Episode 8: How Technology Is Changing The Industry With Bob Cain

In this episode of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, our host, Bosco Anthony is joined by Bob Cain who is the Business Unit Leader at BuildTools and Bolt - ECI Solutions. Throughout this episode, Bob shares some key insights into how technology is changing in the construction industry. 

ECI Software Solutions is the parent company of BuildTools and Bolt. The company offers a range of products and services specifically tailored to the residential construction industry. 

Bob has worked at ECI software solutions for more than 20 years and for more than 2 of those years he has worked primarily in the residential construction software space helping to improve the technology solutions for builders at BuildTools and Bolt.

Tune in to this episode to hear Bob uncover how the industry is adapting to technology and provide valuable insights for builders on how to embrace the technological advancements to better their building company. 

Bob Cain - Business Unit Leader at BuildTools and Bolt

Serving as Business Unit Leader for BuildTools and Bolt, Bob Cain is responsible for customer experience and support, business expansion, team growth, software development and daily operations. Bob brings over 22 years of experience in residential construction to these business units.

Connect with Bob

Timeline

1:06 Introduction to BuildTools/Bolt and Bob.

4:49 The innovation behind ECI Solutions.

5:54 What the industry was lacking when Bob was first starting out.

7:22 The game changer for ECI Solutions.

8:55 Challenges facing the industry.

12:53 The reality of margin erosion.

15:27 Pressures in industry right now.

19:20 Is the home building industry the last frontier? 

21:36 Are builders embracing technology?

23:27 Technology in the construction industry.

27:40 How is the industry changing?

29:18 The state of the industry right now.

31:36 Bob’s advice to builders.

Links, Resources & More

ECI Software Solutions 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 sales processes, financials, operations and marketing. Today I'm joined by Bob Cain, who serves as a business unit leader for BuildTools and Bolt, cloud-based technology products for software company ECi Solutions. Bob, welcome and thanks for being here today.

Bob Cain:

Thanks for having me.

Bosco Anthony:

Let's get into it shall we? Tell us a little bit about BuildTools and Bolt and what does your role with ECi Solutions look like today?

Bob Cain:

BuildTools is a product that was designed by a custom builder and remodeller and was really self-consumed for a number of years before going to market. ECi Solutions has acquired the business. So really, BuildTools is a product that was designed by custom builders and remodellers for custom builders and remodellers. Our role now is to take that to market. 

Bob Cain:

Bolt has a really similar story. Bolt was developed by an electrician doing a couple of thousand homes a year who worked for residential builders and took that product to market. Both Bolt and BuildTools were acquired by ECi Solutions in 2020. My role is to be the business unit leader for both of those products, to bring them into the ECi Solutions culture and to grow the businesses.

Bosco Anthony:

Bob, you bring 22 years of experience in the residential construction space. What was your background prior to getting into this sort of tech world and in the building industry, and what really compelled you to join?

Bob Cain:

I have a degree in business information systems management. Really, it's a combination of business and technology together. I joined a company by the name of MarkSystems shortly after getting my degree and spent the majority of my time at MarkSystems over 20 years, working with builders all around the country, mostly on the consulting side of the MarkSystems business. I was really just learning how builders operated, helping them to scale, helping them with their operational processes and procedures, and really bringing together all of the functions of a business out to the residential construction industry.

Bosco Anthony:

What compelled you to get into the cloud-based software industry specifically? And what are some of the unique product differences between BuildTools and Bolt? You mentioned that they were built by builders for builders, but what are some of those unique features and functionalities within those products and what interested you to be where you are today?

Bob Cain:

The cloud-based business is interesting. I spent a lot of time working with MarkSystems’ customers and had the unfortunate experience of having to see hardware failures, lack of backups, lack of basic information technology knowledge at that small to medium size business level, without real IT focus. 

Bob Cain:

I've seen some disasters where people were not able to recover. That was back in the day before cloud-based systems, back in 2012. MarkSystems was very focused on becoming a cloud-based product. Today, all of the products that ECi looks at and looks at moving forward for the future are cloud-based. When you're in the cloud, you don't have to worry about the backups. You don't have to worry so much about the security, the hardware, all of those things that really caused all the problems that I'd experienced in my career.

Bob Cain:

When we look at products like BuildTools and Bolt, these are products that were engineered in the cloud. They weren't standalone systems that needed their own hardware. They were developed in the cloud. When you look at products that are developed in the cloud, they have all those benefits that I just mentioned, but they also are developed with the latest and greatest technologies out there, which means that you can do things like develop Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which allow different systems to connect together.

Bob Cain:

You can use the most advanced technology available. You can develop software on devices that are platform independent, applications that anyone can basically use with smartphones and tablets and things like that. The possibilities are endless when you're talking about cloud-based products and the technology that develops to support them just keeps growing in a positive direction. This is a really exciting thing for us.

Bosco Anthony:

How does ECi Solutions focus on embracing innovation? Obviously, you talked about keeping the builders in mind when you're coming up with these innovative products, but where do you go to embrace this type of innovation?

Bob Cain:

ECi Solutions focuses on small to medium businesses (SMBs). It’s that entrepreneurial spirit that really excites our entire team, and our culture's built around it. We have four core values that we live by, and embracing innovation and creating value for our customers really fits right into one of those four. We do a number of things. We're constantly making sure that we are providing education to the industry and helping our customers in the industry in general with the education side of things and the ability to really look at change, embrace change and move forward. We're constantly looking at the technology solutions that we supply and really thinking about the very specific niche industries that we supply products for and making sure that the technology is going to be the best tool for those industries.

Bosco Anthony:

Let's focus on the building side of things. Obviously with APB, they're working with builders from around the world in Canada, in the US, Australia and New Zealand. What was the industry lacking at the time when you started out and how much has it progressed in the technology space and why should builders be paying attention to this today?

Bob Cain:

That's a good question. When I started out, the internet was fairly new: 56K modems were leading edge technology, and I was constantly just trying to connect from one computer to another, one server to another, just waiting for that dial tone connection. Everything was very slow. Infield connectivity was lacking. Construction systems in general really didn't exist from a standpoint of being able to do things in the field and communicate to the back office.

Bob Cain:

The industry has evolved and technology has evolved, and the biggest factor in that has really been the internet: the speed of the internet, the availability of the 4G, 5G and recently released platforms such as smartphones, iPads and other devices. From a technology standpoint, those are the things that didn't exist that are really helping us today. From an education standpoint, what APB is doing is phenomenal. It's really teaching people how to run a business, how to sell, how to manage, how to do things in the construction industry that are really leading-edge best practices. A lot of those things were lacking from my standpoint when I first started and I'm really excited to see the evolution of where we are today.

Bosco Anthony:

Speaking of the evolution, what were some key applications that made a significant impact on your business when it came to the building industry? You've talked a little bit about the digital change, builders today now have to be better equipped with the digital concepts and applications. What were some of those milestones that have really changed and made an impact in the business?

Bob Cain:

Really, the game changer was the internet and with that the hardware devices that can take into account using the internet to be able to help people and businesses move forward. So, it's the internet and all those devices, the smartphones and all of those types of things. They really have been game-changing milestones to help us move forward. 

Bob Cain:

If you think about what's happening in a home builder environment, the home builder is meeting with a buyer and then they have to go and communicate with people who are not direct employees to deliver on the expectations and scope of work that they agreed to with that buyer. So really, that builder is constantly working with people and communicating with people who are not direct members of their team. So, they need a means of being able to do that.

Bob Cain:

Things are always changing throughout the entire process. If you think of this like a normal work environment of going to an office, the office is always moving because it moves based on the project that we are talking about. It is a very mobile industry that involves a very high level of communication. The advancements of the internet and these devices have been huge. Then if you tie into the best practices that have been evolving and the types of systems that have been created to support them, that's been phenomenal and I’m really excited to see that.

Bosco Anthony:

What are some of the challenges that you face in your industry today, and do they correlate to the challenges faced by residential home builders as well? You talked about having products for them as well and built by them, but I'm just curious to know what the challenges are between the two industries and if there are any similarities.

Bob Cain:

When you think about cloud-based systems, the customer signs up, and there's almost an instantaneous connection with the software that they're signing up for. The way that we partner with our customers is on a subscription model. Our customers pay us every month and we provide products and services to go along with them. If they're not engaged in using our products every month, or they're not paying for them every month, that presents a risk to our business. So, anything that would cause that is a risk. 

Bob Cain:

But, if you look at the construction industry today and what's happening, there are some risks out there and there is some concern out there, and one of those things is supply chain disruption. It really started to play with everything we're dealing with, with COVID. And it's going to take a minute to really unwind some of these supply chain disruptions.

Bob Cain:

Prices have gone up as a result of that and I'm not sure that they're going to just drop and go back and normalise to where they were prior to COVID. There was a labour shortage going into the COVID crisis, the pandemic, and that labour shortage still exists today. When you think back to the great recession that North America ran into, and most of the world ran into in 2007 to 2010, in that era a lot of people left the industry from a labour standpoint and they didn't really come back. They went and worked at the department stores, big box stores and found other ways to use their expertise.

Bob Cain:

Then when you look at education over the last decades, parents were not really pushing their kids to become trades experts and start their own trades business. So, that trade shortage was there prior to the pandemic, and the supply chain disruption started during the pandemic. I'm not sure that there's much of a sign of that normalising, from a pricing standpoint. Interest rates are still low, but certainly if you start tying some of these risk factors together, I think our industry definitely has some risks associated with it. That risk could impact a software company like us, that supplies software on a subscription basis.

Bosco Anthony:

It sounds like what you're saying is that the challenges imposed on the residential space can potentially impact some of the risks that you take on as well. Would you say that the COVID era is a bit different from the recession in 2008? It sounds like in some ways there are similarities, but in other ways there are also differences between them as well. Is that correct? Would that be a fair assessment?

Bob Cain:

I think it is a fair assessment. I'd like to be able to say that we learned from the great recession.

Bosco Anthony:

Fair enough.

Bob Cain:

The home building industry has always been just a little bit behind other industries from a technology standpoint. I think that what ended up happening during this pandemic is that the home building industry really surprised some industries. It really put a focus on technology and communication and figuring out how to stay alive and push forward. It looked at the type of business that was needed, because people did need to move into these types of homes. They did want to move forward with projects and continue to push for housing that was needed.

Bob Cain:

The biggest difference, I think, from the last crash to this one, is that leading up to the last crash, there was a lot of investment type of buying that was happening that created a bubble and a price bubble that couldn't be kept up with. It started to exceed demand and the bottom dropped out. In this scenario that we're dealing with right now, we definitely have some issues with supply chain, disruption and labour and things like that. But the buying side of it is still very strong. There are still people out there who want houses to live in, and they want the type of product that residential builders today and remodellers today are able to provide. So, the demand has been very strong through this crisis.

Bosco Anthony:

Why do you think builders are challenged with margin erosion today? What's causing this? Is it an industry adoption? Is it sort of a human entity? Is it a mindset situation or is it a circumstance? I'm just curious on what your take is when it comes to margin erosions. I hear this being brought up by so many different builders from different parts of the world, as well as APB.

Bob Cain:

It definitely is one of the interesting symptoms of this current situation. I talked to a builder the other day who let me know that they are doing everything they can to predict where demand is going to be and where their costs are going to be next month and the month after. Because right now in the houses that you're settling, sometimes you're past that point. What you want to be able to do is predict where things are going to be. The whole business of general contracting is to really be able to understand your cost, apply a markup or some gross margin or a cost plus model, and then go out and deliver the services and achieve that.

Bob Cain:

The situation that we're in right now is that the unknown – for the first time in a while, as long as I can remember it – the pure unknown, really does have to do with the cost model, which is the foundation that everything is built on. So, I think that in a cost-plus scenario, builders are figuring out ways to put things in their contract to protect them from the rising cost; to protect the margin erosion. In some of the completed product deliverable type models and methodologies, what they're trying to do is look forward and figure out what their costs are going to be in a month, two months, three months, or at the conclusion of the project and price the end result of the product accordingly.

Bob Cain:

Now what that's doing is actually creating a scenario where builders are making a lot of money on houses that they settle one month and losing a lot of money on houses that they settle the next month, which again is the first time I've seen this type of activity that's as erratic as it is. But the demand is still strong enough that they're still able to project, predict and raise prices to be able to move forward. So they are seeing margin deterioration, but they are able to continue to raise the price and make it up. The current economic conditions, at least as far as I've been able to witness and study, are creating a demand that is strong enough to support that at this time.

Bosco Anthony:

Now, Bob, I would assume that you're around builders because of the products that you service and also because of the fact that it's a subscription-based model. Being that business unit leader, you probably have insights from the builders and people on the front lines. What are some of the pressures and challenges that builders are facing today that you're hearing about either pre- or post- COVID now? And what are your thoughts around them? Like, do you see any common trends or sort of common challenges? You alluded to a few issues like supply chain and rising commodity prices and material shortages. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Bob Cain:

When you think about a supply chain disruption, think back to what happened at the beginning of the pandemic. Just from a consumer standpoint, there were shortages of things that were important to us in our lives when shutdowns first started happening. You couldn't buy toilet paper anywhere. Next thing, there was a meat shortage and that became a lot scarier. So, we've seen some of those as consumers. The building industry has been seeing those all along and it hasn't really stopped.

Bob Cain:

A builder may sell something to a consumer and then, take appliances for example, realise that whatever the appliances were that they agreed to and contracted with, they can't get anymore. They're on back order with no sign of when they're going to be replenished. So now you have to pivot, move and find a different set of appliances.

Bob Cain:

Now take that and extrapolate it out to your countertops, your flooring, hardware, things that are going into the houses. There's a lot of theories on why that's happening. Some of it is like the toilet paper theory or the meat theory. In the toilet paper theory, there were a lot of people that just bought up a supply of what they wanted to have because they knew a shortage was coming. Then there was an impact on whether commercial delivery slowed down and restaurants slowed down and all these different impacts that went down the chain. You're seeing all the same things in the building industry with trying to get these supplies. You have bigger builders who are buying more supplies and storing inventory than you have seen in the past. That's usually just not part of any sized home building that has been in an area that I've been able to see.

Bob Cain:

You're seeing that, and you're also seeing supply companies that for whatever reason cannot keep up. They had to shut down plants; there were issues that have happened. It's really similar to what consumers are seeing – builders are feeling it with what they have to supply for the end result products that they build. So, there are definitely challenges with that. 

Bob Cain:

As for the labour shortages, they existed before and they still exist. Now, I think that builders have been trying to overcome that by becoming a better builder to work for. Part of being able to go through and become a better organisation like working with organisations like APB is to really learn how to be that better builder, learn how to be that builder the trades want to work for. There's a lot of things you can do to do that and partner up with your trades.

Bob Cain:

One of those things is really having a system that makes it easy to do business with. Having a system that tells the trade exactly where they have to be, when they have to be there, what they're going to do when they are there, how much they're going to be paid and something that's going to help them get paid faster. 

Bob Cain:

I think it comes down to the fact that builders are seeing the same types of things that consumers are seeing in everyday life. The way that they're trying to overcome that and mitigate that risk is doing things to be easy to work with, which is something that's important for any business to do. That's how I think they're going to be able to get through this crisis.

Bosco Anthony:

On a side note, were you one of those consumers that stocked up on toilet paper? We had the same issues here in Australia. I'm just curious if you were one of those guys that had to stock up as well.

Bob Cain:

In the beginning, I kind of laughed at it and I was not stocking up. But as things went on, if you're at the store and you see toilet paper, you’ve got to grab it.

Bosco Anthony:

Yeah.

Bob Cain:

That's probably common for what's happening today in the building industry.

Bosco Anthony:

On a more serious note, it's interesting you talk about systematisation, because APB came up with an annual report; they call it the SORCI report. It's the State of Residential Construction Industry annual report, and they have one for 2021. They basically surveyed over a thousand different builders from different parts of the world. It was interesting because one of the key issues in snapshots was that builders want to systemise their businesses in 2021, which really echoes and validates a lot of the things that ECi Solutions offers as well. It's an interesting perspective when you talk about systematisation as well. Now I've got a question for you from a perspective side of things: is the home building industry the last frontier?

Bob Cain:

I actually think that it is, and it's interesting when you word it that way. When you look at homebuilding and you think about business, home building really takes the pillars that you need in any successful business and it brings them all into light. You can do it at a very small business level or a larger level, almost like a manufacturer. In order to be able to run a successful home building business, you need to have finance and you need to understand what's happening with the finances. You have to have marketing; you have to have sales. There's an operational component. There's a field-based service type component, which is building the house and servicing the house.

Bob Cain:

There's really just about every component that you would think of and learn about from a business standpoint. You take all of those components and you bring them into a business where you are outdoors the majority of the time, and your office is always moving from project to project. There is a relationship aspect to this from a builder to buyer and a builder to contractor relationship to actually get things done and get it done for you efficiently.

Bob Cain:

There are not a lot of industries like this left. We are in global supply-based manufacturing, distribution channel manufacturing. There are multiple channels for just about everything that happens today that's produced from food through to clothing. But when you look at the construction of a home that is in the actual location that it is being built, using very localised trade labour, having to pull together supplies that are needed, it was created and communicated based on all of these variables that are together. I look at it definitely like it's the last frontier. I don't think there's another industry like it right now that you could even say that with.

Bosco Anthony:

How is the building industry embracing this new age technology? You're in this world right now where you're bringing simplification and new age technology to different builders. Do you believe statistically that there is a high number of builders who are now embracing this change? And if so, what are they doing to embrace it?

Bob Cain:

I really do. When I think back to when I first entered the industry, the acceptance of something like this was much different. When you would have a conversation, if a business owner who was in this industry, even though they had all of the pain, that technology like this solves, they could not rationalise it. Many of them could not rationalise actually making it work for them. Some let me know that it was like talking to a dentist about going and sitting in the chair at the dentist office. They knew they needed it. They knew they needed to keep up with it, but they couldn't bring themselves to move forward and do it.

Bob Cain:

Fast forward to current times right now and you have web-based systems like BuildTools and Bolt, where everything's in the cloud. There's no software to install. There's no hardware to maintain. There's a lot of data that is pre-loaded. It was built based on the best practices of businesses that have been successful in this industry and products that have been used by hundreds and thousands of customers. That's the majority of the products that ECi Solutions has.

Bob Cain:

I definitely think that those builders who are jumping in right now and adopting systems like this and taking advice from companies like APB are far ahead of where this industry was even 10 to 15 years ago. Right now we're in a much better place to be able to adapt this type of technology and move forward. I'm seeing a lot more success with it and builders are coming in with the right expectations, too. They're coming in and they're understanding that there is some work to do and there is some change management that needs to happen and they're really reaping the rewards of making an investment of time and effort and finance into systems like this.

Bosco Anthony:

What are some of the current technological advancements in the building industry that most builders will have to adapt to? We're hearing things like 3D and modular, but what are you hearing on your front lines that builders really need to be paying attention to, moving forward?

Bob Cain:

Well, I think that the blocking and tackling part of it is knowing your costs. That's what we are talking about from an industry standpoint. I read an article recently where there was a survey that went out at the end of 2020, and there were thousands of builders who took the survey. There was a question on there that asked how many of them were implementing technology or had implemented technology to scale their business. The answer was 32%. So, there were only 32% of the builders, the construction managers, the field-based builders who were out there who answered that question, “Yes, we're making changes to do this.” Of those 32%, they agreed they were only using about 2% of their total budget to put towards systems like this and other IT related items to help scale their business.

Bob Cain:

So, there's still a lot more work to be done here. There's still a lot more that we can do. So, from a technology standpoint, I think that one of the things that we really need to focus on is blocking and tackling. The issues that are in the industry right now are really those issues that you need to understand your cost. You need to look at the historical cost. You need to be able to predict costs moving forward in order to be able to run a successful business. Some of those things that you should definitely be paying attention to in addition to that are managing changes in your change orders, really being able to eliminate variance in your schedule, having a better relationship with your trade partners out there, eliminating dry runs and becoming a better builder to do business with.

Bob Cain:

From a technology standpoint, systems like BuildTools will enable you to be able to quickly put documents and images and store them all in a place in the cloud and then put a QR code out on the job site and people can walk up to the QR code and just show their camera at the QR code. Instantly they're understanding all of the documents that are involved and everything that they need and the schematics and the drawings and everything that they need to be able to do anything on this house. That's a really simple way of putting technology in place to communicate.

Bob Cain:

On a larger scale, there are certainly things that we are excited about as technology experts and technologists and looking forward to. Those types of things are really machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and how those types of things can really help us understand trends. When you look at something like the medical industry, right now it is using AI and machine learning to be able to look at the way that cells react when medicine enters into the body, when certain vitamins go into the body or when diseases take place. Machine learning and AI are being used to be able to progress preventative cures and preventive behaviours for society.

Bob Cain:

I think that the real exciting thing from a technologist standpoint is how we could take the blocking and tackling data that systems today are storing and keeping track of to get through the current economic conditions that we're in and get through this pandemic and improve communication. How can we get more builders in here running their businesses and trusting this data and learning from this data and becoming better business people from this data? Then how can we look at that data to help us understand futuristic trends, to be able to keep a sustainable business moving forward? If enough builders do that, we're in for a real nice run here as an industry.

Bosco Anthony:

It's interesting that you talk about QR codes, because I remember many moons ago when people first heard about QR codes, people frowned or looked upon it a bit differently, but in many ways now it's become a health check in, in Australia. You can't really go anywhere without checking in with the usage of a QR code. And someone recently joked and said, "Even my grandma knows how to use a QR code."

Bosco Anthony:

So, it's interesting when you talk about the simplicities of even having a QR code on a work site or a building site and what that could bring in real time and accessibility. It's really amazing to hear some of that innovation on the front lines. Now, I believe that COVID has changed the industry long term, especially from a digital perspective. Every industry has really shaped up their digital presence in the last 12 to 16 months. Almost anyone who worked in an office environment started to rely on digital technology. How has COVID changed the building industry long term in your perspective?

Bob Cain:

It really took an industry that was kind of lagging from a technology standpoint when compared to the car industry and other manufacturing businesses, and it really shot the industry forward from a technology standpoint, because the only way to survive in this environment was to be able to have communication without needing to be physically in front of people. And it needed to be digitised; you really couldn't get by without having a construction schedule so that everybody knew exactly what to do. You couldn't get by without having selections that went into the product that you were building digitised and a way of being able to communicate that.

Bob Cain:

Builders that didn't have that had to come up with it somehow, whether that was manually typing it into a spreadsheet or a document, or using a system like BuildTools or MarkSystems or Bolt. And so some of these systems out there are really helped. I think that COVID showed this industry that we can communicate this way. I think people still enjoy being face to face and that's fine and builders still enjoy seeing contractors face to face. But I think what it showed us is that we were able to get back a lot of efficiencies that we were a little reluctant to take that jump into. And I don't think we're going back. I think we're going to continue to strive forward and see what other efficiencies we can gain to progress forward as an industry.

Bosco Anthony:

Bob, it's been a really insightful interview for me. And I'm just curious as a final thought here. What do you think is the state of the residential construction industry space today? Where do you think it's going or evolving to moving forward?

Bob Cain:

I think it's strong. I follow the Builder Index and the US Remodeler Index, and all signs for the last three quarters have pointed to that there is a general satisfaction and a builder confidence out there right now that this industry is going to keep progressing in a positive way. There are absolutely variables that could give us blips in this industry, but from my perspective, people who like the home that they live in right now are interested in making it better. They're interested in finishing their basement, completing their backyards, putting in a home office because they're working from home right now or putting a gym inside their house, because they know that there's another variant that might be looming around and they're a little concerned.

Bob Cain:

I think the people who are living in their current homes right now are going to continue to work with remodellers to make that home work for them in the changing times. I also think there's a number of people who are looking to move to homes that really are their preference, whether that be more space, maybe in a different geographic location, to make them feel a little bit safer. I think that the actual prices of homes are going to continue to rise. I don't think that you'll see the steep jumps, like maybe we saw 10 or 12 months ago, but that you're going to see a continual rise that makes sense in the values of homes.

Bob Cain:

I do think that supply chain disruption will be regulated. People are getting back to work all over the globe, and I do think that will regulate itself again. I think we do have to keep an eye on interest rates because that is the ultimate factor in how much a consumer is going to pay each month. That usually is the biggest buying decision that somebody makes when going into a new home in a very large remodel project. But for the most part, I think all signs point to a very positive outlook in the construction industry for the short-term predictable future that I can see.

Bosco Anthony:

For the listeners out there, builders across the world, international listeners as well, do you have any final advice, especially for the builders who are thinking about embracing technology or aren't in that space yet to actually adopt technology? You put forward a really strong statistic: 32% have started to adopt it, but they’re only using about 2% of their total budget towards IT. So what's your advice, your final piece of advice for someone that's thinking about getting on the technology bandwagon?

Bob Cain:

Create a culture of constant learning. That's something we should be looking at in any industry. If you create a culture of constant learning in any business that you're running right now, you're always open for better things. You're always open for personal growth for yourself as the leader of the business. And you want everybody in the business to grow as well.

Bob Cain:

When we look at those types of things right now, and we look at the education that we can provide to our team members and to the industry right now, the biggest thing that you can do is invest in becoming better and I think technology goes along very well with that. When you think about products like BuildTools, these were developed by successful people in this industry and then used by hundreds of other builders and the product was tweaked to take on all of those best practices.

Bob Cain:

If you can get yourself a good learning organisation, like APB, where there's some good coaching, then you can mix that together with a good product, and there's multiple in the industry. BuildTools is a very good product; it's one of them. Mix your training with a product like BuildTools. Now you're taking the constant learning and improvement in your business and you're taking the best practices of a lot of other businesses that have used this tool prior to you. And then don't stop. 

Bob Cain:

Create a culture of constant learning, do more with the product, figure out how that product is going to make everybody's job easier so that your team members can continue to flourish in their learning and in their careers and not be held back by administrative weight on their careers. Use these tools and these products to scale and grow the same way we would use tools if we were physically building a house out in the field.

Bosco Anthony:

Create a culture of constant learning. I'm going to take that with me. Thank you so much, Bob, for being here today. I really appreciate your time.

Bob Cain:

Bosco, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It has been fun.