How to Build a Business in Construction Using Digital Tools with Greg Wilkes

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi, Greg. Welcome to the Digital Construction podcast. How are you today?

Greg Wilkes

I'm great. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Andrea Ciaffi

In this episode, we speak with Greg Wilkes. Greg is an award-winning construction business coach, property developer and author. Greg is also the founder of developed coaching and today he's going to share with us how anyone can build a travelling construction business adopting his five pillar framework.

Andrea Ciaffi

Greg, I'd like to start with your story. Can you take us back to the early days and what were you doing before becoming a coach?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. So I had a construction company myself built a company up to about £5,000, 000 in the UK. So it was a decent size, had about 12 to 15 in the office and yeah, maybe 30-30 guys on site. So yeah, had a had a pretty good construction business.

Greg Wilkes

But it didn't all go that well. It was some things were great with the business and we managed to win a lot of work. But at the same time, there was a lot of things going wrong. So I wrote about a lot of it in in my book basically about how not to build a business because I learned the hard way, unfortunately.

Greg Wilkes

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's great. And was there a moment when you realised that coaching was your was your calling?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. I think with that business because things didn't go as well as what I quite plans, that business unfortunately went bust after having it for about 14 years. So it was an awful, awful situation. And then I rebuilt the business and. Did it the right way the second time and that's what I wrote about in my book.

Greg Wilkes

You know, how do you build a successful construction company? And it was from there, really. Once I knew how to build things the right way and replicate that success, I was able to teach others how to do it. Some friends and helped a few other businesses.

Greg Wilkes

And then I thought, well, actually, I actually know how to do it now. I know the framework of what should be done. I know how not to do it and that's how I started coaching.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. No, that's great. And thanks for sharing your story because sometime people may not want to do that, but you have learned the lesson and you're applying the the lessons you've learned. But what was one mistake that you made in early in your career that shaped how you coached today?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was that we grew too fast as a business. So I was obsessed with growth and you know, trying to hit whatever 7-8 figures and because that obsession to grow, I didn't really have the foundations in place in order to sustain that growth.

Greg Wilkes

So now any business I build or I have built since then and any coach, any business that I'm coaching with, I'm very, very conscious that we don't want to grow too quick. So you know it's good to grow and it's good to grow at a decent pace.

Greg Wilkes

But at the same time, you've got to have everything in place. Before you actually go for it with that growth so that I think that was probably the biggest mistake that shapes everything I now teach is let's get these foundations in place before we before we really go for significant growth.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, I'm very excited for this, for this episode today, Greg, because we have people working in the construction industry interested in the digital, in the digital space. But many of them are interested in or dream about building their own business. And and this episode will be very interested, interesting for them because they can, I think they can learn a lot.

Andrea Ciaffi

And you wrote in your book about the five pillars of building a successful business. Can you walk us through the five pillars of your framework?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you briefly what they are. So the five pillars of plan, attract, convert, deliver and scale. And if I just tell you what they all are, so plan is obviously, you know having a proper business plan in place, making sure you know what KPIs and how you're actually going to get there.

Greg Wilkes

So you know having a plan is critical. Attract. You know, how do you bring on the right type of clients to your business and because ideally we want ideal clients coming on board convert. How do we then get those clients to pay you what you're worth so you're not winning work because you're the cheapest, but because people value what you do and deliver?

Greg Wilkes

How do we get you delivering both on site and? Off site in the office, we want to make sure the office is running really smoothly and the on site operations are running well and then scale. How do you bring the right people on board that are going to help take you to the next level so they're they're the five pillars of how you grow a successful business.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's good. And and I think like the listener can can get can buy your books so they can actually learn a little bit more that's actually free or or if am I wrong or I'm right.

Greg Wilkes

You can now you can. You can get a hard copy on Amazon, so you have to buy that. But we do give APDF away for free if you

Andrea Ciaffi

Good.

Greg Wilkes

want the ebook, then we're happy to share the knowledge. So just yeah, pop onto the website and grab that for free.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's good. So people can expand more on these pillars, but one that I found it particularly interesting is they attract pillar, which is more which is the one related to the digital aspects of the construction and how to build a business. And often this is the most underdeveloped because maybe people that work in construction, they are not.

Andrea Ciaffi

Particularly interested in in this part. They want to get the job done. They want to focus on what they're good at, can expand a little bit more on the attract pillar and now it can help contractors.

Greg Wilkes

Yeah, I think everything comes downstream of attract. You've got to get the attract piece right? Because if you're attracting the wrong clients and you're bringing the wrong clients on and you're not bringing enough clients on, then the rest of it is just painful.

Greg Wilkes

You know the profit and you know all the other things that's going on so. Attract is absolutely key. So what's involved in attract is a few things. One is making sure that you've got your brand right. We want you look in the part so that you can attract ideal clients.

Greg Wilkes

You've got to be able to fill your funnel full of the right type of leads. So you need to have a. A marketing strategy in place that brings on your ideal type of client, and if you could do those two things, get the brand and the marketing funnel right and then you then need to have a really good USP as well a unique selling point.

Greg Wilkes

Those three things I think, I mean it's more involved than that, but they're probably the key three things that you need. In order to bind and attract the right type of clients to your business.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that people may want to start a business and they need to also think about how to attract clients. Otherwise you don't have a business, you just have a service that is sitting

Greg Wilkes

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

there and nobody can access it. Can you think of what's the most common mistakes that business owners make when they try to attract new clients?

Greg Wilkes

I think they most people just take on anyone that's willing to to pay their fee and not actually think about who is their ideal client. So you know,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Greg Wilkes

I really encourage everyone to actually come up with an ideal client avatar or an ideal client profile. And you can do that using Jet GPT.

Greg Wilkes

You know you can go on there and describe the sort of client that you want, or maybe an easier way is actually just thinking of a client that you've worked for that you really enjoyed working for them and think, well, why did I enjoy working with that client and and then create the avatar based around them.

Greg Wilkes

So I think that's. Probably the the big thing the the big mistake people make is they take, they take anyone on rather than actually taking on their ideal client. And then once you know who your ideal client is, you can then build your whole attraction piece around that ideal client.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's a very valid point. I guess at the beginning, if people just want to get started and that's just itching to to build the

Greg Wilkes

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

business and see success, but probably you're 100% right. And if you're involved the wrong people, then there's no idea you touched on digital brand. Can you share with us what you think having a good digital brand really means? Like in 2095.

Greg Wilkes

Yeah, it's. So it's crucial. Everything's digital, isn't it? So it's crucial that we've got a good digital brand. So I think really it's made-up of having a good, good social media profiles. So not saying you have to be on every single social media platform.

Greg Wilkes

But you really need to pick one that you're really good at. So for your lessons, it's probably going to be LinkedIn. It's going to be one of their most popular platforms. You need to have a really good website because anyone that's going to employ you is going to look at your website.

Greg Wilkes

That's like your brochure if you like. So they're the big two really social media and website. And really what a good digital brand means is that you've got, you're attracting the right type of person through that brand. So what a lot of people make a mistake with, if I can just like link it back to my construction.

Greg Wilkes

People that I work with, they'll often have a website that shows all the work that they do, but it's not actually attracting their ideal clients, so they may show that they're taking on, you know, 5K projects or 10K projects. But ideally they want to be taking on 100K projects.

Greg Wilkes

So with your digital brand, you've got to make sure that you've got you're showing the right type of projects that you want to attract. You've got to have the right digital perception going. So that's really crucial. I think a lot of people miss that when they're showcasing their work, but they're not actually attracting their ideal type of projects and ideal type of clients through their digital brand.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's very. That's a very, that's a very valid one. And can you think about anything else a contractor can do to position themselves to stand out of online because it's a crowded space.

Greg Wilkes

Yeah, I think testimonials and reviews is is really important. So if you're showing your ideal work, people want proof nowadays and people buy from people and people trust. When you've got really good reviews and testimonials, so if you.

Greg Wilkes

If you can get not just written testimonies, but if you can actually get video testimonials off off your clients saying how they enjoyed working with you, that's super, super powerful. You know that that digital proof is really key if you if you can add that in a lot of people don't bother doing that.

Greg Wilkes

But I think it's a really worthwhile investment.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, very good and think about winning big projects, small projects. Sometimes people may think that they won't win large project, but is there any what what are the key difference between chasing small projects versus legal securing large ones?

Greg Wilkes

Well, I think if anyone wants to scale, you've got to well, the easiest way to scale is to level up the type of projects that you're taking on and the value of those projects. So you know, if you're a business that's doing a million a year in turnover, there's a few ways of skinning the cat to get to that million a year.

Greg Wilkes

You could take on, you know, whatever 100. 10K projects or you know, or whatever it's going to be so that maths is probably wrong or you know if if you if you were taking on 2500 K jobs you can also get to a million.

Greg Wilkes

So you really need to work out. You know what's how do you want to get there? And it's much easier to get there I believe. By taking on bigger projects, you know you can you can just scale much easier and I think some of the biggest problems we have in business is not necessarily the work, it's the clients that we're dealing with.

Greg Wilkes

Sometimes they can be the hassle. So if you can limit the amount of clients that you're actually working for. By taking on bigger projects, I think that's much easier too. Makes your life you know, 10 times easier.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's a real point. And sometimes we have people that worked on small projects or medium projects, but they feel that they are ready to to start to take on a on a big project. But how can they prove that they are ready to start a large project if they haven't done one?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah, well, that's hard to do. Again. This comes back to your brand perception. So you need to be looking the part online and you can do that by stock images. One thing that our contractors do, which I think is quite good, is they'll get CGI representations done of the.

Greg Wilkes

Type of work that they are potentially about to start, so even if they haven't actually delivered the project yet, they'll get a CGI representation done of the project and it looks like they've delivered it already. So yeah, it's not easy if you've never done the work before.

Greg Wilkes

You either need to partner up with someone that has and and and join forces with them just to try and get that one over the line, but once you've got one done, you can always refer back to it then and say, look, I've delivered £1,000, 000 or $1,000, 000 projects and I can do it again.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's a good point. And do you think the winning big project is more about marketing, more about networking or both? What do you think it is?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah, networking is important as you start getting to the bigger projects, it's hard. I mean, I'm just thinking of your listeners because your listeners, obviously a more architects and engineers. So I'm thinking of this from from a construction viewpoint. So what we teach our construction guys is that they actually.

Greg Wilkes

Need to partner up with architects and engineers to win these bigger projects because they're never going to get them just through the client alone and probably don't know the answer for your guys though on how they actually do it. But I would say yeah, networking is important.

Greg Wilkes

For sure to to win this bigger stuff.

Andrea Ciaffi

Definitely. It's always about word of mouth and knowing the people that have done some projects, that helps a lot.

Greg Wilkes

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

One of the things you talk a lot in, in other podcasts and I've seen resources online is you recommend systems to improve how? Contractors actually around their operations. Can you share any systems that you think can improve operations and everyday activity without losing control?

Andrea Ciaffi

Because sometimes people to scale a business you need to outsource some of your activities to other people or potentially to technology. Is there anything you?

Greg Wilkes

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

And think people can use to improve their operations.

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. So one system that I think everyone should put in place is we call it the 10 million daily huddle. So what's really important is when you've got people working for you, you need to know exactly what they're doing and set them the task for the day and see if there's anything that's blocking their progress.

Greg Wilkes

So the 10 minute daily huddle is simply meeting with all different, you know, members of your team doesn't have to be every single one, but maybe the key depends how big you are. But the key people in the business and actually just have a 10 minute meeting mapping out, you know, what are you working on today, what's blocking you from doing that?

Greg Wilkes

You know, how can I assist you? Things like that. So we've got a specific method for contractors on site. They'll, they'll go through, you know, what materials do they need. And yeah, what are they going to actually get done? And just that 10 minute meeting is just absolutely crucial because what it does, it stops all the firefighting that will go on for the rest of the day.

Greg Wilkes

Once you've got that. 10 minute meeting done, then, then they're not. Then calling you at, you know, 10:00 saying. Oh, I need this and 2:00. Oh, what did you what do I do here? Because you've already mapped it out for for the morning.

Greg Wilkes

So I think those 10 minute meetings are really crucial. It's a really good system that anyone in any business you've got anyone working for you. That's a great thing to put in place.

Andrea Ciaffi

Everybody, then one of the things you talk a lot in in your presentations is high AI in construction and some practical solutions for businesses. And how do you think that AI can fit into

Greg Wilkes

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

the everyday reality of small to medium construction businesses?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. So AI, whether we like it or not and if we want to bury our heads in the sand, there's no getting away from it. It's going to take over and and going to wipe out a lot of jobs. I think it's quite an exciting place to be there.

Greg Wilkes

If you're actually running a business, we know that anyone in business will be running multiple departments, you know, sales, marketing. You'd be doing the finance all of that sort of stuff. Now, normally you have to employ everybody to do that for you or you're trying to do all those roles yourself, whereas AI is going to wipe out a lot of those those roles.

Greg Wilkes

So it means in your business, you're going to be able to have a really small headcount if you leverage AI, if you know. How to use it? It means you know you don't potentially need to be paying for things just the other day.

Greg Wilkes

I was, I've actually just set up a little business the other day, a brand new one and I'm using AI all the way through it to set the whole thing up. Everything from brand guidelines to how do we incorporate the right way and get all the shareholders agreements in place.

Greg Wilkes

And I've saved myself a fortune and I still have to get the legal team to check over some stuff. But I've prepared all the documents, so all I'm now saying to them is actually, can you just have 5 minutes or an hour to scan over this rather than charging me thousands to prepare these documents?

Greg Wilkes

So it's crucial in businesses really is going to take over. So you've got. To learn to embrace it, and at least as a start, learn how to use ChatGPT efficiently because that's, you know,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Greg Wilkes

I think that's the the starting point. And don't don't bury your head in the sand. It's coming and you've got you've got to learn how to use it.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely needs to to be open to the change. The AI is bringing in. Can you share some more example of AI

Greg Wilkes

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

application that any contractor could start using tomorrow?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. I think one of the best ones that the biggest leverage you can use is one I like is called fireflies dot AI. And it actually I'm still saying fireflies, but actually you can just do this in ChatGPT if you want. But what it does is it records every single meeting that you're going to have and will transcribe.

Greg Wilkes

Drive it for you and then it will, you know, print off all your action items and everything that you potentially need. After that meeting. I think in in business, you're you're constantly either talking to clients, trying to pitch to them. And when you're when you're using fireflies or any other transcribing service.

Greg Wilkes

And you're going to understand exactly what that client wants, so you can develop proposals off of it. Any meetings you're having with contractors or subbies, anything like that, it's all recorded, and you're going to get actions items off of it. So it's a really, really good tool because sometimes things just get forgotten in everyday business.

Greg Wilkes

And I would say. I use fireflies all day, every day. You know, it's constantly on records. When I'm talking to people and the amount of things when I get those summaries back and I can just ask you a question and say, what did we say here or what do I need to do there or what's the next action point from this?

Greg Wilkes

I've got a full record of it and just keeping track of everything. So I think, yeah. Sort of transcribing software, either chat, GT or something like fireflies is absolutely brilliant. I think that's probably one you could start using immediately.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's a great one. And particularly because you then will build the database of all of these conversations and then you can query

Greg Wilkes

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

later and and get more insight what sometime people are a little bit concerned and worried about using AI because there are some risks probably associated to it. Is there any? Are there any particular risk that you think owners build business owners should be aware of when using AI?

Greg Wilkes

Yeah. I know a lot of people are worried about like data and problems with privacy and things like that. I think the reality is it knows a lot about us anyway and I think a lot of us have given up our data a long time ago.

Greg Wilkes

So if you're but if you really have to keep data storage in house and you want to consider something like. Microsoft's Co pilot, because they're much better for keeping all the privacy in house rather than ChatGPT and Google Gemini. But yeah, I think that's a bit of a misconception really.

Greg Wilkes

Generally. So I don't think there's a lot to worry about with AI and one thing. That's not going to happen for a long time is people worry that in construction they're going to lose their jobs. And I think there are going to be jobs that go in AI and that's that is a real risk.

Greg Wilkes

But things like, you know, the robots come in and they're going to build for us. I think we're a long, long way off of anything like that happening. So I don't think people need to worry about that so much, but but yeah, risks.

Greg Wilkes

I don't know. I don't think there are. I don't think there are many risks. I think you just got to embrace it, learn how to use it and embrace it. It's. Yeah, it's going to be an exciting, exciting new future for sure.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, we meant this new technology sometime. There is maybe an excessive concern around certain things and then people end up not not using or adopting technologies, but we are at the end of the episode,

Greg Wilkes

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

Greg, if people want to reach out to you or if they want to access your services, where can they find you?

Greg Wilkes

Yes, just pop onto the website sodevelopcoaching.com.auor.co. uk or just search for me online Greg Wilkes Online and you'll you'll find out all the sort of stuff I teach and yeah. And if you want the free book, just pop onto the website and. Hit the download button and you can have that for free.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thank you Greg for sharing your journey and the strategies with us with us today to our listeners, listeners, if you want to grow and scale and try just follow Greg and grab his book because he he really has a fascinating story how we develop his business until next time.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Yeah.

Greg Wilkes

Thanks.