Episode 14: Building A Reputation In The Construction Industry With Rocky Simmons

In episode 14 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, our host, Bosco Anthony is joined by Rocky Simmons, owner of Vision Homes based in West Virginia, United States.  Throughout this episode of the podcast, Rocky shares advice on building a reputation in the construction industry. 

Rocky is the owner of Vision Homes and is in charge of the Sales/Marketing and Financial cash flow and profitability of the business. He has been a member of APB since 2019. 

Vision Homes has been building new custom homes for more than 20 years and has built over 500 homes in Morgantown, West Virginia and the surrounding areas. 

Rocky’s team at Vision Homes consists of specialists in every phase of construction including an in-house drafting department, a full-time pricing department, quality control crews and a full time warranty manager.

Throughout this insightful episode, Rocky shares how & why he got into the construction industry, his challenges throughout his career and the #1 mistake he won’t make again, the importance of building relationships to build a reputation and SO much more!

Tune in to episode 14 now to hear Rocky share the best tips for builders for building a reputation in the construction industry. 

Rocky Simmons - Owner of Vision Homes

Rocky is the owner and VP of Sales at Vision Homes in West Virginia, United States. Vision Homes has been building custom homes for more than 20 years. 

Connect with Rocky

Timeline

0:45 How Rocky got into the construction industry.
7:28 Rocky’s ‘why’ for starting Vision Homes. 
9:44 Rocky’s initial vision for Vision Homes.
12:27 What contributed to the growth of Vision Homes. 
16:01 Rocky’s challenges.
18:11 The #1 mistake Rocky made. (And won’t make again!). 
20:13 Rocky’s biggest business lessons.
22:22 The importance of building relationships to build a reputation.
24:49 Rocky’s proudest achievements. 
26:32 How Rocky is preparing for the future.
31:25 Rocky’s advice to his younger self and other builders. 

Links, Resources & More

Vision Homes Website
APB Website
APB on Instagram
APB on Facebook
APB on YouTube

Join the Professional Builders Secrets Facebook group for builders & connect with professional builders world-wide.

Bosco Anthony:

Hello and welcome to the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, a podcast by the Association of Professional Builders (APB) for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here, we discuss all things running a professional building company, from sales processes, financials, operations and marketing. Hello and welcome. Today I'm joined by Rocky Simmons, Owner and Vice President for Vision Homes. Rocky, thank you for being here today.

Rocky Simmons:

Well, Bosco, thank you. I was very excited when APB sent me an email and asked me if I would do this. I knew they were getting near the bottom of the barrel when they called me, but I was excited to chat with you.

Bosco Anthony:

That's too funny. We're actually very happy to have different builders from all around the world, and I'm constantly surprised when I interview different builders. Let's start off with your journey. How did you get into this industry and how did Vision Homes become what it is today?

Rocky Simmons:

I grew up in a generation where we started working very young, so I just worked mowing grass, helping anywhere that I could. I grew up in the country, but got into the restaurant business all through high school and college. If you see a lot of Facebook posts about that, they'll tell you it's one of the best relationship teaching industries there is for what you deal with in that industry.

Rocky Simmons:

My degree in college at West Virginia University was business management with a finance emphasis. If you had a degree back then in 1985, what could you do with a degree like that? I had a lot of jobs jumping around, but I finally settled into working at a resort in Pennsylvania that was a golf and ski resort. I actually worked in the conference sales division, selling meeting space and so forth.

Rocky Simmons:

Again, I'm big on relationships and that’s what it's been about all my life. One of my customers was a huge company called DuPont. DuPont offered me a job to be their meeting planner. When I came back to my resort and put my notice in, we had a real estate division and I was very good friends with the director of real estate. He said, "Why are you leaving? You like it here. You like the area." I said, "Well, I have a growth opportunity."

Rocky Simmons:

He simply asked me, "Why don't you come and sell some of our condos and town homes?" My mum had been a realtor when I was younger and I really enjoyed that industry, so I jumped in and immediately found a lot of passion and just really enjoyed what I was doing with the customers. It was the sale of town homes, single-family houses, condos, but it was really a fun sell because at that point, the people were buying to come and ski on the weekends or golf or hike.

Rocky Simmons:

We joked and said we really weren't selling condos, we were selling a lifestyle and they just had to pick where they wanted to store their golf clubs and skis or whatever. Once that happened, I'm not a big cold weather person, so my wife at the time and I moved to the Carolinas. We went to South Carolina first and then to North Carolina. I was involved in the retirement sales of golf course communities.

Rocky Simmons:

It was going okay, but the community I was at is incredible, and that was called St. James Plantation. I learned a very valuable lesson there because Homer Wright, who was from the area, had such an incredible vision of what he wanted to create and everything he said was going to happen actually happened. When I was there, it was the early years, I was married, had a dog and a two-year-old and I learned how important numbers were at that job.

Rocky Simmons:

The commission was 10%, but I quickly figured out that 10% of nothing was nothing, so we were there a couple of years and then came back to Morgantown, West Virginia, which is my home. I took a break from that industry and took a job. I was looking for a little more steady income and took a job as a food sales rep for Sysco Foods, which is a huge food distributor. I was a sales rep, and it was still nice.

Rocky Simmons:

I was out building relationships with chefs and owners, but I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. One day saw an ad for a production builder, Patwil Homes. To make the story shorter, I was fortunate enough to get the job. I went in, was interviewed, got the job and I was just a sales rep. We were a scatter lot production building company, but the good thing that happened is while I was there, the President of Construction was Mike Helwig.

Rocky Simmons:

After about 15 months, I saw that I was selling everything. He was building everything. We were answering all the questions. We were doing everything but getting the reward. So, one day we were driving to a job site and I said, “Mike, why don’t we start Vision Homes?” That would’ve been at the end of 1993. “Well,” he said, “we need money.”

Rocky Simmons:

I’m a little cocky sometimes and I know a lot of people in Morgantown, so I went to a huge corporate guy here, who has a ton of money and a friend of mine. I asked him for his signature for a line of credit. He was very respectful and he looked at it, but he simply said no. About four or five months went by, and it’s a very funny story because being able to open was an accident.

Rocky Simmons:

I went to meet a friend who played in a bowling league, actually went there on the wrong night, but timing’s everything. He wasn’t there so I walked up to the lounge and Mr Pushkar was at the lounge and asked me what I was doing. I said, “Well, still trying to open my company.” Well, now instead of a written verbal presentation, it was face-to-face. He asked me why I wanted to do it and I think as I explained it to him, he could see the passion and the belief.

Rocky Simmons:

It was a really neat thing. He gave me a bar napkin and he said, “Call this lady at eight o’clock tomorrow.” On a napkin! I actually still have the napkin in my office. I didn’t sleep the whole night. At eight o’clock the next morning, I called Sandy Hatfield at Huntington Bank, who’s still our bank today, 27 years later.

Bosco Anthony:

Wow.

Rocky Simmons:

Then that’s how Vision Homes came from a superintendent for a builder and a salesman as a builder to two owners. It’s a pretty neat story.

Bosco Anthony:

Yeah. It sounds like it was almost like fate because you’ve got that accidental story, the napkin story, but you’ve also got two different working professionals who came together based on a need to have control as well. It’s a pretty incredible story about how the partnership started out. Now, obviously you’ve decided to build this company and you mentioned that this investor had asked you about why you wanted to start this company.

Bosco Anthony:

At the time, if you look back then, what was the purpose to start this company? Was it more a passion for the industry or was it more a vision for the industry? Why did you want to get into this?

Rocky Simmons:

That’s a great question. You actually hit on it there, because it was through fate, as Mike and I both had completely different skill sets. This podcast is not on video, but people laugh when I say I’m a builder and I own a building company, because these hands have never held a hammer. But my partner was all construction. He’s done all phases of construction personally. He knew how to manage his crews and his suppliers. He was also good at numbers.

Rocky Simmons:

My expertise was more in marketing sales and finance, and it was a great combination. What we saw in our market and the reason we wanted to do it is I think we both were just very motivated to have something of our own because we wanted to work for ourselves. Also, we saw a gap in our market. For buyers in our market clear back in 1992 to 1994, we saw that choice one was they could go out and they would have a production builder, but there were no other choices. Everything was limited.

Rocky Simmons:

The menu was very restricted, but the price might have been attractive. The flip side was the word custom. A custom builder would do anything you wanted, but usually it had to be a much bigger house, very fancy and ka-ching city.

Rocky Simmons:

Well, we saw a wide open market for a niche for somebody who still only wanted a 1200 to 1400 square foot home, but they wanted to put all their bells and whistles in it, and so we created a niche between say a 1200 square foot home and 3000 square foot, which is the production mentality, where we combined that with what we saw in the custom end, which was: “It’s your house, your money, what do you want inside it? We’ll do it.”

Rocky Simmons:

That’s what our driving force was, back to the Hidden Valley gentleman, who ended up being my father-in-law by the way. He told me, “Find a niche and then just work in that.” That’s really where we stayed in our lane, is that we wanted to create a company. Our three simple rules were to tell people what we would do, go out and do it and then tell them what we did and that just created a circle of referrals and a consistent business.

Bosco Anthony:

Did you always know that the goal was to bring the company to where it’s at today or did that goal evolve over time?

Rocky Simmons:

When we first started, there was a lot of things happening where we worked that we just weren’t crazy about. It’s funny that you ask that question because we did a business plan, and one of the things we did very well is everything except realising that we might succeed. My business partner is at retirement age, so when that came up, we realised that we forgot to put an exit plan when we started the company.

Rocky Simmons:

Our plan was just, “Oh, we’ll start this and do this.” All of a sudden, it’s 22, 23 years later, and one partner wants out. So, we had to recently work on some exit plans, but it was more just that we wanted to take care of customers, but not only customers. The spinoff for this business is the crews, the suppliers, the bankers and the appraisers.

Rocky Simmons:

Brand is a great word, but we wanted to build a reputation so people could come to us and we would help them, even if we wouldn’t build for them. We’d tell them what we could and couldn’t do and then we would do it. It’s amazing how fast 26 years have gone, though.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, Rocky, what do you love the most about what you do today? I’m sure that has changed over the years, but what do you love the most today?

Rocky Simmons:

That’s true. In the beginning, I was the salesman when we opened. We’re still very lean and mean. Actually, we used to do more houses. We used to do in the 30s per year, but then when the interest rates dropped, it made the houses bigger and more.

Rocky Simmons:

So we’re at 18 to 25 homes a year with revenue that used to be four to five million dollars. That’s why I went to APB and three years later, we’re going to be about seven million dollars and we’re continuing to grow safely and securely as they recommend. In the beginning it was just about meeting the customer, helping them getting the house and the keys, but after 26 years, what I enjoy the most is the relationships, as I just mentioned.

Rocky Simmons:

It starts with your bankers. It starts with your suppliers. It starts with your crews. You notice we don’t call them subcontractors. We call them crews because they’re very loyal to us, and we’re very loyal to them. We enjoy it when we see our employees, and then of course our homeowners, getting what they were told they were going to get. Relationships are pretty much what I enjoy the most out of what we do.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, there must be an ‘it’ factor for the growth. You talked about having 25 homes and this financial revenue model that's almost double now with working with APB, which is a pretty amazing feat on its own. If you look back, what do you think led to this growth? If you had to articulate a word for it, what were the contributing factors that have brought you to where you are today?

Rocky Simmons:

Well, in the beginning, frankly, there was just a wide open niche for the market we created, but because of the transparency and the honesty and the way we presented it, we grew pretty quickly. I have a lot of friends in our town who are builders and I saw one recently and he quoted it as, “Rocky kind of snuck up on us.” We just opened our business and we concentrated on working hard every single day and we made sure that when we did something, we did it right.

Rocky Simmons:

If we didn't do it right, we made it right when the time came. I think probably one of the biggest things that helped us grow and sustain a business to a certain level was that we always have a theory of we do what's right. It's not always easy, but it's always right. We grew pretty well but then we got to about four or five million dollars annually and I realised that we got there because my salesman and I had the sales process in our heads.

Rocky Simmons:

We knew what we were doing, but I hate to say it, it's hard. I'm honest enough with myself to say that we frankly winged it a lot. We always had great written construction backend systems. My business partner and his son, clear back before Buildertrend, had basically an Excel sheet that allowed us to run up to 12 jobs at a time and keep everybody happy. We got to that four to five million dollar range and then it's so funny because I watched Ty's interview and he hit it right on the head.

Rocky Simmons:

I knew APB's stuff worked because one day I got a Facebook message and I clicked on it. I started getting their emails and it got to the point where I was excited: “When's the next one coming?” Right in front of my desk here where I'm doing this podcast from, when they got me and I joined in – they've changed it to the sales process now – it was the eight steps to a successful sales process.

Rocky Simmons:

Well, I clicked on it. I loved it, so I set up a coaching call. What has helped with the growth is we took all these things that I knew, and we put them into repeatable systems. It was funny because when we joined APB, you could join for just X dollars and have access to the modules, or you could have a coaching mentoring.

Rocky Simmons:

I went to my business partner and I said, "Do you care if I do this?" He's the type of guy that'll fight you over a dollar, but he'll spend $10,000 if it's worth it. He told me I could do neither or both. He said, “If you just join, you'll play around with them and nothing will happen.” So, we went full pledge in and joined. What was nice is my salesman said, "Why did you join? Everything they're telling you, you already know."

Rocky Simmons:

I said, "Yeah, I know it. But it's up in my head. We need it in repeatable systems so we can follow it. There's no winging and all that." One of the greatest things that I get in the past three to five years is three years ago, June of 2018, we set a sales goal that we would hit in 2021 and we exceeded it this year [in 2021].

Bosco Anthony:

Congratulations.

Rocky Simmons:

That's pretty exciting.

Bosco Anthony:

Yeah. It sounds like it, Rocky. Now, I've talked to a lot of builders to know that it's never smooth sailing. With the highs come some lows as well. Let's start off with uncovering some of these experiences you had. If you had to sum up some of the lows or some of the challenges you've faced as a company, what would they be?

Rocky Simmons:

That's a great question, because when we opened, we were set up, even though we were lean, but everybody would stay in their lane. One of the things that I know we'll probably touch on again here in a minute is I feel like if you don't know your costs, it doesn't matter what margin or markup you need, you're playing Russian roulette.

Rocky Simmons:

We were very fortunate from the day we opened for about seven years, from probably 1995 to 2002, that we had our own in-house contract estimator. Well, what happened is he ended up getting cancer and was no longer available to us and so at this point we were building 32 homes that year. My partner was out making sure all the promises that we made were being kept; I was still marketing and selling so we really had no one in charge of costs.

Rocky Simmons:

We had a year where we built 32 homes and made a net profit of $2,500. That was a huge challenge. I'll always remember the bank meeting. We went to meet with the bank and at that point we had seven years of ‘our word is good’. We did what we would say and the banker, Sandy, looked at my partner, and she said, "Oh, my gosh, Mike, what are you going to do?" He said, "Sandy, we've already fixed this."

Rocky Simmons:

In our business, the sales process and the turnaround on money is such a long process, he told her, "We've already fixed this." It was about August/September. He said, "But you're not going to realise or believe me until we meet next year, this time." It's because we got an estimator, got our costs back in line and all that.

Rocky Simmons:

That was quite challenging. That was more of an internal thing where we weren’t on top of our costs. The external stuff's always there. We look at those as opportunities instead of external headaches.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, every leader can look back to a classical leadership, entrepreneurial or business mistake that has defined how they've become a better leader. If you had to look back down memory lane, what's that one classical mistake that you'll never make again?

Rocky Simmons:

I hope humour's allowed in these podcasts. I'm glad it's only a podcast because it's still an embarrassing story. We opened a second office and we were trying to grow and I was handling the sales. As my partner says, I'll do anything to make this out, because I'm that competitive. Well, I was allowed to do the pricing and the sales and all that.

Rocky Simmons:

I'm alone in this transaction and I want it and it was crazy because I was bidding instead, which we don't ever do anymore. We price homes; we don't bid them. The long and short is we sold a home. Fast-forward, eight months later, forget fixed expenses. We paid out of pocket $2,500 more than the money we collected. I had to meet my partner for lunch, and this is the funny part and the lesson, and I told my wife at the time, "I think we're going to be closed."

Rocky Simmons:

I said, "I mean, the people have never invited me to dinner. I've never spent a night in their home and we paid for some of their house.” At lunch, he looked at me and he said, "You know why we're here, right?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Well, you know you're an owner, right?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, the next time you get the urge to give a prospect $2,500, go get a cheque, fill it out for $2,500, sign your name and say, 'Thanks for coming in.'"

Rocky Simmons:

He said, “Our liability’s done. We’re done at that point.” What I learned there is that a business needs written, repeatable systems for everything. The next step is commitment; do it. Don't let the salesman be in charge of the costing and pricing. Give them the pricing and that. It was a valuable lesson.

Bosco Anthony:

That sounds like it's something you'll never forget as well. Take me through where you are today. You alluded to the fact that you're systemising things and you're taking things out of the brain and actually applying them. Obviously with all this growth that's happened as well and achieving all these sales quarters, what are some of the business lessons that you are applying today to prepare you for the future?

Rocky Simmons:

Andy, who was my original coach, realised very early that I'm a go, go, go personality. He realised really quickly that if he gave me 10 things to implement and I only did seven, that I was going to feel like I failed. What we're doing now is knowing that each day we can improve something. We take what we think needs to be dealt with next. We sit down and we go through, we implement it. Then we go to the next step. We just making sure we're taking baby steps to grow.

Rocky Simmons:

I love the quote that APB uses, growing safely and securely. A lot of builders, I know they're going to hear this. When I tried to make changes, my own staff fought me on everything. What I did is I made sure that when I joined APB, I did everything that they asked to be done so that then I could show my people.

Rocky Simmons:

It was funny now, so many things that I first got battled on, I'm now getting thank yous for and it's working. The greatest thing was that we were just stuck. Don't get me wrong; four to five million dollars means you can still make a living, but in any business, you want to grow. You don't want to stand still in a train track. You'll get hit by a train. It's just very rewarding to see the little things we put in place and then we could see the results, but we have so much more to grow.

Rocky Simmons:

That's exciting because I know there's such a good opportunity if we just put our work ethic in. We're very transparent. We're very honest to customers. The big thing is to make sure you're spending the time with those who want your time.

Bosco Anthony:

Rocky, you alluded to something about relationships as well. It sounds like you have very strong relationships. You talked about the fact that you don't use the term ‘subcontractors’. You call them part of your crews. Where does that belief about relationships come from? What's the biggest advice you have for other building companies who want to build relationships with their vendors, their suppliers, their clients? What's the best advice you can give them about building strong relationships?

Rocky Simmons:

I can only speak from my own experience. I think it's a life thing. I think it's in anything you do, it's relationships, but transferring that to business I think you have to pick and decide what you're doing. We knew early on we did not want to be the lowest priced builder. I could do that if I wanted; I just don't want the headaches that go with it.

Rocky Simmons:

We decided very early on that we’d pay attention to our competitors, but we believe our competition is our promises to our customers, to our suppliers, to our crews. We formed relationships with people that were very blessed. Our crews are all professionals in their areas. They have families they need to feed. They're loyal. We're loyal to them. Same thing with our suppliers. Of course you've got to check and make sure they're staying in line.

Rocky Simmons:

Everybody does that, but we're not the type of builder that ever says, "We're going to leave you because the drywall's 10 cents." Because what happens is you're not building any relationships. It's been hard the last two years and we’re just been worn out with everything that's going on, but let me just promise you, we are very blessed that we're in a much better position than a lot of people that didn't build those relationships, because it's not even about price.

Rocky Simmons:

It was being able to go to my go-to suppliers and have them tell me, "Hey, what do you think's going to happen the next six months?" As a leader and an owner of a building company, you have to be six, nine, 12 months ahead of where you are. The big issue right now is what's going to happen with interest rates. That's going to be when things, in my opinion, are going to slow, but we've been through tough times.

Rocky Simmons:

We opened in 1995, we went through a really tough year, as I told you, in 2002, which was internal. Everybody knows about 2008. We survived then. I just feel like if you have go-to people that you can go to, as far as suppliers, crews, bankers, appraisers, employees and customers, you can survive this stuff.

Bosco Anthony:

Now running a business obviously has challenges, and you've talked a lot about them. Tell me a little bit about some of these achievements that you've had, that you're really proud of. You talked a little bit about hitting that milestone goal financially and that revenue goal, but let's dig a little deeper. Tell me about some of the things that you look back on that put a smile on your face outside of the napkin that is in your office.

Rocky Simmons:

It's really funny because Andy and my new coach, Erik, both get on me because I'm really tough at looking back at that because I have the mentality that we haven't done anything yet. I think about what we could have done, but I start with just our suppliers and crews, when they care and say thank you. And I think about our employees; we have employees who have been with us 26, 22, 14, 4 and 2 years. That's pretty good.

Rocky Simmons:

Some of our crews have been with us since the beginning, so obviously we're making relationships for younger crews. This is one of my great achievements.

Rocky Simmons:

When we have suppliers or crews that want to come and do business with us, I say, "Here's the good news and the bad news. They're the same thing. We're very loyal. You might not be able to have our business, but when you do get it, as long as you want to keep it, you can keep it." Another achievement was getting stuck out of the mud and sitting down, writing stuff out and saying, "Here's where we are. Here's where we want to go." Listening to my coaches, asking “How can we get there?” Then when we hit that mark this year, it was a pretty exciting day.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, what's the plan for the future moving forward? You talked a little bit about your business partner now getting into that retirement stage and planning for an exit strategy. What is the long-term play for Vision Homes? More importantly, how are you preparing for the upcoming future? You talked a little bit about interest rates changing as well, that landscape changing. What are you doing to get ready for that as well?

Rocky Simmons:

Yes. We're lucky because we do have some developments we build in, but we also are a builder for folks with their own land and we're in an area where it just amazes me, but people just keep falling out with land. I think the key going forward is without a doubt, talking to your suppliers, your crews, your bankers, your appraisers. I did a lot of networking in the early years and got away from it. I'm back out at every event I can go to now and just listening to the people.

Rocky Simmons:

There are so many resources online. You’ve got to be careful, too. You get reputable, credible, organisations such as your home builders associations, your NFIBs, et cetera. Then you get the data. Nobody knows, but you just say, "Okay. What can I do best with this data?" The biggest challenge we have right now is just the supply chain disruptions. It's not even as much about the price of those supplies as the ability to get them.

Rocky Simmons:

We're blessed that we've always picked everything out up front. We hit a little bit of a rut because we had some delays on homes because the suppliers gave us no notice because their manufacturers didn't give them any notice, but we're blessed that we sell ahead. We keep a nice funnel of leads and we have starts lined up so that we can plan ahead and order in advance.

Rocky Simmons:

We've recently tweaked something that we're telling our customers, "We're going to have you come in for a meeting and your home's going to start, even though no dirt's moving." Because we'll start ordering materials so that when the time comes that we need those materials those are there, which will still allow us to build a customer a house in the five to six months that we promised them.

Rocky Simmons:

That's a win-win for everybody. It saves them time and money. It turns the house over for us and it saves stress because the longer you stay in the process, the harder it is to communicate and keep it.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, you're also embracing digital. I was pretty impressed when I looked up your website. You've got a live chat button. You've got some videos as well. It sounds like you are embracing the digital landscape just as much.

Rocky Simmons:

Like I said, we've done this for so long. When I started, the advertising was newspapers, magazine and a phone book. One night when I was at a social event, when someone said to me, "Rocky," he said, "all your ads should be is a picture and a story." That was magazine and newspaper. Well, now with the tools we have, we're doing this. I mean, just think what you can do with pictures and stories. Actually, we're going to do a lot more.

Rocky Simmons:

We're really excited for next year because we're putting out a whole campaign, and it's not about Vision Homes at all. The other thing I like about APB, they truly want to help the industry, not just for builders, but for customers because it's just so frustrating when some folks don't want to take the time and do what they need to help customers, and that's what gives our business a bad name.

Rocky Simmons:

Doctors get paid well, but when somebody gets sick at the hospital, they come home to the homes that we built. It's just really neat to try to make the industry better. Our whole video series that's coming out will just be about those fears. How long is it going to take to build my house? How do I pick things out? And just try to throw those things out there.

Rocky Simmons:

That way, when somebody watches it, whether they build with me or build with somebody in a whole other state, but they see the video, then we helped somebody and the industry gets better.

Bosco Anthony:

If you look back now at everything you've done, there must be moments where you feel like you could be doing this for a very long time. Do you feel like you've achieved that balance, that state of Nirvana where business owners say that they have a balance in their family life? Because most builders work long hours and work on weekends. Where are you at now in that balance of time?

Rocky Simmons:

Since June of 2018, it's got a lot better. You were asking about the long-term plan: I'm quite a few years younger than my business partner and frankly, my plan is to continue systemising and implementing these things. My goal is that this business can run efficiently, whether I'm here or whether I'm over visiting you guys in Australia.

Bosco Anthony:

I would love to have you here as well. I would love to do this in person next time. Look, I could talk to you for hours. It sounds like you've got a lot of great stories, but my final question for you today is knowing what you know now, if you could give yourself, a younger version of yourself one bit of advice when you first started, what would that be? I'm also going to ask you this from a different perspective.

Bosco Anthony:

What other advice would you give to a new builder or a struggling builder or builder that's in the industry as well, for when they're trying to make something out of their business? What advice would you give? Obviously, you've got a lot of wisdom with all the years that you've been doing this. What advice would you give a younger version of yourself and other builders?

Rocky Simmons:

Well, what I'd do first if I could go back and we were starting again is I would get rid of my arrogance and I'd be more vulnerable, just because all the information was in my head. If you want to grow a business and even if you're going to be a sole builder and seller, I would absolutely create a written process from hello until signing the agreement.

Rocky Simmons:

It's not to sell, it's to allow customers to ask their questions and get the information they need so that they can make a decision if it works for the builder or if it works for the customer, because we didn't have a written sales process for a long, long, long time.

Bosco Anthony:

Great. Would you give that same advice to other builders as well who are getting into the business?

Rocky Simmons:

Well, I would say this, I said earlier, I didn't know what a footer was when I started in this business. I don't use a hammer. I know great carpenters who've tried to be builders, but running a business, whether it's building or whatever that is, running a business is running a business and you’ve got to work on it. It there’s somebody young, just starting out, what I would tell them is to look at the end and put systems in place on how to get there.

Rocky Simmons:

Without a doubt, know your costs. Like I said, “I'm going to mark this up 20%; I'm going to mark this up 50%.” It doesn't matter, if you start out behind the eight ball, I promise you, you're going to finish. Russ knows the numbers of how many builders go out in the first year and at three years. Probably my greatest achievement is that we've been open 26 years, but if you're starting out, use these resources that I didn't have access to 26 years ago. Put systems in place.

Rocky Simmons:

It sounds silly, but if you have a model home, you open the front door, you turn the lights out when you close up. If you just systemise and put procedures in and then you know your costs and you have a funnel of leads coming in, what I would recommend to builders is don't get into price wars, because nobody's going to win. Everybody says, "Oh, the customer wins."

Rocky Simmons:

Well, guess what? Sometimes the customer loses because some guy will do anything he has to, to get to the price. Either the customer ends up with a home they don't want or a bunch of overruns or a combination of both. If I were starting out, I would know my costs. I would make sure I had systems. Then I would find really, really good people because I think I heard that – I don't know who's quote I'm stealing – but the quote says ‘systems run a business, people work the systems.’

Bosco Anthony:

That's a great quote. I think the numbers are actually 80% of builders fail in the first five years, I believe. I heard Russ mention that as well. That's a pretty insightful quote as well. Rocky, we could talk to you, like I said, for ages, but I think we're going to have to wrap it up here, but we'd love to have you back again.

Bosco Anthony:

Thank you so much for your time, your energy and your insights. We really appreciate you staying a little bit later and sharing your wisdom with us today.

Rocky Simmons:

Well, Bosco, thank you and I make a promise to you that I've made to Andy, I will see you in Australia soon.

Bosco Anthony:

We'd love to have you, mate. We'd love to have you.

Rocky Simmons:

Okay. Thank you. Have a great day.

Bosco Anthony:

Thank you for listening. Remember to subscribe to Professional Builders Secrets on your favourite podcast platform and leave a review. To learn more about how the systems at APB can help you grow your building company, visit associationofprofessionalbuilders.com. See you next time.