Open Book: 3 Builders on Their Biggest Breakthroughs
Three builders, six questions – discover the challenges, turning points and must-have tools for these construction pros
In this Q&A interview, Houzz goes behind the scenes with three notable builders to hear about their greatest business challenges, breakthroughs and the best professional advice they have received. This month, we talk to Anthony Pillinger at Swell Homes, David Cunico at 7 Towns, and Anthony Karlovic at First Avenue Homes for the inside scoop on how they run their building businesses.
1. What was the most challenging time in your business?
- Anthony Pillinger: Right now! The receding economy has caused many builders to scale down overheads in order to match enquiries that have gone off the boil. We are no exception. It has been an opportunity for me to become a hands-on builder and supervisor again. It has been a big change, but not without its rewards.
- Anthony Karlovic: Definitely the beginning. My wife and I took a leap of faith with one contract on the go – the pressure was on to turn our side hustle into our main income stream.
The biggest challenges came with trying to juggle it all (current contracts, winning new contracts, on-site works and quality control, bookkeeping, and soon) and not realising until we were extremely overworked and stressed that we really needed additional staff. Team work makes the dream work, and things are working really well now, being able to delegate on-site work and manage the business for continued growth and success.
2. How did you trade out of it?
- Anthony Pillinger: By taking control of previously outsourced aspects of our budget, we have made much greater profit and had more control.
- David Cunico: We took on jobs at close to break-even prices in order to get into the market and, as our experience and list of references grew, we started winning more projects.
- Anthony Karlovic: Hustle, hustle, hustle. There was not one job, big or small, that we didn’t say ‘yes’ to in the first couple of years. The firsts were always challenging: first heritage renovation, first multi-occupancy development, first luxury home with a basement. But with good management skills, a good trade base and using industry experts when required, we have delivered some amazing homes with a quality we’re really proud of.
3. What brought about a major turning point in your company?
- Anthony Pillinger: Both our decision to concentrate on our own design work, and to take on a maximum amount of work per annum. As trained supervisors resigned to work elsewhere or for themselves, we dropped the per-annum target sales to reflect decreased operational expenditure.
- David Cunico: We had a chance meeting with Embracing Space owner and award-winning interior designer Teresa Kleeman, who had just started freelancing at the time. Shortly after we undertook our first collaboration with her, which felt like a new beginning for us both. Her industry experience combined with our social-media reach worked very well in helping each other grow our businesses.
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- Anthony Karlovic: Winning our first industry award in 2017, the HIA Renovation & Extension of the Year for our South Melbourne heritage project, was a turning point. The experience cemented our place in the industry and it was great to have an accolade from the industry body and to be recognised by peers.
4. What’s the best tool your business uses?
- Anthony Pillinger: Smartsheet for project management and revision control, Houzz for showcasing our work, Xero for bookkeeping, and Archicad for design.
- David Cunico: It’s important for small businesses to be on top of their accounting and bookkeeping as cash-flow is key. In this regard, our Xero software for accounting was a huge transition from when we first started keeping manual records. It saves a lot of time in reporting and helps us keep track of key performance indicators.
- Anthony Karlovic: We use a building management software called BuilderTrend. It allows clients, trades and our full-time staff to be across the scheduling of a project, gives us digital access to the relevant job files on-site such as plans, timetable what works are occurring on a daily basis, use photo updates for clients and other communication, and manage invoicing and purchase orders.
5. What do you think are the challenges ahead for the industry?
- Anthony Pillinger: I cannot see another boom ahead, and hope for steady and sustainable growth in the economy. Further decreasing property values could be a future challenge, continued tight lending too. Policy supporting continued urban infill will help buffer these factors if they continue to occur.
- David Cunico: I definitely believe there is an industry-wide skilled labour shortage, which is felt at even the small-business level.
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- Anthony Karlovic: Keeping up with and dealing with the fallout from changes made to Australian Standards & Building Code challenges the industry. An example of this is the legislation surrounding the use of safe cladding and how those changes affects other professionals, such as building surveyors and ourselves as builders.
6. What’s the best professional advice you’ve been given?
- Anthony Pillinger: The best thing to do with a building licence is to build for yourself.
- David Cunico: My mother always told me ‘Make sure you love what you do’. I don’t think I really appreciated how important this would be at the inception of our business. However, having experienced the challenges of operating a business for a number of years and the grind of working 100-plus hour weeks at times, I believe to succeed and stay motivated you need to truly love what you do.
- Anthony Karlovic: To be a good businessperson you need to be personable, approachable and make time for all. The young apprentice on-site and your biggest client should both feel comfortable in approaching you and are both worthy of your time.
Your turn
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Missed last month’s interview with Houzz professionals? Catch up here with Open Book: 3 Architects on How They Navigated Business Challenges