You know that sinking feeling when you walk onto the site and immediately sense something’s wrong?
Another “quick chat” that turns into a heated discussion about something you thought was crystal clear.
This is the hidden business killer no one talks about.
You’re stuck explaining the same things over and over to your team and clients, but the message just isn’t sticking.
Every miscommunication chips away at trust. Projects slow down. Stress builds up. You drive to the site with knots in your stomach, wondering what’s gone wrong now.
As builders, you were never taught to be teachers. But communication is a learnable skill, and when you get it right, everything changes.
In the video, Amelia and Duayne reveal why your current communication approach isn’t working and what successful builders do differently.
Watch the video now, or read the transcript below. Be sure to also subscribe to the Live Life Build YouTube channel.
Amelia
We often hear builders complaining about this problem of…
“Clients are misunderstanding me. I feel like I’m telling clients the same things over and over and over, and what I’m saying is not getting through to them.”
And the same thing with their team, they feel like they’re communicating all of these things all of the time, and yet mistakes still keep getting made. People aren’t understanding them, and they’re creating a whole heap of problems in their business.
Duayne
Again, as tradies and builders, we’re not taught to be teachers, and not a lot of time, communication is not something that’s spoken about. We just think that we talk, we listen and life goes on. But the reality is, communication is extremely important.
And I know, again, back from my personal experience, a lot of the issues that I was having in my own building business and my life were simply because I wasn’t communicating clearly. I wasn’t documenting things correctly after I’d communicated things.
I wasn’t explaining things in ways that I understood, and I wasn’t giving my team the time or the energy to let me know if they didn’t understand. It was all just go, go, go. Because…
- We had to get the next drawdown
- We had to get money in the bank
- We had to get the job done
- We had to keep the client happy
And all that did was build tension, build a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, not just for myself, but for my entire team.
And then obviously, once that’s happening, it flows onto the client, and before you know it, you’re in a situation where every time you’re on site, it feels uncomfortable.
You don’t want to be there. You get knots in your stomach every time you’ve got to drive to a site, because you’re thinking about what’s possibly wrong, or what the team’s going to be whinging about today? What’s the client going to be whinging about today?
Communication is the key to solving these types of feelings and problems.
Amelia
It’s so true, and I know from the work that we do with members once we actually teach them how to start templating their communication, how to start thinking about their communication more productively. The challenge is that oftentimes, you’re working with clients who’ve never had any experience with this process.
You, as the authority and the experienced expert in doing this every day of every week of every year, can make a heck of a lot of assumptions about what a client might understand. You can also do that with your team as well, and assume that they’re going to know what you’re talking about.
And that can mean that in the end, misunderstandings happen, and a client just gets frustrated because they feel like they don’t know what’s going on, and they can’t trust you.
And once that trust is eroded, it is very difficult to repair in a relationship.
So instead, when you start working with templates and tools and you consistently deliver information in a similar way to a client,
- you iron out those assumptions
- you answer their questions in a way that makes sense to them
- you always checking in to ensure that you’re on the same page
- it sets up so much more success in a project
- and enables everything to go much more smoothly
As tradies and builders, we’re not taught to be teachers…
Communication is not something that’s spoken about.
– Duayne
Duayne
In our Live Life Build ELEVATE program, we’ve done some work with Rik Rushton, an incredible Australian who talks about communication in detail, that communication is not just about what we speak and how we talk to people. It’s also about the way we listen.
And again, as builders, we just tend to be so busy that we’re already thinking about what we’re going to tell the person, whether it’s a team member, whether it’s a client, or whether it’s a designer, before we’ve even let them stop speaking.
So communication covers a lot of things, and we definitely spend a lot of time with our members to help communicate or teach them how to communicate and listen.
But one thing that I see happening a lot in our industry at the moment, especially with so many different coaches and mentors and things coming into the market, is a lot of people think that they can solve a lot of the problems that happen in a building business by just being harsh and really hammering home their contracts and using documents to communicate.
I know from my own experience and the experience that we’ve heard from our members that’s a really bad way to be running your business, and you really need to be learning how to communicate better. Set clear expectations.
Listen to the people, listen to your team, listen to your clients, listen to everybody around you, probably in your relationships as well.
Speaking and listening are definitely something that has really changed my life and my business.
Here’s What Changes When You Get Communication Right
When you master communication in your building business, three things happen almost immediately:
Your clients stop calling with the same questions. They understand the process, trust your expertise, and feel confident about what’s happening. No more anxiety-inducing phone calls that derail your day.
Your team operates like a well-oiled machine. Clear expectations, documented processes, and proper listening mean fewer mistakes, less rework, and site visits that actually feel productive.
You get your life back. No more knots in your stomach driving to the site. No more lying awake wondering what went wrong today. You start enjoying your work again because you’re in control.
This is exactly what we help builders achieve in ELEVATE. We don’t just talk about communication, we give you the templates, systems, and training that make it automatic.
You didn’t get into building to spend your days explaining the same things over and over. You got into it to create something meaningful, build a successful business, and enjoy the process.
If you’re ready to stop feeling like a broken record and start building the communication systems that successful builders use, discover how our ELEVATE members are transforming their businesses through better communication.