Review of business coaching

From Cameron and Emma Jackson,
Jackson Dwellings

Review of business coaching for custom home builder

My husband Cameron and I own and run Jackson Dwellings, a luxury custom home building business based in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria. We build high-end homes and have always been incredibly proud of the quality of our work and the strong brand we’ve built.

We started the business in 2010 and over the next 12 years our revenue grew year on year but it felt like all the effort we were putting in wasn’t showing up on our bottom line.

Worse than the low profitability was the cash flow rollercoaster. One week we thought we were fine, the next we weren’t sure we could make payroll. To be fair, we always did pay our wages but sometimes at a cost to our own finances. We took on debt to keep the business going, and we even had an invoice finance facility, which is like a drug that you can’t kick.

I was constantly stressed and genuinely didn’t know how we were going to keep going.

By early 2023, I thought we were done. I couldn’t see a way out.

I saw on Instagram that another builder similar to us was working with Tenfold Business Coaching.

On 17th January 2023 at 10:42pm I sent an enquiry through Tenfold’s website, and the next day Tania called me back. That call changed everything.

The call that changed everything

Because Tenfold have been coaching for so long, Tania understood everything I said about our business because she’d heard the same story from other business owners. The questions she asked me gave me the confidence that Tenfold was experienced in the construction industry.

Tania matched us with Darren, one of the builder business coaches at Tenfold, and it couldn’t have been a better fit. In our first meeting he explained exactly where to start and why: he saw that we had good branding and we knew how to deliver good quality projects, but then he gave it to us between the eyes. He told us our financials were holding us back; we were flying blind because we weren’t tracking net profit per job, we didn’t have any forecasting, which was why our margins were nowhere near where they should have been.

In our early days of business coaching, Darren zeroed in on the areas that needed the most attention and started from there. He didn’t try to change everything at once. Instead, he prioritised our profit. He introduced Tenfold’s financial model specifically for builders, their Construction Profit Focus tool.

Through business coaching for builders we learned:

  • How to track the net profit on any job at any given time
  • To forecast spending and revenue with clarity and confidence
  • How to reduce the highs and lows of cash flow so we weren’t constantly firefighting
  • How to really understand the numbers in our business so we could make data-driven decisions each month

That alone would have been life-changing, but it didn’t stop there.

Building the business to stand on its own

When we started our building company, we had never run a business before. Cameron had been a carpenter and I had been a police officer. Everything we did in our business was through trial and error and by rolling up our sleeves and just doing it. In doing so, Cam and I had created a business that took everything from us – our time, our energy, even our confidence. We kept saying yes to the wrong jobs, recruiting staff based on who we knew and who was available, and managing staff based on instinct.

To be honest we were constantly putting ourselves last.

Through coaching, Darren helped us reshape our team and rebuild our recruitment process. We now have a team that genuinely supports us, and for the first time, our business runs smoothly even when we step away.

Tenfold coaching has elevated our team

Darren gave us structure and systems for recruiting and managing a team, including how to:

  • Create clear criteria for the ideal candidate before even starting the recruitment process
  • Use a robust process to hire the right people for the right roles (and pass over the ones who weren’t good enough – that takes faith in the process!)
  • Let go of team members who weren’t aligned with our goals
  • Structure the team so the business could run without us being in the day-to-day

Out of the dark, into the light

Even our marketing has improved. When you’re not 100% confident in what’s happening behind the scenes, it’s hard to put yourself out there. Now, because we’re in control, our messaging presents us in our true light consistently. That’s attracting the right kind of clients – people who value our work and are aligned with the homes we want to build.

Coaching has helped us get laser focused on clients. Before coaching we were winning about 9 out of 10 jobs, which we thought was great! But Darren said, “I’m actually concerned about that strike rate because it tells me you’re probably not qualifying your clients well enough, and you’re probably under quoting.”

Darren worked with us on both sides: on qualifying, we got really clear on our ideal projects and based on that we put in place a qualifying process to filter out anyone that didn’t meet our criteria. On the quoting side, we analysed all the costs and processes in our projects and tightened up in so many different areas.

Both those strategies worked hand in hand to give us confidence in our offering and our price. Really, it transformed our belief in our overall value.

Coaching is not what I expected

There are a lot of cowboy coaches promoting themselves online – you see them on Insta or TikTok or YouTube pitching a 12-week coaching plan for a couple of thousand dollars. But if you look into it, it’s all PDFs and pre-recorded videos and group chats.

To be honest, I nearly didn’t sign up with Tenfold. The investment felt big, especially when we were struggling with cash flow. But by the 3-month mark, I knew we’d never go back. I tell everyone: Tenfold is the single best decision we’ve ever made for our business.

Darren is a ball-breaker in the best possible way. He pushes us. He expects results. He doesn’t sugar-coat things and he’s not there to be our friend – he’s there to coach us, to help us succeed. And we trust him completely. Because we know every single strategy he suggests is with our best interests at heart, and he’s backed by a firm of experienced coaches who have got results for other businesses like us.

Our mindset has shifted completely, and the results back it up

How we felt about the business was always grim: 3s and 4s. Now it’s 8s and 9s. We feel empowered, not overwhelmed. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who understood financial reports or spoke confidently about gross profit margins and pipeline forecasts. But here I am, doing exactly that.

The results speak for themselves. We’ve paid off every debt, we kicked the invoice financing drug, we’re off the cash flow rollercoaster. We’re builders so the reality is that cash flow is never going to be a straight line but the bumps are much smaller and now that we have a cash buffer (something I never imagined), we can handle those bumps with confidence.

We’re profitable. We’re in control. We’re building our own dream family home years earlier than we thought possible. And that’s all thanks to Tenfold Business Coaching.

If you’re thinking about working with Tenfold, here’s what I’ll say: If you’re serious about building a business that works for you instead of the other way around, stop hesitating and start the conversation. I wish we’d done it sooner.