Finding the value in tech with Decking Sydney

Show Notes

On todayโ€™s episode of โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ Tom and Paul are chatting with Darren Brown of Decking Sydney. The company is based in Alexandria, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darren worked as a subcontractor on projects and had his own decking business before deciding to work full time at Decking Sydney.

Tune in to the full episode to hear about how Darren and the Decking Sydney team have used Buildertrend to transform the way they run their jobs and keep their projects running smoothly.

How has Buildertrend and technology in general helped streamline how you work?

  • Buildertrend helped us to take all our clunky processes and transform them into one cohesive operation
  • The great thing about Buildertrend is everyone on the team is able to work together and communicate effectively about whatโ€™s happening with each project
  • Using technology like FaceTime and Buildertrend has been great because they have saved us so much time
  • Iโ€™ve learned that it may cost money to implement initially, but in the long run it saves money
  • Technology helps to prevent mistakes on the job site that could have potentially been a huge cost

You do many unique projects. Whatโ€™s your inspiration?

  • To be completely honest, I get a lot of my inspiration for most of the designs we do from American deck builders. Iโ€™ve always said that I personally believe the Northern Hemisphereโ€™s probably about ten years ahead of us as far as deck building in terms of materials, the way you guys do things

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Check out this Decking Sydney deck project Darren mentioned in the episode.

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Transcript

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to The Building Code, your guide for a better way to run your business. I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

Hey Tom. I’m Paul Wurth.

Tom Houghton:

Well, good day, Paul.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a little peak into who we have on the podcast today.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right. Little peak.

Paul Wurth:

Comes in his accent.

Tom Houghton:

That’s me. Accent Tom here, getting ready to talk to Darren Brown from Decking Sydney. We’ve got him joining us on the podcast today. We’re going to dive right in, first of all, talking about technology and construction and how they’re using it. So Darren, welcome to the podcast. Let’s talk about technology and construction.

Darren Brown:

For me, Buildertrend was a massive wakeup call because we’ve been using it for close to over two years now, where originally, basically we were just running everything off Google when I first came into the company. I found it was, it was good. It had its purpose, but onsite, it was quite clunky. You’re uploading photos, if the iPad shut off, the photos would be lost. So you’d have to restart the whole process again. At the time we had five teams running on site, so it was hard for me to keep track so at the end of every day I’d have the boys message me and say just a simple text message saying this is what I’ve done for the day. Then I’d log it into Google, which was the Google Drive. Found that was quite clunky as well.

Darren Brown:

Very, very slow and tedious. So we moved over to another platform where the boys could clock in every day, and I would see what was actually going on. That was to a sense that we did use another project management software. I won’t name it, but we had the time sheets and the project managers software basically running off two different platforms, which again was just so slow. It was just funny. I was actually on social media one day on Instagram and Grant from Cut Above Constructions, he was using Buildertrend. As soon as I saw, I’d already done a bit of a demo of what they use it for, and I just thought this is it. I need it. When Jamie, who’s the managing director of Decking Sydney said this is what we need, and he jumped straight on board as well. So he was more than happy to integrate it in. It’s been a lifesaver on my part.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great to hear. I love hearing that. Give us a little bit about a background on yourself and the company for those people who don’t know about Decking Sydney.

Darren Brown:

So Jamie started the company, I think in 2012. I had worked with Jamie previously. He’s from England. He had his own decking company in England, moved out here. I started a new life out here, and I worked with Jamie on and off on some bigger projects. I was mainly subcontracting to Jamie, went out on my own for an extended time. Decking Sydney in that time that I was away, actually got quite big, quite fast. They’re doing a lot of commercial decks, a lot of residential decks, but in a sense of getting out, I think it was just getting a bit too much for Jamie to handle by himself.

Darren Brown:

At the time I was actually running my own decking company as well, and then he approached me and said, “Look, I (need) someone who basically knows how to run a decking company, knows how the ins and outs work, knows how to build a deck that’s amazing,” and just at the time we had our first child, me and my wife, so it actually probably worked a lot better for me moving over that way. Jamie, it wasn’t like come in and he had full restraint over me, actually let me do what I wanted to do in terms of design, looking after the boys on site. I think he needed to step away from that. So that’s how I’ve come into working here full time, and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve loved every minute of it.

Tom Houghton:

That’s fantastic to hear.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, can you give us an idea about, how big is the company now? Employee size, number of projects per year. What would we be talking about?

Darren Brown:

Okay. So I think at the moment, because of the COVID that has happened, we have scaled back quite considerably. Christmas time, we were running at eight teams, eight teams of two to three people, which was quite stressful. It was quite in a big scale that even that it was eight jobs going, like we used to discuss it, there’s eight jobs that are going, but there’s eight jobs that are finishing, and eight jobs that need to start. So in effect, you really got 24 jobs that are backed up onto each other. Now we’re back down to full three or three teams and four jobs, just mainly because of the COVID situation that’s happened. It’s changed more roll up considerably too, because we have certain targets we need to make for the overheads of the company to keep running.

Darren Brown:

We had a discussion and thought it’s better than I actually go back on the tools myself, run a team. The guys that we now have on site, we have the three teams that are all very, very capable of being with a company for quite some time now. So we did have to scale back. It was unfortunate, but I think in the current climate, there hasn’t been a company that hasn’t had to scale back. We just had to move with the times. We’re hoping by Christmas, we can go up to four to five again, but we we’ve had discussions not to go the eight. We thought it was just a bit too much. If we do go to eight again, we will need another project manager, which we can always run off Buildertrend as well. That’s the great thing that Buildertrend that everyone just works in with it together.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great. So I think we need to pause and make sure. If you’re not following Decking Sydney on Instagram, you have to. So it’s just @deckingsydney. The reason why I say you have to is if you’re like me and you follow a lot of people on Instagram, you see a ton of content, but the content that you guys put out and the projects you work on are so impressive and so unique. That’s what caught my eye. I was like, “We’ve got to have these guys on the podcast.” I guess my first question to that is, well, my first statement to the listeners is make sure you’re following them. The second thing is once you follow them, I guess the question is, how do you find these projects? What’s the inspiration? How does that all work?

Darren Brown:

I’ll be completely honest. I got a lot of the inspiration for our deck designs actually got from American Deck Builders from Northern Hemisphere. When I started the actual… We had a Decking Sydney Instagram page and it was what Jamie and the office was running at the time, and when I come over, we changed. I bought my Instagram page over. A lot of probably the photos that you see halfway down were all my projects I used to do for my other company. So we bought that over because it already had a bit of a following base on it. I found that ever since we started doing the stories, which I was on site doing the stories, explaining what we’re doing, that’s when it actually took off. But like I say, most of the inspiration I get from all the designs we do is mainly from the American Deck Builders, Northern Hemisphere.

Darren Brown:

I’ve always said that I personally think the Northern Hemisphere is probably about 10 years ahead of us with deck building in terms of materials, the way you guys do things. I just started taking little bits from there, then added a little twist onto it. That’s how. Just little things, how we finish off the deck sub-frames. A lot of clients haven’t seen boards going vertical and as soon as we offer it to them, they go, “That looks good.” But as soon as you say it in theory, they don’t like the idea. As soon as you show it, they just love it. So we are getting a lot more people taking out little options like that there.

Tom Houghton:

That’s fantastic. Obviously it does help to see it again, that’s another plug. Join the visual journey that you can find at Decking Sydney on Instagram. Make sure you give them a follow.

Darren Brown:

Thanks.

Tom Houghton:

You’re obviously decking specialists. We would probably consider you a specialty contractor here in the States. Talk about that journey and using technology because I think a lot of people that listen to podcasts that would consider themselves either they’re roofing or they’re doing decks, these specialty contractors, they don’t always see the benefit of technology in it, but obviously it seems like it’s made a lot of sense for your business. So maybe you could share about how you came to that conclusion.

Darren Brown:

Yeah. I suppose technology in every industry has just come leaps and bounds in the last five years. In terms of what we’re doing now, this wouldn’t have happened five years ago. I guess that’s where I suppose Jason, from Dr. Decks, he was one who I was reaching out to a lot through social media and that’s where he was actually demonstrating on how to do things. I suppose it’s all right to hear about things on the internet. Just read stuff, blogs and that. Unless you see someone do it, it’s hard to grasp, and I guess that’s where the main thing comes on board. Even tutorials, even the demonstration videos we get now of different decking materials, because even the technology that the building materials has come a long way. It just used to be a hardwood deck or a timber deck and then that’s it.

Darren Brown:

Every single composite deck now has a different way of fixing it. It’s not just, here’s a sheet of paper, this is. So if the boys ever get stuck on site, this is another thing where Buildertrend’s great, because I actually have a folder where all the demonstration videos they’re all uploaded onto all the manuals the boys need. So if they ever get stuck on site, they can just review to that straightaway. If they’ve got a question and it’s hard for me to answer over the phone, they just revert to that.

Darren Brown:

I suppose the FaceTime is another great thing too, because that’s another thing. If they are stuck on site, they always FaceTime me and say, “Look, can you have a look at this for me?” Or I can be on a site working myself and all that it takes is five minutes out of the day to have a talk to him, have a look what’s going on. Five years ago, I’d be driving halfway across Sydney. I’d be losing half a day. So I think that the technology does cost money to start, but in the end it saves money. Personally, it’s going to save a lot more money than what it’s going to cost to implement different technology on site.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. That’s a great point. Again, finding out the benefit of it in the long-term. It may seem like a big upfront cost, but you’re obviously going to be saving more in return after you get it implemented and up and running and using it across the team.

Darren Brown:

Definitely right. Definitely. The other thing too is mistakes on site. As contractors, carpenters, I think you guys a code contractors over there, so yes. In terms of when you say we had a specific contract, I was a carpenter so I’ve done everything from building houses and everything. So I’ve known how mistakes can cost money on site, but with the technology in place, you can actually catch the mistake before it can happen. I’ve seen a couple of guys where there might be a wrong material ordered on site, or there might be $20,000 worth of decking sent on site, but if the boys got the purchase orders that they can look up on Buildertrend and they go, “Hang on, there’s been a mistake here.” The stuff’s not sitting there not installed, and then we’ve got to pull a whole deck up and it can be pulled up because it won’t be an issue from a supplier, it might’ve been a typo on my end. We can pick up stuff quite quick compared to we get the end of a job and the client comes out and says, “You put the wrong deck board outside.”

Tom Houghton:

Minor detail.

Darren Brown:

Yeah, definitely.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. And going back to especially contracting, you guys specifically, are you getting most of your work or what’s the split between new builds or just a direct to consumer where they’re reaching out to you to replace a deck?

Darren Brown:

Okay. So we’re probably looking at 50/50. We are at the moment, especially with the COVID that’s coming, been around, we’re getting a lot of strata jobs coming in, which is apartment blocks that have need deck refurbs. Because travel is banned at the moment, there’s been a lot of money that’s obviously sitting in the strata accounts. So I think a lot of people are starting to look at what’s going on around the home and say, “Look, I think this needs to get redone.” We did find once the shutdown happened, our inquiries went way off, I’d say went downhill from 20 a week to two a week, and now they’re coming back. Now that everyone’s starting to come back out of the hibernation, I think people have been probably stuck at home going, I think this deck needs a refurb. I think this needs to be done.

Darren Brown:

At the moment, it is about 50/50 brand new builds. A lot of the times it is a deck refurbishment is if we’re pulling up the deck boards and just replacing the deck. Frame might need a little bit of replacing, because a lot of the places we do go to about 1970 so the deck is starting to deteriorate quite a bit, but it depends how bad a condition it is. We’ll do a full refurb and rebuild.

Paul Wurth:

I wonder from a subcontractors, and that’s what it would be, right?

Darren Brown:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

I wonder from subcontractor point of view or business point of view, do you guys have a preference? Do you prefer to work direct to consumer where that’s just that one relationship or maybe a better question is, what are the differences for you in the business?

Darren Brown:

I prefer working directly with consumers, because we prefer directly going with a customer instead of a builder because itโ€™s great to work with builders, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes what can happen is they’ve laid out their price into it, and because we are a specialty deck builder, we probably do come into the higher end of the costing because that’s all we do. So if a builder does want to engage us, they might have allowed the amount of money on the job to their consumer, which might be often crossed. That could be a little bit of a sticky point. We do get a lot because we’ve got a showroom, so we do have a lot of people that do come in after we do a quote. Don’t get many builders come in. Get a few builders come in and have a look at the materials because it’s all on display here.

Darren Brown:

We don’t work for that many buildings. We are starting to work for quite a few landscapers actually, because the landscape is we want to try and get out of the decking game. I think it’s the introduction to the composite materials down in Australia, I think, which has really taken off lately. I’ve seen the massive change in the last two years of how the composites are coming to the market, to be honest. It’s gone from using 70, 30 hardwood decks to composites to… I can’t remember the last time I allowed a composite to be honest.

Tom Houghton:

With all that change, obviously I’m assuming it’s brought some unique projects your way. What would you say is maybe a project that you think is one of the most unique ones that you’ve worked on?

Darren Brown:

Actually, to be completely honest, one that I’ve done myself was when we refurbed the showroom. We had Trex come on board, which are a very big company, between Trex and TimberTech. They’re up in the Northern Hemisphere. I actually said to Jamie, I said, “Let me have a go at putting a Decking Sydney logo on the walkway as soon as you walk in. So we cut one into the deck. It was lot of time at home making up templates and then coming here on a 10-day week or what that week. It was public holidays, everything, but that was probably the one I had the most joy within, because there’s no pressure. It was just do this in your own time. It was in the end when it come out absolutely perfect, and everyone’s walked into the showroom and said that’s great. That was probably the best one I’ve worked on. I think that was something small. Was probably the most satisfying.

Paul Wurth:

We have to get a photo on the podcast page.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. We’ll put a picture of that in the show notes. So you can find the show notes at buildertrend.com/podcast.

Darren Brown:

Yeah. We have done it for quite a few big jobs. What I hear, especially with Dr. Decks, they told me about jobs over a $100,000, that’s when it starts getting in crazy money. We have done quite a few of them lately. They’re always interesting. You do find by the end of it, you’re starting to get a bit bored there. You just want to get it done, and that’s one thing you suppose doing this as a specialty, you can’t then get to the end of a job and start to get bored with it. You need to really keep pushing on with it, make sure that the finished product’s what you’ve promised at the very start. Generally they’re bigger jobs where we have about four to five guys on, which we are starting. We just started one recently at Double Bay, which is close to a hundred. It’s quite a big one, North TimberTech job we’re doing there.

Paul Wurth:

It sounds like you guys prefer maybe just a smaller, unique ones. When a client comes to you, what is that design process like? Do they typically have an idea?

Darren Brown:

A lot of the time they do have an idea. So what’ll happen is Jamie will be the one who goes out and quotes it. He will come up with the figure. So the process is that they may have a designing in idea, and they’ll send us photos. Jamie will then quote the project, and if project’s been won, that’s when he’ll take me to meet the client. So we’ll go there then we have an option where we have a 3D render program, which I do that myself. So I actually use that for the boys on site. So it was originally introduced so we could visual idea, what was going on site.

Darren Brown:

After me playing around with it for about six months, I’ve probably perfected a little bit. So we now put that on the end of our quotes, that if the job does get accepted, we do a 3D render. So that does help a lot with the clients visualizing where lights will go, how the pergola will look, stuff like that. We do give that as an option. A lot of people, when they’re doing a deck refurb just say, “Look, we know what’s going on here,” but we still will do it, especially with the introduction, like I said, of the American composites where there’s breaker boards going involved. A lot of people don’t know what breaker boards are.

Paul Wurth:

I’m one of those.

Tom Houghton:

Let’s explain.

Paul Wurth:

Basically, we’ve got a really long run of decking. Instead of having just a continuous long run, we’ll put a board guy in the opposite way. Saves a lot of bad joints, the whole point is save bad joints in the deck. So a client will say, “What’s a breaker board?” So I’ll do a 3D render and say, โ€œThis is what it will look like,โ€ and nine times out of 10, they will take it.

Tom Houghton:

Smart.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great to hear. Obviously we have a great Australia, New Zealand client base, and we appreciate the heck out of them. It’s always good to hear how COVID is going down there. It’s just the life we live right now.

Darren Brown:

Yeah, exactly. It is. It is, unfortunately. I probably can’t say how much Buildertrend has actually saved my job immensely, to be honest. Just the way it evolved the way I do things on site. It’s certainly helped me. Give me back some of my life overnight.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great to hear.

Paul Wurth:

Get home an hour earlier and spend time with the kids and have another beer.

Darren Brown:

And it does give me a chance to see whatโ€™s going on every day how can I get this done.

Tom Houghton:

That’s super important.

Darren Brown:

Definitely.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. Well, we definitely appreciate having you on. You got a full day ahead of you looks like. We’re winding ours down.

Darren Brown:

Yes, I’m just about to head out on site, actually to get two jobs start and so I’ll be heading down on site and see how they’re going.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great.

Tom Houghton:

Fantastic. Well, we look forward to following along on social media. I’ll be watching those stories, so do a story while you’re out there for us. Let us know what’s happening.

Darren Brown:

Yeah, I will.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate it.

Darren Brown:

Thanks Tom. Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard? Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€

Darren Brown | Decking Sydney


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