The real reason you’re working 60+ hours but still struggling to get ahead and why “just work harder” isn’t working anymore.
You’re working harder than ever, but your bank account, schedule and energy levels all feel depleted. You know something’s not right.
You’re working incredibly hard, probably harder than anyone you know, but at the end of each project, you’re left asking “What do I actually have to show for all this effort?”
The longer you stay trapped in this cycle, the more you accept that 60-hour weeks, razor-thin margins, and having no energy left for your family is just “part of the industry.”
The fact is: It’s not about working harder.
It’s about identifying where your business is bleeding money, time, and energy, often in ways you don’t even realise.
The solution isn’t more hours or more hustle. It’s understanding what we call “business black holes” – the hidden drains in your business that are costing you far more than you know. And once you can see them, you can fix them.
In the conversation below, Amelia and Duayne break down exactly what these business black holes are, why they’re so devastating to your success, and how to start identifying them in your own business.
Watch the video now, or read the transcript below. Be sure to also subscribe to the Live Life Build YouTube channel.
Amelia
I don’t think you can ever accuse a custom residential builder of not working hard, but it’s so common for builders to feel like they’re working incredibly hard, and then there’s nothing left over.
There’s no money in the jobs, there’s no time left in the day, and there’s no energy left in the tank, and it just all feels exhausting, and you don’t really know what is the result of all of your efforts.
Duayne
Pretty much most builders you talk to:
- they complain about the endless hours they work
- the low profit that’s left at the end of the jobs
- the constant fires they’re putting out
- the issues they’re having with clients
- the issues they’re having with the team
There’s just all these battles that they feel like they’re always trying to, I guess, work their way through to get a better outcome.
But it’s not always about working harder. It’s about working smarter. And that’s what we do at Live Life Build. We give you solutions to help you work through these problems.
Amelia
We’ve identified that there are three categories of business black holes, which will lose you money, will lose you time, and will lose you energy.
Once you actually start to understand what these business black holes are, you can then start to see how you’re going to avoid having those holes in your business.
And then start to make different choices about what you’re spending your time on, what you’re spending your energy on, what you’re investing in, so that you can get far better outcomes.
When we did this workshop with our members, it was amazing to see, again, all of those kind of ‘aha’ moments of them seeing, “Gosh, I hadn’t even thought of that being a business black hole.”
And I can see now, if I pay attention to that, and I start doing differently, doing things differently, I can really turn things around.
Duayne
It’s one of those things, until you take the time to sit down and reflect. And we saw that at our last live event where we were giving all of our members the exercise putting like, I don’t know what it was, it was like 10 pages in front of them of all these hundreds of items that could be costing them money.
When you’re in the trenches and you’re working all these hours, you’re doing it, you’re putting out these fires, you’re not thinking about all the little areas that you need to improve on.
So, it’s a very valuable exercise to have a document like we have in Live Life Build where you can work your way through and not only identify the areas that you’ve got black holes, but actually grade them so that you can identify what you need to work on first.
It might be you. 9 times out of 10, it will be you.
I know that I was my biggest black hole.
– Duayne
Amelia
I think that’s really important, isn’t it?
And so, if you have an opportunity to sit down and actually think about your business,
- think about where you might be losing time
- where you might be losing money, or
- where you might be losing energy…
You can audit a whole heap of things in your business to start seeing where these business black holes could be occurring.
It might be in the way that you’re estimating your jobs, it might be in the way that you’re scheduling your projects. It might be in the way that you’re supervising your team.
Duayne
It might be you. 9 times out of 10, it will be you. I know that I was my biggest black hole.
There are so many things in your business that would be costing you money without you even having any idea that it is costing you money, but also the amount of money that it’s costing you.
It’s definitely a worthwhile exercise in doing so, I guess to start tracking, we see a lot of our members have a lot of success by just working on one thing, small steps lead to massive wins.
So, start by just tracking one area of your business, whether it’s estimating, supervision, it could be anything at all, but just track one thing and identify where you’re losing time, how you could be doing something better.
And you will quite often see that just from fixing that one thing, you can get some insane results.
Stop the Leaks Before They Sink Your Business
Most builders never take the time to audit their business for these black holes. They’re too busy putting out fires to step back and see the bigger picture. But that’s exactly why these problems persist and get worse over time.
The builders in our ELEVATE program don’t just identify these black holes, they systematically close them using our proven Successful Builder Solution framework.
They’re building profitable businesses that give them back their time, energy, and peace of mind.
Because small steps lead to massive wins. You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. You just need to start seeing your business clearly and taking action on what matters most.
Work better, not harder… and your business and life will benefit..