Episode 18: The Systems That Changed Everything with Ryan Stannard

In episode 18 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Ryan Stannard, Director of Stannard Family Homes. Throughout this episode, Ryan reveals the systems that transformed his building company.

Ryan has a young family and has worked in the industry for over 25 years, and opened Stannard Family Homes to supply high-quality custom family homes with exceptional customer service at affordable prices to families of Adelaide.

Combined with his energy and vision for creating modern homes for the 21st century, Stannard Family Homes is a leader in custom-built homes in Adelaide.

Before Ryan found APB, the years leading up to that were quite a struggle in Stannard Family Homes…

He was working a lot, not really making any money, and didn’t know where he was going... He actually thought about throwing in the towel altogether. Now Ryan's business builds 25 custom houses per year, and their business is growing daily.

Throughout this episode of the podcast, Ryan shares the story of how he first started out in the construction industry, the biggest challenges he has faced when running his building company, his biggest achievements, other advice to builders and SO much more.

Tune in to the full episode to hear how a young Australian builder was able to transform his building company by implementing a few key systems that any builder can access.

 

Ryan Stannard - Director of Stannard Family Homes

Ryan Stannard was initiated into the building industry through his family’s building company. Ryan has worked in the industry for over 20 years and commenced Stannard Family Homes based on the values of his father’s era; exceptional customer service and high-quality homes at realistic prices. Combined with his energy and vision for creating modern homes for the 21st century, this has made Stannard Family Homes a leader in residential construction in Adelaide.

Connect with Ryan

Timeline

1:02 How Ryan got into the construction industry. 

4:19 What Ryan loves about running his own building company. 

5:59 The biggest challenges Ryan has faced. 

9:32 Being a builder vs a businessman. 

12:27 The #1 thing that surprised Ryan about running a building company. 

14:20 How Ryan's business and his life have changed. 

15:33 How Ryan hires the right people for his team.

17:02 Ryan’s biggest achievements over his journey.

18:42 How Ryan trusted his team enough to step back from the day to day operations.

20:09 The systems that Ryan uses to ensure his teams success. 

21:51 Ryan’s advice to the younger version of himself and to other builders. 

23:21 Ryan’s advice to other builders just starting out. 

24:27 What Ryan is doing now to set up Stannard Family Homes up for future success.

Links, Resources & More

Stannard Family 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 APB for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here, we discuss all things running a professional building company, from sale processes, financials, operations and marketing. Today, I'm joined by Ryan Stannard, Owner and Managing Director of Stannard Family Homes, headquartered in Adelaide [Australia]. Ryan, thank you for being here today.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, no worries at all, Bosco. I’m looking forward to having a chat.

Bosco Anthony:

So, Ryan, let’s start off with your story. How did you get started in the industry? What year, how old were you? Tell us a little bit about how you got into this.

Ryan Stannard:

I was sort of born into the industry. My father was a builder and I was always going to be a builder. I left school when I was 15 or even a little bit before I was 15 and started a carpentry apprenticeship with my father, and it has just continued on from there.

Bosco Anthony:

Is it fair to say that you had a passion for carpentry and building at the time? I guess you didn’t know building would be where you’d end up, but it sounds like you had a passion for carpentry.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, it was just a passion for building in general. That’s just where the apprenticeship started out. Ever since I was a little boy, I was on sites with my dad building stuff. We’re originally from country Victoria and we used to build farm houses and shearing sheds; we would build all sorts of buildings. It wasn’t just carpentry. We would do tiling, bricklaying, concreting, all different sorts of building. So, I learnt the whole building phase as a teenager, with my dad.

Bosco Anthony:

Tell us a little bit about that pivotal moment. When did you know that this was going to be a company, a career, a life decision? There must have been a pivotal moment where you said to yourself, “This is what I want to do.”

Ryan Stannard:

I think just growing up, I knew that I was always going to be a builder. It was just a question of when. It transformed from working for my father; then I went and worked for some other people when I was about 18 or 19. I worked for some other builders, learned a different way of doing things and understood a bit of different sides of the building industry. Then when I was about 20, I set up my own subcontract carpentry gang. We did mainly wall and roof framing. I employed up to 25 carpenters at a time, just doing wall and roof framing. That went on for a little while and then work started to slow up in the GFC [global financial crisis] of 2008; work started to slow up for the carpentry side of things.

Ryan Stannard:

I had a few friends who were looking to do extensions, so I just went and did the extensions for them. Then that side of things gradually grew. Then extensions turned into new houses, and new houses turned into a company that builds new custom houses. It was sort of just a transformation. It didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t actually have to push to make it happen. We gradually grew, and then I employed an estimator to help me with the estimating. Then I employed a supervisor to help me with that. Then it gradually just grew and grew and grew until we got the company that we’ve got today.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you always had a long-term goal. It just took this ripple effect as things progressed. What was it like running a company of 25 different carpenters at that young age? What was the experience like when you first started out?

Ryan Stannard:

Saying it like that makes it sounds like it would be daunting, but it was just something that happened. We just kept building houses and building and building, and then we needed more carpenters for the demand that we had and then it just snowballed. So, yeah it was fun. It was really fun times.

Bosco Anthony:

What do you love the most about what you do today and has it changed over the years, like in the last few years as well?

Ryan Stannard:

The thing I love the most about what I do today is my team and the team environment that I’ve got here. I’ve built a really close knit team – I think there are nine of us at the moment, all office based, which is completely different. I’ve got three supervisors on site, but the rest of us are office based, and it’s very different to where I’ve come from with all the trades-based people. The thing I really enjoy now is the team environment around the office. I’ve put a lot of time into employing the people that I’ve got and they’re all great. I just love that environment now; it’s great.

Bosco Anthony:

Tell us a little bit about the business. You’ve seen some growth or over the years; you’ve mentioned carpentry led to other things. If you had to accredit some factors that led to this growth, what would they be?

Ryan Stannard:

I guess it would be getting outside of my comfort zone, much to my wife’s displeasure at times. If she had known what I was doing in the background, she probably wouldn’t have allowed me to continue on. But I just used to take risks, make choices that I thought I could make work. I just kept pushing ahead with different ideas and different things, and that’s how we’ve ended up where we are today.

Bosco Anthony:

So, let’s talk about the highs and the lows. I’ve spoken to enough builders to know that it’s not always smooth sailing, there are always journeys and obstacles that you have to overcome. So, let’s open the curtain a bit. Are you willing to share some of the biggest challenges you faced and how you’ve overcome those challenges as well?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. People looking at the building industry from the outside think that builders are all rich and doing well. But the building industry is not all beer and skittles. The highs are high and the lows are low. When things are great, things are great. When things are bad, things are really bad. And in the building industry, things go bad. You don’t just lose your job; you lose your house, your car, you lose everything that you’ve got. So, it's building an empire I suppose, but building an empire that's protected. So that's the main thing, it’s that you've got to grow at a sustainable rate so that you can protect your assets.

Bosco Anthony:

If you look back at that journey, you mentioned it's not always beers and skittles. Can you give me some examples of some of those challenges? What are some of the things that you faced that were really tough times for you?

Ryan Stannard:

The thing with our industry is that it gets so affected by things like the global financial crisis. A few years ago, we dealt with the Banking Royal Commission. So, all of our contracts that we had signed, but that hadn't gone into construction, had to be reviewed. We had eight contracts that we were just about to start construction on, and the finance had to be reviewed, which stole three months of our turnover at that point in time. And that hurt. You take three months of your turnover out of your business overnight, and it's hard to come back from that. So that was a really challenging time for me. There are just different things throughout the years that have created these sorts of challenges, but that's one that springs to mind off the top of my head, for sure.

Bosco Anthony:

Every business owner has a lesson that they learned the hard way that they've always applied or done differently. I think it's fair to say that entrepreneurs learn through mistakes.

Ryan Stannard:

Yes.

Bosco Anthony:

Have there been any mistakes that you've experienced that have taught you to be a better business owner or a better business leader?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. It's probably what I mentioned before; the Banking Royal Commission was one thing that hit me really hard because I hadn't prepared for it. It took 90% of our work for that time. Back then I was building, building, building, and it took about 12 months for me to recover from that. The biggest thing I've learned from that is now you've got to have enough reserves to cover you so your business can keep running, even if you don't have any work. You've got to hold the reserves to keep your business running for at least six to 12 months, to make sure that if things like that happen again, you can power on through it.

Bosco Anthony:

When you talk about cash reserves, you're talking about controlling your expenditure then essentially, because from what you're telling me, do builders just end up spending more when they don't have that financial awareness?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. It's just that you're spending, and it comes back to WIPAA, your Work in Progress Accounting Adjustment and bits and pieces. Builders spend money that's not theirs, but the whole WIPAA thing's probably a whole other discussion again. Every builder would be guilty of it at some point or other; you've got money in the bank that's not yours, and if you spend it and then you don't have any work, well then it comes back to get you.

Bosco Anthony:

Right. You mentioned the WIPAA calculator – we have talked a little bit about it in previous episodes about the work in progress and the accounting adjustment calculator. I'm assuming this is when you were aware of APB. How did that relationship start and how has it changed you?

Ryan Stannard:

When I started with APB, it was pretty much my last straw in the industry, to be honest with you. I'm not sure when I joined APB, but it may have been just after the Banking Royal Commission, maybe after the hard hits of that. But when I joined them, I was lost. I'd been working in the industry my whole life and I hadn't really made heaps of money. I'd made enough money for me to live, survive and pay my mortgage, but I hadn't made enough money for the amount of work that I was putting in. Back in those days I had a young family and I was working 15 plus hours a day. I was lucky though, that I only ever worked Monday to Friday.

Ryan Stannard:

I never ever worked on the weekends. That was my family time. But during the week it would be 15 hours a day, most days doing book work at night, building houses during the day, all that sort of stuff. If you do that for 10 or 15 years, it starts to take a bit of a toll on your life. I hadn't really seen the rewards of that and it wasn't because I wasn't good at what I did. I was great at building a home, but I wasn't a great business person. That's the biggest take out of the industry: we tradesmen might be great tradesmen, but we're not business people. So, what you don't know, you don't know. And you can't feel stupid if you don't know something when you've got people like APB to lean on and ask these questions, because at the end of the day, we're tradesmen. We're not uneducated, but we're generally not academically minded, if that makes sense, but then we end up running businesses.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like where you go to earn your trade isn't where you learn how to run a business. It sounds like they weren't the same education hub. And then it's probably why APB became really more relevant to you. But you bring up a really good point that most builders who run companies tend to be in a very isolated circle. It sounds like you were isolated before you met APB as well.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. And to be honest with you, I thought about throwing the towel in a few times, but I honestly didn't know what I was going to do because at that point I was uneducated. All I could do was build stuff. If I stopped being a builder, I didn't know what I was going to do. So yes, it does become a very isolated place. You feel like you're on your own. You feel a lot of pressure on your back, when the bills are rolling in and then you've got to go and get the jobs done so you can pay the bills and it can be a really lonely place.

Bosco Anthony:

Tell us a little bit about your relationship with APB. Obviously you started working with APB; it sounds like you were applying some new techniques once you started working with them. How did things start to change and how did you start to not just earn a living, but actually make a living?

Ryan Stannard:

It was just starting to implement things and having systems and processes. Probably one of the biggest things that took me a bit to get my head around was that I could make money if I wasn't actually out there working. I’d seen the office side of things as something that I had to do after work, because I had to be out there working on the tools Monday to Friday to actually earn a living. Then I had to learn to let go. You have to gain the ability to let go of that side of things and believe that you're not the only person who can do that job. There are other people who can do that job. To be honest with you, I found out over the years, there are other people who can do the jobs that I was doing a lot better than I could. Now I manage these people, and it's a match made in heaven.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you're actually now working on the business, not in the business. Do you prefer working on the office side of things? Do you miss working on site or do you still show up on the site when you have to?

Ryan Stannard:

This is a question I get asked all the time and if I said I missed working on the tools, I'd be lying. I enjoy building stuff, but to go out and work on the tools five days a week, every week of the year like I used to, my body wouldn't be able to handle it. So, now I really enjoy the office side of things and I really enjoy managing people. The thing that I take a lot of pride in is planting a seed and watching it grow. So, I'm creating a role in my business, getting someone to fulfil that role, coaching them along the way through using my own knowledge and my coaches at APB and watching that part of it grow. Then I move onto the next part of the business and then the next part of the business as it grows. And that's what I really enjoy.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like, Ryan, you've gone from being a builder and a craftsman to now being a leader. Tell us a little bit about that journey. How has this experience transformed you as a person?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, it has. It's completely changed me. I've got a completely different outlook on the world. It's probably going back five or six years ago when I started to work on the business a bit more. I could hardly read or write, because I left school when I was 14 and a half. I'd never read a book; no one could read my writing. I couldn't use a computer. I've just learned all this stuff in the last five to 10 years, which totally changes your perspective on everything. So now I see myself more as a leader and a mentor than a boss to the people who work with me – and it's good.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you enjoy mentoring the people who you work with as well.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. The key to that is employing the right people. You want employ the right people – and APB has a really good processes for doing all that: employing the right people and getting them into the right space so that they're there to learn from you and sponge up what you've got to offer.

Bosco Anthony:

When you are hiring the right person, do you prioritise the skillset, their attitude, a bit of both? What do you look for? What defines the right person to work for you?

Ryan Stannard:

It's defined by a whole series of events in our recruitment process. The biggest thing I look for is someone's ability to follow a process. I don't want to employ someone who knows how to do everything 100%, who’s going to come in here and tell me what to do. I'd rather employ someone who's willing to listen to what we've got to offer. I've created a process for everything in my company. So, I want someone to come in who can actually follow that process, is happy to take criticism and advice, so that we can work on this as a team.

Ryan Stannard:

I'm very big at telling my staff that a problem's a problem, but the problem only gets bigger if you don't involve me in it. So, if they involve me in a problem, I'll take ownership of it. Whereas if there's a problem and they try and hide it from me, then the problem gets bigger and then they’ll have to bring it to me when it's massive. Then we've got a big problem! So I like to be involved in everything that's going on so that we can control it the way we do.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you're looking for someone who can collaborate as well – hold their own, but also work as a team, which I think is important today in this landscape. Running a professional building company certainly has its own challenges, obviously. Tell us some of your biggest achievements to date. You've got this proud sign behind you that says, ‘Stannard Family Homes’. When you look back at this incredible journey that you had, what are some of those achievements that you are really fond of?

Ryan Stannard:

That's a difficult question, Bosco. There have been so many small ones over the years, but I guess probably the biggest achievement for me is to be able to transform out of day-to-day operations in my business. I did it before, a couple of years ago, but I had the wrong person in the front end and then they left and then I jumped back into the sales role and the management role for about a year or so. Now about six months ago, I employed another sales guy so that he takes over all that sales part of it.

Ryan Stannard:

Now I actually don't have a role in the business. I'm just the manager. So, I'm here working on high-level stuff in the company rather than day-to-day operations. I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've been able to take out of it is now the business doesn't need me here to run it on a day-to-day basis. If I can create a company where I can go away for three or four weeks at a time and come back and everything is still as it was when I left it, I think that's probably the biggest thing that I could take out of it.

Bosco Anthony:

I think some business owners call that Nirvana, but it's interesting, because for those who are listening to this – and some of them are business owners – they're probably sitting there thinking, “Ryan, how do you trust and get out of your own way?” Every business owner has to eventually learn to trust the right people and get out of their own way. Is there a magic sauce? Is there a formula for this? How do you go about deciding, “I've got the right people and I'm going to empower them, but also trust them and hold them accountable?”

Ryan Stannard:

A lot of people say luck, but I don't believe in luck. I believe luck's created. I think the way that we've been able to do it, and it might be a bit different to a lot of other people, but it's working on systems. It's creating a system for every single role in your business. We've got a system in place for every single thing that has to happen in this building company. So, it doesn't matter whether I'm doing it, somebody else is doing it, whoever's doing it, the systems are there to be adhered to.

Ryan Stannard:

If you've got staff who have the ability to follow a system, then there's no real problem because the system creates accountability and the accountability creates progress. So when I go away – I haven't been away for four weeks for the last few years – but if I go away for four weeks, I would come back and expect that everything would be as it was when I left, because I can go back and see the accountability steps of what’s been done. People fear, thinking that when they're not there nothing's going to happen. Or if they're not there, people aren't going to work as hard. I don't think that fits in our company culture. Everyone works here and works for each other.

Bosco Anthony:

You talked about the systems; it's interesting, you've referenced that a few times. Does this system look like an operational manual? Is it something that's documented? And also, is the system there to protect you from a compliance issue as well, potentially?

Ryan Stannard:

Yes. For the systems, we use a program called systemHUB and we've got everything added into the system. systemHUB is a system for creating systems. So, we've created a system for everything that every person does in the company, and it's documented so that a 10-year-old child could read through the documentation, watch the videos and potentially do what we do. Even though what we do is very high level, we try and dumb it down as much as we can so that if somebody who’s not as clued in as the person that's actually doing the system has to take over and try and do it, they can actually understand where it goes by a step by step manual, pretty much.

Bosco Anthony:

Interesting. What's your plan for Stannard Family Homes in the future? Do you focus just on the Adelaide area or do you do national contracts? What's the long-term play?

Ryan Stannard:

Stannard is family owned. I think it would just stay in Adelaide, or at this point in time we'd just stay in Adelaide. We're probably reaching our capacity of where I thought I would ever go as a building company. This next year, I reckon we'll build 35 houses and that's about as many houses as I'd like to build. We’ll build 35 houses and an average house is somewhere between $400,000 and $700,000. We build good family homes, and I don't think I'd want to get any bigger than that.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you're having fun doing it. So as long as you're having fun doing it, that's the vision, I guess.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

Bosco Anthony:

If you had to give a younger version of yourself any advice looking back on this amazing journey or for any listeners out there who own a building company or are starting out, what advice would you give to them and to a younger version of yourself?

Ryan Stannard:

This is a tough one, isn't it? Well, advice to a younger me; I was probably pretty pigheaded and I didn't take advice from a lot of people like I should've. Probably the biggest advice I would give is to listen more than talk and absorb the information because that's where you're going to learn.

Bosco Anthony:

You talk about listening, and I think there's a lot of listening when you're dealing with clients as well. How do you manage client's expectations? Have you ever had a scenario where a client's expectations were a little bit too much? How do you approach those scenarios?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, that happens all the time and it used to happen more so than it happens now. We manage the client's expectations a lot better through clear communication in the early stages of the build. We won't start construction of the home unless we've got their full specifications, all signed off in CoConstruct, so that we know exactly what we're going to build. The client knows what we're going to build and everyone's on the same page. In the early days, we'd rush jobs through into construction. Selections are still being done, clients are expecting one thing, but we're building another thing. And that's where you end up with unhappy clients. Client expectations are met through good organisation, I believe.

Bosco Anthony:

You talked about mentoring people and you love mentoring the people who you work with. If you were to mentor a builder who's in this space, trying to make a difference, what advice would you give them?

Ryan Stannard:

To join APB, probably, because the big take out of all of this when I was starting out is that there was no textbook on how to run a building company. You’d start out and you’d just have a crack at it and hope you didn't go broke. That was pretty much the motto of every builder, until we probably all thought that we were better than that. But at the end of the day, any builder in the old days who said that they didn't have tough times and nearly went broke would have to be a liar. But now, APB has a full textbook on how to run a building company. It's even better than a textbook because it comes with videos and tutorials. So, my advice would be to join APB and absorb all the information that they’ve got to offer. If I had joined APB 20 years ago, I'd be in a hell of a lot different position to what I'm in today so.

Bosco Anthony:

What's your focus moving forward and what are you preparing for in the future right now? You mentioned you're working on the business; you’re managing things now, but you don't have to have a defined role. For the next 12 to 24 months, where are you putting your energy and time?

Ryan Stannard:

The business is running as it's running at the moment. As a company, we're just about to build a whole new headquarters for the company. That will be all new offices, warehouse, all that sort of stuff. So, for the next 12 months or so, when I'm not working on the business, I'll potentially be project managing that and getting that under construction and getting that built and moved into. That'll chew up a lot of time, because that'll be the premises that we'll be in until I'm ready to retire. We need to get that right, so for the next 12 months I'll be doing that. Then it'll be just fitting in and watching the systems that are in place do their thing, and then refine the systems, refine the systems. Even though you have a system, it's not always going to be the right one. So, you go back and refine and refine the system to keep it right.

Bosco Anthony:

How much time do you spend on the systems and monitoring? It sounds like you’re monitoring things every week or every month – how much time do you spend on this?

Ryan Stannard:

It’s constant. It’s just all the time. It’s not so much a thing that we say, “All right, we work on this for a few days a week.” It’s always. So, during our staff meetings we’re discussing what’s going on, say in the sales process, or the estimating, or the design, and then we might find a better way of doing it. So, we test that way of doing it and if that way of doing it is better, we update the system as to that being the right way to do it.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like you also are transparent with the people who you work with. It sounds like they know what's going on, from what you're saying.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. Everybody in the business knows everything that's going on and we're all working on it together because the goal is to have happy staff and happy clients. Then that creates an easy company for everyone to work in. The better the system and the process, the easier it is for everyone to understand.

Bosco Anthony:

I know this is a hard question, but it's my final question for the day. What's your take on the future of the construction industry and how are you preparing for the changes that are coming up in the future?

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah. The construction industry is set for some big challenges and my goal is I want to be the best builder in my market. I want to have the best advertising, I want to be building the best homes so that when the good times that we're experiencing at the moment do start to shut down, I'll be the only builder left there who people will be willing to build with, because we're out there, we're telling people what we're going to do and we're delivering on what we're going to do. Even in the bad times, people with money are still building, so I want to be the builder there who's building the houses that are there to be built.

Bosco Anthony:

Does that mean that you're planning a little bit more and preparing for changes and the challenges as well?

Ryan Stannard:

Yep. Yep, it is, definitely. We're setting ourselves up. We do our marketing in a 12 monthly block. So, we've set our marketing at the moment. We're in the process of doing all of that and that'll be done in about March, ready to be put out for the next 12 months. Then, when it gets to around September or October, we’ll start doing it for the next year. At that point we're focusing on the challenges and pain points of our clients, the industry, the whole lot and how we can educate people to make the right decisions when they're choosing a builder, basically.

Bosco Anthony:

Ryan, this has been insightful, as always. It's been a pleasure speaking with you as well. I've truly learned a lot about the building industry, specifically with your company as well. Thank you so much for your time today.

Ryan Stannard:

Yeah, no worries at all Bosco. It's been a pleasure, mate. Any time.

Bosco Anthony:

Cheers, mate. 

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.