Joe Dunaway 0:02

Welcome to the VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who have battled chaos, cocked down, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluffy, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory. One story at a time. Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose of the journey, the master builder, where we learn about scaling beyond the tools, how to transition from a technician to a visionary leader, the trade-up methodology for home service businesses, and why physical and mental discipline are the load-bearing walls of a successful life. In the trades, we're taught how to build with our hands, but we're rarely taught how to build a life of freedom. Today's guest went from the front lines of construction to leading a multi-award-winning development firm and coaching the next generation of trade leaders to get off the tools and into their purpose. Brandon Smith, co-founder of Vancouver's New Vision Project and host of the Open Concept Podcast. And if that wasn't enough, he is the mind behind the trade-up framework. Brandon and I met in the trenches of Danmar Town's elite mastermind. He is a master builder in both the literal and figurative sense. Having scaled New Vision projects into a multi-award-winning powerhouse in the competitive Vancouver market, he has moved beyond just building structure to building people through his trade-up coaching. He represents the evolution of the blue-collar CEO, someone who understands that the discipline required to frame a house is the same discipline required to frame a life of purpose. We are exploring the blueprint of scaling. We're diving into how Brandon navigated the transition from doing the work to leading the vision. And as always, we're filtering Brandon's journey through the Favici pillars, faith, family, fitness, and finance. Brandon, this is going to be an exciting episode. Welcome to the show, sir.

Brandon Smith 2:10

Yo, my goodness, man. Thank you so much for having me. I hope I can live up to that hype. I gotta like, I gotta bring you with me wherever I go just to be that that that hype, man. Anytime I walk into a room, brother.

Joe Dunaway 2:22

Brandon, I know you got it in you, man. Bring the hype. Meet meet me in the same energy. We got this, kid. You ready to start off in the beginning? We'll start off with the breakthrough.

Brandon Smith 2:31

I am here, man. I am here to serve your listeners at the highest level I possibly can. So I love it.

Joe Dunaway 2:37

All the way from BC. Here we go. Um, all right, let's get into uh uh let's see, moving off the tools. You found a trade-up coaching because you saw too many talented tradespeople burn out and stuck in the owner-operator trap.

Brandon Smith 2:54

Yes, sir. Well, the mainly like much like myself, right? I I understood. I got into the trades, and I I say I got into the I got into construction by accident, which is kind of the truth, right? I was I was definitely lost. I didn't have any sort of idea what it was that I was gonna do with my life. I was going through a bit of a dark time for sure. Uh, when I was younger, I was told I had a learning disability. I was uh not doing well in school, barely graduated high school, and I didn't have a lot of prospective future. And I was asked, my my mom's house at the time had burnt down, among other things. And I was helping her move into a into a rental suite, and it just so happened that the landlord that owned the house that my mom was moving into temporarily, he was a recruiter for a large construction company. And he said, uh, you know, we're look we're always looking for young, strong guys to come in and and learn the construction trade, and we need some laborers. And do you want to come down for an interview? I said, Yeah, that that sounds great. So I went down to their head office. I I showed up, they handed me some paperwork. I signed the paperwork and they said basically, this is like this is when you start, which was a week from then. Um, show up at 6 30. This is what you're gonna need, this is where you're going. And I thought I was coming in down for an interview. What I was coming down for was really just to sign the the employment agreement. Um, so I signed, and then it like next thing I know, I'm on this, I've I'm on this construction site. I had never been on one before. Anyways, uh fast forward a number of months, uh I was just just pushing the broom. Uh the I I graduated to pushing a squeegee and clearing water off of concrete so guys could come behind me and do the thing, do the work that they needed to do, lay out the walls. And just by showing up, which I like Joe, I tell you, like the barrier to entry was not very hard. All you needed to do was show up. And by doing that, people started believing me. The the managers that I was working under started seeing that in fact I I met the that minimum requirement of like you show up when you say you're gonna show up, you do what you say you're gonna do, and you ask questions and you you learn a little bit along the way. So pretty soon, pretty soon they asked me if I wanted to start an apprenticeship, and and I didn't even know what an apprenticeship was, man. Like I had no idea I had to ask. And they said, basically, well, here like we do we offer apprenticeships in the trade of carpentry. So you work and then six weeks a year, you go to school, and then you come back and you go to work, and after four years of going to school, you write an exam, and then you get what's called a red seal certification. So for me, I was like, okay, this this kind of this kind of makes sense. I see that I can work, I can make money, I can go to school, and I can start generating a living. And that was how I got into construction and I followed that path. And I and I just kind of kept pulling on that thread, man. And just like uh more and more showing up, more responsibilities were passed down to me uh through that company, and I started to work my way up. I got into things like serving, I became a foreman, I uh they I became a first aid attendant on a site where we had 900 guys uh at one point at the peak. And it was it was great. What that company allowed me to do, I started construction when I was 17. And from a guy that barely graduated high school, what the the trades did for me, I was very fortunate. I I read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad uh back when I was around that time. And it gave me this understanding of saving money and putting money away and uh saving 10% of everything that I was doing. So I was I was able to save money over those five years from not having any money at all. And it didn't matter how much I made, just automatically 10% was going into um going into savings. And I was contributing uh three, I think, I don't know, a small percentage of my RSPs, and the company was matching up to three percent of whatever I was putting away. By the time I was 22, I bought my first home. And I was the I was the kid that was least likely to graduate high school, and I was the first in my graduating class to buy a home, and that's what the trades did for me. And I continued down that path. Eventually I I left that company. This was in 2010, and I had started picking up a lot of projects on the side. This is things like building decks and fences and whatever I could for friends and family. And I uh decided this is a time I'm gonna jump off and I'm gonna go and start my own thing. And what I found is my journey is not too much different than a lot of people that I talk to, a lot of trades business owners that they um they get into business, they get into construction for themselves is because they're good at something, right? They're good at their trade, they're they're good with their hands or like technically, they know what they can do. They're probably better than a lot of people that they know, which is what gives them the confidence to go and start their own business. But they find that they really need to start developing different skills because they haven't been taught how to run a business. They haven't been taught how to accurately price things, right? Maybe they talk to a few friends and other business owners and maybe they get a bit of advice, but nobody really teaches them about understanding margins. Nobody teaches them about understanding profit. Nobody uh teaches them to understand marketing and their acquisition costs and what happens more importantly when business starts to soften, right? Nobody prepares you for the bad times. And we saw that you know happen a lot during COVID was uh there was a lot of new businesses, a lot of people were sitting around contemplating life and what they were gonna do. And they go and they start their their own businesses. And so we saw a lot of a lot of new companies pop up over that time. And uh the the challenge was there was a there seemed to be a lot of money in the system. So business was good for everybody, but they go through a couple of tax cycles and they realize pretty quickly we're not actually making that much more money than we were before. We're certainly not working that much more left. We've been carried through these last couple of years with this excitement and momentum, but then they hit a roadblock, right? And things slow down and they realize now we have to go and we have to hunt for this business. And they don't have that, they don't have that skill set, they don't have that durability through that's been that can build confidence through systems, through uh visibility, through financial um analysis, uh cash projections, et cetera, to actually see if they're gonna be in good shape or if they're gonna be able to make it over these these next couple of years and what that looks like. So they end up deciding, you know what, what I really want is to work with a team. I really just want to be a part of a team and do the thing. I don't want to be the one that has to make the hard calls. And uh so we we've seen a lot of that as well. So a lot of those companies have folded up and moved forward. And what I'm trying to, what I'm really trying to encourage a lot of trades owners to understand is like that that momentum, that excitement, that uh that that grit, that uh master craftsmanship that you put into your skill set of your trade, if you put that time and energy and effort into the other aspects of your company and you had some direction, then that is gonna be much more higher leveraged time spent because the output is just gonna be so much more vast uh when um compared to the inputs that you're putting in. Whereas if you're working with your hands, you're typically trading time for money, right? But if you're putting time into systems, time into training, time into building leaders of the company, that compounds. And so I want, I really want people to take that excitement, take what they love, and just deploy it in the right areas of their business that is going to allow them to trade up and take that next step into the ladder, stabilize, take that next step, stabilize, take that next step, and continue growing their business year over year.

Joe Dunaway 10:59

I love that, Brandon. And I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to know that it's not just the trades, it's anybody who's good at something who decides they want to monetize it. So many of them just lack that business sense. There's so much more that to, you know, working with your hands or or being a service business than just performing. There's so many other facets. So I'm glad that you've, you know, taken, you know, that area and really ran with it to really, I mean, the backbone of our country is not only small businesses, but you know, builders, you know. So we need these people to do well. We need them to to to grow their business and employ people. So I commend you on on doing that. Um, and I know you're in Canada, I'm in the US, but it goes both ways, right? You know, so and I'm sure you're able to help our listeners to our US uh businesses, um, help them with their business if if they need, correct?

Brandon Smith 11:57

Uh uh most of the the guys that I'm coaching right now are based out of the US, right? There's a huge and there's a there's a huge market over there. The things that like we deploy over here, like maybe a tax strategy is going to be slightly different country to country, but business fundamentals, my coaches, the majority of the coaches that I've hired have been down in the states that I've learned from, right? And whether it's the the Alex Homozes of the world or the uh Tony Robbins of the world, like people that you're learning from, right? They these are it's principle-based thinking. Uh that you know, leads are the same, whether it's whether it's gonna be Canada, US, Mexico, like it doesn't really matter, right? Business fundamentals, and that's what I love about business, is there's some, you know, maybe some nuances, but generally business is international, right? It's global, it's it's worldwide. And the fundamental understandings of how we of how we do business is going to be the same for pretty well everybody. You have a product, you're good. You need to get people to understand and be aware of the product or service that you're offering. And then you need to be able to leverage that to make sure that you can get that product or service to more people at scale. And you can't do that with you know just by yourself. So you need to learn leadership skills and reporting skills and metrics uh that are going to allow a feedback loop to let you know whether or not you should be doing more of what you're gonna be doing, uh, double down on what you're doing, or you should scale back and pivot.

Joe Dunaway 13:30

Right. And that's not it. Leadership's important, uh, but if you have a purpose and you have a why, you know, it really gets you through difficult times and it makes you a much better, uh, a much better leader. So um I want to shift over to the open concept philosophy here. Um, and you know, transparency is a rare, is rare in construction. Um, you named your podcast open concept. How has radical transparency with your clients and your team acted as a breakthrough for your brand's growth and award-winning culture?

Brandon Smith 14:04

Yeah, I mean, when we talk about transparency, right, it's it can become uh a bit of a diluted word, right? But transparency is really letting people know who they're doing business with. It's really letting people know who you are. Right. I go into like on the on the podcast, we've recorded now 70 plus episodes on the on the podcast. And literally every single one of those episodes, it goes out in a newsletter to our entire customer base, right? So when we send out our newsletter, those episodes they get uh deployed and put in the newsletter as well. So all of those customers get to hear and understand who it is that we are. They understand the conversations that I have with other people, they understand the philosophy that I have. So generally when I when I'm meeting with somebody for the first time, they kind of already know who I am if they've you know, if they've been listening. And that's really what we want to we want to be doing here is really let people know who it is that we are so that if they do want to work with us, they're coming in with that full understanding of like there's there's just nothing being hidden, right? It is like we're putting everything out there. I'm an open book. I've like I've I've made, I took from from uh Dan Martell, I love what he had said, and I'll mention him because he got his book in the background, and that's where we connected. But it was um, you know, he he had led this idea about uh dying empty, right? Waking up in the morning every day to become the 10x version of yourself, sharing that with the world and dying empty. And my business shifted huge when it went from it was all about me. It was, you know, when you start the business, it's like uh it's about feeding you, it's about feeding your um, you know, proving to yourself that you can do something, and you say it's about the customers, but it's not really, it's about putting food on the table. It's like you're in that in that mode of just uh start up, uh getting scrappy, getting it done. But when your your business starts to evolve, like that that big, big shift happens when you start making it about other people. And I don't want to attract people into my life that I don't want. So I can't be a false version of myself really at any point. Otherwise, I'm gonna attract people that are gonna assume that I am a certain way. Right. And if I'm not that way, then I'm gonna attract the people into my life that I don't want. And I just think it's uh it's important for everybody to to be transparent or their form of transparency, uh, whether it's gonna be in business, whether it's in their personal life, whether it's in your in your dating life. Um because you will your your vibe does attract your tribe. And if you want a long-term partnership, you want a long-term business relationship, you kind of have to have that trust. And that's all that transparency is, is really like open in your heart, man. Like open your open in your heart, open in your beliefs, and people are gonna connect with you or they're not. The the world is huge, the world is big. Um and I think it's important to keep those those circles small.

Joe Dunaway 17:12

Uh yeah, and and a part of being transparent is not just you know what you say, but like what you do. And a big part of being successful at what we do, Brandon, is what we do outside of business, right? What what do we do to keep ourselves fit and physical? Um, looking at your journey, fitness isn't just an afterthought, it's part of our identity. How does the physical discipline of training influence your ability to handle the high stress environment of land development and construction deadlines?

Brandon Smith 17:45

And it's it's it's just gotta be done, right? Like it doesn't, it's like brushing your teeth. If you walk out of the house in the morning and you haven't brushed your teeth or you, you know, you haven't showered, it's just like it kind of feels weird. I mean, I I'm sure people don't shower every day, but like whatever your routine is, right? It just it just feels weird if it doesn't get done. And you kind of start getting a little agitated and you're like, okay, I I I feel like I'm behind. Um, I I know that I can do better. And all of that energy transfers. And like every when when I walk into the gym, I'm not I'm not expelling, you know, I'm not hitting personal best every single time that I go into the gym. There's not a there's not a way that I can do that because the body's got to recover. And like maybe my, you know, my my water intake wasn't as good as it was, or maybe I had a not great sleep the night before, whatever that is. But I want to I'm gonna give a hundred percent of whatever energy I have that day. I want to put uh to that workout. I want to give a hundred percent of everything that I have inside me in that moment, based on whatever is going on. I want to bring that to my workouts, just the same way that I want to bring that to my day, to my business. And if I'm operating at 100% capacity, then I know that my 100% effort is going to just be deployed that much more stronger in in a business sense in a leadership meeting. If I'm tired, if I'm if I haven't been sleeping right or eating right for whatever reason, which I don't, I always eat pretty healthy. But if that energy is low, right? You're maybe you're under the weather, you're not feeling great. You mentioned to me you are you were a little under the weather before we jumped on this podcast. So maybe you're not at 100%, but you're you're at your 100% today, right? And you're gonna bring 100% of everything that you possibly can to that day. And sometimes walking in to the gym means I'm I'm not gonna have the best workout of my life, but I'm gonna have the best workout that I possibly can that day. And sometimes that means I gotta keep it to 30 minutes, I'm gonna push 75% of the weight that I'm that I'm pushing. But I got through that door. And the the door to the gym is obvious is sometimes the heaviest exercise you're gonna do all day. Absolutely. Once you knock down that domino and you're in there, you're doing the bloody thing. And uh and showing up. And so like to answer your question, man, that's that's the energy that I that I get. Um and I and I ask for I ask for energy every day, right? I I I go down to the beach and and I talk to talk to God, talk to the universe, and I I ask for energy, right? To to to give me the most that I possibly can out of that day so that I can do the things that I've been put on earth to do. And I know that I can't do that on my own. And I know that I need help. And I know that I need good people around me and to be brought into my life. And I need I know that there's others that uh are in my life that maybe shouldn't be. And those people need to be separated from my life. And every day I I do ask for the for for focus, for energy. Um, that's gonna be that's gonna get me through today to do what needs to be done for tomorrow.

Joe Dunaway 21:11

And we're gonna dive a little bit further into faith and family and those outside factors. I I want to circle back on what you said. I think it's really important, Brandon, because you mentioned going even when you're not a hundred percent to the gym. And you know, the way I see it is yeah, you may not be a hundred percent, you may not feel a hundred percent, but I'm gonna tell you right now, that muscle in your brain that needs that, it's getting a hundred percent of your effort. Like you're a hundred percent getting what you need, even if you're at, you know, a half ass workout. You still did it and the consistency's there. And the reward is still just as good as if you hit a PR. The reward of going to the gym mentally and and to stay um consistent. Consistent, that you still get the hundred percent benefit of that. So I just want to make sure that you know our listeners really understand that concept that like sometimes going when you don't want to go or you're not at your best is almost the most important time to go because that keeps the consistency going and you get a hundred percent of the benefit of actually going uh from a mental standpoint. So um yeah, really, really good advice, Bran. I love the way you said that.

Brandon Smith 22:26

I had a friend this morning, he asked me, he's like he he asked me, I wanted your mindset on on no, right? And I want your mindset on that he's you know, he's he's doing sales and he's and he's getting some pushback and stuff. And he was asking me my mindset on no. And I said, Well, what if the goal is actually getting to no, getting to the like the answer being no? I'm like, okay, because you you know, on the other side of these no's, like you're inevitably gonna have to go through a fence of no's to get to the yes, right? And so if the the goal is that it you can't get to a no until you make the call, you can't get to a no until you have the meeting, you can't get to a no, which is probably the first stop in a lot of ways. But even with a no, you can get feedback and you can take that feedback because that customer was never meant to be a customer, anyways. You can take that feedback from that no and you can use that to distribute that value to the customers that are saying yes, and you have then more leverage, more value to give because you've gotten that feedback from those no's. So you know what's gonna be even more valuable for those clients that are gonna say yes. So, my advice to him was to say thank you for those no's and to try and make the goal, the the no the first goal. And if you make it past that, then that's awesome. And that's gonna get you to that second goal, which is gonna be yes, and so I loop that in to the the analogy that we're using here for for workouts, right? It's like that first one, even if it's not gonna be that best workout, or it that setting, you know, doing a public speaking gig, even though it's not gonna maybe necessarily be the best one, at least you're getting it done. And it's one step closer. You can still pull from that all of the iterations that you need to make for the next time. You know what you've, you know, maybe you had a bad sleep, maybe you weren't eating right beforehand, maybe you had an argument with one of your team members or your spouse or whatever that was, but at least you you know and you can take from that what happened. And you can start to remove and reverse engineer some of that to make that next time that you speak, the next time that you run that leadership meeting, the next time that you show up to a podcast with you know less energy than is desirable, you can identify what needs to be done to make those improvements so that you can show up better and better and better. And if you're getting 1% better over every single day, right? If you're if you're getting 1% better mathematically, um in a year's time, you're gonna be about 37% better than you were when you started that year, even just by moving that needle 1%.

Joe Dunaway 25:10

You just have to have the courage to do it. And you know, the no's are gonna slap you in the face, but you're gonna get a lot of no's, and those no's are gonna stack up and make you resilient, and you'll be ready for that yes, because not a lot of people are even ready for the yeses, Brandon. You know, they want the yes now, but they can't handle the yes, they can't handle the success. So embrace those no's because those are prepping you for, you know, the the big yes that's around the corner. So I love the way you said that, man.

Brandon Smith 25:36

And the thing that the like the the no's also bring is like when when you do get that yes, you have that resilience to do whatever needs to be done to support that yes, because you've put in the time, you've known you know what's worked before, you know what hasn't. So when you do get that yes, you've gone through all of the no's, you get that yes. Now you can really serve because you're prep you you're becoming more and pre more more and more prepared. Because one yes is inevitably going to be mean probably more yeses as they come. But if you haven't developed that that skin, that sense of of that ability to to really defend those no's, then you're not gonna be able to handle the yeses when they come. 100%.

Joe Dunaway 26:17

100%. Now let's jump into family man. Vancouver real estate is a 24-7 grind, my man. In the family pillar, how do you draw the line between building for your family's future and actually being present with them in the now?

Brandon Smith 26:31

Well, I put a little video of this last night, actually. And it was um for business owners, it it's it's generally tough, right? Like you can you can dwell on how much you didn't get done done that day. The reality is there's so much more that you could probably have done in the day. It it it carries, it comes home with uh it comes home with you, it weighs on your mind, which inevitably means that you're you're not present with your family. I have two young daughters at home. Uh, one's four and a half, one is about 11 months now, so she's young. And um, and I have a wife who likes to see me, who likes to know that I, when I get home at the end of the day, after I've spent you know, eight, nine hours at work, can come home and just be with her because she wants to be able to tell me about her day and I can help and I can help her out with whatever's going on in her life. And so one of the challenges is with as business owners, a lot of what happens throughout the day comes home with you. And so it does, it does require a reset. One of the hacks that I have developed is I I drive home, right? And oftentimes, like I'm I leave the office, I pack up. That's a that's a hack, is not bringing my computer home to to do work with me because that's just like taunts you to pick that up and and do more. But I close it, I I have an office, I close that, I leave the laptop at home, I go home, and I try and be with my family as much as I as possibly can right up until bedtime. And uh, but sometimes it's it's easier to easier said than done. And when I drive home, man, I I I often have to look at myself in the rear view mirror. It's just a quick little check, right? A quick little reset. I park my truck in the driveway, I look in that rear rear view mirror, and I ask myself, what is the kind of energy that I need to bring into this household? And I make that decision, right? It's an intentional decision. I think I know that whatever's weighing on my mind right now cannot be weighing on my mind when I walk through that door. It's a different type of energy that I need to bring to that door. Otherwise, what is what ends up happening is your family ends up getting your leftovers after you've been beat down throughout the day, right? And they're not they're definitely not getting the best version of you. The people that are getting the best version of you are are the you know, arguably the the team that like you're showing up in the office to to a leadership meeting at 9 a.m. or your clients at 11 a.m. or whatever, they're seeing the best version of you throughout the the course of the day. When you get home, if you're not the best version of yourself, and you walk in and your wife or your kids, and you know, they start seeing, oh man, work was tough. It was brutal, they're gonna start resenting the business. Right there because they're gonna start seeing the toll that the business is taking on you, the person that they love, and they're gonna see the the negative impact that it's having on the family instead of the positive impact that it's having on the family. And if you want to have at home a family, a wife, a husband, kids that are supporting and they're they're like encouraged by you leaving the leaving the house every single day to go out and do the thing for the family and bring home all the great things that you're set out to do, um, you need their support. Yeah, like they need to be your your biggest supporters, their biggest cheerleaders. And if they see that it is starting to take a toll on you, they're not gonna say go work harder. I should say probably 99% of them are not gonna say go work harder, go work more. Most of them are gonna say, maybe you should step back a bit, right? Just be with the family. It's not helping all that much. And as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, that can be heart-wrenching because you know how much how much blood and sweat and tears you're putting into the business every single day. You don't want to be told, hey, maybe you should slow down, maybe you should pull back, maybe you're not as good at this as you could be. Um and that can be a challenging thing. So I for me, it's it's super important. Like I go, I go home, I look in that mirror, and I ask myself, what is the energy that I need to bring in this house? What is the energy that my family needs me to bring today?

Joe Dunaway 30:54

Yeah, Brandon. And that's a that's a that's a big mindset shift that if you can master it, you'll almost chuckle what it what a difference it makes. Like I like to visualize when I have one of those days, that it's whether it, whether no, doesn't matter what day of the week it is. I envision a Friday night, family around the island, eating pizza and sharing, you know, funny stories. I visualize that. That may not actually be what happens, but it totally changes my mood. I think about how blessed I am to have my family in out and how much I love those moments and those memories of just being around the island, all of us, you know, making fun of each other or sharing funny things that happened and just reliving things of the week and just having pizza. You know what I mean? It's just that that shift in energy happens instantaneously. And I think about the times that, you know, when I would go home with, you know, the negative energy and people like they tiptoe. They don't want, they don't want to talk to you. And you, well, why don't you guys want to talk to me? It's like, of course they don't want to talk to you, man. Like, you know, there's nothing but negative vibes there. But um, I encourage anybody to to try that, find to visualize the moment that is euphoric for you with your family, uh, that just gives you boot goosebumps of of of that moment that you wish you could replay all the time and think about that before you enter your home on a tough day. And it's like a light bulb comes on. You'll be so amazed at how much better you feel and how much better your family responds to you know showing up um in a totally different light.

Brandon Smith 32:37

And the other thing I would ask people is like, what what percentage of your week would make sense for you to invest into growing your family, would invest into uh raising your kids, what percentage of your week would make sense? Right? You hear varying answers. Some of them, you know, I I would say 30%, um, twenty percent, fifteen percent. It might jump around a lot, but man, if you're if you're saying like it's not hard to invest, and I would and it's worth investing 15% of my week or 20% of my week into ensuring that my kids have a great father, that their future is going to be bright, investing that into your relationship, dude. It's like evenings and weekends. Yeah, it doesn't have to be that complicated.

Joe Dunaway 33:36

And and for guys like you and I who have, I'm sure you live, you know, for the calendar. And some people like to be less like, oh, I don't want to be, I like to be controlled by the calendar because I put the important things into that calendar. I put family, I let I put coaching t bottle in there. I put those things in there so I don't have to make time for essentially. It's it's the time is made already, and I'm already investing that time. So it's like, you know, my calendar is like my coach. My coach is telling me what I gotta do when and where, and I show up and I'm my best self. And uh, you know, just making sure you work that invested time into your calendar. If you feel like um you don't know how to do it, uh you don't know how to find the time, you know, put it on the calendar if you're if you're kind of like the kind of guy I am. So it works. It works.

Brandon Smith 34:24

Yeah, but but like there's there's if you're if your coach is your calendar, there's also a difference between, you know, there's there's definitely shitty coaches out there and shitty calendars out there. 100%. Like having the the strength to you know to analyze and look and say, you know, is this is this actually serving me, right? That's a that's a big question. The the the fact that you're using a calendar, and hopefully most of our listeners out there are encouraged to to put the things into their calendar that light them up for you know, one, light them up. Uh two, the things that are are going to move the needle most in the business, those are like priority things. Everything else can kind of fit in between the cracks as as far as like day-to-day stuff that has to happen, right? Like you're gonna have your regular team meetings, you're gonna have probably regular schedule time that's gonna make sense for um client meetings, sales calls, whatever your your general day-to-day is. But like those those key things, those those things that light you up and the things that move the needle, those should be the priority items in your calendar, hands down.

Joe Dunaway 35:24

100%. So uh before we move on to rapid fire, I got one more question um surrounding faith. Construction can be, you know, to a lot of people in the public, a shady industry. In terms of faith and integrity, how do you stay grounded in your values when a project goes sideways or a developer's deal gets messy?

Brandon Smith 35:45

I when I first started the company, right? I didn't I didn't know anything. I didn't know um I didn't know anybody in the in the business. And there was this this stigma that like you don't go and you talk to your competition, right? It was just like uh you don't want to reach out to these people, or this thought that people in you know in the the local area, they they probably don't want to talk to you, right? You're an intruder. And I I started reaching out to every single one of our competitors, and I just needed to know, like, okay, if there's people around here that are doing the thing that I want to be doing or can can help me on that journey, like I need to I need to know these people at least like back to that, like get get to those knows first. I need to at least reach out to everyone. Um, the problem is is like not not everybody knows who those right people are gonna be. In fact, Joe, I'm gonna do something cool for your for your listeners if it's if it's all right. So I've uh it especially like the local industry. Um, if you are looking and to like really harness the power of five key referral partners in your business, I've got something pretty cool. Just go on go on Instagram, DM me Vici, and I'll send it to you. So, what it is, is it's a it's a uh a prompt that you can use in Claude or GPT. You're gonna go in and it's gonna ask you six questions. All you got to do is copy and paste the prompt. It's gonna, it's going to uh ask you about six questions about your business, and it's gonna highlight the top five people in your area that are what best help refer business to you. So, like top referral partners. If you're a builder, for example, it's gonna be designers, um, architects, real estate agents, mortgage broker, whoever that may be, the reasons why, and it's gonna give you the the email, the short um short personal expects a reply email, the spirit email that can be sent directly to them to start opening that conversation. Um, so go on go on Instagram, DM me, VC, I'll send that over to you.

Joe Dunaway 37:44

And we'll get and Brandon, we'll get into your uh towards the end, we'll we'll let our clients or the audience know about um all of that stuff in the show notes. Sorry, keep going.

Brandon Smith 37:54

No worries. Uh the reason I I I like you brought that up was this this faith. I I had I had started talking to this builder that I'd reached out to, and he was um, you know, he was very much uh a man of faith. And I was I was asking him questions, and I I didn't I didn't come up as uh with a religious background or a spiritual background. And um it was only over the last I would say 10 years has that really started to play more of a part in my life, especially over the last five and even more so over like the last two. And he I asked him a question, right? Similar to what you would ask me, right? When when things go wrong, like how do you make decisions to you know that are when you're trying to weigh out financial benefit or like community benefit? Um, how do you stay grounded? And he said, Well, I I I typically I typically ask God um you know what he needs me to do in that moment and whatever feels right, I do that. And this was uh a builder that I had reached out to, I had cold called, and he agreed to come and sit down and have lunch with me. And so I take a lot of that with me. But I I think one of the biggest things is having a big vision, even if you don't understand how you're going to get there, the decisions that you make, you can pretty quickly check in with yourself and ask is this decision that I'm making serving this vision? If your vision is smaller and it's a 12-month horizon and all you're focusing on is a PL sheet, then the decisions that you're gonna make are probably going to be different than if you're asking yourself, does this serve my 40-year vision of who I want to be, what I want to be known for, uh, the respect that I want to have, the community, the great things that I want to do. So ultimately those decisions are guided more by the bigger vision than the short-term vision. And if you are if you don't have a large vision, which you know, a long-term horizon vision, I mean, I would I would encourage everybody to really start there because that's gonna that's gonna guide you. The thing with about the big vision, man, is it's gonna require you to be a very different version of yourself than you are today. So by asking yourself, does this decision that I'm about to make serve this bigger vision, serve the people that I want, serve the community that I want? Um you know, does it teach lessons to my leadership team that I need around me and I want around me in that future? Even maybe they can because they can't see it. If you make the decision for that person and not the person that you are today, um that's gonna serve you really, really well. And and I don't know if I'm correct in saying that, but I have I have faith that that is that is the correct answer, and those are the decisions that I'm making. And if they are the wrong ones, then I guess I'll find out. But until then, I'm gonna keep doing things the the way that I'm doing it until you know I I somebody tells me I'm doing it wrong. But um as far as faith goes, that's it. I just like I check in my check in with myself, check in with the future me, these decisions that I'm gonna be make making today make that person proud.

Joe Dunaway 41:29

Yeah, and it reminds me, I don't know if you heard of this book, uh, The One Thing. Um what's the one yeah, what's the one thing you can do now that's gonna help you reach your daily goal, your weekly goal, your monthly goal, your court, you know what I mean? Like it all they all stack up. Um, and it also reminds me of like, you know, you know, what would Jesus do? Or, you know, what would Jesus tell me to do in in my life, right? Like it kind of helps what what is my you know big, hairy, audacious goal? If it's if it's bigger than yourself, that's a good start, right? And what do I have to be today in order to reach that goal and be that person? So um I think that's really good advice, Brandon, to you know, have something bigger and and further down the road to aim for so that you can actually put those building block goals in place um to be the person that you need to be in order to get there.

Brandon Smith 42:23

Um I remember when when Ed Milette, he was uh he was the first one that laid it out for me. I did another video on one of my stories um this morning. So the time that this is released, you know, that'll be gone. But the the the good things, right? And this is where it comes to to habit stacking, right? Is you don't often see great results quickly, right? Because great results require really good habits, deployed consistency over a long period of time. Typically, if you're gonna be working out, you're gonna go in, uh go into the gym, you start you know watching your food intake, you're measuring your macros, you're working out, right? You're gonna start seeing results and and really big change, maybe in six months, 12 months. But if you're doing that consistency over 10 years, like the the 10-year version of you then versus where you are now is is gonna be massive. But those those cycles of positive momentum, they take longer to get into. And because people then then the negative momentums, right? Like if you start on a bad habit, that can start, you can start pulling that thread really, really quickly, and you're gonna start seeing those results. If you start eating cake tonight, you're not gonna jump on the scale and really see a difference tomorrow. But if you start doing that, you know, over time over the next 30 days, 60 days, like you're gonna be a it's gonna be really tough to start bouncing back from that. Yeah. You're gonna be set back that much further. With the positive stuff, it's just a longer cycle to start seeing the results generally, right? Maybe it's six months, maybe it's 12 months. Maybe 18 months. The problem is people start on these paths of just positive habits. But because they aren't seeing the results quick enough, they think, ah, it's not working for me. So they give up. And just like I have I have faith that, man, if I if I keep going on these habits, if I'm waking up and I'm drinking water first thing in the morning and hydrating, and I'm exercising and I'm you know connecting with the the universe or or meditating. Um if I'm putting 100% of my my effort and my day into my into my people and my mission, I just believe that those are gonna be good habits that over time are going to compound. Those are healthy seeds to be planting. It may not see the results as fast as you want them to see, but you will start seeing them really, really quickly. And once you start seeing them, that momentum is gonna be massive.

Joe Dunaway 44:54

Yeah, absolutely. Um, quick, quick rapid fire here, Brandon. Uh what is one trade up every business owner should make this week?

Brandon Smith 45:05

This week. The one thing that people need to trade up for really is the I'm I'm gonna stick with uh the getting to know faster. Don't be afraid of the know, right? Get to know, trade up that mindset that no's are bad. Get to the know as quick as you can because that's when the stale really starts.

Joe Dunaway 45:26

The no's will set you free. Awesome. Uh, the most impactful book or mentor that helped you frame your mindset.

Brandon Smith 45:34

Mentor that helped me frame my mindset, Dan Martell. Best book. I have uh a few of them. One of the books that I absolutely love right now is uh Science of Scaling. Um, it's a great book. I'm reading, currently reading Ed Milatt's book, uh The Power of One More. And uh it's powerful stuff, a lot of stuff in that book. Ed is an absolute weapon.

Joe Dunaway 45:56

And then for a lot of our uh listeners, they know Vichy stands for conquer. It's Latin for conquer. What does conquer look like for Brandon Smith in the next five years?

Brandon Smith 46:08

For me, it's conquering the it's conquering the the negative self-talk that I sometimes instill in myself. It's conquering the the even even at this point, the negative cycles that I know that I can be doing better and better at um every single day, every single week. Um it's conquering my it's conquering my calendar, man. Like it's it's absolutely conquering uh and and deploying and and filling up that conquering the calendar, conquering the activities that are not high-leverage activities that are not lighting me up, and absolutely stacking that with everything that's moving the needle towards that 40-year plan.

Joe Dunaway 46:54

Big that was deep, man. I love it. All right, quick recap. Scaling requires systems. Okay, leadership requires discipline, and a great life is built on the foundation of health and family. It's that simple. Brandon, thank you for your candid account for the messy middle and building a legacy. Um, if you are a trade pro looking to scale for business, check out tradeupcoaching.com. That's going to be in the show notes, or follow Brandon's projects at built with B Smith on Instagram. That's also in the show notes. Brandon, other than the uh uh the giveaway you had for our audience, is anything else you want to leave us with?

Brandon Smith 47:37

Man, thank you so much for having me, by the way, brother. Like this has been an awesome conversation, 100%. So I'm I'm I'm blessed to be here with you and and uh and blessed to be uh your listeners right now in your audience. That's it, man. Like I just I just want everybody to know that at different levels of your life, different levels of your business, it is gonna force you to trade up the skills you have for the skills that you need. It's gonna force you to trade up the beliefs that you have for the beliefs that you need. It's gonna force you to to trade up in a lot of cases the friends you have to the friends that you need in your life to build a beautiful business, to build a beautiful life. And that is what I want to do. Um, if you'd like to hear anything more, please reach out to me, find me on Instagram uh at build with B Smith, and we will decipher together those things that you need to trade up for. Um, I'm here for you. I'm here rooting for everybody to win.

Joe Dunaway 48:37

Outstanding. Thank you so much, Brandon. To everyone at home, keep building, stay disciplined, and always lead with the heart. We'll see you on the next episode of the Vici Code. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels to fight, and your comeback is already in progress.