So yeah, peace of mind, confidence, the build process goes so much smoother, less hiccups and our projects are, staying on budget and our clients are happier at the end of the day. So yeah, that’s a things. Quick break for something that might hit close to home. If you are a custom home builder, remodeler, or a commercial GC in your business,

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basically lives in your head, this is for you. I was on a business evaluation call recently with a builder doing multi-million dollar custom homes and big renovations. On paper from the outside, everything looks great. But in reality, he was working 60 to 70 hours a week. And when we looked at it, he admitted that he was spending about 75 % of his time in reactive mode, putting out fires on low rent activities.

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When we talked about his handoff from the office to the field, he graded it like a C minus or a D plus. You see, they were starting jobs before the scope was nailed down. Subs weren’t clearly lined up. Material selections were half baked. And there was a lot of we’ll figure it out as we go. Classic, just enough to start trap stuff. And that led to costly mistakes, delays. And there were a couple of near disasters on high profile projects that he

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absolutely could not afford to screw up. And then when we went through the evaluation, we found hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in hidden profit between the rework, giveaways, lost productivity, schedule delays, and then the opportunity cost. And the common thread was a weak pre-construction and handoff process. There was a pre-construction deficiency. And that call is what I would like to invite you to today. It’s a free

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about 45 minute business evaluation call with my team. We’ll walk through a simple diagnostic to grade your office to field handoff. We’ll quantify the hidden profit that may be in your business. And then we’ll map out what a real operating system for your business would look like so it can run without everything going through you. Then if it looks like we can help, we’ll schedule a second call to go through the implementation program that fits your specific situation.

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If it’s not a fit, you’ll still walk away with clarity and a concrete plan. But here’s the deal. This is not for everybody. It’s for companies doing over a million dollars a year in revenue. And we only have capacity to take on a handful of clients each month. So if you want your business to look real different 12 months from now, now is the time to take action. To book your business evaluation call, you can click the link in the show notes or simply go to constructionleadingedge.com

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forward slash apply a PPL Y and book your business evaluation call. So open up the Cody Reimer sales playbook. What’s some people are wondering, they’re still doing free estimates. No, like how can I possibly convince a prospect to write me a check for pre-construction when everybody else is doing free estimates. What’s one thing that you say to a prospect, maybe a question you ask them.

22:51
that helps them see the value of paying you for pre-construction. I like to ask clients about their previous experiences. Usually from those experiences, you can draw out different fears and pain points that they’ve experienced in their life. I also like to ask clients what’s important to them. What are they looking for in a builder? What does success look like to them? If we’re a year or two from now and they’re sitting in their new house, what does this look like? From that, I can, can usually hear what’s important to them and also what their fears are.

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And once I know what those things are, I can share with them how our pre-construction process will alleviate those, either those fears and will deliver on those things that they are hoping for in their build. And then on the flip side, how not doing pre-construction means that they’re choosing to go in with not full visibility on the project. And they’re increasing their risk on the project. They really are.

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clients have come to that place because they’ve managed their finances well. They’re in a position to build their forever home and they’ve done it through a proper, you know, yeah, management of their business or their finances, whatever it is. This process is an investment into their build and they understand that and we’ve had no pushback on the pre-construction process. And it’s been actually, it’s been surprising for me. The way I like to describe the sales process is you think you find their current

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situation, and then you help them get clear on their future situation. Like you said, tell us, imagine you’re sitting in your new home. Tell us what a win looks like. So you have a starting point, the end point, and then identify all the risks, obstacles and pitfalls in between. are they concerned about? Maybe even show them some things that they didn’t know they didn’t know about some of the pitfalls of free estimates, et cetera. And then your job is to.

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show them how working with you and your pre-construction process is the path of least resistance from where they currently are around those pitfalls, risks and obstacles to their desired end state. The mistake a lot of people make in selling is talking about themselves and their business and showing pictures of their grandpa’s truck that they drove when he started the business back in 1947 and talking about all of this other stuff, but prospects want to talk about

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Like the Toby Keith song, I want to talk about me. I want to talk about my fears, my hopes, my dreams. I like that. I like that approach. further to that, like pre-construction happens regardless if it’s intentional or not, just like a business being built. You will do pre-construction. It’s just going to happen during the build and you will pay for it. And usually more. That’s the thing about pre-construction. You’re doing all of these things. Every selection gets made, every subcontractor.

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gets selected, every decision gets made. You just get to pick when you make them. Will you make them under the gun at the last minute while the meter’s running, when the temperature’s going up, or are you going to do that during the planning phase early on? All right. So you’ve done a lot of work in your business the last couple of years. done a great job implementing these systems, designing your business intentionally, focusing on pre-construction, getting your accountability chart dialed in, getting yourself out of the business, right? Even.

26:17
extracting yourself from the day to day to some extent. Let’s talk about the results you’ve seen from the work you’ve done over the past almost two years now. Let’s talk about what’s different about your business. Can you share a few quantifiable or measurable results that you’ve seen, whatever that might be? Some things can be measured, some things can’t, but what are some quantifiable, measurable results that you’ve seen from the work that you’ve done? Our top, top line, revenues gone up, bottom line.

26:47
Uh, percentage has gone up as well. We’re more efficient. We’ve been able to clean up our finances and some of that stuff. Our team has grown. We have more, more of the right people in defined seats and, uh, people understand their roles. How many people are on your team now? Uh, there’s 12 on our team. We’ve got four or five in uh the office and the rest in the fields. It’s the idea of working as a team towards the same goals and me getting to.

27:15
You know, to set that vision and just my, my time. mean, that’s quantifiable. I’m not, you know, working 50, 60 hours a week, uh, like I was before, uh, which isn’t even that crazy, I guess, but I didn’t have much capacity. I’m getting into life stuff now, but yeah, it’s good. Compare and contrast what your, your day to day and what your time looked like a few years ago. And then what does it look like? What do you spend your time on now? What are the big differences? Before I would have been.

27:45
Like I said, working 50, 60 hours, so doing estimates and whatever, finishing up on emails and stuff in the evenings, drained all the time. I would say my mental capacity was very limited. My ability to be present at home with my wife and kids, often just like staring off into the distance at suppertime and my wife’s wondering if I’m there or not.

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solving a problem in my brain or thinking about the next thing I needed to get done tomorrow or whatever it was. And now I have a lot more freedom with my time than I used to have. can take off to go watch my kids track and field or whatever it is. Last week I was off for pretty much the whole week and that was kind of a last minute decision and nothing fell apart while I was gone. It was kind of crazy. I’ve reduced my hours in the office. I’m not working.

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even a 40 hour week anymore. Um, and I don’t need to, I’m able to drive, uh, the area of the business in, you know, as far as sales goes and have time and energy for my kids, big realization that I’ve had. And I didn’t realize that this was going to be like, I, I’d always dreamt of this business and building this business and growing and all these things. And what the capacity increase has done for me, it’s allowed my entrepreneurial mind, my dreamer to think about.

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what the goals for my family are and who do I want to be for them as a dad, as a husband. And I can now, you know, dream about those things the way I never could be there for all their things and, and, and actually be present at the dinner table and have a proper conversation and be switched off from work. think my wife is probably the most thankful of anyone. And she says, I’m like, I’m a different person than I was two years ago. some people actually struggle. This is an unexpected.

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problem they have when they, when they’re not required to be in their business full time and there aren’t fires to put out in the business kind of runs without them. They, they struggle with different things. They struggle filling the void. You might want to call it. Sounds kind of crazy to people who are working 60, 70 hours a week, but it can be a problem. you made that transition in the business ran without you, is there any part of that, that was a problem for you that you had to work through?

30:08
The whole identity thing is a piece of the puzzle there. And I think when you build something, you kind of stake your name on it. And it’s very normal to take the ebb and flow personally of the business. When you start to scale back your own time in that entity, there is a fear there that sneaks in, like what’s going to happen if you aren’t involved as much. And I struggled with that. And part of being in CEO Alliance with other

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contractors and with coaching there has helped me to see that like, you know, construction, owning a business, it’s part of what I do, but it’s not who I am. And separating the identity from the business is pretty huge. And when you do that, it opens up your opportunities as well. And so you talk about filling the void. mean, for me, like I said, it’s maybe less about again, what am I going to fill it with? What kind of busy work am I going to fill this with? And rather for me, what kind of

31:08
dad do I get to be now and husband and, know, I can go on a breakfast date with my wife on a Friday and I can, like I said, check out early and go to sports or go fishing with my kid on a, you know, on a day that I should be maybe in the office. And it’s pretty awesome. One of the things we chatted about a little bit before we had record was this concept of who, not how. I’ll just let you explain it. Can you talk about what the who, not how concept means to you?

31:37
And some practical ways that you’ve, you’ve tapped into that. Yeah. So as a business owner, mean, you’re moving from one problem to the next. Once you solve a problem, you’re, know, generally that leads to the next problem, whatever that is. And, uh, you’re constantly just facing challenges in this kind of thing. As a business owner, you, you, you become accustomed to problem solving on your own and you have to, to a certain degree, but at the same time, you have many limitations. For me, learning about like, first of all, again,

32:05
What are my strengths and weaknesses in business? How am I wired? I’m not the best person for every seat on the bus. And I’m actually hindering my business by remaining in that seat. Plus, I don’t know what to implement in that seat. I’m not passionate about it. It doesn’t energize me. There’s so many things that just cause it to be uh a hindrance. And reading that book, again, that was a recommendation, I think, from the podcast. uh

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reframing the question of how am going to get marketing going? How am I going to manage this many projects at a time? How am I going to do this? How am going to do that? And reframing that to who is going to do this in my business. that there are people wired for these seats that are the opposite and that they’re energized by it. If I can align these people with the goals of the company, we can become something much greater than the parts. That was a…

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an experience learning how to think that way and to reframe my response in my mind. um And then learning at the same time, how to delegate and teach and coach people into these roles, but also at the same time, cutting them loose to make their own decisions and that kind of thing. It tends to um favor increasing capacity versus demand, I have found, but demand follows because

33:32
When I increase the capacity in a certain part of the business by bringing in a who, it frees me up to go and sell more or whatever it is. We have seen that to be very beneficial for our business. Some people think, well, yeah, I know I need help, but I can’t afford them. And the answer, what we’ve seen over and over, and then I think what you’ve experienced is when you get clear on who you need and you bring on the right who, and they’re part of a.

33:59
You have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. You set them up for success. They’re not a cost. They’re an investment. And the right who’s will make you money. They’re not a cost. They’re an investment. So if somebody came to you and said, listener, Hey, if you invest a hundred bucks with me, I’ll pay you $150 a month. It’s a no brainer investment. Well,

34:26
the right people in the right seats are usually no brainer investments. Yeah. So it’s a different, different way of thinking about it. Frankly, what I found is those limiting beliefs are what keep people stuck. The, can’t afford to hire people belief. It sounds really logical, really responsible, but that’s what keeps people stuck. It’s not the lack of people. It’s not the lack of opportunity. It’s that mental malware. That’s what keeps people stuck or I have to do it myself, or I can’t let go of control or there aren’t any good people out there. I have to be whatever.

34:56
That’s the real problem that needs to be solved. And that’s a tough one because it’s in here and it’s in the blind spots. It’s the same thing. Like even when you’re at that decision point and you’re thinking what could go wrong, you, often just, you’re at this fear wall, right? And instead of thinking what could go right with the situation and, and, and usually that list is a lot longer than what could go wrong. And if you hire the wrong person, mean,

35:22
You got to deal with it. got to let them go. Right. Got them loose. implementing changes in business is tough. It’s one thing to learn a concept, plenty of books, plenty of podcasters out there, but implementing changes is tough. So what would you say are one or two of the keys to implementing systems and actually making stuff work in your business? What have you found to be keys to making meaningful change in your business? Starting out after the program.

35:50
and starting to make changes. lot of it was, was coming from me and I was kind of like, this is what we’re doing and that’s fine. I’m the, you know, I was the boss, so I’m allowed to say that, but ah I have found that if I can help people understand where we’re going first and, and the why behind things and allow them to be part of the conversation, although maybe I shaped that conversation a little bit, the buy-in has increased a lot. That’s probably been one of the things I’ve learned has been, has been.

36:19
setting up those conversations and those initiatives with the why and helping people to see again, what, what the, uh, what the outcomes are that we can work towards. Another big one is just like, I need to slow down. I try and again, I try to do too many things and I try to go too fast and change things time and it’s worth it. It’s totally worth it. Uh, but it can feel like a slog sometimes. And again, if.

36:48
If someone else isn’t getting it, it’s not just their fault. It’s probably on my side too. I haven’t communicated something clearly. haven’t, you know, laid it out in a way that, that they understand the why. And, uh I think people get the why and people want to work towards something besides just five o’clock. And when they can understand that, that’s when you can see people come alive in their work. uh, it’s something I’m still learning. Can you share an example of what sharing the why?

37:18
means, because some people might think, well, I want to make enough money to buy an island. And I don’t know that that’s going to be all that compelling for my team. Can you share an example of maybe an initiative that you were focused on and what it practically looked like to share the why? So we were doing some annual planning at the beginning of this year. And I set up vision uh and a goal, not like an annual goal, but like just a, a vector. Like we’re to head towards, we want to try and get to the

37:47
point where we can handle this many projects at this kind of project value or whatever. But it was very important to me that I spent time talking about how that would benefit them. I’m also a big believer in like the 10X is easier than 2X concept. I talk about a lot, like what is 10X thinking versus 2X thinking and how, all we try and do is just grow by spinning our wheels faster, nothing, you know, that’s 2X thinking and how we can’t.

38:14
get anywhere and we become less happy and all the things, right? But when we think about like a 10X goal and how, what that means is we have to change our paradigm and the way we are going to do things as a business and also the way your role is going to look, but not in a bad way, more so to refine that role in a way that you’re more operating in your, in your strengths and in your passion. so, you know, explaining that why and how your, job is going to get better because we’re growing.

38:43
And that will also lead to greater impact for you, greater impact with the business and monetarily things are going to get better for you. All these things, right? Helping people level up through the business leveling up, right? It’s kind of like this, we’re all going to grow the business and grow you at the same time. when you people get that and they’re given an opportunity, a lot of people haven’t been given the opportunity to really

39:11
continually lean into their strengths and like cut out the stuff that drags them down. We all have to do stuff we don’t want to do, but that’s been something we’ve focused on has been, uh, he’s been that, and it’s not easy. Like it’s a lot of mental gymnastics. Let me tell you that, like trying to align people’s giftings, their goals and the business goals. But when people see it, it’s beautiful. Business is easy. People are hard, right? it’s the people.

39:40
Gosh, it would be so much simpler. That’s leadership is explaining, trying to tap into your people’s intrinsic motivation. And by explaining the why, I think that’s, that’s a huge one. So you mentioned the CEO Alliance. You were part of the CEO Alliance for a year and a half or so. So how would you describe the CEO Alliance in your own words and what has being in that group done for you? CEO Alliance was a space to connect.

40:08
with like-minded construction business owners and wrestle through, you know, the challenges and, you know, things we were facing together. And alongside with that, having some awesome coaching with Monish there. And if I could sum it up, that’s how I would sum it up. If somebody’s listening to this thinking, maybe I should.

40:32
sign up to work with construction leading edge team and get some of these systems in place and be part of the CEO Alliance. If they called you and said, Cody, what do you think? What should I do? Why would I want to join this? What would you tell them? Oh man. Like email Todd right now, cause you’re missing out every day. You don’t do it. You’re a day behind. And, uh, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to quantify the ROI on going through the program because, um,

41:03
We haven’t arrived yet. Like, you know, ask me in 10 years, ask me in 20 years what the ROI is because it’s set in motion, something that I needed the help to start and the coaching, the, uh, the accountability, um, the learning I’m forever grateful. So yeah, a hundred percent recommend. I would be like, yes, do it now. I appreciate that. So you’re a big vision guy. What is one goal that you’re focused on right now in your business or your life?

41:32
One big thing is our marketing and networking we’re working on right now. We’ve recently launched a kind of a strategic partnership program. uh so we’re kind of, I’m kind of working on implementing that. I get to meet with some amazing folks in our market and connect with them, find out what, you know, as far as strategic partners, what their struggles are and how our pre-construction process can help.

42:00
them serve their clients and how we can work together. And that’s been kind of a new initiative that I’ve been working on. It’s been really fun. And on the personal side, I feel like my work isn’t done here yet. We continue to look at ways to continue adding systems and processes in the business. We recently hired a COO integrator. This morning, him and I, you know, we had a three hour strategic planning session together and I had to pinch myself because

42:27
years ago, I was sanding nail holes. so uh here we were and I was passing, I was delegating to him some planning for the rest of the year. My role has changed and I get to work on pretty high level stuff now, stuff that moves a needle and energizes me and all the while, like I said, making more time and space for my kids and uh taking more time off. Those are kind of some of the I’m working on. Couple of uh

42:55
Rapid fire questions for you. What’s one thing you believe to be true about business that some people think is unconventional, maybe even a little crazy. would say it goes like you, you are what’s wrong with your business. That’s, that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned. Yeah. Most people would say the problem’s out there and they look out there and they never look at themselves. I don’t know if that’s super crazy, but.

43:22
It’s a little unconventional because plenty of people saying, look out there. just need more marketing. need more leads. You need more people. You need a different website. need different, whatever new software. But the problem is the guy looking at you in the mirror. Yeah. It’s freeing. It’s honestly freeing at the end of the day, because we’re not trying to shoot anyone down here. We’re just saying, Hey, look, like you can’t be everything to everyone.

43:51
And that’s okay. Stop trying to do that. And you know, let’s build something. Last question I like to ask everybody, what’s your hometown? And if somebody’s passing through that area, what is the one restaurant or bar that they absolutely need to visit while they’re in that area? Well, yeah, Rozenort, Manitoba, very small town. Look it up. And if you come through, you got to check out the Rolly Stone, nice little burger joint. It’ll be taken.

44:21
Good care of there. The Rolly stone got it. Well, great stuff. Well, Cody, I’m, super happy for you. Really proud of the work you’ve done. It’s been fun to watch the transition over the past two years now from our first conversation, very first conversation to where we’re at today. And I’m really happy for you. And, uh, it’s a testament to the work you’ve done and the work your team has done.

44:49
And how you’ve, you’ve stuck it out and implemented and I’m really happy for you. And I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you and also really grateful for, you taking the time to be on here today. This has been super helpful. Yeah, Todd, thanks to you. Same, same thing to you, just so much gratefulness for the process, the last couple of years. And, and again, to anyone out there, it’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it every single minute you put into it.

45:15
My business and my family and my life, it’s all changed because of it. So yeah, feel very grateful. Great stuff. Thanks, Cody. Thanks, Todd. Hey, before you hit stop and skip on to the next episode, let me ask you something. If you’re building custom homes or big renovations and you’re starting jobs before scope, subs and selections are completely dialed in, how long can you keep scaling like that before something cracks?

45:42
That’s exactly what we’ll unpack on your free business evaluation call. In about 45 minutes, my team will help you do a few things. Grade your current handoff from office to field. Put some real numbers to the hidden profit leads that could be in your business. There could be hidden profits in your business. Sketch out what a repeatable operating system would look like in your business from sales to pre-construction through completion. And if it looks like we can help.

46:09
We’ll book a follow-up call to talk about the right implementation program for you. If it’s not, you’ll still leave with clarity and next steps. We will leave you better than we found you. So to book your call and be sure that you qualify for that call, go to constructionleadingedge.com forward slash apply, A-P-P-L-Y, or click the show notes. There’s a link in the show notes and book your business evaluation call.