Matthew Mak 0:05

The every most of the people doing the most are asking for a delight. This is built with electromission. I mean a team. Baking architecture, no truck, and a built business from the ground up with my partner. No blueprint, no safety net, no approval. Just real stories, hard pivot, and what it actually takes to build something from nothing. Let's get to work. All right. Thank you for joining us here on Bill Without Permission. And by honest, I mean me. Happy to be here, Bremen. Awesome, awesome, man. And alright, so let's get right into it, sir. Uh I wanted to ask you here. If I met you before any of this existed, what would I have found you doing?

Brandon Smith 1:04

Snowboarding, likely.

Matthew Mak 1:06

Snowboarding, eh? Yeah. Nice.

Brandon Smith 1:09

Yeah. Before construction, man. I like I came from a place where high school was really tough. I got into construction right after high school. Okay. And I had uh a learning disability, and it was uh it was a really tough time for me. Like it was there was a lot of drinking, and you know, high school is a pretty social place. I didn't actually read a course until I zoomed out uh quite a ways, um, just how far off track I I'd really gotten. And it was uh I found I fell in love with snowboarding, and and when I realized, you know, high school was maybe not not for me, and I I barely graduated. I I did end up graduating, but barely. Yeah. But throughout those uh high school years, grade nine, grade 10, 11, and 12, I thought that I was gonna snowboard professionally. That was what I was keen to do, and I uh spent more time up on the mountain than I did in school. And then I got into uh construction. I've I say that construction really saved me, and uh, and I mean that. I got an opportunity uh right after high school, my mom's house had burnt down, and uh she I was helping her move into a rental basement suite. And the gentleman that owned the home that was renting the place to my mom, he was a recruiter for a large commercial construction company. And he said, You know, we're we're always looking for young guys to come out and you know try out the trades. Would you be interested in coming down for an interview? And I said, sure, that sounds good. And so I ended up by going down about a week later to go in for an interview. And I signed some paperwork, and they said this is how much you're gonna be making, this is how much you're gonna, or this is where you're gonna be working, this is when you need to show up. In fact, I wasn't going in for an interview, I was going in just to sign the papers, and like next thing I knew, I was you started working, uh I was on a construction site which was way over my head. Yeah, I had no idea what I was walking into. It's the first time on a on a big site with five or six hundred people and everyone was moving. I had no idea what I was going on, yeah. But that was that was the early uh the early days, my friend.

Matthew Mak 3:16

But that's what it seems like either way. Like I know, um, and I can pretty much also relate to you about the high school thing, right? And uh, but like fast forward about the work, right? Like, even like going through say college, university, and whatnot, what it's supposedly setting you up for in the workforce, when you actually get into whatever field that people have studied through, it's nothing like what you studied. Like you you're the same feeling, that feeling is still there. You're thrown in with a bunch of people that you kind of just have to you know ask the right questions and figure it out, right? How how you can you know do your part, right?

Brandon Smith 3:54

And yeah, that was I think that was always it. And I remember when you're trying to fit in. I mean, I I I think very few people have their path laid out for them in high school, and you know, and they very few people have it all, you know, quote unquote all together. But I was certainly on the the far side of that that spectrum where I very early didn't have had no idea what I was gonna be doing. And yeah, I mean it's you you're when you're falling asleep in class and you have your teachers and your counselors that are telling you you basically don't have a a future, and they're saying you know the only way for you to learn is to go and do more after school learning, and so your parents sign you up for these these extra curriculars learning classes, so you have more time to go and do your homework, and it was it was just more school on uh it was more of a thing on top of a thing that I already didn't want to be doing, yeah, yeah, that I wasn't good at, or I'd built up this belief that I wasn't good at it. And and it wasn't until uh my first year in in trade school where I I really wanted to really wanted to learn. I was very engaged with what we were doing and and what we're building, and I fell in love with math and trigonometry and all of these use cases that I never I had no reason to like ever believe that they were gonna be useful in my in my future. And that's what the the trades did was really open that up. And then in uh so I worked for that company for about six years, and then in 2010, when the uh the Olympics came to Vancouver, which is where I'm recording out of today, yeah. Construction shut down for about three or three weeks or so, and everybody was laid off, including myself. And it came time to go back to work after the Olympics had backed up and the world had all gone home. And I used that as a as a launch pad, and I just said, you know, thank you for the the opportunity, but I'm gonna go and pursue this thing on my own. At that time, I had uh a lot of a lot of small projects that I had been picking, picking up for friends and family on the side, and uh I just used that as an opportunity to say this is you know this is where I'm gonna transition and started the company then, and that was about uh 16, you know, 16 plus years ago.

Matthew Mak 6:17

Wow. Well, good for you. Uh I see it as like what you're telling me, even about the high high school and everything, and not meant for you and whatnot, right? But that was kind of like the building path of directing you to where you are today, right? Because like imagine it was the other way around where you know you you follow through with the whole system and you may not be doing what you're doing today, right? So it was kind of like that was part of your path. Yeah, and it's what got you to where you are.

Brandon Smith 6:43

You you question what we know what how the path could be different and always stuff, right? What could have what could have happened, what should have happened. Ultimately, like I'm very happy with the path that I'm on right now and where you know what construction led me to was learning a skill, which then led to building confidence, which then uh built enough confidence to say I'm going to go into business for myself, which then left me in a very uncomfortable position to have to learn now how to run a business. Because again, like trade school doesn't teach you how to run a business, they don't teach you entrepreneurship, they don't teach you how to how to project cash flow and and you know read a PL sheet. And they don't know they don't teach you about leadership, they don't teach you about hiring, they don't teach you any of that. And so that was that put me in a position where now I'm learning about entrepreneurship. I'm learning the ins and outs of how to run a business. And it put me on this trajectory of now I you know I'm I'm in love with business, like every through and through every aspect of it, and uh and and have to continue learning every single day. Um and I and I and I don't mean that lightly or or figuratively, like that's literally what what I do every single day is I'm learning something new, something that I can teach myself, something that I can learn so that I can teach our team, so that I can keep growing. Uh limited by by the growth of the of the leader, the you know, whoever's at the the top of the organization that's making decisions. And so yeah, I I it's not uh it's not something that I take lightly. And that's what I was led to. And I and I I I think that if I you know maybe was a good student and I and I'd had good grades and I went to university after high school and built a career, then I would be working a job somewhere and it wouldn't have you know kicked the the fire under my ass and to uh to go out there to pursue what you're doing now on my own. So but you know, you can't really spend too much time dwelling on on those situations that could have been. I'm I'm just very much focused on on the future and and what what opportunity um are sure ahead of me. And I just went every single day, man. And I'm very thankful. I I talk to universe, and I'm just very thankful for all the opportunities that I have and that I'm I'm I'm gonna have in the future.

Matthew Mak 9:29

And keep and keep going, right? Just keep executing, right? Yeah, that's where we we keep bettering ourselves, is um like uh through the failures that we go through and the challenges, like you said, like every day. It is a challenge because there's always a different situation, there's always different things happening, right?

Brandon Smith 9:44

That you will never expect it to happen, but then it's just a matter of how fast you can fix the situation and then move forward, right, to the next and then to the next having the ability and and realization of uh of of what what of what really drives your emotion? Like what is your emotional baseline? And that gets increased over time. Because if I look at the problems that I'm dealing with now, and I look at the problems that I would have been dealing with five or six years ago, those those issues that I would have been dealing with five or six years ago that would have sent me down a spiral of of emotions and like questioning whether or not we're in business. I look at those and because I've been through those, you know, so many times now, I just know like, okay, this is just part of the day. This is just part of the thing because you're used to it. It's sort of a you know, it's a similar, similar challenge that that may come up. And so now I'm I'm you know, there's no doubt that there's shortage of of challenges and puzzles that need to be solved in the currency, but they're different challenges and different different puzzles and different problems that need to be solved. And uh, but understanding all right, if something if if something happens in your business and having the ability to step back and realize that the old me, the old version of me would have really had a major issue with this, that's where you understand there's growth, and that's where you can look back and say, like, that's just a defining point that says, Hey, look how far I've I've come. I've come, yeah. So that becomes a milestone. Oh yeah. Uh and that allows you to to make decisions, and that just that really comes through just just repetition and for sure.

Matthew Mak 11:31

Uh and that it is what it is, it's it's that mindset, right? Like your growth mindset, right? Like your your decisions, let's say on on something that comes up today all of a sudden out of nowhere. If that came up the same situation to you a year ago, you would have different view, perspective, and way of tackling it, right?

Brandon Smith 11:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And it it changes, right? And there's you have new people that come into your life, right? And all of a sudden you have new people on your on your team, and uh they need to know that you are going to be emotionally stable uh for real, otherwise they're not gonna be able to predict whatever it is that you're gonna be bringing to the table. So yeah, if you if you wake up and and you have uh you know a bunch of bad information that comes your way, like you still you still need to show up as the leader, you still need to show up as your to your family after work, like you still need to bring that that that energy that your team needs. It's not it's not about you anymore. Like I had a uh you know a few moments even this morning. I had to take my truck into the shop and go and get the the brakes serviced. And I was sitting in an Uber and on my way back from the the shop to the office this morning, and I was just had this like this sense of like, okay, it's it's it's Monday. I got a lot of my plate, and I've like we're starting a couple new projects, and my team's wondering what they're gonna be doing. They're coming down, and I was just you know, I just had this like sense of man, what is it? This this just doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel like we're getting uh great momentum here in the day. And and this is this is already like it's 9 a.m. Monday. Yeah, you feel like you're already behind. Yes, and and so there was a lot of that was going on, and it was like, man, okay, well, I have I still even with that if we've even with that feeling, uh, have a responsibility to show up to everything that I'm gonna be doing in my day with enthusiasm, with positivity, with a sharp mind, with yeah clear outcomes that I that I want to see happen, and like you gotta get it done. I think Layla Hormozy, you know, claimed the term best, and she says, uh fuck your mood, follow the plan. And that's what she's claimed. And it and it just it really is like I you know if you have if you have a a podcast recording or you're going to shoot content or you have a big client meeting that's coming up and you just don't feel like doing it, it's like well, you know what, your your mood is gonna be an indicator, but you're always gonna have ups and downs. You gotta just get good at doing the thing when you aren't in the best state. It's like when you're going to the gym. Like so many times you you wake up and you feel like I don't want to work out today, or maybe I should take the day off, but that's not part of the plan. Like you need to you need to follow the plan, you need to go in there and and keep doing the thing, and yeah, that's gonna come in you know in various different styles and formats to everybody's day, but the overarching theme is is very much the same.

Matthew Mak 14:38

Yeah, do it. You just gotta do it, right? You just gotta do it. So, and then now, Brandon, like when you started off um like doing your venture of your own, um, tell us uh what did a normal week actually look like in year one? Hour by hour, not the highlight reel, but hour by hour.

Brandon Smith 14:58

It was it was all over the place. Like I was doing everything, right? It was everything. I had uh I started for about six months on my own, and then I had a friend of mine, and he had asked if I wanted to partner. He was running a uh company with his brother-in-law for a couple of years prior, and it wasn't really going the way that he wanted it to. So we'd asked um if I would consider partnering with him, and we're still partners to this day. And but at that time, it was everything, it was running around. Uh, it was putting together proposals, it was doing the the work on the tools, it was you know, doing uh everything ourselves. We were doing all of the invoicing, we were doing any sort of hiring our ourselves, you know, at that point. Yeah, hired anyone that in really in that first year. Um, it was driving the truck, it was going to the landfill, it was uh it was all over the place, man. Like there was zero rhythm. It was like whatever was in front of us needed to get done. It was just dig in and do it.

Matthew Mak 15:58

You have that mindset of if I don't do it, it's not gonna get done, right? And you just gotta do it. And then at that part, you're wearing all the hats, right?

Brandon Smith 16:05

All of them, yeah. All of the hats. And did that for way too long?

Matthew Mak 16:11

Yeah, no, for sure. And then now, um, to like going into the next question here, kind of related to this. So, when did you first make more money when you when you did then? And then you knew that that this is what you want to do, but what did you do wrong with it? Like, I know we all have this challenge where we're spending, right? Are we spending wrong like here? Like, where was it for you?

Brandon Smith 16:35

You know, I I don't know if I ever had that situation where we're spending money wrong. I think that there's I I think holding holding on to it and not deploying enough of it faster in certain areas would have been the downfall. That's that's probably what I would have done done differently. Okay. So it was we had we really didn't start growing until my business partner and I, until we hired uh until we hired our first coach. And this was our after our maybe our second year in business type thing. Okay. And before then, we were both doing all of the same things, right? We were both on the tools, we were both project managing, we were both doing sales, we were both doing estimating, we were both sending invoices, we were both you know driving sharing.

Matthew Mak 17:20

All over shared things, yeah.

Brandon Smith 17:22

And it wasn't until we hired a coach and they said, You guys need to really clearly define your roles and who's gonna be responsible for what. One of you needs to be focusing on production, one of you needs to be focusing on sales and marketing, and that's that. And so we drew a line down the middle and we decided, all right, over here, these are gonna be sales related items, these are gonna be production-related items. And we owned those outcomes. Yeah. There was gonna be decisions that we still made together, but we knew that even if we disagreed on a decision, ultimately if it fell under a sales and marketing budget, then one of us would go with that decision and the other would support it. Or if it was a production-related decision and we disagreed, then that person would own that and the other person would would support it to provide input and and and feedback. But that was really that that first place. But I would have invested certainly more money into uh into coaching, into learning. At that time, right, you don't really know, like we weren't even paying ourselves a full-time paycheck in these first couple of years. It was really just whatever was left. Some some months we would make money, some some months we wouldn't. We didn't collect deposits. We like we very rarely collected deposits. And so we ended up uh yeah, you know, sort of struggling and sitting down on the floor at the end of a at the end of a project and writing out how much money we made and pulling out all receipts and doing you know long-form math on a piece of paper to figure out how much was oh, we didn't know anything about taxes. Yeah, like are you kidding me? The government is gonna want some of this too, or like what they're gonna be the last that we're gonna pay, and eventually they come back to get you. But yeah, anyways, that was uh that was certainly a a long time ago. And I, you know, I I talk at a lot of high schools, I talk at a lot of colleges, and uh I I tell my story um early on in high school, which I've I've told in depth many times on my podcast and and on others. But I go and and I uh I see an opportunity to to speak to these kids and make sure that they that they know that if they aren't seen, if they aren't heard, if they've ever been in a similar situation that I've been in, that there's a very, very bright future for them. And I and I see these kids, man, and and young kids get a bad rap for being lazy and you know not being ambitious enough. And I I gotta tell you, these kids that I talk to, they are they are very ambitious. They want the world, but they are driven far less by money than they are by impact. And yeah, they want to they think that the the the people ahead of them have uh you know the generations ahead of them have messed up the world and it's their job to know now we're going to fix it. And it's uh but there's a there's a lot of hope, there's a very bright future for those kids. And yeah, I coach trades and home service businesses um now and it's and it's very much the same thing. Like I talk to these business owners, and I know that they have a similar story. They got into trades, they got into construction because it it wasn't necessarily at that time their first choice, but now they're making a living at it, and they they're going through all these same struggles that I went through. Yeah, and then you're there to support them. But I'm able to share with them and show them like look, you can absolutely thrive in this industry. Yes, but you can make the right decisions and avoid the wrong decisions, you can build a self-sustaining, profitable company that that does not rely on you to make every decision. Yeah, and and uh I just want to make sure that uh these people that I'm that I'm speaking with, the the clients that I coach, uh they don't go through the same the same and hurdles and challenges that I'm seeing you're saving them that that time that you went through and shortening it for them, right?

Matthew Mak 21:24

Like that's what it is, and that's it's huge, that's big, right? And to hear it from someone that's been through it is so much easier to relate than someone that hasn't been to it trying to give the advice. Exactly.

Brandon Smith 21:38

But it is there's always that there's always that fallacy where you know they're they say, Well, I know that I should be doing this, and this is the advice that everybody gives me, but I'm different. Yeah, but I'm that I'm that's I'm that special snow special person happen to. And that's a subconscious they have to go and they have. Experience it on their own, but hopefully get to a point where they start seeing symptoms of this come in and they think, all right, they they think fast enough to okay. I had the advice, do not do this and do things differently. Now I'm yeah, I've tried it to do it my way, and now I'm seeing it doesn't work, so I'm gonna move as quickly as I can to do it this other way. Absolutely. That becomes uh that becomes a beautiful thing. Yeah, I know for sure. You know, it's it's easy for somebody that has made a lot of money, that has the supercars, that can uh, you know, the Lambos in the driveway to all of a sudden say, you know what, money money doesn't matter, money's not everything. And then the next person to say, I hear you, but I I'm I need to go figure that out for myself. I need to go make that money to figure out that it isn't everything that I thought it was gonna be. Yes. And um, anyways, yeah, it it really is uh it really is a fallacy.

Matthew Mak 22:56

Yeah, yeah. Well, you help close that gap a bit, but then like you said, it's it's up to the person to make that decision no matter no matter what, right? Like you can only do as far as you can, but totally agree with you. Yeah, so now what's uh what's a skill nobody taught you that you turned out to matter more than anything you learned in school or training, which again I know you gave us some tidbits of that, but what stands out out of that? What's something that you think uh one skill that could stands out?

Brandon Smith 23:28

Sales, first and foremost.

Matthew Mak 23:30

Yeah.

Brandon Smith 23:31

Okay. Like I mean, if there's no sale, nothing happens. If you can't you can have the best product in the world, but if nobody is buying and you can't get it in front of people, then they're never gonna know it's as good as it's gonna be. And I mean, sales and marketing, right? It comes it comes down to really bullying those things. But those are things that you don't learn in school, you don't learn sales in school. Um that you can hire sales coaches, which I've done in the past, and you know, some of them have been good, some of them have not been great. Yeah, but having that uh that ability to get in front of somebody and have them believe that what you have is going to solve a problem that they have in their life is a massive skill. That is so it's so diverse and it's translatable into any industry. That is the the biggest skill that yeah gap that had to be learned that they absolutely don't teach you in school.

Matthew Mak 24:31

Yeah, and now like with the what we have in this era now, which is great, which is with the social media, it helps kind of um or actually not kind of, it helps validate kind of who you are, right? Even easier than it was before, right? Because before you'd have to pretty much do the door-to-door knocking almost, or I did it, pay it all, man. I literally pay Google ads a crap ton of money just to be at the top of the list.

Brandon Smith 24:59

But you know what? And I see a lot of people outside they outsource sales too quickly, and it can come with the but you don't know if you're outsourcing really anything too quickly, then you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you're looking for. Yeah, right. And and that becomes uh a bit of a problem. So in in if you're doing uh for example, right, if you are doing sales and you're going out and you're selling for a company and you're you have uh a closing rate of you know 15 or 20, or you don't even know that you should be tracking it, and you hire somebody else on and they're they're performing, then you don't know how well they're performing, if are they performing well or are they performing not? You don't know that your sales rate should be at 35 or 40 percent. So you think what you're doing is probably pretty good because you have no way how to how to measure it until you get into the weeds and you can understand what your what it is that your customers want, how they respond, start documenting that so that you can pass that off to somebody else, you're outsourcing a huge skill set. Yes, and and as the the owner of a of a business, right? And there's nothing to say like this is going to be your only business, this is not going to be the only thing that you do forever. Uh, this is gonna be translated to this that you know the next venture, or if you're going to raise capital for your business, right? Being able to sell to investors on the the vision of the company is uh is a massive skill set that's uh you know that's wildly undervalued by so many business owners.

Matthew Mak 26:32

Yeah, no, and that's definitely something I I have experienced and I've gone through, right? I had to build that skill too, right? It's just because my business is very high capital, right? I have equipment rentals, and you need to really put a story together to show the vision, and you just nailed nailed it.

Brandon Smith 26:49

So I feel that that story storytelling is incredibly powerful to to get attention, but ultimately people and people do get carried away, don't get me wrong. Of of they they the business owner will get to a point where they think I have to be there. They people only want to buy from me. And that yeah, you know, that's a that's a myth too, right? Yeah, that's not the case. But people don't buy your presence, they buy your standards, right? People buy from from your company because they know that the company has a solid background of great people, uh, a great track record. They don't necessarily buy from Matt because he's a nice guy, and they want to support the fact that he's a nice guy. No, they want their problem solved, they want it done properly. Service pay for it. And at the end of the day, if you're a nice guy too, then that just makes the process more enjoyable.

Matthew Mak 27:42

It's a bonus, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. No, you're you're absolutely right, and that just nailed it. That's my that's my whole thing, right? And for you too. It's it's all about service, right? From the beginning to the end, right? And it is a bonus to get a smile.

Brandon Smith 28:00

Um, so that's what I always said service service with a smile, not a smile with a service.

Matthew Mak 28:07

Yeah, service with a smile, twist it that way.

Brandon Smith 28:10

Yeah.

Matthew Mak 28:12

And uh, what's a rule that you refuse to break no matter what it costs you?

Brandon Smith 28:17

Well, this took me a long time to learn. And I basically the the the the biggest rule that I live by right now is if we are not if we are not aligned on the same vision, we're not working together. Yeah. So what I mean by that is I don't have and I've gone through you know way too long having team members that are not they're not interested in in growing, um, they're not they don't really care about the bigger vision, and that's a really difficult thing to start navigating towards with somebody. And and if you're pulling in one direction and they're pulling in another direction and you're not aligned, it's good, it's it's so much faster just to cut it off, have that discussion, and bring somebody in that's gonna be aligned. So for me, if we were both if it's multiple people, but if anybody's not uh truly aligned on where it is that we're going, then they're not gonna make the decisions that they need to that are you to uh uh move the company you know towards that goal. So that's a that's just a hard rule for me, man.

Matthew Mak 29:16

Yeah, awesome. And then that's something that I learned too, right? Which was uh actually from Dan's thing, um, teachings for like aligning the goals, like people's goals that work with you, um, seeing what their you know one year, five-year, ten-year goals are that you pursue and push on their goals, because then it will automatically then align to yours if that's the path that they choose, right? And it just makes it that much easier.

Brandon Smith 29:45

Yeah, yeah. And I understand if you can understand what people's goals are for their life, then you can understand how that is going to play into the overall vision and something else. Because people have their own their own lives, they have their own goals. And if and if your you know goal is to ride, you know, go hiking on Count Mount Kilimanjaro and they hate hiking, you know, that's cool too. Like that doesn't mean that they're not going to be a good company fit, they have their own visions, but if they are showing up knowing that if we all work towards this vision together, then that is going to be a vehicle for us to receive everything else that we want to do in our life, then that is what I mean by alignment.

Matthew Mak 30:28

100%. Yeah, awesome. I yeah, I love it, Brandon. Thank you so much, and thank you for your time sharing with me. Uh I would definitely love to have you again, or I jump on also your podcasting, which would be sick.

Brandon Smith 30:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love to have you on. Yeah, we're about 80 episodes deep. You can find it on uh Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube. It's called the Open Concept Podcast. Cool. Open open concept with Brandon Smith to all your listeners out there. Absolutely. Check it out. Awesome.

Matthew Mak 30:59

Yeah, that'd be great. I got I got lots of stuff very similar, relatable with you. Architect for 10 years, now doing equipment rental. So I got two different sides. You're like the builder in between, you know, that knows everything that's going on, but one doesn't know what the other's doing, right? And vice versa.

Brandon Smith 31:15

Yeah, so I get it, man. Well, yeah, thank you, thank you so much. Uh, for anybody else that's that's out there that wants to connect, find me on Instagram, DM me trade up if you own a trades business, and we'll jump in to start doing a bit of a deep dive into how we can help you build a business worth selling one day. And a business worth selling is uh is a business often that's a lot of fun to run. So cool. Jump on Instagram, but find me uh find me there. That's primarily where I hang out, brother.

Matthew Mak 31:46

Hit up Brandon.

Brandon Smith 31:48

Awesome. And check out the podcast, Matt. Thank you so much for uh for being here. Thank you, thank you very much for having me and to all the listeners that are out there here rooting for you to win.

Matthew Mak 31:59

Yes. Let's go. All right, brother. Have a good one, buddy. If you're waiting for permission, you're already behind. The life you're building starts with the decisions you make today. So stop thinking and start moving. Subscribe, share this with someone still thinking about it, and start building something of your own. No blueprint, no approval, no excuses. I'm Matthew Mack. This is built without permission.