Episode 26: Successfully Working With Your Spouse With Toby And Elizabeth Searle

In episode 26 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Co-founders Toby and Elizabeth Searle from Highwater Homes, based in NSW, Australia. Throughout this episode, Toby and Elizabeth share how to successfully work with your spouse.

Toby Searle is the working Director and Co-founder of Highwater Homes, Macarthur’s custom home building specialists. Partnered by his wife Elizabeth, they have established the foundations for a successful family-run, highly motivated local business specialising in custom-built homes of the highest quality within the Camden and Macarthur area and throughout the Southern Highlands.

In this episode, Toby and Elizabeth dissect how together, they’ve built Highwater Homes over the past 10 years and solidified themselves as a building company known for providing outstanding customer service and uncompromised quality for those wishing to create their new home.

As custom home builders, Toby and Elizabeth focus on the quality of the homes they build by limiting the number of homes they undertake at any one time, whilst tackling different aspects of the business in order for it to run like a well-oiled machine.

Listen to the full episode to understand what makes the dynamic duo work so well.

 

Toby Searle - Co-Founder of Highwater Homes

Toby Searle is the Builder and Co-founder of Highwater Homes. Toby is involved through each and every stage of every build Highwater Homes undertakes. With a passion for building beautiful homes for discerning homeowners, Toby is always enthusiastic about meeting potential clients for the first time and unlocking their ideas on what it is they would like to achieve when building their new home.

Connect with Toby

 

Elizabeth Searle - Co-Founder of Highwater Homes

As Co-founder of Highwater Homes, Elizabeth Searle spearheads their business operations. Elizabeth was the recipient of the HIA Australian Business Partner of the Year Award 2021 for her work within the business and the pivotal role she plays in the day-to-day functioning of Highwater Homes, along with her strong commitment to generating systems, and developing strategic plans and actioning business goals.

Connect with Elizabeth

 

Timeline

1:05 About Highwater Homes.

2:24 How Toby got into the residential construction industry.

5:33 How Toby and Elizabeth set Highwater Homes apart from other builders. 

7:33 What Highwater Homes are making their clients aware of when building a new home.

9:57 How Toby and Elizabeth transformed Highwater Homes. 

13:34 How Highwater Homes got involved with APB.

16:38 What Toby loves about running a building company. 

18:49 The challenges Toby and Elizabeth faced and overcame.

21:12 The construction industry challenges Toby and Elizabeth are seeing right now.

23:22 Toby’s advice to other builders.

24:27 Elizabeth’s measurement for success when running her building company. 

25:56 Toby’s view on the future of the construction industry.

27:58 What advice Toby and Elizabeth would give their younger selves.

 

Links, Resources & More

Highwater 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 to financials, operations and marketing. We have another exciting episode from the Professional Builders Secrets Podcast. I'm joined today by Co-founders Toby and Elizabeth Searle from Highwater Homes. Thanks for being here today, guys.

Toby Searle:

Hello, Bosco. Great to be here, mate.

Elizabeth Searle:

Thanks for having us, Bosco. We're excited to have a chat with you tonight.

Bosco Anthony:

Tell me a little bit about Highwater Homes.

Elizabeth Searle:

Highwater Homes is a boutique custom home building specialist and we're situated in a little town called Camden, which is about 45 minutes south-west of Sydney. We employ 11 staff within our team; that includes Toby and me. We've been operating for 10 years. We celebrated our 10 year anniversary in September last year. 

Toby Searle:

It wasn't much of a celebration though, with COVID. We wanted to celebrate, but I think that's on hold as well, isn’t it honey?

Elizabeth Searle:

It is.

Toby Searle:

We are planning on something this year, hopefully.

Bosco Anthony:

Any exciting big plans when everybody can actually celebrate again? Do you guys have any idea of what you want to do?

Elizabeth Searle:

We're thinking of maybe going out on Sydney Harbour with our team and our trades and contractors. We're currently just experienced the floods here in Camden and we're sure other builders around the state in Queensland have experienced the massive rainfall that we've had recently. So, hopefully the weather will settle down and we'll be able to look forward to some sort of celebration later in the year.

Bosco Anthony:

If you can allow me, let's take a walk down memory lane. Let's go back in time and start off with how you got started in this industry. What made you choose this amazing journey?

Toby Searle:

For me, Bosco, it all happened in the early 90s. Leaving school, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I ended up going to university and found that wasn't quite for me. I came home one day after six months at university and said to Dad, “Look, this is not for me. I'm going to take a break and just work out what I want to do next year.” He said, "Well, what are you going to do for the rest of the year?" I told him, pretty much without using the same words, it was just, “Stay at home and bludge off you.” He wasn't going to have a bar of that, so he got me in contact with a businessman in Camden. He knew some people and one thing led to another, and I contacted a builder who he was associated with, and I laboured for him for six months.

Toby Searle:

I actually went back to university after that first six months of labouring because I thought I'd give it a second ago. I tell people I've got two university degrees – I didn't finish them, but I did start them. After the second time around at university, I went back and started my trade with the builder. I got my carpentry apprenticeship out of the way and then worked for myself as a carpenter. I worked on the Olympics site in Sydney in 1999 before the 2000 Olympics, and eventually found my way into supervising for a small local builder for about six or seven years, just to gain experience. From there, the seed was planted in about 2008, and it took a little bit of time for us to get started, but by 2011 we had Highwater Homes up and running. The first year of trading was 2011, and then the rest, as they say, is history.

Bosco Anthony:

I'm just curious what it was like starting out and also tell me about your experience with the Olympics as well? That must have been a pretty milestone moment.

Toby Searle:

Yeah, the Olympics work was fun. That was the first job out of my apprenticeship. I joined up with another friend of mine and travelled into Homebush. We stayed in a factory just outside the Olympic Park and built the portable buildings that the Australian athletes stayed in. We built them offsite and then we travelled to the site to install these portable buildings. It was a bit different to what I'd normally done, but it was the same principle behind carpentry and building: little homes on a smaller scale. Quite interesting and really good, very busy, and it was great to be part of such a one-off event. I know they'll come back again one day, but it was a really good experience, especially the first year out of my apprenticeship. But starting out as a carpenter was fun.

Toby Searle:

Eventually, in 2011, starting Highwater Homes as a building company wasn't challenging as such. I was actually really excited to start out. It was something I’d thought about for a while. I can be an overthinker in a lot of things, and that's why it took a little bit longer to start, but I wanted to be sure that I was ready to start the journey and build for myself. I’d wanted to do it ever since I finished my apprenticeship. The goal was to get my builder’s licence and start building for myself. But I knew it wasn't going to happen overnight. So, that was fun. I really enjoyed starting it because I really did plan for it before 2011 and took the small steps to get to where we are today.

Bosco Anthony:

At what point did you discover that you had landed on a value proposition for Highwater Homes? At what point did you both realise that this was not just a calling, but this was a business opportunity that could grow as well over time?

Elizabeth Searle:

In terms of a value proposition, we set ourselves apart from the other builders. Camden's a small place, but there's a lot of builders within the market. There's a lot of new building happening within our local area. Toby has always said that builders know how to build homes, but some of them do lack the service quality and the communication that they can offer clients. So, one of our value propositions that we offer our clients is our communication. 

Elizabeth Searle:

We make a promise to our clients that any messages or emails or that sort of thing are replied to within 24 hours. We have the 24-hour response time, and they really value that. They appreciate that we do that for them. We use a project management system, an online system for our clients. And again, a lot of builders do use this sort of system, but we get our clients involved in the system.

Elizabeth Searle:

Our clients are logged into the system right from the beginning, right from our initial estimate proposals. They can see how well this system works and right through to the building and the handover of the home to our clients. So that's something I think that sets us apart from the other builders. Although other builders may have these online project management systems, they don't involve the clients in those as much as they could. We saw that as an opportunity and jumped on it and our clients thoroughly enjoy being a part of that and using the online system so they can keep track of what's going on with their home. They communicate with us and it's an excellent system.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like it's a pretty collaborative process, where the clients are part of that as well. What do you feel that homeowners – especially the ones who are looking to start building their first home or their new home – should be aware of in today's climate and conditions?

Toby Searle:

It develops over the years, Bosco. When we first started out, as Elizabeth was saying before, and just to elaborate on that a bit further, is we focus on the experience. Not just building the home, but the experience of building the home. That's what we found when we first came into the market, that our clients weren't getting that. So, we really do focus on the experience that the clients go through while they're building a home for six to nine months, sometimes 12 months, depending on the size of the project. So we focused on that originally, and we still do; that's one of our strong points. Homeowners need to be aware that it's not like you're just buying a car where you go and sign up for a car and then drive out a week or two later, and that's the experience done and dusted.

Toby Searle:

It is a longer experience in the building game, and that's what homeowners need to be aware of. I think they are now. Now in 2022, they need to be aware of setting realistic expectations. That really is a matter of just the access they have to all the information online and through friends and family and colleagues who have built before. We have high expectations. I think most builders do, when they're building high quality products and delivering a service that clients enjoy going through. So I think clients just need to be aware those expectations. Don't base it on reality TV shows, don't base it on what other people may have gone through, or what they expect to go through.

Toby Searle:

So timelines might be a bit different, quality needs to be found by the builder, not so much the clients. A lot of homeowners think if they just see something online it must be good, but they've got to trust the builder. They're trusting us as the experts. Clients just need to let go. It is hard to let go of that control, but they've got to trust in the builder they choose to deal with their home and set those realistic expectations from the start. But it's also up to the builder to manage those expectations and let the clients know how the process will pan out.

Bosco Anthony:

I'm hoping that with the collaborative tools that you talked about in the systems, it does establish some trust because they're part of that process and they see that journey as well, going through the technology side of things. Talk to me a little bit about transformation. Obviously, you have changed the business from when you first started; it's changed and grown. What does that look like today? And if you look back, what was that pivotal point that you realised you were transforming the business?

Elizabeth Searle:

When we first started the business, we were operating from home. We've got a study at the front of the house and that was where all the operations and housekeeping and that sort of thing would happen. So all the planning would happen from our little study. We'd sometimes also meet clients in our study and even in our house, our living room. We got to a point where we realised we had to divide work and home. That was really important back then; it was just really Toby doing a lot of the work. I was doing some of the accounts and that sort of thing while I also worked part-time as a teacher.

Elizabeth Searle:

As we've transformed, we realised we needed to move the business out of home. So about four years ago we made the big step into our own factory space in Smeaton Grange, which is about a 10-minute drive from home, just outside of Camden. That was a very positive move for us, being able to actually get in the car and drive to work each day. It was also a transformation in terms of our team. From the one-man show of Toby working within the business, we've now got a team of 11. So that's been a really big transformation as well.

Bosco Anthony:

I guess there's a lot of lessons that come with managing other people now and not having that home-based business as well. What was that like for the two of you, going from a home-based environment to this office environment? Did it change the dynamic at all between the two of you, or was it sort of the same?

Toby Searle:

I think it was a great move, moving out of home. For me especially, Bosco, I just found the separation between work and family life was needed. It was too easy just to leave the study and go to the dinner table, eat dinner and then return to the study to reply to an email or do something with the plan. So I think it was important. The timing was right. It might have been even a year or two late, but not too late, but longer than what we would've wanted, but for me it was good.

Toby Searle:

I'm sure Elizabeth thinks the same, where we actually leave home to go to work. That sounds silly, but that's very important in our lives with our three children. It was very convenient 10 or so years ago when the kids were younger because they’d get off the bus just down the road and walk home and we were there, or we could walk down and pick them up and do what we needed to do with them. So from my point of view, Elizabeth may disagree, but it's been better for us moving out of home, so we can have that work and family life separation.

Bosco Anthony:

And Elizabeth, tell us your version of the story now.

Toby Searle:

This could be different!

Elizabeth Searle:

I do agree. Within the study where we were working, we were actually sitting a metre away from each other and working eight to 10 hours a day opposite each other. Sometimes we wouldn't even say a word to each other throughout the whole day, even though we were that close. So now we actually have our own offices, which was a good move. We actually have a dividing wall between us, which is even better. It just helps us to define our roles as well. Although we are husband and wife and we also work together five days a week, it's important to have some separation. So yeah, it was a very positive move.

Toby Searle:

Just so you know, Bosco, that wall that's in place in our office now that wasn't there originally. Elizabeth refused to come and work from the office unless that wall was in place to separate me from her. I didn't know how to take that when she told me the wall must go in, but it's there and it works well.

Bosco Anthony:

I think you just have to take it as a compliment at this point, right?

Toby Searle:

I'm trying to.

Bosco Anthony:

Tell me a little bit about APB. Obviously, you are one of the distinguished members and part of the coaching program, but how did your relationship with the group start off with APB?

Toby Searle:

I'm not sure of the year. I guess Russ [Stephens, Co-founder of APB] would remember the year, but it might have been 2013 or 2014. We got involved with CoConstruct, which is our online management system, and Russ and the guys at APB would distribute CoConstruct within Australia. So that's how they reached out to us. We were receiving some emails and information from Russ, and I'm a very curious guy. I wanted to improve the business or see where we could improve, and it just made sense to look further into it. So we joined them in about 2014, and they had some sales training programs that we enrolled in. I think it was a 12-month program we enrolled in and it was just the information that they gave us. Obviously, it was a lot different for us back then, especially for me.

Toby Searle:

I've heard a lot of podcasts you've done with APB recently, Bosco, and as a lot of people say, we're good tradesmen. A lot of the blokes out there are good tradesmen, but we're not as good as business people as we can be, especially when we start out. But what APB does is turn us into business people. They won't tell us how to build a home and how to do the gyprocking and the painting and the plumbing; that's up to us to do. We've got to be the experts at that, through all of our training or our previous training, but they focus on the business, and they focus on building businesses only.

Toby Searle:

There are a lot of other coaching companies out there that are general coaching firms, and they'll just take any old business on and give them their advice. I've never been part of any other organisations. So, I hold the APB in very high esteem. What they've done for us is amazing. What they've done for a lot of businesses is amazing just through teaching us the business principles directly related to building companies. They've had a massive impact on our business from when we first started to where we are now.

Bosco Anthony:

I love this story because every time I talk to all these different builders from anywhere around the world, being in this business could be pretty isolating. You don't have a lot of people to talk to. You don't have a great sounding board or you're operating, like you said Elizabeth, some days where you're not talking to each other for a long period of time. One thing I observed from a lot of the builders I talk to is the fact that they feel a little bit more closely connected through APB. They just love having that sounding board in the coaching program as well.

Elizabeth Searle:

Yeah, that's correct. And they have a great Facebook page that all the members are a part of. If you feel like you've got a question that you're just not quite sure of the answer, everyone goes on there, asks the question, gets some great responses from a lot of the team members, a lot of the builders. So that's a really good support mechanism that comes from being part of APB.

Bosco Anthony:

When I first got on, as the host for the podcast, I actually did some research and I asked Russ to take me to where the builders hang out. I jumped on the Facebook group, and I love how collaborative everyone is. No matter whether you're in the US, or in Canada, or New Zealand, everyone's got some great ideas. It's a great validation, too, when you're in the industry.

Elizabeth Searle:

Yeah.

Bosco Anthony:

What do you love so much about running a building company today? What do you love through this entire journey so far?

Toby Searle:

It's obviously a lot of hard work that goes into running any company, let alone a building company. But I love having my company, obviously, for the freedom that it has or the potential freedom it has to give us. We're not there yet, but the idea is that we're striving towards that goal, but it's just great to work with clients. I love working with clients and taking them on the journey – and we go on the journey with them, obviously – and meeting new clients for the first time is a great thing. 

Toby Searle:

Then even when you get towards the end of the project, doing the handovers with them and just seeing the smiles on their faces, knowing that we took them through that process, we built them a nice home, but we also took them through a nice little journey with us to get them from A to B, sometimes over 12, 18 months or even longer.

Toby Searle:

I enjoy the interaction with the clients when things work out really well for them from the start, because they're very nervous. Most clients are nervous from the start. They don't know what to expect, or if they do know what to expect, it has been a bad experience from a previous build. So, I enjoy that part of it, taking them on the journey.

Bosco Anthony:

You talked a little bit about where your company is today. I think you mentioned, Elizabeth, about 11 employees, is that correct?

Elizabeth Searle:

Yeah, that's correct.

Bosco Anthony:

What does the future look like? Where is Highwater Homes moving forward to now?

Toby Searle:

We don't really want to grow the business exponentially, Bosco. I think where it is now is manageable. The idea now is to get the processes in place and get the right people in place to keep the business growing slowly, but safely, without going overboard with the company. As we've built more homes over the years, clients’ homes are becoming bigger and becoming higher quality from when we started out. So, the focus will remain on the quality of the homes we're building and just managing clients’ expectations and doing that in a safe way where Elizabeth and I can one day enjoy some freedom.

Bosco Anthony:

Speaking of freedom, what are some of the challenges that come with the growth? Obviously, every builder will talk about what they love and what worked out and where they are, but let's rip the Band-Aid off and talk to me about the challenges, because I think for our listeners out there, they connect to the challenges, and they connect to the adversities that people have to go through to get to where they are today. If you look back, what are some of those memorable challenges that you can smile about today, but at the time were probably very challenging?

Toby Searle:

If I think about it from when I started, the idea of delegating, Bosco, was something I found hard. I still do, mind you. I don't want to say I've conquered that fear, but delegating roles to different people as the business has grown over the years had been difficult. I've got to get the right people involved to take the business to where it needs to go. So, that's a challenge. It's an ongoing challenge of getting better at releasing the jobs that I do. We've got 11 staff – or the two of us and nine other staff. So obviously, I have to give away some of the hats that I used to wear from when we first started. So that's definitely a challenge, and the people even, working with people and employing the right people is a challenge as the company grows.

Toby Searle:

I got a friend who often talks about processes and people, and if you've got those two things in place, then you've got the good foundations of a strong business. So obviously, APB is great. They're teaching us a lot of processes that need to be in place. A lot of work goes into that, but on the second point of getting the right people involved as well, that can be a challenge sometimes. When you do find the right people, you've got to try and hang onto them because sometimes you get the right people, and they want to fly the nest and start their own businesses. You can't begrudge them that, but when you’ve got to replace them, that becomes a challenge as well.

Bosco Anthony:

Let's talk a little bit about the future outlook. In my preparation for this interview I noticed that there's a lot of talk about sustainability in the building process. I'm just curious to know what your thoughts are around sustainability – and what does that mean to you?

Toby Searle:

It is very important. I believe that Australia, when you talk about sustainability, is probably a bit behind the eight ball compared to other countries around the world. What we find in Australia is that there are cost restrictions around sustainability. There are clients who want to do it and we want to promote it, but they're inhibited by the additional costs it adds. Unfortunately, what they don't understand is they're short-term costs as part of the building costs. But the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term costs of building sustainable homes. So, we haven't promoted it as much as we'd like to. We've looked into it in the last two or three years, and it's one of our longer-term goals to get involved with more sustainable homes and promote the benefits to our clients and just get involved that way.

Bosco Anthony:

What do you think are the common struggles for builders in the industry today, especially with what you're noticing in your neck of the woods?

Elizabeth Searle:

I think, in particular in today's market, it's the spiralling cost of building a home. The increase in cost has been from a number of factors, particularly COVID; that’s been a big one. There's lots of building going on at the moment, so the supply of contractors is quite limited. Toby can probably verify in terms of the percentage of how much more it costs now to build a new home, but we are getting price increases from our suppliers and our trades almost weekly. We need to factor that in because we offer fixed price contracts to our clients. Sometimes, before we sign a contract, it might be three or four months when we're actually doing the estimating and the pricing of the home. You need to factor in these costs that are coming across the desk each day.

Bosco Anthony:

I'm sure that keeps you up at night too, when you're guaranteeing a fixed price point and then, all of a sudden, things start to change very quickly over time.

Toby Searle:

Yeah. It's not the best situation at the moment, Bosco, over the last four months with price increases from supplies and trades, and it becomes tricky. But I guess going back to APB, they've taught us a lot about financial figures and the important numbers. Without the knowledge that we have now, we probably wouldn't be in operation: knowing your figures and knowing the correct margins to apply to each job, even though there's been a struggle over the last six to nine months with price increases. And, obviously, as we’re signing fixed price contracts, we've got to bear the brunt of a lot of the increases, which a lot of builders have.

Toby Searle:

There are some clauses or some ways around it, but we haven't managed to do that as well as we could have, but I guess our hands are tied contractually with that as well. So, it's definitely a struggle going through that, but the idea is that we'll come out the other end. Without APB's help over the years, we might have been one of those builders that won't come out the other end, but we know we will. We're confident we will come out the other end and potentially there'll be fewer builders in the market in say 12 months’ time.

Bosco Anthony:

What advice would you give the builders out there, both new and old, and what does success look like today?

Toby Searle:

Advice to other builders? I guess the older ones don't like advice… but the younger ones don't either these days; none of them like advice, do they? So, my advice would be to take advice. We learnt so much by joining a company like APB. The more that builders are willing to improve themselves, the better it is for the industry. I've always had a saying, and Elizabeth has heard me say this a thousand times, and Russ and the guys at APB have as well, but people talk about it being a race, previously a race to the bottom.

Toby Searle:

Don't let it be a race to the bottom; let it be a race to the top. It makes perfect sense. So, it means that builders have to help each other. Don't close off any knowledge that you have to your competitors. If they're doing well and they're quoting at the right margins and offering a good experience, they may remain a competitor, but at least the expectations will be there from clients. So the advice, I guess, would be to open yourself up to advice, but also open yourself up to giving advice to fellow builders as well.

Bosco Anthony:

Elizabeth, what's your measurement for success, other than having a wall in between your office and Toby's?

Elizabeth Searle:

I think happiness is important. When Toby and I are happy at the end of the day, it's been a successful day, because building homes for clients can be such a challenge at times. So many things can come in the way. So, yeah, happiness. I think we’re also looking forward to more time out of the office; that's an idea of success, I think both for Toby and me. Having time out of the office and feeling confident to have time away from the office is our idea of success.

Toby Searle:

We often enjoy, Bosco, just a day away. Often, we would just surprise each other randomly and just either go to the movies or go for morning tea or go for lunch just randomly without it being planned. And that's, I don't want to say that makes us happy, but that adds a bit of variety to the weekly grind. So it's really nice to be able to do that. Not a definition of success, but at least it's a stepping stone towards enjoying a work/life balance.

Bosco Anthony:

Yeah. I think spontaneity is the key to happiness sometimes as well. I've got a young British Bulldog that reminds me about being present and not overworking myself as well. So, I'm constantly reminded about that too, but I totally agree with you. I think at the end of the day, you've got to find those moments. You've got to find your happiness, those moments of happiness, right?

Toby Searle:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Searle:

Correct.

Bosco Anthony:

I was going to ask you guys, where do you think the construction industry is going and evolving, especially in Australia? What's your perspective of it?

Toby Searle:

We went to a conference last week with HIA [Housing Industry Association], which is one of our organisations. They have a forecasted vision for the next two to three years and they still think it's going to be okay. At the moment, I don't like using the words ‘building boom’, but I guess that's what we're in at the moment. 

Toby Searle:

A lot of people call it the ‘profitless boom’, which is a scary term, but I think the industry needs to just take care of itself and take a breath and just allow ourselves some time to find our feet again. I think we fought through the doom and gloom with COVID quite well as a building industry, then with all the grants that came in from the government, it actually went too far the other way. Whether this is the right word, but it's too busy at the moment, and it's not sustainable from that point of view; it can't last forever.

Toby Searle:

It won't last forever, but unfortunately the fear is that from this boom we're having now, there could be a bust. It’s likely that our company won't do that. I think the successful building companies will ensure they won't go from boom to bust, but they'll just, hopefully, get down to something more manageable. So, I see the building industry just flattening out over the next few years, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it can't keep going on like this. It's just not right. 

Toby Searle:

People won't last in the industry, especially younger builders. I feel for the younger builders, if they're coming through now and thinking, "Wow, how good is this?" And then maybe in six months’ time, or 12 months’ time, it's “BANG!” It's going to be a lot different and it'll either wear them out or it'll spit them out the other end, and it won't care where they land. It gets a bit too hard. So I hope it just settles down to something a bit more manageable in the next few years.

Bosco Anthony:

Well, I could chat with you guys for hours, but I think it's been a very insightful interview and we'd love to have you back again. I do have one final question for both of you and I think both of you have given me an insight into where you are today and what you're focusing on, what the future looks like. So I'm going to go back to the past and I'm going to ask both of you to go back in time. What advice would you give a younger version of yourself? I'll start with Elizabeth: looking back at your illustrious career as well, what advice would you give yourself? And Toby, that question will go to you, too.

Elizabeth Searle:

I think having more confidence in myself and my ability. I'm a trained teacher, so I didn't have a vision of working in a building company when I started teaching or even when we had our kids. It's something I just fell into and learnt the ropes and found my way. So I think my advice to a younger version of myself would be to have confidence to step outside of my comfort zone and be open to new ideas. That's something Toby is always telling me, "Be open to new ideas." It's okay if things don't work out, but at least you give them a go. So I think that would be my advice to my younger self.

Bosco Anthony:

And Toby?

Toby Searle:

In a very brief statement, Bosco, I'd probably say perfection is not achievable. So don't go to bed or don't wake up each day thinking you're chasing perfection. It's never going to come. So, put that to bed, and don’t set the bar lower, but just have those expectations where you still do everything to the best of your ability. Perfection is not there to be sought after. I think that'll take away, not a lot of the stress, but obviously when you're setting goals, you still want the goals to be high, but you've got to make sure they're realistic as well. And look out for everyone else in your life and take advice as early as you can, to learn the proper process and take everything on board.

Bosco Anthony:

Well, I really appreciate both of you making the time to try something new with me as well and joining us today. We'd love to have you back again and thank you so much for your time.

Toby Searle:

Thanks a lot, Bosco.

Elizabeth Searle:

Thanks for your time, Bosco.

Bosco Anthony:

Cheers.