You’re winning awards. Your turnover is climbing.
From the outside, your building business looks like it’s absolutely thriving.
So why does it feel like you’re barely holding it together?
You’re Running a Business That Looks Great But Feels Like It’s Eating You Alive.
Maybe you’ve hit the revenue targets. Maybe you’ve got the team, the projects, the social media presence.
On paper, everything screams success.
Your accountant might even be telling you that you’re making money.
Here’s what nobody sees:
You’re still stressed all the time. You’re still hustling, chasing, firefighting every single day. You can’t tell anyone what you actually made on your last project, not because you don’t want to, but because you genuinely don’t know. You’re one bad job away from serious trouble, and deep down, you know it.
The pressure never lifts. The chaos never stops.
And the worst part? You’re exhausted from keeping up the appearance that everything’s fine.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: our industry is terrible at rewarding what actually matters.
We celebrate turnover, not profit.
We hand out awards based on the finished product, not the business behind it.
We glorify the builder who’s “always busy” without asking whether they’re actually in control of their business, or whether their business is controlling them.
You can win Master Builder awards while running a complete shit show behind the scenes.
You can have the fancy ute, the big team, the impressive project list, and still be stealing from your own business just to make payroll.
You can look like the picture of success while living on a knife’s edge, breathless and chaotic, knowing that your clients can feel it too.
And when clients see a builder who’s running around like a headless chook, they get nervous. Because a chaotic builder can never build a quality home with confidence.
Watch the video now, or read the transcript below. Be sure to also subscribe to the Live Life Build YouTube channel.
Amelia
Maybe you’re thinking that on paper, everything looks great. On paper, your business looks like it’s thriving. It’s doing well but the pressure never lifts. You’re still feeling stressed all the time.
You’re still feeling like you have to hustle, chase, and be always on. It’s challenging when you have this business that should look like it’s doing well, but it feels like it’s eating you alive. It’s taking so much to make it happen.
Duayne
We see so many times that our ELEVATE members shift from chaos to control, and it’s like I just want to jump through the screen on ELEVATE calls and give them a big hug. It’s life changing when you’ve got the right systems and processes, you understand your numbers, and you don’t have to run around and feel like everything’s out of control.
We see this a lot in the media and in our industry. So many people are constantly pushing turnover and marketing, thinking that more jobs automatically mean better business or more money. That could not be further from the truth. The reality is, if you increase your marketing but you are still attracting the wrong types of clients, or you do not have the systems and processes to manage them properly, things can quickly spiral out of control.
There are so many moving parts that have to work together. Reaching that point in business where the chaos settles, you can finally take a breath, sit back, and feel in control of what you are building, that is when everything starts to change.
Amelia
If you’re making all of this profit, but you have absolutely no peace of mind, then you don’t have a business that makes you feel good every day. Clients often tell me they feel that a chaotic builder can never build a quality home.
When they see a builder who doesn’t have systems and processes, who feels almost breathless in the way they deal with all the time, it makes them nervous.
The builder might be saying, “Yeah, I’m super busy, I’ve got a lot on and, we’re a really a successful business,” but the energy they give off is having no ease, confidence, or comfort in how systematically the business runs. It creates the opposite impression.
All the client sees is this builder who is running around like a headless chook, and they become very concerned about whether the builder will be able to deliver a decent project.
A chaotic builder can never build a quality home.
Duayne
We’ve seen it so much with a lot of our members. There’s this misconception that if they’re making money, they think they’re doing great. The accountant’s telling them that they’ve made money. It’s not actually company profit, it’s all been pulled into their personal lives, they’re stealing from the business, and it’s personal money.
They might be driving around in a new vehicle, they might have their own house, and possibly an investment house. On paper it might look good, but reality is, it’s chaos. They don’t understand what’s coming into the business and how much it’s costing to operate the business.
When I ask most builders what they made last year or more directly, what they made on their last project, they can’t tell because again, it’s that chaos. There’s no data tracking, no systems and processes.
They can’t say, “Oh, look, we fully reviewed that last project, we went over this and that, and overall the job made this percentage.” They can’t say because they’re simply relying on that beast, that turnover, that animal, and ultimately, that is what’s giving them the chaos in their life.
Amelia
All they’ve done is create a machine that they need to keep feeding, and they’re living on this knife’s edge where they’re potentially just one bad job away from going out the back door.
From the outside everything looks like they’re the picture of success, yet internally, they have this turmoil. I think deep down, builders who are living like this know that it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. There’s an opportunity to have a different outcome, to have a business that they feel more at peace in, and that they have more confidence in as well.
Duayne
Our industry is terrible at rewarding people for running shit shows. One thing that really annoys me is when people think that because a builder has won multiple awards, they’re a great builder.
They may be a good builder, they may have built a quality project, but that doesn’t mean they’re not running a terrible business. I learned this firsthand in 2010 when I won the Master Builders Rising Star Award. At face value, everyone thought we were killing it, but I put my hand up, we were running a shit show.
I was that builder who was operating from that chaos. I was putting out fires every day. I was struggling to pay bills, keep the team on track, everything that everyone deals with, and yet I was winning awards. I had people around me celebrating because it was all based on what they saw externally. We were doing multiple jobs, we had a big team, and it looked like we were killing it.
Amelia
If you feel like you’re running your business every day from chaos and all it takes is hustle and grind every single day in order to make things work, maybe it’s time for you to get better help and support. Surround yourself with a community of like minded builders who can help put you in control of your business and be able to make profit with peace.
If this conversation resonated with you, if you’re tired of running a business that looks successful but feels like it’s eating you alive, you don’t have to figure this out alone.
You deserve a business that gives you profit AND peace of mind.
Inside ELEVATE, our flagship program for custom residential builders, you’ll gain:
- The systems and processes that create control instead of chaos
- The financial clarity to finally understand your numbers and make profitable decisions
- A community of like-minded builders who are on the same journey from surviving to thriving
- Proven strategies to build smarter, live better, and actually enjoy life again
Your business should work for you, not the other way around.
Join ELEVATE today and discover what real success feels like →
Because success without peace of mind isn’t success at all.