Advice for women who want to start their own construction company, Coralee

This week's guest is a wonderful example for not only women but men too. She has started a construction company with her husband and they recently sold their business!

Coralee gives us advice on how to tackle your fear of scaling your business and the ups & downs to being your own boss.

Coralee is apart of Canadian women we've had on the podcast lately. By complete accident most of the guests from this year have all primarily from Canada!  

Coralee is now a coach helping women start their own business and helping to understand the business foundations and being the push you sometimes need to get out of your own head. She 

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Transcript

Megan

Hey guys, could you turn it down a little? Kinda in the middle of a podcast? Oh, Here we go... Sorry about all that noise. Welcome to the podcast Doin Girly Things, a podcast focused on making construction, working the field, wearing a hard hat, a girly thing to do. Every other Monday, a new episode will be released. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, please see the show notes for how to get involved.

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Today on Doin Girlie Things I have guest Coralee and I'm super excited to have her on. I've wanted to have her on for quite a while. Found her through Clubhouse, I think, we both used to run some rooms about women in construction, and so I have loved to get to know her. So she is also part of the crew that I have met through Canada. So funny enough, the podcast has actually made a pretty good presence in the Canadian and the Australian area. So excited that she is joining us from there. And she comes to the podcast with 25 years of experience in construction, but she now has a business coach that she is running called Thrive HQ. And so today she is going to talk to us about how her and her husband started and mechanical contracting firm, but also she's going to talk to us about what So I want to start out the podcast episode, Coralee, if you don't mind. Whenever I went to your Thrive HQ, I saw there's a two day workshop. So let's start off talking about by what you're doing with Thrive in what is the two day workshop that you offer people?

Coralee

Thanks, Megan, and I just want to say thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to be here. So when you go to my website, that banner, that's the two day workshop. I do kind of two things. One is I work with women who are in an established business in construction and I help them to kind of solidify the foundation of their business so that they can get that flexibility and freedom that we all like to think we're going to have when we become an entrepreneur. And then, you know, our business kind of takes over and we kind of go a little bit crazy. So that's one thing I do. The other thing I do is I help women who are in the construction industry who are interested in becoming an entrepreneur to do so on the right foot from the beginning, because I know when I started my construction business, I was like, Well, I'm a master organizer and I have ten years in the construction industry and my husband is a skilled trade, and he was very technically good at what he did. So I thought, well, together we're going to have this amazing business and we did for a couple of years. Like the first probably three years were great. Five years were a little bit. By the time I got to six years, I was like losing my mind I was like crazy. And so I really want to, one, empower women who are interested in being an entrepreneur to support them and know that they can do it. And two, help them do it right from the beginning so that they don't have to have those first six years of craziness. I think just the awareness of how a business can take over your life is a huge step in the right direction, and it helps you to be aware of what to avoid. So yes, I have the workshop.

It's a two day that I run with women just to introduce a lot of different ideas about how to start up your business and give them some tools to think about and, you know, some real considerations because being a business owner is not for everybody. And if it's not something you absolutely love the idea of, I really don't recommend it. So we have some hard conversations about the realities of it and, you know, the real pros of doing it and the pros of not doing it. It's a real conversation to really educate as much as I can because I would hate to see anybody who didn't absolutely love the idea to be an entrepreneur, to try it out just for something to do without having their whole heart in it because it is challenging, even on the best of days.

Megan

Do you typically then work with people that are just about to start their business or people that, you know have been in it for about a year? Or so? Like consider themselves already business owners but are looking for help?

Coralee

It's both. It is kind of two separate things because the women who want to do it often, they're like, there's a fear. They're just like, I want to do it. And it's excitement. But at the same time, it's just like, I don't know if I can because as women in construction we often don't have confidence, and fear are two things I always talk about everywhere I go, but we often don't have the confidence in, especially when you don't see a lot of people doing it. Just like we say, you know, we need to have women mentors being in the construction industry so young girls can see themselves doing it. It's the same for us as business owners. We need to see women doing it in order to think that we can do it. So a lot of women have that fear of just not knowing if they can actually do it. So I really support and empower them to let them know that, yes, absolutely they can. There is a place for them. There is so much possibility there. So that is a big part of what I do. The other part is for the women who have been in business for some period of time and you know, there's even some women that I work with that have been like almost ten years and just never put themselves in a position to be able to scale their business. They kind of just been floating along and not really doing much to grow their business because they haven't positioned themselves in a way that they can grow it. So they kind of just keep doing the same thing, keep doing the same thing. But we work together to help them put some systems in place, some things that are predictable routines, things that just make a business run like that well-oiled machine that we all hear about.

Megan

I like that you're saying, too, that you also have the hard conversation as to do you actually want to be a business owner? Because I think a lot of times construction, it's really easy to see people go off because you are doing a trade that you see unions, they self-employed themselves and that sort of sense. So there is a lot of temptation to start your own business because whether you like your boss or whatever. So I like the idea of having that conversation of this is what business ownership is like, especially you coming at it with 25 years of experience. What are the biggest aha moments that women have? Whenever you start to ask them, you know, Do you want to be a business owner? Or What's the other alternative? Really.

Coralee

A lot of women, if you look at the stats, I think I heard this on a panel that I was listening to on International Women's Day last year is that of the women who enter into the construction industry. 72% leave the industry at some point in their career, like they don't finish their career in the construction industry. And so I think a lot of women get to the point where they feel stuck, like the challenges are... 

Raising a family, because you don't have the flexibility as a employee within the construction industry that it's just not as flexible. 

Money, you often get passed over for opportunities because there is this stigma that the woman is the caregiver and maybe she's not going to be available to do those higher demand jobs. So we're often looked over for opportunities within companies. 

And so that's also the money that we are capable of making within the industry. 

And then of course, there is the environment within which we're operating and how we're treated.

Those are kind of the four top challenges I've heard talked to a lot of women in industry, just getting an idea of where things are at. And those are the top four things that I've heard and becoming an owner gives you a solution to all of those things. All of a sudden you can do the work that you want to do and you're in control of your opportunities, you're in control of your money, you're in control of your time, and you're in control of how you get treated. That is a real solid solution if you're wanting to stay in the industry. However, what the conversation often is is that it sucks your time. There's no such thing as work life balance, especially in the early days. If you think that you're going to jump into this and just be going on vacation and doing this thing, and then you go to work and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. No, no, that is not the reality. The reality is even when you have somebody helping you to do it, like, say, a coach or something, a consultant, something like that, to guide you and help you be accountable, staying focused and in the right direction, even when you have those things when you're in the early days, it is a challenge to be the skill, the admin person, the salesperson, the marketing person, you're wearing all of the hats and you need to juggle your time. It is something that if you don't love the idea is so incredibly crushing because it completely takes over your life. So it's something that in those hard conversations, spelling out that reality, it's not all roses. And yes, you do have the opportunity to address these four major concerns. 

However, let's be real about what the sacrifices are because there are sacrifices and you know, in the beginning, maybe you're not going to be making all the money that you were making as an employee. Maybe it's going to take you some time. Maybe you have to be a part time employee and part time do your business like it's really managing, depending on what it is that you do, what your trade is or whatever your skill is. It's finding the balance between being a business owner and being able to make enough money in those early days to support yourself. So it's some challenges in the early days for sure.

Megan

It reminds me of the one me where it's like, Oh, I was tired of working ten hour days. So instead I decided to become a business owner and work 24/7.

Coralee

Yes! I have seen that one. And I'm like, Oh, it's so true. It is so true. But at the same time, when you really love it, it's just like you wouldn't choose it any other way.

Megan

Is exactly what you're saying right there. So like some of you, what you've probably seen and so my followers have seen as well. I recently quit my job and I am in the process of starting up my own company as a contract company for drone services. And so one thing that is like what you exactly say is, yeah, I work just as many hours, I'm working 40, 50 hours building my own website, doing things like that. But it's a different 50 hours is what I'll say is like the way you feel after you spend those 50 hours working on something that you're truly passionate about versus doing it on something where at the end of the week you're left thinking, OK, it's the weekend here. Finally meeting again.

Coralee

Yeah. As opposed to thinking, oh, it's Saturday and Sunday and I have a whole bunch of hours where I'm not going to be interrupted like it is. There is so much power and so much passion when you do have your head in the right space and really love it.

Megan

What is one of your favorite success stories over the last two years of being a business coach? Is there someone that you've really felt it was just like your aha moment? Like, Yeah, this is why I started doing this?

Coralee

Well, you know, it's interesting and it's not just one person in particular. I've had this with a few, and when I first started, like when I sold my business originally four years ago, it took me two and a half years of self-reflection and exploration and figuring out what do I want to do next. There was some dark days, there was heaviness, and because I had tied my identity to being a business owner, in the construction industry for so many years, and now that was gone and I was like, Who am I now? And two and a half years, it took me and one morning is just like the light bulb went off and I was just like, Oh, I want to be a life coach. For women who have lost that spark, who have lost their fire because they're a mom, because they're working, because they're a wife, because they're doing all these things. And we're always giving. So that's where I started. I was like, I signed up to become a coach. 

I signed up on a generic coaching basis, not a life coach specifically. So that was helpful. And I was like, I want to work with women entrepreneurs because, you know, as a business woman that is just another element of your life that get sucked away. And so that's the path I started on. And then I recognized as I was moving, as I said, you know what? I really missed the business component of what I did because my husband was a skilled trade and I was the business development person. And that's what I really missed. So when I made the realization that I was going to start working with business owners and doing business related work, I was like excited again. I'm like, oh, this is the stuff that I love. 

And then it was finding the niche, like, who am I going to work with? Sure. It could be physiotherapists, it could be spa owners, it could be all these businesses that have women in these positions. So I ended up, of course, I'm a woman in construction and those are the people I connect with. That's who I am. That is who I want to help because I know what it was like for me and there was nobody there for me and I wanted to be that person for other women. Anyway, that's kind of a side note the question being the thing that I see that makes the biggest like for me, the biggest satisfaction is, yes, we absolutely work on those business foundations and getting the business organized, and that's great to see them start to understand how their cash flow works and how their finances work and setting up their accounts. So that they actually understand what expenses are versus cost of goods sold. Like all that is satisfying. 

However, the thing that I find the most satisfying and I probably see it with most of the people I work with, is when they recognize their value, when they recognize their strength. Because that is to me, like women in construction are such a strong group of people to get to where they are, and we don't give ourselves the credit for that. And so a lot of the stuff I work on, like we do the business concepts and all those things, but it's mindset, it's recognizing your value, it's recognizing your worth, it is giving yourself the credit that you deserve because you've done all the things that you've done to get to where you are, not giving up, and not quitting. Like just so much that women have endured on their journey that they never give themselves a credit for. They never acknowledge and so having those conversations where they actually start to see their worth and actually start to see their value, that for me is where I really feel the satisfaction because I tell you, almost everybody I work with struggles with that, and that's where I see the biggest difference because 100% of the success you have in your business comes down to your head, like, what are you telling yourself? And it's ongoing work. Like, don't get me wrong, it's not like I just say, Hey, this or that. And they go, Oh yeah, that's amazing. And then it's fixed. It's an ongoing thing for sure. However, you know, just recognizing the growth in that area is wholly satisfying.

Megan

Well, I want to ask you, as I was seeing like quite a few business coaches, like really popular ones, there's all the self-help books that you can buy. Who is someone in the business coach world that you would say that you admire? And you really look up to the way that they teach and they help their clients.

Coralee

Well, it really comes down to two in particular, and they've both written books and I think that these because I've read the books and I follow them and I closely related because they are having to do with the construction industry. There's the book E-Myth, and there's the E-Myth Revisited, and then there's also like a ton of different E-Myth contractor version, landscape version, all these different versions. But the E-Myth series, which is by Michael Gerber, and he is a coach consultant as well, reading that book and understanding how he helps people with their approach to their business the understanding that you need three different minds to really operate a business, and that's the one of the entrepreneur, the one of the manager and the one of the skill and to recognize that all three of those positions need to be represented within your business is when you get that, you're like, Oh, OK, because I got like most people who start their construction business because they have the skill of the trade. They don't recognize the need for those other two positions. Just recognizing that. And so I really like that concept about understanding things from those three different perspectives. 

And then the other one is Sean Van Dike, who is the author of Profit First for Contractors, Mike McCalla, which was the original author of Profit First. But Sean Van Dike took it and made it for contractors, and he's also business coach does the same thing where he helps people in their businesses. That is what I also do is the profit first approach, which is start with the profit and then work back from there. How do you need to set up your business in order to meet your desired profit and thinking about your business in that way changes everything because now you're not focusing on your expenses as far as I can do this, and I got to do that and I've got to pay this and that. You're like, OK, here's my profit, and this is what my expenses and my cost of goods sold and all those things need to be in order to maintain that profit. So it really helps you gain control over your business sort of from a bottom up kind of way.

Megan

Very cool. Those are actually two that I don't have on my list. So this season we are talking about, you know, what can women in construction expect to make and the actual finances? Because one thing that I think that if they found out how much trades were actually paid right off the bat and also the career advancement, if you're in the union, there's guaranteed increases in pay based off experiences. And so some of those issues like you're saying, like being passed up for promotions and stuff, there are ways the trades are able to help with that. And I do think that is possible. But so I'm not going to ask you exactly how much you made. But one thing that I did want to ask you about is what is it like owning your own business and having to learn how to pay yourself because I can see where being self-employed just for me starting out right now is like, how do you do that without so when you're starting a business we're talking to people about this is the anticipated salary. How do you have that conversation with yourself or with your client?

Coralee 

Yeah, so when we started out, we just started a business and we were a sole proprietor and our cash flow was into our personal like there was no differentiation between our personal stuff and our business stuff. It was fine. Because like I said, we first few years were very good because we had a lot of money. Money was plentiful. We had money in the bank to pay our taxes and all those things all the time. Was great. And so it was kind of fluid and we didn't really take a lot out. We just basically covered what we needed. And the economy was messy and we had too many employees and it was getting ugly. We incorporated. And at that point there is the consideration, Do you want to be an employee of your company? Do you want to just take draws or how do you want that to look? And so in the beginning I was like, We will be employees of our company. We won't take draws. I want to just pay the income tax. I just want to have that stuff all control. Because before it's like I had to figure out, you know, how much we were making and claiming. And it was kind of ugly so I'm going to file my personal taxes and I don't have to get it messed up with my corporate taxes. And so that's what we started out doing. But of course, it's not the best way, but the best way I knew how at the time because I just needed it to be safe. I didn't want to end up having these huge tax bills or not understanding. So it was a growing period for sure, just understanding the best way to maximize our income and minimize our taxes that we had to pay. So I left it to the accountant to help me figure it out. Something like I wasn't figuring all that stuff out on my own.

I don't know enough of the hoops and the stuff to jump through, but it was we base our income because as my husband and I and originally we were two employees, so he drew a salary and I drew a salary and it was based on the time, our value, like we put it on the position and not as owners because we wanted it to be fair. Being an owner of a business, you're taking the risk, you're making the sacrifices, you're paying the mortgage of your employees and the food for their kids. And, you know, but I want it to be fair and pay myself something that was comparable because I didn't really put a value on those other sacrifices that we were making. It was all a learning process. So towards the end of our business, before we sold it, we were paying ourselves more than we started out when we first incorporated and we were employees. But it was based on draws and it was based on the things that we wanted to do and the profitability of our company. 

But we did have profit sharing as well. Like, that was part of what we had. It wasn't just all for us. We had profit sharing in place so that, you know, depending on the level of profitability of the company, we were sharing that and that was based on a formula of contribution to the company. How long you'd been with us? Like there a bunch of things that went into that as well.

Megan

So in the United States, at least right now, what we have is any federal contracts have to have 10% minority or woman owned businesses. So if you're doing a project for the airport, you have to have 10% of the general contractors. 10% of their contracts have to be woman owned. So in my opinion, I think that that is helping some of the businesses that like myself or other women owned businesses get recognized. It helps raise them up so that it's a little bit more chance that their bid would be accepted. Do they have anything like that in Canada to help women contractors kind of get that equity.

Coralee

Truthfully, I don't know. My world has mostly been residential, high end residential. I don't think we have quotas I think that my understanding in speaking to the people down in the US, like I see how it is there, don't think that same thing exists here, but I don't know for sure. I think it's great because yeah, sure there are people like, oh, quotas and that shouldn't be like, I get that there's a pretty solid debate in there. However, within the construction industry, I think there's a necessary place for it because we need to bring up the women and bring in the women and like we said, we need to support them. We need to have the numbers get increasing. I don't see it as just another quota. I don't see it that way. I think it is a necessary one.

Megan 

Because like most industries, construction is very much who you know. And so if you've been working with X, Y and Z and X, Y, and Z contractors, they show you their best friends that they're always going to golf with. Then if you're getting into the industry and say you don't have all of those connections, it's a lot harder. That is one of the cool things about meeting you and maybe a lot of the other women in construction is creating that network of women to help create those contacts. And so you were in the construction industry for a while, and so I'm sure you've seen a lot of things changed from technology to just the general attitude of people. In what ways have you seen it change from the time that you started your business to the time that you sold it?

Coralee

I wish that I could say that I saw these significant changes as a woman in construction and from, you know, when I left high school 30 years ago, I loved construction my whole life, but it was never encouraged for girls to pursue a career in the industry. That was 30 years ago. And I went to university and I took psychology and criminology, and I was just like, that's what I was going to do. And it never occurred to me that I could actually do construction as a career until I was in my fourth year of university. I was like, What am I doing? And that's when I made the shift. I'm like, Why don't I go take something in construction? Because that's actually what I really loved. And it was the first time EVER in the history of my educational career that I was like, I love this stuff. I was actually learning stuff that I was like so excited about. I was learning to wire house and how to plumber house and how to build a house. Like it was so exciting to me. So I think that I unfortunately don't see a lot of change that's happened in 30 years because even though we're having the conversations now and I think there's a lot of passion around it right now, and I think that this is probably something that's probably happened in the last couple of years, kind of bringing it up a bit more, bringing the awareness. I have not seen enough change to say Oh yeah, this is a great positive change. Like, I just, I just haven't. But where I am is that I am truly hopeful for the amount of passion and collaboration and connections that I see happening within the industry. I'm really hopeful that with the bringing together of a lot of voices, we'll start to make more of a difference in the next five years. Than what I've seen in the last 30.

Megan

It's like when I was doing the ten year challenge, the ten year challenge that I saw in construction, it was ten years ago, only 8.3% of women in construction. And then right now I think we're like 10%. So in ten years we only increase the amount by 2%.

Coralee

It's disheartening.

Megan

Yes. And I think kind of what I'm learning too is what is the definition of women in construction? Because sometimes I wonder too is because consulting is a form of being in construction. We do need consultants in order to do our job. And sometimes I wonder, you know, are those people getting left out of being considered women in construction? And just that sort of narrative, too, is like you're saying, like you had your aha moment about wanting to be in construction. And so how do we have other women have those aha moments before they get to their fourth year of schooling? Hopefully.

Coralee

Yeah. It's interesting because I see a lot of conversation a lot of passion surrounding this. People who are doing so much to come up with solutions, how to introduce this to girls, because I don't think it happens in high school. By the time high school comes around, girls by that time already have their opinions formed. Like maybe there's going to be some that are interested and be like, Oh yeah, but that's not where the change is going to happen. The change is going to happen when girls are young, when they get a hammer put in their hand and they can actually make something like there's the tools and tiaras, and I think there's another one in Oregon, isn't there? Isn't there.

Megan

A Yes,

Coralee

Girls who build or something?

Megan

Yeah. I tried to volunteer with them, but with all the COVID restrictions. But they have like really cool thing where is basically somebody has a fifth wheel, so a trailer that they bring with them and it's just pop up workshop and they just show girls. And so they would show up at schools and the girls would spend the afternoon using the tools. And the thing that I love the most about it is in my engineering classes, I was the only female, like that was it. And so in high school, there was a lot of times where like I'd use power tools and stuff and I remember there was one kid in particular and he was super patient with me and you know, he didn't make fun of me. Some of the other kids, they would make fun of me whenever I didn't know that you know, this is how you held a power tool to do this and that. And so I think whenever you make it so girls are exposed to tools earlier on the gap isn't there and they're not as afraid because by the time you're in high school, you've kind of already decided that this is my personality and you're a snotty teenager.

Coralee

Well, it's true. And I think that when you can give girls one, the people who look like them and give them those tools to like just feel the power of what you can build and what you can be part of, I think is so incredibly powerful when they're young because it plants a seed that can just germinate over the years of being able to do this stuff, like being able to do more things and explore more ideas. And I think that that is really where it needs to be, is in the younger years until it gets to a point where women I'm not going to say equal, but have a greater representation in the industry when we see more women on a regular basis on the construction sites, when you walk by and continuously see women and it becomes more normal, then I think it might be a little bit different. But right now, while we're trying to just increase the number and the awareness and the what your perception is of what construction looks like and who, who belongs in construction, while we're trying to change that I think that it's great to be able to get them when they're really young and just have them love it and go, Oh, what, what else can I do?

Megan

The theme of representation comes up a lot on this podcast, and I think that it's not really something I actually thought about until I started the podcast because to me, I just had accepted the fact that there weren't going to be any women and I was OK with that. But whenever one of the women I had on here, Kara, she actually opened up her own organization called Black Girls Engineer, and she did it all because she wanted her girls to see black female engineers and the idea of the representation and like what you're saying and like you getting into it with not really seeing anybody, any other women that looked like you in there, it just it does help to go to the younger generation. This is what women in construction look like.

Coralee

Mm. Exactly. And that they are actually out there.

Megan

They are out there. And this is a career that we do like. But I so happy to have you on the podcast. So I was going to end it with the best self cards. I picked two topics for us, so I'll read you off the two groups. You tell me which one, and then I'll read you the question so do you want beliefs or courage? 

Coralee 

Ohh beliefs.

Megan

What is your definition of success?

Coralee

My definition of success is doing something where you feel fulfilled, you're excited to be doing, and where you're making the impact that you want to be making.

Megan

I think that impact part is definitely one I identify with a lot. So yeah, no, I like that. So thank you for coming on the podcast. Where can we find you? Where are you most active?

Coralee

My website is Thrive HQ.com.ca, you can check me out there, get more information about me. I am on LinkedIn, mostly on Instagram. As far as where I'm connecting with people, I am on Facebook and all of those platforms. You can find me at CoralieBD. I am one of one, so I'm pretty easy to find.

Megan

Do you run any Clubhouse rooms regularly anymore?

Coralee

Well, I do Wednesday afternoons on Clubhouse. I guess you can also find me on Clubhouse at CoraleeBD Wednesday afternoons in the Everything Construction Club. I do the Business Strategies Room and that's at 5:00 Eastern 2:00 Pacific. And then I also started my own club on Clubhouse called Thrive HQ, which is not necessarily just construction related, but we talk about all the things related to the aspects of your life to like have a full, thriving life. So it's your business, your relationships, your contribution, sort of all of the your health, wellness, all those things we talk about how to make an impact with those. Those rooms are not quite as regular, but the Wednesday afternoon on everything construction. I am there.

Megan

Very nice. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing us about Thrive HQ and you're 25 years of experience.

Coralee

Well, thank you so much Megan. This has been fun!

Megan

It's been awesome!