Crushing It In Construction

#71 Knowledge Transfer, AI and Revitalising A Business. A Masterclass With Marc Kenney

• Jordan Skinner

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Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast.

Joining today is Managing Director of Mettle, Marc Kenney.

With bases in Queensland and New South Wales, Mettle have become a construction powerhouse - ever since Marc took the reins and revitalised their approach.

In the episode, he recounts some lessons from his prior experience as General Manager of Built, and reflects on Mettle's journey from misfiring infrastructure to $170m annual turnover.

Most importantly, we touch on an important topic for Marc: knowledge transfer. How can we ensure that old heads in the game are passing on their experience to the younger generation?

It's a real "must" for our industry - and this episode delves deeper to find out what can be done.

Let's dive in!

CONTACT DETAILS

Marc Kenney
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-kenney-bb59b411
Website: https://www.mettle.au/

Jordan Skinner
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-skinner-685439178/
Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Is your company attractive to potential employees? Take the scorecard: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/scorecard

Hello, everybody. Jordan Skinner here with another episode of the crushing it in construction podcast, a podcast that is dedicated to the construction industry, where I interview amazing guests from within the industry. They all share their experience, their wisdom and their insights. That'll help you, the listener either grow within your career or grow with your new business. So no matter where you are, there is always something valuable to learn from our guests and their stories. And this week, I'm chatting to mark Kenny from metal. And I met mark a few weeks ago at a round table event in Brisbane where a whole heap of construction industry leaders were brought together by perhaps. And, we just discussed everything that was going on in the construction industry. And, mark had some interesting thoughts, some interesting insights, and I really wanted to get him on the podcast. To learn more about his journey, how metal came about how he's grown metal into the company that it is today. And so that's what this conversation is all about. And, basically throughout this podcast, we talk about his journey, how he built metal, some of the struggles that he had when he initially came into the business. and then we also talk about knowledge transfer. Cause I think this is a massive issue in the construction industry. The minute we have. A huge amount of people moving towards retirement. There's not enough people coming in at the bottom of the industry to make up for the people that are leaving, but the ones that are. Really aren't getting the benefit of working with the people that have all that knowledge because they're retiring. So mark and I have a few ideas that we, have seen that are working in different places. And mark actually shares what he's looking at doing to try and help combat this knowledge transfer issue and all in all. It's a really interesting episode. and I hope you're going to get some good insights out of it. So without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Jordan:

day, mark. How's your day going, mate?

Track 1:

not bad. Jordan. Yourself?

Jordan:

Yeah, not bad. Thanks. Like I said to you before, it's 40 degrees here and blowing its ass out, so it's nice to be inside.

Track 1:

Yeah,

Jordan:

So you were telling me that, you were on the receiving end of all this Optus stuff, which, I didn't even actually know about until you rang me and said, oh shit, we can't do the podcast today,

Track 1:

Yeah.

Jordan:

it just goes to show how far under a rock I live. did that, did that put a screaming halt to much that you were doing?

Track 1:

Oh, it was more just look, it's more just telco stuff like actually, yeah. You know, internet ended up being okay. It was just more of a I case, something didn't. you know, I think there was a lot of other people that were, you know, supremely affected. Like, you know, for instance, you're an on-call doctor not a lot of people have landlines anymore. Hey, you're all on your mobiles if that's down. You know, there's,

Jordan:

Yeah. Yeah.

Track 1:

I guess from, from our, from our point of view, it was probably just more of an inconvenience rather than sort of, you know, business critical problem.

Jordan:

I didn't think of that. and I suppose if you, if your whole business was online, if you were like an e-commerce business or something that sold something online, it's screaming halt to, you know, your revenue for the day had stopped. So

Track 1:

exactly. yeah.

Jordan:

again. Much like Covid construction's, quite luckily in, in terms we get to keep going.

Track 1:

yeah, exactly mate.

Jordan:

for everybody that's listening that doesn't know you yet, are you just able to explain to us who you are and, and what it is that you do?

Track 1:

I'm the managing director of a construction business called Metal. we have offices in, Queensland, new South Wales and Queensland. We're in Brisbane and Towns Hall and, new South Wales. We're in Sydney. yeah, so that's what I do.

Jordan:

so what sort of con construction, like what sort of, projects are you taking on.

Track 1:

Oh, mate. We've got a, like a, a fairly, diverse sort of base and, and deliberately so, So look, I guess, you know, in terms of, size and scale, what this year we've got, we probably, at the moment we've got about 80 staff between and around the business. turnover. This year we be about one 70 mil. and with further growth plan for next time next year on top of that. so the that's I guess the size and scale of the business, the, type of work that we do spans across what we've got stuff in commercial, hospitality, health, industrial defense. Retail education community and, and more recently aged care and retirement living. So, our point of view, that's a, a good place to be only because if one of those sectors has a problem in it, you always lean on your experience and others. And, and lot of our, bonding providers and what have you, like the fact that we have got, diversity in our, work base and not sort of reliant on one sector or one, one type of client.

Jordan:

Yeah, for sure. And, I suppose I'm gonna ask you some questions today that I, probably already know the answer to some of'em'cause you and I were sitting next to each other at a round table event in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. So, were all having a chinwag over a nice piece of steak. But, us a little bit of background about you. How did you actually get started in the construction industry?

Track 1:

Oh mate, I used to, when I was a kid, we had some family friends that were builders and, I used to work for them on the holidays. stuff in inch of wool to ceiling cavities and stuff. Like, I still get itchy thinking about that. But, but money was, pretty good and I, and I always remembered that'cause it saved my ass on a number of Christmases. You, I was a bit ski. I to get some funds to get, the family Christmas present. What I left school, but I didn't know what I wanted to do and I went, I went and, um, teaching as a, career and I absolutely, always as a course to do, I absolutely hated it. But I was, on a bus on the way home from school one day, uni, sorry, and I was talking to a mate, lived around the corner who was doing this construction management course at QUT and I thought, I. I didn't wanna be on tools to get itchy stuff and in wall into the ceiling cavities, but this had a, like a, good alternative and it actually captured a few things I liked doing, was, you know, technical drawing and a few other bits and pieces like that. So, so I've just been, into the course and then jumped into that. I, I did that course part-time. I worked for t Full-time for six years. that's how it got going, mate. Yeah.

Jordan:

Yeah. And, did you actually become a qualified teacher? Did I miss that? Or did, or

Track 1:

No, no, no. I did, I did a year of it, mate. Yeah. I had to convince one of the lectures not to fail me, on a subject'cause I wouldn't have been able to carry across to the construction management course. I remember saying to you, but look, you either pass me on this or I'll, if you pass me, I promise I won't be back next year, but if you fail me, I'm stuck.

Jordan:

Yeah. Well, so, he passed you and got rid of you?

Track 1:

yeah, yeah. He did mate.

Jordan:

uh.

Track 1:

pushed, me on.

Jordan:

A lot of the, the irony, I was a terrible student, always in trouble, always getting suspended. And the irony is that I married a teacher, my brother has become a teacher. And um, I don't dunno how people have the patience to do it.

Track 1:

yeah. Yeah, mate. Look, I, I, I'm, I'm struggling with that a little bit, mate. I, I'm coaching in under 10 girls touch football side. So it's, uh, you get very frustrated when you try and teach people, new things. But anyway, it's, it's, it's been, it's been fun to, so.

Jordan:

when you and I were last speaking, you said that you actually, your, officially kicked off or, or begun to be serious. You, you did a lot of work for built.

Track 1:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I sort of, did that that six years at tes and then did a little bit more time with them. And then I did a, the usual, you overseas sort of stint. I worked over in the UK and the US for a bit. then I was just saying he is down in Sydney. while I was down there my best mates Brett Mason, he's the, he's the CEO of built now still. so we sort of got talking about I wanted to move back to Queensland and so we haded a plan to, set up shop in Queensland. So I remember, arriving up in 2004. with my car and a few boxes in the back. And that was, that was built getting started sort of up in Queensland. So, I ran that business for 10 years, 10 a bit actually. started from nothing to about when I left it was about a hundred million dollar a year business, something like that. So

Jordan:

Just in Queensland.

Track 1:

just in Queensland? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a bit of a behemoth now,

Jordan:

It wasn't until you mentioned it, that you are working for'em. And then my next trip to Adelaide, for whatever reason, you know, like you, you never notice something and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere. And the builder doing a hype of stuff at the Cooper's brewery in Adelaide and yeah, everywhere.

Track 1:

that's called? That's your Raz. reticulating activator system. It's the part in your brain if someone says, Hey, you noticed all those red cars on the road, and then all of a sudden you start seeing red cars everywhere.

Jordan:

No, I didn't, I didn't know that's what it's called, but it's uh, it's like, yeah. where was the, the, straw that broke the camel's back, where did you decide to leave built and do your own thing?

Track 1:

Oh, look, look Built was a built, was a great time in my life. I, you know, they had, it had its challenges too. Like it was, you know, I think they say if you've had, if you spent longer than five years of built, you get an honorary MBA there. So, you know, they ran a very tight ship and I worked with a lot of good people there too.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Track 1:

It taught me a lot how to grow a business, how to be accountable around certain things. that, you know, there's definitely no shadows to hide there. which was good. But I guess after I'd spent, 10 years in, I, I really, it became apparent to me that it wasn't even gonna be my long-term posting. and it sort of run its course and, you we've parted on very good terms. there's no sort of hard feelings at all. It was just to just have to do something different. And I guess my other, my options were to either go, and take up a posting as a, GM at a another sort of national business or something, or do my own thing. So, so mate, when I, when I finished up there, I had a, had a staycation for a couple of months, just, you know, bummed her in Brisbane, which was, great. Had a young, you know, had a young family time, young, you know, daughter that was, wasn't even one at the time, so. So it was good just to spend some quality time with the fam. and I wasn't I was kind of, hadn't really settled on what I wanted to do, but I knew that that, or, you know, knew bit my own business will, will do what I had been doing. So somewhere else.

Jordan:

And then so ended up. Doing what you've done and, getting involved with metal was, becoming a business owner or an entrepreneur something that you kind of always wanted to do, or was it in the back of your head or,

Track 1:

Oh, what's coming to the back of my head. It's, it's, it's, it's like anything, man. I guess, you know, they, they, they say you've got, you know you're in your thirties, you, you've got enough, in the tank, you probably not enough knowledge in your forties. You've kind of got both, oh, you know, enough knowledge, enough petrol in the tank. And that sort of, at that time that, that's where I was at. So, so I thought either or never. and my business partner, who's still my business partner today, a guy called David Mann, he reached out to me, of the blue actually, and said, oh look, I'd like to now catch up with you for a, coffee. And he sort of described he, he had a David as a, a development management business and he'd, accidentally created a construction business off the side of that in some respects. it was sort of a functional business. It had a trading history and what have you, but there was certainly issues with it. And he was at a position where he was either gonna find someone to, grab it and do something with it, or, or, or shut it down in his words. So, that's what it dawned on me. Well, look, you know, starting a business from scratch is an absolutely mammoth task, particularly in construction. It's, it's a, there's, yeah. Oh, it's a huge baller. You know, it's not, you know, if you're gonna do it properly and you're gonna attack the market the right way, it, there is a high barrier to entry there. You can't just sort of, you know, jump into that. So having that sort of, I guess the, the infrastructure that was effectively sitting there idle, an absolute, you know, of gold for me. that's not, say come with challenges as well too, because when you're taking over something that someone's been running for a period of years and, Potentially not running it the way it should have been run. it was her disadvantages. There were certainly disadvantages as well.

Jordan:

And so like you just said, coming in and taking over that somebody else has started, I mean, what were some of the biggest hurdles in doing that

Track 1:

Oh, mate. where, where do I start? oh look, it. when you're buying into an existing business, you, you've gotta think about all of the, terrible things that, possibly could happen. You come, I mean, in some respects, you've got control yourself and not turn to a pessimist, I guess, hey. But, you gotta think about, well, you know, where, where do my liabilities lie? You know, at, at corporate level in terms of taxation, so on, so forth. And then at project level, so, you know, on resi jobs, you've got years of sort of tenure there after the job's finished, you know, to come back and fix problems, commercial jobs a little bit less. so where, where our major problems were were, defective issues in old projects that we had to go and sort out and subcontractors that, that, that they hadn't been treated fairly, all that hadn't been paid. And in actual fact there are billings too. Like there, there were jobs that we'd done for clients that, the previous people that were running the business hadn't billed. The work for. So, it was the whole thing. He had pretty much had to sort of, you know, grab every part of the business and, and ask every single dumb question you could possibly think about to make sure that, you know, okay, that's now clean. I can put that to one side and move on to the next issue. So,

Jordan:

So what sort of revenue was the business at when you came into it?

Track 1:

I got in, it was probably doing, I'd done about 5 million a year or something like that.

Jordan:

Okay. Yeah. then you are coming in, all jazzed up, ready do business, and you're constantly having to look over your shoulder for something that hadn't been done right. Or whatever it was like. Is there any, is there any particular moment that that stands out?

Track 1:

mate. The best one was the, uh, clubhouse that was built, 200 mil too low. was a call from, a They'd used the wrong benchmark on a survey mark, and they just literally built the whole thing a little bit too low, which unfortunately was sitting in a floodplain, so anyway, we had to come up with a crowded solution for that, which we did. So it was effectively building a, a grandstand in front of the clubhouse, which was an earth, an which effectively they could use to sit on and watch a soccer and it would divert water away the, so, so it wasn't, it wasn't like a, was more for overland flow. We had to protect the clubhouse for overland flow. So that was, that was the major problem. But yeah, it was, and that, that was just one of the, you know, a dozen of that was probably the worst one, but yeah.

Jordan:

Yeah. So you couldn't sell it as like, oh, it's everywhere in Europe. It's like a foot bath club.

Track 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, it wasn't that. No, no. So, look, we had, you know. The problems that we, that I, that I saw was, you know, that obviously the Club X was too low. There was, you know, overstated numbers in the books. You know, we had leaks and roofs that could never be fixed. scary one was a, a contract that was about to be signed, which I luckily grabbed last minute and looked, at the estimate, and the estimate was willfully undercook, it would've contracted into a business and lost half a million bucks on the job. So, Yeah, so there was all that sort of, you know, just, it was, it was, in some respects it was panic stations still a little bit just get going and then,

Jordan:

yeah. At what point were you kind of thinking, oh, shh. Have I bitten off more than I could chew?

Track 1:

Oh, I saw the bank balance, descending below zero, mate, that was a problem.'cause you know, when I, when I'd sort of gotten on board, the balance of the business was, stated as X and it was, the capital objection, basically, eh, to keep it moving. So, oh, mate. Look, the other thing too, like, you know, it was, we'd started doing work too with subcontractors or build up relationships over time. You know, I had to lean on them a little bit too, you know, Hey guys, look, we're a bit short. Can you hang on a week? you know, da da. So it was, in some respects, it was quite humbling, you know, it really, it, it was, you were literally just on the, fighting for survival basically,

Jordan:

Yeah. You I've spoken to other people over the years that have either, I can't remember where they've come out of, but they've, come from a company that had a really good name and then started doing something on their own. And then they said, you know, like the first thing I found out is like. How much my name didn't matter as much as the name on the door. You know what I mean? Like that name that I was working for got me into this door and they thought it was gonna be as easy as that. Moving forward, is that kind of something you found as well? You know, it was a bit of a crash down to earth because I wasn't with built or.

Track 1:

oh, absolutely, mate. Look, you know, you, you, I mean, look, you know, I think your name certainly, carries a lot of weight in the industry. I, I believe, anyway, you know, look, and you, I think I've got a pretty good reputation in the, in the market up here, but. I guess when you get going as, as you, in your own sort of, right, you know, you're naked, you clients that you work with, that they were signing you up to, you know, 20,$30 million jobs, you know, are only willing to sort of let you have a crack at a half a million dollar job, you know? So, and that, that, that kind of makes sense. I mean, look, my first, the first job we picked up up here was a 20 grand maple. You know, like it was a, you've gotta sort of, prove yourself. Over again to those people that, you've built these really good, strong relationships with. And, and I think, you know, over time we've done that now, which is, which is good. you know, I, I guess while you're sort of, you know, hemorrhaging over that, over that loss, um, not just gonna be able to walk into these larger jobs that you're used to seeing, I guess the biggest, the biggest leap for me becoming from moving from the GM to a director was, you know, all the, all the backend, all the backend stuff that people used to magically take care of. For me, I built, having this sort of, involved in, you know, backend accounting, your security facilities, your cost accounting systems, your credit, all the systems that you don't have. Yeah, I look, I look back on whirlwind.

Jordan:

Yeah. And would you do it again?

Track 1:

I done.

Jordan:

and so I suppose what was one of the, the first kind of pivotal turning point, so you came in, it was action stations, like you're flying by the seat of your pants. What was the first kind of milestone that you hit where you thought, right, we've got a bit of a footing. We've, we've, you got something under us here.

Track 1:

Oh look, it was, it was after the first six months mate, like first six months was pretty much like, you know, it was just triage, like effectively just repairing Patching and consolidating what you got and, and more or less just shacking the shit off your shoes. So we were sort of, is what we were doing. We literally just, patching that problem, fixing that, the shit outta the way so you could actually start to do meaningful work. So, and try and build all your backend and all that sort of shit. So after six months, we've pretty much done that. that was, that, that was a great feeling. I mean, in, during that six months we turned over, I think, 7 million or something like that, eh, we were sort of, you know, you know, our first full year of, operation, we did 20 mil. Yeah. So, I guess that that's sort of, you know, the phase of our, I guess our operational, if you look another, another milestone was, It was, you know, effectively that establishment growth. So, so once you've sort of got your, got your platform together that's, you know, your repair and consolidation platforms there, then then it's about establishment growth. And generally, you you've got good infrastructure and good people in your business, and, you I, I've found people want, wanna give you a go. I've done it twice now. I did it with Bill and I've done it with metal. And if you, you know, if you're a half decent bloke and you've got, you know, you've got some, you got some runs on the board that, you know, generally people wanna have a, wanna have a crack, so we'll let you have a crack with them. So, first year was doing anything for anyone. And, we booked that, we at 20 mil. We, we, we eed a really good, really good, strike mark as well too. So, forever grateful for everyone who gave us a go in that first year. It really set us up.

Jordan:

the words that stuck out to me there was, you do anything for everybody, like you're trying to get the wheels moving.

Track 1:

Yeah.

Jordan:

Did you eventually decide that you had to become more picky with things?

Track 1:

now we are, yes, definitely.

Jordan:

Mm-Hmm. And is that, is that a result of like, shit hitting the fan or strategically trying to grow in a

Track 1:

it's, that's, well, it's just about luck. I mean, as an example? Like if you, if you're gonna take 12 months to build a$3 million project. That's gonna earn you the best money. So 10%, 300 grand, you di divide that by 12 months and you look at the resource that's tying up. so we're sort of looking at, you know, I guess our average project size Covid, it was under a million bucks. It's now sort of sitting at, you know, that, that 5, 6, 7 mark. So, which is where it kind of needs to be. look as you get, as you get. It's effectively just how you feed the machine, you

Jordan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a vicious cycle, isn't it? the bigger you get, the more overhead you got and the, less you can afford to take on those little jobs. and I know you said you wouldn't do it again, but. it just seemed like there was like skeletons jumping outta the closet at every, every step you took. what would you do differently again, in terms of due diligence if you were gonna buy into a business?

Track 1:

you can look under the hood, but you can't Exactly. You take the engine apart and see, you know, is that piston rooted or can that, you know, is that seal, you know, you just can't get into that level of detail Age creditors is always a, a good, litmus test to see, well, you know, how are these guys paying people on time? If they're not, why not blah, blah, blah. So, you know, adjudication, legal footprint, that sort of stuff. You know, there's a, there's a bunch of different things that you can look for that, show whether a business is struggling or not, or even just like, you know, gimme some subcontractor references and. Talk to some subbies or gimme your subbie list and you ring a subby up and say, Hey, how, how's dealing with these guys? And like, that's probably one thing I didn't do and I probably should have.

Jordan:

And I dunno whether this is just naivety on my part. I've never bought it into a business. But like what you just said, talking to subbies, but I mean also talking to clients. Is

Track 1:

Yeah. Oh look, look, absolutely. Look, And, and look at the end of the day, you know, you can always, I guess when you're buying into a business, you can always sort of, you know, I guess set up the, the correct amount of indemnities for different things. that's gonna do is just protect you financially. It's not gonna save you from the heartache and the bullshit that you'll otherwise have to deal with. So.

Jordan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really interesting. I, it's, a big rabbit hole on ongoing, down at the minute, the hole. buy then build type of stuff. And I find it interesting to know, how other people have gone about it. one other thing that you and I were chatting about a few weeks ago was around the subject of knowledge transfer. And, and, and you mentioned to me that you think it's something that is really, uh, big issue. Can you kind of explain what you mean by that?

Track 1:

Oh, look, I, I, I guess, yeah, look, look, The old sort of site managers that I used to work with, you know, have, have gradually been retiring from the industry. I'm actually working with one at the moment and one of building a, storage facility for a national storage up at Caboolture, which is north of Brisbane. But the site manager up there is like the, epitome of a, you know, a really good, old school guy who knows how to build and knows how to, run his workforce the right way. All that sort of stuff. But, but you know, I just don't see that, that those guys, when they leave the industry, that they're actually transferring that knowledge onto these, these younger hungrier guys that they have a different, they, you know, they have a different style and different outlook on life. You know, they, they rely on technology a lot more. are they necessarily gonna build things better than the old guys? Oh, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hard question to, to sort of answer. what I am seeing but is, is that those core skills those old guys have got and they've built up over a, you are a long time in the industry, just having, aren't getting back to these young guys. It's something we need to need to address. You know, that, that, that losing that IP from the industry is not, not a good thing for the industry as a whole.

Jordan:

It's a massive issue. I fully agree and I dunno what the answer is, but like I said to you when we last spoke, one of the, the best things that I've seen happen, and I can't remember where I heard of it, but was, was basically businesses putting something in place to allow those, seasoned, knowledgeable blokes to come back in and mentor the younger ones so you kind of, you know, the best of boast worlds. They might come in once or twice a month or something and just go to site. can lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink. But it's still, it's still better than nothing, I guess.

Track 1:

I think that's a great idea. You know, if you could, if you could come up with some sort of a, suitable sort of program where. People that are in that retirement, that retirement age are, you know, and wanting to sort of wind down. it's certainly something that we're gonna be investigating in the business here. with that question, since you actually raised it on that, I thought it was a great idea. So

Jordan:

okay. Do I need to be getting commissions for these ideas or what?

Track 1:

absolutely, mate. Yeah. Soon as your bill.

Jordan:

cause the thing is, is like, I suppose, you know, when you retire, like it's, for me personally, I don't know for my old man, like, retirement's not an issue. But if you could like phase it in, so it's like one day a week. Three days, you know, whatever it is, in a bit of a consult, it's, it's still a little bit of income for them. It's still a good investment. they still get to dip their hands into something that they hopefully still love doing. Um, and it's better than probably going to have to work at Woolies or something on a, on a checkout.

Track 1:

Oh, oh, mate. Absolutely. Look, and you know, and I think I look a lot of those, what I've generally found, I'm not trying to stereotype, you the older sort of generation in the industry, but, but you know, it's, it's, it's a positive stereotype that. generally willing to want to share and transfer their knowledge and, and help people grow as, as professionals. that's what I've, generally found with those sort of guys. So, yeah, so I think, I think there's certainly something there.

Jordan:

For sure. And I wish I knew who to give credit, so, and if, and I don't, so maybe I'll just take it, who knows The other thing that I'd seen in a company in America for like operators is they were basically sticking GoPros. On the heads of blokes trying to figure out, how can we record like lessons, chop'em up and stick'em in a database so it's like, you know, whatever. And I thought that that was a, probably a pretty good idea. I don't know how you would like, make them all relevant because you probably wouldn't be able to see what you would need to see like on a GoPro. but it is something that. Is, I think extremely important. yeah, I think I mentioned it to you as well, you know, like, my old man has greater operators that can't do any of it without AGPS, but my old man can still get on it and, you know, his ass cheeks are that sensitive that he can like, see if the road or feel, if the road's dipping in the wrong spot. And it's like I dunno how you transfer feel, but it's still something if they're on site or. I don't know what the answer is, but it's a big issue.'cause at the end of the day, if all of the knowledge in this industry goes to the grave, we're in big trouble.

Track 1:

Oh, mate. Big time. Yeah. It's only, it's only gonna become more pronounced though the, the issues that we're facing in terms of skill shortages and.

Jordan:

Yeah. do you see AI changing construction?

Track 1:

my personal bit on that look, I think, you know, the, if I look at, you know, certain parts of the business, like for instance, submission, you know, I guess the. Front end of the business, we're writing submissions and stuff like that. The, the stuff that, you, rank and file generally aren't good at doing, like writing executive summaries or, that, the other, I think AI is very, very helpful there. I've seen it used quite, well. can be dangerous if it's not, checked, I mean, people using it wholly and solely and, and, claiming it as their own work. Like if you're running contractual sort of notices and stuff like that, you'd wanna be careful, you guess the, most positive use that I, I could potentially see for it would be, defecting. Like, if you could get some sort of a, a robot for want of a better term. In there they can visually inspect a room know what it's looking for and create defect. It would absolutely solve lots of problems there. Right? I mean, like, I, I just, I just think it would be, you know,'cause it could be hooked up to, you know, I guess project documentation, certain stance you could achieve, so on and so forth. It will it into a room, but it's that, that, it's that scan everything. Create a defect system. Roll the next one.'cause it's, I guess it's gotta be able to use its intelligence to be able to determine well, that's a problem because of this. And not just, that's a problem. Okay. But if it can actually join the dots and, and, and,

Jordan:

When we were in Brisbane at lunch that day, didn't you say that you've caught somebody using, was it a contract? It's administrator or something?

Track 1:

yeah. yeah. yeah. So I, that's what I was before. You just gotta be careful.

Jordan:

Yeah. Was it any good though? What? What it was doing?

Track 1:

Oh, look, AI is like anything, mate. I don't know if you, if you tried it, but you, can't just ask it a simple question. You've gotta, you've gotta, well, you can, but if you want to get something out of it that's, of good quality. You've gotta keep sort of, you calibrating the questions that you're asking it until it actually starts to make sense on certain topics.

Jordan:

The most useful way that I've found to use it is just like, say if you're using executive summary, like what you just mentioned. If I was doing that, the best way that I've found to do it, still write the executive summary, but use chat, GPT or AI or something to make it better. Instead of saying, here, create me an executive summary or whatever, I just use it to tweak something I've already written and actually make it better so in, in, instead of just trusting it and using it,

Track 1:

is the right way to use it, I think in that aspect. Yeah. I guess as I said before, unless you, unless you regulate how you're using it in your business, like, I mean, I think there's, there's, there's university papers that are, you know, co students who are co-authoring their papers with chat gt. It's, it's out. It's.

Jordan:

Yeah. And they're trying to regulate that. As far as I know, they're trying to, you know, stop students from using, AI to do all that sort of stuff. So I don't, I dunno how they're gonna do that, but.

Track 1:

Well, I think there's a way that you can do it because there was actually, there's a school, a boy school in a corner from our office here. There was a, number of, a number of class members all fail for using chat GP two to, to punch in an assignment. And I think, I think there is, there is some sort of a detection program that that, can run through and. Incredible boy.

Jordan:

it's interesting to think about what it's gonna do to business generally then you look at like, okay, what's gonna be around, regardless of what's automated, regardless of what happens in business with ai, what's still gonna be around? How can we still make money? And then you look at like, people like Bill Gates. Why is he buying up all the farmland in America? There's a bloody reason for it.'cause it doesn't matter what, what AI you use, we're all still gonna need food. Um.

Track 1:

a food bowl, mate. Yeah, absolutely.

Jordan:

it's like, How do we start investing in farmland and real estate

Track 1:

You can't make any more of it,

Jordan:

Yeah, that's it. this has been a really interesting chat. I, appreciate your time. I always like to end these episodes on a bit of a, uh, personal note just so people can get to know the, your, a little bit better. So what's a, a weird or interesting fact about yourself that most people won't know?

Track 1:

I'm pretty, you know, straight up and down sort of a dude. I guess with the, probably something that not a lot of my mates know about me is I've actually started becoming a, a mini farmer myself. Just my hand a few different things. So, yeah. Anyway, that's, that's pretty much mate. Oh mate. I'm just starting to grow produce in the, but I'm, I'm expand on. So, got. they're called fruit salad trees. Which are, which are, yeah. It's, it's bloody amazing. It, they're, so, I've got a tree at home. I'd like to actually work ahead to do it myself, but I've got a tree at home that does Granny Smith red apples and some other apple all on the same tree. And then there's a another tree that does nectarines, peaches and blood plums. And then there's another one that does mandarins, limes, and lemons. So it's

Jordan:

this might be the skeptic in me, but follow the money and I reckon this is a gimmick. The wiggles have put out fruit salad

Track 1:

quite possibly, but I, I've just, it, it's actually, so what they obviously, they, they splice onto a, they The, the the different trees you end up with this tree that's doing all, doing all sorts of things. But, yeah, mate, so look, I'm certainly starting to get more in, in.

Jordan:

That is interesting.

Track 1:

I've got bees, I've got bees on the roof here and I, we're gonna be building a new house soon, so I'm gonna put some bees there. That's been, that's been quite interesting. quite an interesting sort of adventure there too.

Jordan:

you also mentioned something to me last time we spoke about someone that you used to work for that I thought was pretty interesting when you lived overseas.

Track 1:

oh yeah, yeah. The Saudi bin Laden group. Yeah, that was, that was good fun. Yeah, it was in, in London there. So yeah, business was building, they hotels and what have you around Medina and Mecca, which was, used to source lot stuff from the uk, but yeah.

Jordan:

Well, this has been good, fun. Like I said, I appreciate time. Where can people reach out, learn more, just, you know, reach out if they wanna have a chat to you or learn more about what metal are up to, or

Track 1:

Uh, yes. So look, metal's website is metal. I think it's metal au now. So, so if you wanna jump onto that, it gives you a of look under the hood or, um, email address is, uh, M-A-R-C-K at metal, MELE au. Um, reach out. Yeah.

Jordan:

Awesome. No worries. Well, thanks very much for your time and you have a good rest of your day.

Track 1:

Alright, thanks Jordan.

Jordan:

Cheers mate. Bye.

Track 1:

Thanks bud.