Welcome to the Trade Secrets podcast, the number one podcast in construction with your hosts, Joseph Valante and me, Paul Selman. Get motivated, get inspired and get educated.
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my name’s Paul Selman and welcome to the Trademaster Mind Trade Secrets podcast. Now today I’m joined by a very, very special guest and a personal friend of mine, Mr Richard Dowling and your business is?
MTR. MTR pipe work services now. Richard’s been a client of Trademaster Minds for nearly a couple of years now. So we thought it would be interesting to get him on, we’ll speak about exactly where he was before Trademaster Mind,
where he is now and what is in store for the future and then also everything that’s happened in between. So Rich, welcome to the podcast. Nice to be here. Thank you. So just tell us a little bit about yourself,
what you brought you to Trademaster Mind in the first place. Yeah, so obviously I’ve had my business now for about 15 years. 15 years? Yeah. When I came to Trademaster Mind I was sort of in a bit of a low spot personally.
The business was going okay but I was working, not stupid, I was 15, I was a day in long distances. Yeah, and then. Our lot. For about 45 years consistently,
travelling to London, yeah, 15 out. From Birmingham. From Birmingham. Yeah. Jesus, there and back in the day. Yeah. You heard the hotels? Yeah. We’ve been here for a long time. There’s pubs. Right.
I gave her enough. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, just sort of was in a place where I personally had had enough, yeah, saw Joe all over social media and I thought,
oh, it’s probably a load of shit but basically came down here. So yeah, I was impressed by it and sort of was a bit dubious about signing up. Okay. But yeah,
we signed up and to be honest, the last 12 months especially, I think, personally that just changed my whole mindset and then sort of, you know, honestly, probably changed the course of my life.
Okay. I mean, you pick up on mindset there. So I’ll talk about that now. But I mean, I always used to, and I still do this with clients now, I ask them how they actually perceive themselves because that was one of the questions that one of my coaches first asked me and he said like,
you know, who are you, who is Paul Selman? and Every single time I asked that to a tradesperson. I’d say eight times out of ten. They say I’m a grafter Hmm. I’m a hard worker and that’s how they characterize themselves Now I’m gonna make the assumption that when you were driving from Birmingham to London and London to Birmingham and back day after day after day You probably still perceive that as hard work.
I’m grafting. I’m earning my money You know, but you’ve mentioned mindset shift and I knew that I had to change that mindset to go from a grafter To a business owner and make other people who are grafters work for me So that’s how I got myself out there out the back But I mean,
how did you go about doing it? What has actually changed the move? I thought I think from well, you mentioned our density I think from an old from that perspective. I think I lost more density. Yeah, it was like I didn’t exist anymore It became the business.
Yeah, I was you know at the time Obviously there’s a lot of people who come to trader in a different position I’ve seen some a lot of people and more just starting out. Mm -hmm Whereas I was the opposite. I was sort of quite established But I thought I knew what I was doing and I was just doing everything.
Do you know me? I was paying everything. I was I was paying to paying everybody. I was doing all the admin I was basically the laborer. I was the, you know, soap foreman. I was everything I was the driver even in the van because I don’t know people driving me in the van So I was even the one who was doing all the driving.
Yeah So you kind of become everything can then you think you’re the only person in the world that can do it and then like How wrong was I look? I still remember you telling me I had 14 engineers and I was saying glad me and stuff He just had at some point,
you know, the only people that were suffering was obviously myself But even more importantly, like my kids and my wife, I thought I was doing it for them Yeah, and I was doing it for them, but They weren’t getting the benefits of it They were you know,
yeah, we had a noise holiday and they you know, they could have no trainers, but they weren’t getting anything of me. – Yeah. – Well, that’s, yeah, do you know what I mean? And so, yeah, but so from like to come here and then I didn’t believe in any other mindset stuff or the people tell you to think this and do that.
And if you can control the way your mind works. And I was like, well, fuck me, I can’t. (laughing) So I was like, well, how does all this work? And then it’s just down to putting everything in order and like delegating,
like I couldn’t delegate, I still struggle to this day, but I’m getting there. – At least you recognize you’re struggling. – Yeah, yeah. And obviously, from being at trades to now, I’d say I’ve changed more in 12 months than I’ve changed in the last,
probably the rest of my life, honestly. I feel like I’ve grown massively. I’m from going to literally wanting to quit and literally do anything, but what I was doing to now wanting to like scale and double the size of my business.
It’s like, I don’t even know. I’ve got, yeah, I don’t know that it’s just, you know, meeting people like yourself and Joe and Chris and obviously Moit Green and all the other people that I’ve been looking up to meet,
Alfie Best and stuff like that. You just, and now all the networking, like, you just don’t meet these corner people in everyday life. I have these conversations with my mates ’cause they don’t want to hear it. And that’s cool.
You know, their drives are different. But when you have all those people that are around you that are driven like you are and think like you are, it’s just like, it’s like literally pulling teeth. You get more and more frustrated and you try and convince people to think like you and act like you and be like you and they don’t want to do it.
You shouldn’t force them to be like that ’cause that’s not how they’re driven. So, but yeah, so just for me, more than anything, a lot of people are scale, decent scale, that for me, it’s massively personal growth that is gonna or no lead to a lot of massive success.
– We’ve started other businesses and things like that. And I just wanted to touch on a bit ’cause I was a very, what’s the word I’m looking for? I was very skeptical about personal growth anyway, when I’m going through this.
And I think that was from being ex -military and just, you know, stiff upper lip sort of bringing and then all this fluffy stuff from the secret about, you know, picture it and it all become real. And it’s, you know,
so now I’m a very firm believer in that sort of stuff, but I wasn’t to start with. and I think you do need to kind of frame it and then to be able to claim it as well yeah which is what you’ve done enough that I’ve seen your progression through the last sort of 12 months and you’ve built other businesses as well outside the trade sort of industry and I want to know how you’ve actually then well you’ve speculated
on this slightly anyway but you’ve kind of used the profits in that firm to buy your time back yeah because you do seem a lot more tuned out than you were 12 months ago as well yeah so I mean how’s that journey been how you structured other staff now to balance that or what have you done I think there’s been there’s been so many benefits I mean obviously I’ve got my business partner Tom he’s not very much
different to me okay and I think we were almost at the point of bought in heads and then I’ve sort of found out that that was actually an advantage because he’s completely different to me so that when I was took a step back from the company like down side stuff he then took that role like I never allowed him to take that role because I was always so you get in your own way yeah because I was getting away yeah
because because I’m always wanting to control every situation yeah a bit of a control freak you know I sort of you know he’s part of who I am okay and I’m kind of still that way but I’m allowing people to do their job and allowing people to make mistakes but in terms of sorry I’ve gone a bit round about with the question but it’s alright yeah so it’s when it’s so in regards to a lot more other businesses it’s
just a latter that’s the other thing all my other businesses now are also getting more time because they were being stifled from the fact that I was constantly wrapped up in this yeah so like there was never any you know I never really took paid any attention to the things I was should have been paying attention to you end up resented and that’s what I literally had that I would literally zented everything I mean I
was when I was like 20 I was in like 50 60 grams worth of debt and I was happier than I am today right and how that happened and that’s one of the questions I always asked the mentors I’m like how did that happen yeah and it was just literally the fact that I was just taking too much on yeah my mom you know I was overloaded I was oh you know just overworked and it was all my fault and that was the thing
what I couldn’t get out of my head is I knew it was my fault but exactly as you said and you know all the mentors use it is literally get the fuck out of your own way yeah I mean stop getting in your own way you start to realize that you’re that bottleneck yeah exactly that I was the solution on the problem yeah but at the time I was the problem and now I’m trying to be the solution and so what you got going
in the future then what’s the next sort of 12 months five years sort of life for you then mate next five years well if I might as well probably not looking at five years at a moment or at them without ever looking forward and it’s previously now I am starting to I’m starting looking at the next 12 months I want to double my turnover so we want to be we want to be edging up towards like one to one and a half
million wow turnover for also obviously that’s pretty massive because we don’t have material costs with what we do that’s just labor right yeah so look you know we have fairly good profit margins with what we do as well and but obviously I want to expand on the property obviously now is a good time to be getting into property yes obviously the world’s gone mad yeah so yeah as well nothing it’s ever a bad time but I
think there are a few things I want to get into but at the same time mostly I want to stay focused on what has got me to where I am today yeah all be a painful journey at times it is the thing that’s got me where I am and so yeah the biggest thing now moving forward if I do stay in with him within this industry for the next five years I’d like to think I’d be at more like two to three million okay but over
the next 12 months it’s one to one and a half and then we’ll see obviously whether the interest still there if not then we’ll potentially look to sell and obviously looking to other industries sounds fantastic maybe well I mean it sounds like you’ve got an absolute cracking plan there for structuring and building up this growth and I’d like to pick up on the point you said about the pain bit because people see the
success bit and they’ll see that what looks nice now on the facade but they don’t see all the stuff that goes on and all the hard work, the pain, the grime, all the problems, all the worrying that goes on in the background. That’s why I always had to reach out to different mentors,
whether that be in this industry or other industries, just to keep me on track long enough for me to actually see the benefits and see the success. So, well, look, mate, it’s been absolutely fantastic to have you on the podcast.
So if you’ve enjoyed that episode of the Trade Secrets podcast, then please click the link below to like and subscribe. Cool. Nice one, buddy. Oh, I made it. Cheers, mate. Here you go.
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