Latest / The Good Builder Podcast / The Daily Dose #358 | $6 Billion in Building Estimates: What AI Still Can't Replace | Haydn, Price A Plan | Live from TPB
Transcript
- Az (00:53) Well, we're back and I have a wonderful gentleman here that I've just met and I love what he's about, love what he does, and I'm gonna learn a little bit more. I've got Haydn here from Price of Plan. Haydn was a former builder. Yeah, he now owns Price A Plan developed it, built it, works with hundreds of builders around Australia, yeah, and helps them estimate their plans and and make sure they're making money. I think it's probably the most important thing. So they don't go broke or miss anything. So mate, wonderful to have On the podcast, thanks mate. How are you? Great, good, feeling good, good energy today. How you like the summer? They're great. This is my third one. I've got done with TPB as a sponsor, partner. Yeah, definitely noticed the difference in the energy, the the caliber of people, the caliber of builder in the room. Yeah, yeah. I really, really get a lot out of it just personally being in these environments. It's great. It's cool, isn't it? A few people have spoken about it on the pod today. because we've done about 10 of them every Mine has said the industry feels more professional. Everyone's starting to look at things a bit differently, they're a bit more open to looking at things, and I think that's where stuff like your stuff falls in. Like looking at new ways to do things or service providers that can help them out. They're a bit more open to that sort of thing, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah, it is. Well, I think that the the messaging around getting support, yeah, whatever shape or form it comes from is is really key. Yeah. Because man, like I as you said, I was a bit. And You know, the number of hats when I was a builder is probably about a quarter of the number of hats that these guys have to wear. Yeah, wow. Right? In terms of like what they're responsible for. Like like workplace loss and safety was kind of a thing that I was building. I am talking twenty years ago, which is a bit embarrassing but also proud to say. But you know, marketing marketing, social media, software was barely you know, so the amount of stuff that these guys are gonna be across is just massive. So that's crazy. It's overwhelming for them, and I think that's great about these events because it just shows them what quality support can look like. Yeah. yeah, and for the most part, they've they're really adopting it and they're really embracing that support. That's so cool. Yeah. We're talking about quality support. Let's talk about price of plan. Well, tell me a little bit about price of plan. Yeah, how it came about, why you created it, and tell us a little bit about your building journey. It must have you you're a builder and then you kind of went, I've got something that and help people. How d how did that all come about? Yeah, cool. Thanks for asking. It's an interesting journey. I didn't actually plan to be an estimator. I mean, seriously who would? Yeah. It's not the funnest job in building it. Sorry, estimators. I'm awkward, mate. Who's an estimator? Anyway. No, but look, it actually happened through necessity. I was I was running a running a building company and I had an injury. I had to have ear surgery, like I was starting to lose my hearing. Wow. And I had to have some surgery. I had this operation on my ear, and the recovery was going to be six weeks, and it turned into nine months. And I couldn't couldn't climb a ladder, couldn't get back on the tools. So it really impacted me. And I was sort of back against the wall, you know, young family, fuck, what am I gonna do type moment. And it was just through a side conversation I had with with somebody, actually from Master Builders. and they said, have you got that that that software that we were talking about recently? Why don't you help out some other builders with some estimating while you're while you're off the tools? And I was like, yeah, we could do that. And then that was the light bulb on where I just went, actually, who doesn't want that support? Absolutely. So I just lean into it, kept developing it, and it just continued to grow. And continued to grow. So from one one client eighteen years ago, now we've got over five hundred clients actively that we support each year on projects around Australia. Wow. Yeah, and it's turned into quite a thing which I'm incredibly proud of. We've got a big team and so we we think about estimating quite differently as well. And I've learned this through my own journey with the business, that estimating is is, you know, the old fashioned way of thinking about it is it's sitting down to crunch the numbers to put to put your quote in. Yeah. But it's so much more than that. It's it sort of incorporates into your sales process, your client qualification process. Doing the estimate in detail so that it translates into effective job management. Yeah. So estimating's gotta can capture all of that. Mm-hmm. And and I've grown in how I look at it as well and what we do as a company now does encompass and look at it in that way. I think that's I think it's generally part of why people receive us and respect us because we do Really do care about that whole journey that the builder's got to go on, you know? Yeah. Well you understand. I think that's one of the big things. Like something we've found here at The Good Builder is we've got really good partners that work with us and stuff like that. But the ones that really provide a great service for the building industry are the ones that have come from it. Yeah. Because you've got a full understanding of what they're going through and what they're what they're doing. so I think that's that's wonderful what you do. Yeah. one of the other things that you said I wanted to talk you about and and I'm glad you brought it up is AI. yeah. Now I've heard a lot of people using AI for estimating and just going full on into it. Yeah. What's your opinion on that? Because my opinion is it's pretty shit. I don't know if that's a bad but I I just I I I think I think AI is like a tool. I mean AI is like a Milwaukee drill. You need someone to operate and it helps you get the job done, but don't let it go do things by itself. Yeah. I don't know. Your opinion. What's your opinion? It's it's like one morning I woke up and Without me even being aware of it, I'm suddenly sitting bareback on a thoroughbred horse with no saddle and no set of reins. And someone slapped the ass of that fucking horse and it's off and we're in a race. And then but I can't see the finish line and I'm looking around, there's all these other people on a horse with no reins or no saddle, but we're all fucking going for it. I love it. Good analogy. It's like that. And I tell you, I've gone through the ups and downs with with the relevance of it in the business, and it's been sometimes really feels quite threatening and sometimes exciting. But, you know, we just we just sort of slowed things down and just applied our business principles for what's required to make a good business decision. Yeah. And that structure systems and logic. Yep. And that sort of helped us, you know, effectively put the reins on it and slow it down and just have a build a relationship with that horse. Yeah. so, you know, that's sort of the way I I genuinely feel about it, but But we've you can't, you know. I've I've actually had moments with my my wife and I we work closely in business together and we've we've had moments where we've gone, right, well, is this it? Like are we done? I think yeah. Or do we go for it? So we're we're going for it and we're adapting, we're we're investing heavily in AI systems that will just make the service we provide more effective, more accurate. And it's pretty cool. It's pretty fun. Once once you sort of slow it down, yeah and I think so many people I probably can relate to that analogy of been on a horse that just got slapped. Yeah. I think that was the best analogy that I've heard about AI. That's how I feel. I just installed Grok Bot I feel like I'm on fucking Pharlap Right now, like I'm fucking I am like man, it was just like boom and I am like Where we going? And it's getting back to partners in my email that I didn't really want to get back to. And it's it's bringing up new leads of people that want to talk to us. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are we doing here? Like I'm in control of this business, not you. Yeah. But it it it's a it's something you've got to be really wary of, I reckon. That's how I feel, mate. I I'm I'm 100% with you, mate. And I'll tell you what my prediction is, and I've said this a couple of times in the pod, and people might think I'm a total idiot, but I reckon it's the people that. Don't lean too hard into AI and look at humanly how can you create better relationships and do things better, it's gonna succeed. Yeah because you can't have it in the end, I think the whole industry and the way we relate to as people is we relate via relationships. Absolutely I haven't met an AI that I love, but I've met my wife and I love her. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I think there's an element of that that people have got to be really careful of. I know I'm sitting here at an AI conference and I shouldn't be saying it, but I think we've got to be really careful about how we use it. How we use it as a tool and then having the right expertise over the other stuff like what you do with the estimating, that is totally critical for your business. Like I owned a building business here on the coast called on the GC called Avondale Homes, big acreage builder. Yeah. And the biggest thing for us is cash flow. I would never and and estimating and all that, which falls into cash flow, right? I would never hand over that to our bot. Yeah. Yeah. That is critical to the business. You want someone with expertise to all that. Yeah, look, I totally agree. And it's it's I think that people have got to be really cautious because there's a lot of promotion out there from software or influencers saying that they can, you know, do an estimate in five minutes. I've looked at all of the options that are out there. Yes, it can make it can make interpretations on an area and it can color in a square and it can draw a red line on something and give you a linear meaning of it. But You know, trusting it to go into a contract is a whole other thing. So what we're building with our system is yes, our system's going to speed things along, it's going to make interpretations, but there's not a single thing in our system that doesn't get approved by my team and my experience. that's in every single layer. and so I know some organisations that are that are downsizing and and getting rid of their staff because they've got their big AI things. I'm the opposite. Yeah. I'm I want to hold on to my team because I need more eyes. Yeah. The faster the output comes through, the more eyes I need on it. So I have to improve my quality control processes. That's right. So that's the way we're we're we're tackling it and utilising it. So it's a very interesting time we're in. Yeah. I'm sure like I know TPB what they're what they're promoting here and things like that with AI is is fantastic. And it's about helping those, you know, annoying tasks that are more administrative and things like that you can help. But the whole kind of, you know, as I s I think I mentioned to you when I was over at Ustan, maybe I didn't, but there's a fencer here in Queensland. he went into claw and built out his whole estimating system and things on and I'm like that's the craziest shit I've ever seen in my life. I'll never do that, dude. Up to you. Yeah. I just think I've seen a a few cases like that. Yeah. What I commonly hear from guys that have get done that it's almost like this gambling addiction when they get on that that train and they just go and they can't stop, they can't stop, they can't stop, and they're burned. They get see guys getting burn out. Yeah. And also before they know it, they've dropped, you know, 60, 80, 120. I know one guy who spent 120K on tokens building a system for himself. Yeah. Fucking knock yourself out. Yeah. But Mm. I don't know. Number one, who's in control of the system? Yeah. The AI afterwards. You can't change it. Yeah. It's got to change it. So very interesting. Anyway, builders. when do builders come to you? When do you typically see a builder come to you and go, Hey, I need help? And when do you think they should come to you, Haydn? I think I know I'm biased, but I think all builders can can utilize the structure and the system that we provide around estimating. That's good. because it's not just a transactional service, it's actually our full structured process. Very good. So I think all builders could benefit from it, just even the logic of it in at any point in their business. But the majority of guys come to us, you know, they reach a pinch point in their business where they're growing, they're doing it themselves, it's taking out time, the time that's required to do a detailed estimate just eats in and consumes. so much of their working week and their social week. So there's that transition point. And guys aren't big enough to like when builders are scaling, and you would know this from your DJ Gardner type models. It's it makes sense to have an in-house estimator when you get to that point, but there's a massive gap between a builder starting out and reaching that point. And in that gap there is where I see the real need for builders to have a support that they can just use as they need it, you know, they don't have to pay a subscription, they don't have to hire us full-time. They just get our support as required. wow. so builders come in and out and they go, some guys will do one job a year, some guys will do 20 jobs a year. They just sort of use our expertise as as they feel they need it. So that's how it all works, Aiden. Actually, do you mind talking about how it all works for builders? So it's per build per project. Per project cost. Yeah. So we've got we've got two main services. The first one's called a QBE, which is a quality budget estimate. Yep. It's just designed to do a forecasting tool. cool. So it uses our what's one of the things we're our AOA is helping us with now. We've got we've got six billion dollars worth of project history. That's all been classified in our system with with rate trade rates in our own AI repository that is utilized to forecast project assumptions. And that first tool is designed to help builders with that forecast. So that's cute. And you just pay for that as you want to. that's cool. And then that helps the builder qualify the client and the budget before we move on and waste time. doing the detailed estimates because the detailed estimates cost more and they take a lot more time. And then the detailed estimates is the next phase. And that's again as the client qualifies and as the builder's ready for it, then they engage us. And we turn those around, you know, really detailed estimate we turn around in about 10 days for them. And it's not just a transaction, they get it, we do a review process. Every job goes through probably a cycle of between four and eight revisions. Collaboratively talking human to human. Human to human. I like that. and you know, we can put our experience on it and go, that doesn't look right, that connection. I think we need to talk about some another access point here or something like that. So we lay that into the service we provide as well. And then once that's signed off, then we push all of that data and set it up into their management system, whatever it may be. So if they're Wonder Build, Build Exacts, whatever it may be, we will then map all of the data according to their cost cost structure in their software and then set them up for project ready. And then you're talking about costings. Yeah. And stuff like that. You you'll help them implement that, making sure when they're up and ready. If they're doing a system, if they're doing an estimate, do you help them with the with the pricing of the trades and materials and implementing it into their systems? Yeah, every single second. Yeah, so I the thing that I'm very proud of the way we approach that detailed estimating is it's it is detailed to the point that they can place a purchase order on the exact number of mails, the exact linear meters of decking board, with a price that reflects the requirement for them. and if there's subcontractor pricing that comes in, we will cross check the subcontractor pricing against our own interpretations. so there's this extra set of eyes and just helping the builders to feel assured, feel confident. Yeah. And then you've got six billion dollars worth of project history in there. You know, even that in itself gives a great understanding and context to what's sort of happening out there. Yeah, that's right. So an annually we do we're doing probably project wise about six hundred million dollars worth of project value per year. Wow is what we turn out. So it's really just turned into a big machine. I've got thirty-two people working with me and they're amazing. Yeah. Love what love really committed to what we do and But that's that's enabled me to turn it into structure and and a dependable, repeatable service. Yeah. Because of the size of it. But yeah, that's what sort of feeds into the way we we look at estimating. What about the size of builders you work with? What sort of sizer builders come working with you? Are they all sorts or? Yeah, they all they're all all sorts. Like yeah, we do guys that are doing two hundred thousand dollars turnover. Which is you know small start-up guys. guys up to doing probably 50 to 100 million turnover at the bigger end. we do projects from $50,000 car ports through the biggest one we did was a $50 million home up in the With Sundays. So all scale, all scale stuff. but they're they're generally most builders reach a point in that journey where it makes sense for them to actually bring somebody in house. Mm-hmm. Because the translation between an estimator, when you get to a certain size, the estimator becomes contract administrator. Yeah. There's a crossover of that role. Yeah. And that's generally their journey. They move through into that, adopting that. But it's quite often we get guys reach that point, we're happy for And then a year or so they're back because that guy got another job and he moved on and they come back to us 'cause we're still there, you know. I love it. Well you'll always be Yeah. I think the continuity and having that data and all that sort of thing is a another big benefit of working with you because if one thing I can say about this industry and I don't mean to be negative about it, but people move around a lot. Yeah. And you lose that either IP or stuff like that. So if you're an expert or expert service provider that can fill that gap and you can work with them on a longer ongoing basis, you've got that history and consistency. I think it's a really benefit of working with people like you, mate. We love it. I love that. Yeah, we got we got clients that are past 15 years. Wow. There are some really long stairs. There's a few guys in that room there that are that are passing the 10 year mark with us. And it's just so so smooth and and they're, you know, they're really leaning into their their their own development and and AI systems for themselves and and Claude plugging into their software and they're doing all that. But the one piece that they still come back and rely on is the the detail in our estimates. They're not they're not filling that gap. Yes. They trust us. It's a great feeling. Well I've got a cur two curly questions for you to finish off. Yeah. We're sitting at an AI and marketing summit. If you were are you do you know much about marketing? I'm gonna put you on the spot with this one. What where would you spend your first thousand dollars? Where would you spend a thousand dollars if you only had a thousand dollars in marketing? Where would you spend it? interesting. Where would I spend a thousand dollars in marketing? I would spend it on my sales process. I'd love it. Interesting. Why? Because because once a lead comes in. You have to ensure that you are maximizing the potential of that lead. And if your sales process and your pre construction process is not refined, you can waste and burn thousands of hours on leads that don't go anywhere. So I'd make sure that my sales process and my sales presentation was absolutely slick with that thousand bucks. I'm so happy you said. And then then you'd move on to get that right first and then you can move on to look at, you know, well branding sh could be part of that as well. But then you'd learn the lead generation and And niches after that, but I think that's probably the most valuable first step. I think I agree. I had that question asked of me in a pod before you and asked me, and I said Google Ads. Right. And now thinking about it, I'm like, why the fuck would you spend it on Google Ads if you can't sell it? If you can't capture it. And capture it. Yeah. Sales process. Very interesting, mate. I like the logical way you think, man. and my other question for you, Haydn, and you would have seen a lot of them and you were one yourself. Yeah. we're called the Good Builder. What would you say makes a good builder? This might be an odd question, but I think empathy. An odd answer, maybe empathy. Because I think building is about relationships and it's about the relationships that you build with your clients and your people. And empathy I think should guide all the relationships and all the b business decisions you make. And I think if you're approaching that, you can understand other people's point of view and then you can tailor your service as a builder to suit the requirements of what the people need. And I think empathy is probably one of the highest qualities that you can can lean into when you're developing and growing a building business. That is so cool. That is a very cool answer. And I think that it kind of defines why you made your business too. You empathize with the builders. You know what they're their pain points, you know what they're looking for. for the customers, you understand them. I think that was a super cool answer. I was not expecting that. I was expecting something a bit more technical, like making sure that you've got good cash flow, you know, stuff like that. I love Hazel. I think it's a very cool answer. You've got to have those relationships because managing clients' expectations is is is more important than the quality of the finish. Because if if your quality finish is great but your client doesn't know what's going on and they're you're they're disgruntled then it's not rewarding. Yeah. Right? So you can be a good builder. I think there's other people do that and teach that, but but making sure you're maintaining that relationship really positively. It just helps us all sleep better too, right? It just feels better. Feels right. Does. Another way reason I loved too, Haydn, AI. Yeah. As I said, you can't have relationship with AI. Relationships count so much. I'm like that. I'm I'm big on relationships and I think that that's the crux of everything. Yeah. Like if you can't work with somebody, can't communicate with somebody. Yeah. It's a tough gig. Totally. So totally. So good, mate. I know, like you know, I see some some businesses that are that are dropping dropping all their teams. and going all in on it. It's like there's one particular organization I know and they've just completely removed all personal connection to their to their member base. And it's like, wow, how are we going to empathize? How is that going to empathize when when a when a when a builder's going through a divorce? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Or where they're on the the brink of bankruptcy, whatever it may be. Where does the where does the empathy come to support that person, that individual through that? Absolutely you can use AI around that and to support those conversations, but the connection there I think is is what helps people survive. Yeah. Not just thrive, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And we're in it together. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's the thing too where I think you're completely right. You you come across a situation like that, you deal with the AI, yeah. AI would probably give it an answer like, we're so sorry you're going through that. Where's the money? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's that level of human relationship connection. I've loved it, mate. Even though you run a you know a bit of a technical type product, it all comes back to relationship, empathy, all that stuff. I reckon. We're gonna put all your links below, man. Like we hope our builders out there come and you know do some work with Haydn and Price A Plan I think what you've done there is freaking cool and I appreciate that too. Mate now getting to know you and where you come from. Yeah. It's all all the pennies are dropping and why you did it, and I can see why you're so good and why you're so successful that it's yeah appreciate that appreciate that heaps. Thank you very much. Pleasure mate. Thanks heaps.