Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans

Ep. 81 One Step at a Time: The Mindset for Tackling Big Projects and Bigger Goals

• Darren Evans

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From summiting Kilimanjaro to delivering some of the UK’s most complex heritage renovations, Jamie Mills lives by one rule: one step at a time.

In this episode, Jamie shares how this mindset applies to business, charity, and sustainability, and why breaking down big goals is the only way to achieve them.

You’ll learn:
 • How endurance challenges prepare you for business setbacks
 • Why culture matters in high-performance construction teams
 • How to keep moving forward when projects feel overwhelming
 • The role of clear communication in problem-solving
 • How to apply adventure lessons to leadership

Whether you’re leading a team, a project, or a personal challenge, this is the roadmap for staying the course.

If you want to see our other insightful podcasts, click here:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHI_yaqB2U8KWbsfJDPCoYEfOh-TTnip

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Our Website: https://darren-evans.co.uk/

Links:
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Jamie Mills:

So we ended up with nine of us running the London Marathon. We ended up with 40 of us cycling from London to Paris and we ended up with 30 of us summiting Kilimanjaro. You know we raised just shy of £200,000, for it was cancer research at that time who we still support, but we weren't an official charity, it was just Jamie doing his thing. And then, as I, as I was sort of sliding on my heels down kilimanjaro after summiting sort of the euphoria wearing off and as I realized I still had a three-day trek to get back down the mountain someone hollered down to me like jamie, what's, what's going on next year? What are the events next year? I was like, what Next year? Well, this can't be it. And on the back of that, trilife was born. And yeah, we ended up. You know we've done some amazing things. We've run five marathons. We've done an Arctic expedition husky dogs across the Arctic Circle. We've hosted white-collar boxing events. We've created our own challenges, things like one called Rock and Ride, where we would cycle from London up to Scotland and attend a music festival and then head back. We've done triple challenges up in the Lake District where we're kayaking, racing on bikes and then climbing a mountain, all within a 12-hour period. We've done UK Three Peaks, the Yorkshire Three Peaks, snowdon a number of times, and the list goes on.

Jamie Mills:

And after a quiet period, after buying the business, moving house, getting married, it felt like a moment to take a breath. We're relaunching it now. So literally next month we're gonna have a full relaunch and we've got some really exciting things coming up. So, as I mentioned before, we've got the adventure networking series which we're going to do maybe twice a year, um, and that's the dovetail with the business that I'm looking for, um, but equally, we're gonna do a london to Amsterdam bike ride. We're looking at doing the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage from France through to Spain, so that's something that we've got a lot of interest in Doing the marathon again, glutton for punishment, I think.

Jamie Mills:

I think there and we're looking at some what we call big, hairy goals. So we've got everest base camp on there. Uh, we've got rowing the atlantic as part of the world's toughest row and, uh, you know, we're looking at um, taking on some really big challenges. But what we're doing there is, uh, we're kind of building the team first, because what I've done I've made the mistake in the past is that I've said we're doing it on this day and then recruiting is just painful, um, but what we're doing is obviously, if we can get enough people signed up for the north pole trek or for um, the world's toughest row then once we hit the right number of people, that will be a greenlit endeavor and we'll go for it from there.

Jamie Mills:

So lots of exciting things going on. I'll be doing lots of filming for that. So it's quite media rich. Um, it's got a history of it. We had a full documentary filmed in the first year, had a premiere at the ritzy cinema in brixton, um, and yeah, it was just, it was sort of magical to bring everyone together, um, for really good and wholesome you know. So everyone was there raising money for an amazing cause, but they were also sort of taking care of their own health and fitness. People. Really, there's some really inspiring stories.

Jamie Mills:

You know, one of my good friends in the US, wouldn't, you know? She would kindly say that she wouldn't have been in the right shape to climb Kilimanjaro, but she called me up, um, and said, jamie, you sort of inspired me to do this. Um, I think she was in her sort of mid-50s at the time, uh, and I was like, wow, you know, that's a big commitment and, uh, and she was the first one to get up the mountain. She sort of took hold of her fitness, she got to the very top, she was the first one there, I think. The mountain she sort of took hold of her fitness, she got to the very top, she was the first one there. I think she got a T-shirt when she came over from the US for the Premier Try.

Jamie Mills:

Life changed my life and that's quite inspiring stuff. So you know, we also build a community around the group as well. So, yes, the charity and the business are sort of forging forward together and that's quite an exciting place to be. So I get to talk about both. Um, you know when I'm talking about business and you know lots of people want to do good. Sometimes they just need to be given the opportunity. So I always find I'm I'm pushing an open door quite often and that's great.

Darren Evans:

And, yeah, I'm excited to see where it goes next year interesting observation is that through bereavement, so many lives have been touched in a positive way it's, it's, you know it's, it is inspiring.

Jamie Mills:

It's not an overused word in this context. You know that there are other friends as well, it's. You know the bike ride we did, for example. Um, a lot of these people weren't what they call mammals, right, middle-aged men in lycra. We were a bit younger then, um, but but they, you know they weren't that they weren't cyclists, but that we got into the training for that event and you know they've carried that on through their lives.

Jamie Mills:

Um, you know, and that's 13 years ago, we did that and that's something they've picked up on the back of that so that, again, that feeds into their health and well-being. Um, you know that feeds into the stories they tell their kids as well. So we're all all you know, we're all of an age now where we've got kids growing up and they see the pictures around the house, you know, of us, on me and mummy on the top, on top of Kilimanjaro, together with all our friends. And you know my boys. They're constantly asking when they can do a challenge, when they can, and you know what a nice thing to pass down. You know that. You know, if we can, we should, if we can do good, we should, and and that I truly believe that and, and you know it's running.

Jamie Mills:

The charity is not completely altruistic you know, there is that warm fuzzy feeling you get by doing it.

Jamie Mills:

Um, you know, and I don't feel guilty about that, whereas sometimes, maybe at the start, I did, but it's like no, this is, I want to do all these adventures by doing it for charity, where we're raising funds for something that will impact all of us at one point or another. Right, so, cancer, um, has it has has a shadow that casts over everyone. Um, but we will speed the cure and that's the hashtag. It's more than the hashtag, that's the mission. You know, we will speed the cure and and, like I said, stepping that across into what I do in my day-to-day work as well now, and doing so with the confidence that it positions us as the people we genuinely are, um, and that's it. That's exciting, and sort of the feedback I've got from my network within the sort of built environment has been really positive. So, you know, I'm really looking forward to seeing how that plays out over the next year or so talk to me about the things that you've learned about yourself from doing those three challenges.

Darren Evans:

So I would imagine I've spoken to quite a few people that have done marathons and also the london to paris, but I've never actually spoken to anyone in detail that summited kilimanjaro yeah.

Jamie Mills:

So and this has played out in it's a lesson I learned back in 2013 when, when we, when we did the climb, uh, and I've used it in business in life, um, I've used it. It's it's sort of a framework in my mind that I sort of picked up when I was there. It's quite a long, arduous trek. It's not massively steep, but altitude sickness is a real challenge when you're climbing Kilimanjaro, because it's because it's slow and gradual. Um, you should, uh, you should, acclimatize, but the problem is, when you're in such a large group, you're slower than you should be, so you're exposed to altitude for longer than is recommended. We had a number of people in our group that were close to turning around because they had recommended. We had a number of people in our group that were close to turning around because they had exposure. We had a couple that really did, right on the last night, really suffer quite badly with the altitude sickness, um, and so it does become a battle, and the lesson I'd sort of learn and have reflected on since then is that there are times when you think you're done, but your, your body's, the body's always got a bit more to go, like your mind will give up before your body will. So you'll quit in your head before your feet will stop moving and you break. It's like anything in business, it's like any and I it's. A marathon is a great analogy, right? You run a marathon by putting one foot in front of the other repeatedly for 26.2 miles, and Kilimanjaro really taught me that I really struggled. I was probably one of the fittest um that summer because I was the only one that did all three of those events. Everyone else did one, a few did two. I did all three so I was in great shape, but that you know. Altitude sickness doesn't care about that. You know there are those that smoked, whose lungs were used to having slightly less oxygen, didn't impact them anywhere near as much as me.

Jamie Mills:

And I had this moment on top of the mountain where we were right near this place called Gilman's Point. So you reach the top of the summit, but then you walk around to the, the actual summit, I'm not sure the technical term, but you reach the top and then you walk all the way around the crater, so it's a sort of dorm of arcane. So you walk around to that point, and I was. You know, we've been climbing for five days but and I was about 20 minutes away I was like I'm done, I think I done. I sort of sat down and had a princess moment and said, oh, this is you know, it's just too much. And then the little voice in your head saw just one step, one step in front of the other and gradually you build that momentum. I think I've transferred that to everything.

Jamie Mills:

So running a marathon is exactly the same. I've had good and bad. I've had good and bad. I've done a few now.

Jamie Mills:

I've had good and bad experiences in a marathon. I've had the marathons where I've achieved the time I've set out, and I've had marathons where I've pulled a muscle in my back and you and not getting get overtaken by any more cartoon characters, um, one foot in front of the other. And you can definitely apply that to business. You know, I've I've had days where I think I've cracked it and I've got days when I think what the hell am I doing? And and when those days hit you, I think you have to just what's the next right thing, what's that one thing I can do to move forward? So I I think I've been able to take those lessons learned and apply them across my life in general, not even just business, not even just the charity, but just life in general. I think you know the challenges it can throw up. Sometimes you don't need to look to the horizon, you just look down at your feet and take one step step.

Darren Evans:

I love that. I'd like to delve into just a little bit. When you were sat at the top or near the top, near the summit of kilimanjaro and, to use your phrase, having your princess moment, sat down and then just having that thought come into your head. Okay, one step in front of the other. Who else was there around you? Was there anyone picking you up? Yes, what was that?

Jamie Mills:

just paint that, yeah, picture for me what that scene was like and what was going on in your head so part of the challenge with all of this is that so it was, it was my gig, right, so I'd organize the whole thing, um, and that started what like the year before, so that you know as well as everything, as well as climbing the mountain, there's organizing 30 people to get from london uh, to tanzania right, there's, there's organizing 30 people to get from London to Tanzania. There's organizing training sessions, there's organizing trips to the altitude center, making sure everyone's got their kit. One of the things that happened where originally I signed up for the marathon, I signed up for the bike ride, I signed up for Kilimanjaro Originally it was just going to be me, so I was signing up to groups that were doing this um, kilimanjaro originally was just going to be me, so I was signing up to groups that were doing this, right, so you know there are companies out there that offer the. When I realized there were so many joining me, we ended up removing ourselves from that and organizing it all ourselves. So I had a band of merry men. There were four of us that all chipped in and dedicate a lot of time to getting that organized, you know.

Jamie Mills:

So there's a pressure, um, over time when you know you're responsible for this madness. Uh, that there weighs on you. And so when I was sat there, not only was there, just it was like a fatigue of of everything that had gone on, and and I sat there and it was with my my now wife. At time, my girlfriend sort of sat down with me for a moment. We had a very brief conversation and there was definitely a let's suck it up, jamie. This is it, this is your doing, this is what she said to you. Yeah, absolutely, that's why she's now my wife. Right, because sometimes you need that in life and business. At the top of a mountain and, yeah, we refer back to that all the time we also refer back to where I was suffering from altitude sickness coming down, and it was quite slippy Me making some reference to you know, they've not really thought about health and safety up here, have they? As he stands there atop of Africa's highest mountain, yeah, I may have been slightly wide of the mark there that is so interesting.

Darren Evans:

That is so interesting. The yeah, so my wife is quite similar, it sounds like, to what your wife is like is that there will come a point and she'll just tell you, tell you the truth and, in a blunt way, suck it up. I think it's just a great phrase. Yeah, because that's really the only thing you've got to do, right.

Jamie Mills:

Well, and also, when you're there, what are my options? No, helicopter's going to rescue you. No, although some of my friends from West London. We did get one day down the mountain and it looks quite level in certain parts, and then there was one of them who sort of went up to one of the guys there and said are we too high up to get a taxi? I'm like you do know. It took us five days to get up here Again.

Jamie Mills:

Everyone blames altitude sickness, others might call it wishful thinking, but yeah, I think that brutal truth, um, at times is needed. You know it's not always the right um tool to go in with, but thinking well, when you know someone as well as you do, as you know, or when someone knows you as well as that, um, they know when that's the tool to use. And you know the option was either carry on for 20 minutes, summit Kilimanjaro, take the glory, get the photo, tick the box, or what turn around and go down. That's just as painful, you know. So why not have the good pain? Why not celebrate and feel it in 20 minutes' time as opposed to, I mean, crikey, can you imagine the regret? Yeah, I organised this band of 30 of us and only 29 summited. I threw a hissy fit and decided not to do the last 20 minutes. So yeah.

Jamie Mills:

I'll be forever grateful that that wasn't the decision I made. Choose your pain right.

Darren Evans:

Absolutely yeah. So it's interesting as well that point that you've covered, which is to do with the relationship and the ability to deliver that hard and tough message that you know you didn't just meet her at that time. He wasn't just someone that was, you know, a distant colleague or like a friend. You would have had experiences together and moments together that would have enabled you to to trust her, trust her judgment, yeah, and her to feel confident in delivering that tough message to you and you know I don't think that you know.

Jamie Mills:

That's why we sit here with two kids and recently married, although we've been together 15 years. You know we got there eventually but it was always going to be the case. But I think we need in life, we need the brutal truth more than we know. Um, I think there's a lot of blowing smoke that goes on um, in business.

Jamie Mills:

In life, sometimes you need those hard truths because then, once you know the actual, once you realize the truth, once you know, once you know, once that truth has been delivered to you, can make decisions. You can then decide what's the right step forward, what is the right next move. And, yeah, I'll always be grateful for that. But again, these are all sort of lessons that you pick up along the way and in every facet of your life. You end up using them subconsciously a lot of the time, and it's only when you sit in front of people like you you start to realize, actually, you know, by asking those questions, realize, actually you know those, those, by asking those questions you realize where, uh, those characteristics that you use regularly throughout your, your life now they've been, they were born somewhere you know, these are.

Jamie Mills:

These are not things that everyone's sort of innately or characteristics that they have that, their characteristics that learn and their reactions to the things that have happened.

Darren Evans:

How does this show up for you then, with the team that you lead in your organization, because the houses and the properties that you develop and that you build they're not your kind of postage stamp type of properties and they're not a rinse and repeat style, where there's a house type and you just repeat, repeat. You all know what you're doing, because you've done it 50 times before. How does that show up for you?

Jamie Mills:

yeah, so, so there is none of that. Yeah, that rinse and repeat. I, I do a lot of networking in in groups. I'm part of a mentoring and coaching group as well, where I mentor a few um, a few others, a few other construction businesses, um, and they have, maybe they have that they do multiple plots, right? Um, we don't, everything is bespoke, everything's one-off. Um, and with that it's exciting. And I, we get to work on some of some of the most luxurious houses in the uk.

Jamie Mills:

You know, we've operated in and around belgravia, mayfair. We listed buildings, blue plaques, heritage sites. We're working down in Sussex at the moment on a 16th century farmhouse where we're uncovering artifacts within the building that have been there hundreds and hundreds of years and it becomes our job then to preserve them. That's exciting, that nod to history is exciting, and I would struggle to then turn around and say, right, there's 18 houses that are all going to do, in the sense that, um, you're still, the expectation is still that you're going to work the program, that you're going to work within a budget. Now, often the budgets are more flexible, um, because people don't buy listed buildings or they don't buy houses in belbravia, um, if they can only afford a postage stamp, but therefore expectations are high, and so it can be quite a pressured environment, and I know everyone in construction will say that. But we have very few clients, so that pressure manifests itself in a different way, because we'll have four or five projects on at a time. We don't tend to take on more than that, and as we grow, what's happened is that we've taken on bigger, larger projects, not more, because clients' demands and clients' expectations remain the same. Whether you're on a £1 million project or a £5 million project, they get no less of a service at £1 million than they do at 5 million pounds, and that's something you know we need to ensure, um, and that they expect, and rightly so, um and so, look, you know, we're a fairly lean team, and we're purposefully so. What that means is we're a really tight-knit group and we're communicating every you know, every day, multiple times a day, um, and when challenges arise, uh, that communication and those tight-knit relationships, they're the things that get us through, and I I use lots of the phrases I've used here today with you are what we use in business as well.

Jamie Mills:

What's the next right thing to do? Yep, things have gone slightly wrong there. Um, you know, the design, the, the design that we received didn't quite work out, but we you know someone's decided to go ahead with it anyway. We've got to retro this. Now, what's the next right move? And so I apply that like whenever I find myself. You know we all have our head in hands moments whenever that happens.

Jamie Mills:

Once I've got over myself in my personal life and and in business, it's just that one question what's the, that one step, what is it? And and I think now the shorthand we have within the team is that everyone kind of takes that approach, so everyone's like what's? Let's not think about the end of the project, because sometimes that's too far away and it's too abstract to talk about in a meaningful way. But if you could think about what's the next right step to take you along the way, what's what's going to be the momentum builder for us and to get us back on track. And so you know, having a, a close-knit team, having lines of communication that are open every day, and that you know we're a fairly um, we're, we're a fairly flat organization. Um, in terms of there's not, there's, there's not layers and layers of management, there is, there are some, but I will have a direct line to the guys delivering the projects on site. You know I I'm still turning up on site and working with the guys and sort of you know, often asking what they need, often asking what we can be doing better. So you know my operation sits on what we can be doing better. So you know my operation sits on, you know my role sits at that level, whereas I have a team delivering the projects and schemes for us.

Jamie Mills:

Um, but I used to think when I started in construction that you know you would talk about, you'd use words like culture, and it was so culture, this building, this is construction. What do you mean? Culture? I was an idiot, right. So those things matter. You need to set the standard, you need to set the tone and you need to consistently do that. And then culture starts to become a thing, it starts to become a living, breathing thing within your business. And we're seeing that now and I have a coach that I work with and they're constantly talking about culture, constantly talking about what the standards you set within within the business for yourself. You know how you do anything is how you do everything. It's a quite a common phrase and and you know that's on the wall in the office and and that goes for the guy that's, you know, site laborer, to the guy that's the managing director, to the guy that's head of ops how, what are the standards that we set?

Jamie Mills:

And I think a lot of that comes down to, you know, a bit of persist. You know it's been. It's not always been a straight line, it's. There have been lots of struggles, you know we've had bad, we've had bad jobs, we've had challenging clients. We've had good years, we've had average years, we've had not so good years, one step in in front of the other. You know the North Star's there. So we know what we're aiming for and it won't always be a straight line. So you know, get to the back of the top of that mountain, one foot in front of the other, 20 minutes to the top. And if we keep reverting back to that, I think we'll get there.

Darren Evans:

You talked to me about sustainability, net zero, and how that shows up with the requests that are coming from your clients.

Jamie Mills:

Yeah, it's a hot topic in our office actually and with our delivery partners architects, interior designers that we work with. There are different levels of clients that we work with. So there are clients that are ultra high net worth. High net worth, they have a budget for the project, but that's what they want to spend. It's not what they can spend. That's very different to some of our other clients who have.

Jamie Mills:

Well, we've got one project at the moment where, due to a death, uh, in the family, someone's inherited lump of money and with that, they want to build, build their own house, but it's a, it's a finite pot, right? So they're not, you know, they're not pulling from their investments. This is um, this is that and so and so, by having those different, but by having the different um, those different, but by having the different um wealth profiles I don't know if that's, if that's a thing um, it changes the conversation around sustainability. I think you know, given the option, everyone would say yes, right, so so how can we be more sustainable in anything that we do around the built environment? Is it a good thing? Absolutely. Can I afford it? Maybe not, and I think that's the challenge we find um, and this doesn't just. You know I'll slightly stray from the sustainability question, but keeping that in in the, in the rear view here.

Jamie Mills:

You know the I'm finding more and more cost expectation around what is being designed and what it costs to build. That design is getting further and further apart. There's too many times now where, so, as we look to grow, we're working with new architectural partners and what that means is we inevitably we have to tender. So we go competitively up against other contractors and we'll tender as everyone else. We'll produce our tender documentation, our returns, and there's been a few over the last year or so. You know we get the feedback we're like you're too expensive. Crikey, that's strange. I thought I was, you know, I thought I'd done pretty well on that. So how far out am I compared to the other guys, the other um tendering parties? Oh no, no, you're all. You're all too expensive? Oh no. So then that's being expensive is not the problem. You've designed something that you know if for, if for, contractors are all saying it's going to be this much within 10. That's the cost, um, and I think you can liken that a lot to sustainability, unfortunately a lot, because we do, we do a mix of we're probably. We're probably 60 40 in terms of more retrofit than we do. New build we are. New builds are picking up now, um, and so taking a slightly larger share, but historically that's what we've done.

Jamie Mills:

Retrofit is tricky. It's not always straightforward. Some of the technologies that are put forward aren't entirely suitable for retrofit. You know, we had one fairly recently where we've installed it. So it was a large extension, a big eight-bedroom house, a swimming pool and all that good stuff.

Jamie Mills:

But with air source heat pumps there wasn't much talk about insulation. We improved insulation slightly and maybe we didn't advise accordingly at the time or the MEP consultant didn't really consider that, and then the clients got in there and froze this isn't great. This isn't what I was expecting, you know, um. So there's an education challenge there, but it's where does it fall on the priority list for the client is what I would ask for some. It's top and they'll pay it and they've researched and they know what it's going to cost. We know we want that. We want pv here. We want air source heat pumps here, ground source heat pumps.

Jamie Mills:

You know, um, you know a lot of a lot of retro insulation um happening, which is great. You know, because you know from my experience, that's sort of your belt and braces. Get that right first and then follow on with the tech. But for a lot it's a nice-to-have stool and it needs to be mandated for it to have to happen, because it's an easy one to substitute out. Every tender goes through a value engineering phase. Yeah, okay, you've come back at a million pounds. We need to get this to 800. What can we do? And so everyone gets there, starts sharpening their pencil. But you know there are some easy wins. Right, let's try. And you know, do we need the ground source heat pumps? Oh, yeah, we really wanted it. I can save you 40 grand. Yeah, wanted it. I can save you 40 grand. Yeah, I'll tell you what. Let's go traditional. Let's get a gas boiler in, and it's such an easy thing to do.

Jamie Mills:

My feeling is, until it's mandated, until it's compulsory, um, we're gonna keep bumping up against these things. It's certainly in the retrofit. New builds are different, um, of course. Uh, we're working on one at the moment where it's not passive house we're going close to and that's exciting. Clients are fully invested. Architect is all over that, you know, and every time we're suggesting a new product or material, we're like back to their design and making sure that we're going to get as close as we possibly can, and that's great because with new build, that's the expectation and you know it's a blank canvas to a certain degree, but retrofit is a challenge. Retrofit on a heritage building is an even bigger challenge. We're still installing the farmhouse um that we, that we've recently completed, and there's lard and plaster walls going back in you know, so you know, there's there's no insulation and a lot of these buildings.

Jamie Mills:

We've improved where we can, but it's, it's a challenge. And you know there's other things we can talk about. You know, talk about waste, talk about him. You know the amount of waste within the industry, the what we, what I see on site, makes me shudder. You know what gets thrown away and not recycled. But there's a cost to all of it and it's like who, but who? Who bears that cost?

Jamie Mills:

Tough economic climate, you know, and I feel like we're always saying that to be honest, but they're the thing, you know. In those environments it's just too easy for that to be pushed to one side. And I think my feeling is, until things are compulsory, until we don't have a choice, until building control is saying, well, you're not getting signed off, until X, y and Z. You know, and I know, and I know there are there's new legislation coming in and you know that is all happening. But you know, I I feel like the the retrofit side of things, which is where you know there's more of that happening than there is of new builds being built. You know people are, we've got this existing stock and if we're going to talk about sustainability, there's so much stock out there. You know that could. That's empty, there's derelicts that could be brought back to life, you know so we're not using new concrete. We're not. You know we're not putting more into the environment, we're using what's already there.

Darren Evans:

There's whole conversations to be had around that too definitely it sounds as though that um, even if it becomes a mandatory thing, that the actual projects are not going to be viable if the the costs aren't right. Yeah, and I think that's why it's so important for organizations like yourself to get the right advice from the right organizations and also maybe not put it sounds like from what you're saying that there's, there's, there's clients that have done loads and loads of research, that that's their bag, that's their thing, and they're coming to you with either a shopping list and also like the instructions of how to put that shopping list together so that they can get the outcome that they want. But I think that that's where the industry has an opportunity to improve is how do I get my cake and eat it and how do I get a sustainable building and to be able to afford it without someone breathing down my neck and saying unless you do this, then this building's not going to be your own.

Jamie Mills:

Yeah, so there's some changes um around planning, about the affordability of planning, right. So, because what's happening? An awful lot, and it was, it's overwhelming planning departments all over the country. They're massively understaffed anyway, um, and that's all these unviable projects. You know that they get put in for planning, they go through the system, they, you know they sit on someone's um in someone's inbox until you know seven and a half weeks and for the last you half a week that gets reviewed and some are like, yep, right, you've got the planning and then it goes to get priced and it never gets built Right.

Jamie Mills:

So there's, you know the the some of the changes coming around are talking about having a cost. You know a cost assessment um as part of the planning application. So before you know so they, mr mrs jones, get the cost assessment of what it is they're putting in for planning and it says this is going to be one million pounds and they say I've only got half a million pounds and I've seen such, I've seen um expectations and actual costs um be misaligned by as much as that in the past. They won't put that in for planning. Why would you? Why pay the fee? So I I think there's some. There is some um benefit to that. That then allows sort of things to get built. Um, it doesn't change the affordability of it, but what it might do, um, you know, it's certainly speed up the planning process, which can be a good thing, and there's probably a whole other podcast about that to be had, um, but what can we do? Like like it's, it's almost we've we've got a sustainability schedule, which is essentially a checklist. So what are the things we can do that aren't, you know, that aren't going to cost the earth, and it's a bit like one step in front of the other, right, so it doesn't need to be the all singing, all dancing passive house solution. What's? What are the improvements we can make? You know, and as I said, mentioned before, you know, just insulating house properly will make such a difference and turning the thermostat down just slightly will make an impact.

Jamie Mills:

But education across the board, um is lacking, um, it's everyone's kind. You know we have to pick this up and run with it ourselves. There's no one telling us to do it. The architects we work with tend to be those that are sustainability conscious, are eco, eco-friendly, and that's great, because that aligns with us. That's why we're delivery partners.

Jamie Mills:

But you know, I think there's what we, what we try and do, is offer early, early cost involved. So with some of the delivery partners we work with um. We don't tender for work, so we'll, you know, we'll be introduced and we'll negotiate projects and that that's great because we can offer loads of value then, especially around you know these areas that we talk about here, so we can say you know, we've got ground source, heat pump, air source, heat pump, pv panels, battery storage, insulation, rainwater harvesting, all of these things, we've done it. We can back cost these things and say look, here's roughly what. If you go for ground source over air source, here's what it's going to cost. And if you give that to them before they've designed it into the building and they've sunk £15,000 in design fees with an architect and an MEP consultant, if they can have those conversations early, I think more gets built, because if that's important to them, then there's other areas within a building. You can save money. But if it happens at the end, when they've got their planning and it's a certain footprint and the facade needs to look a certain way and they have to use a specific roof tile, if it's that point that you're trying to retrofit costs and sustainable elements of the building. They're not going to change the building. They're not going to go back through planning for it to find the savings. So if you have the cost conversation earlier, I do think we would be able to work with clients and architects to to include more of these sustainable elements in all the buildings we do.

Jamie Mills:

But you know that there's the challenge with construction. People like to tend them because they will have sweeping and varying costs and people will take a hundred thousand pound risk because it's cheaper. Um, it costs the same to build the building, no matter who's doing it. That's. You know we don't have access to super cheap labor anymore here in the uk. You know there were periods when you know those coming over from from europe would offer super cheap labor anymore here in the UK. You know there were periods when you know those coming over from Europe would offer super cheap labor. It doesn't exist anymore. Materials you know post-COVID materials went up. They timber stabilized. Everything else stayed where it was you know that's it.

Jamie Mills:

They're not going down, so it costs the same to build it. So, engaging the experts in doing that, namely us or another, like us talking about your wish list as you would with an architect or in conjunction with that architect, and actually saying, right, for us to do this, it's going to cost, that retrofitting doesn't need to be exactly that, it can be thought about and it can be built into any project.

Darren Evans:

But, um, you know, until until we're having that conversation earlier, I thought like we're going to keep keep struggling with these things definitely that's one of the things that we, as a consultancy, will talk to our clients about, and also the ones that we're trying to get as our clients is to like we, you need to get us in early. We understand about the m&e, we understand the fabric, but if you just understand about the M&E, you just like you're saying that you're going to miss the fabric element. You're going to deliver something which is um, which is less than ideal, because there is no one silver bullet. No, the thing that I um talk to people about is developing a property. A sustainable property is almost like making a really good chocolate cake.

Darren Evans:

If chocolate's your thing, yeah, it's not the chocolate that makes the chocolate cake. It's how the chocolate interacts with the egg and the flour yeah, how it interacts with the baking process and the mixing process. It's. There's lots of different elements and it's about bringing those elements together in the right way to give you the output that you're after, as opposed to just saying I just need to go and get the best chocolate yeah.

Jamie Mills:

So sticking with cake. You know I was. We went through before. Before coming to speak to you today. I went through some of our projects and looked at those conversations around sustainability. 70% of the sustainable elements on any of those projects over the last eight years got removed at value engineering stage. Now let's do that with cake. If you take the air gal, what are you left with? It's not nice. There's lots of vegans out there. I've tried the cake. It's not good. I'm too sus. No, not my thing, but but you know the the rule applies um 70, that's loads right. So people go in there with 70 cent more intention to do something good, to to be sustainable, to implement this into the their projects, and only 30, you know, and 70% of them end up with something different.

Jamie Mills:

You know there's lots around costs as well to be spoken about. I think technology will drive costs down over time. I think you know looking at battery storage and costs starting to, I mean it's always been super expensive to do that in a meaningful way. You know we did a project out in Surrey on another farmhouse. It had quite a large array, had a big field and it was quite early. This was a number of years ago now, quite early on, with battery storage. Um, so expensive, um and makes it prohibitive to a lot of people.

Jamie Mills:

As these things come down, we'll be able to do more um and as technology advances I mean, I don't even know where ai takes any of this or what impact it would have, but I'm sure that's a future episode for you somewhere down the line.

Darren Evans:

There's lots in AI that's going on across the industry. The house that you're mentioning, which is near to passive house, is that, um, I've I've seen a number of occasions where people have built a passive house, um, but they've not been able to transfer how to live in a passive house to the occupants of the house, right, and so the occupants have just not used the house in the way that it's been designed, yeah, got frustrated with it, yeah, and so lived in the property completely contrary to, um, how it's how it's designed, yeah, and so there is that education piece as well. For sure, that needs to happen so we have that across.

Jamie Mills:

You know, not not just in in houses, but passive house, but different types of heating, for example. Yeah, it's like sometimes people have never had underfloor heating. Right, they, they feel it, they, they treat it a radiator, like it's a spot heating solution. Oh, it's cold, let's stick the underfloor heating on, as if all of a sudden it's going to warm. It's a passive heat that will build up over time. You keep the temperature low but you keep it consistent. Your boiler's not ramping up and ramping down. But if people aren't shown how to operate, to operate that, I mean, it's a very, that's a, you know, a quite basic example, but it's, it's, it happens. Yeah, you're right, and it's the same as the project I mentioned with the air source heat pump.

Jamie Mills:

Hmm, didn't really have those conversations at the time and and you know this was a number of years ago now and, to be fair, you know we weren't super experienced, we hadn't done many of them and this was the biggest house that we'd done with it. Uh, with an slc pump and again, under floor, floor heating throughout. And you know, I remember going there after we have a 12 months deep, 12 months defect period, right, so you go back to make. You know, to make sure everything's okay, and you know we have to do this often some things we need to pick up, you know door handles on the sticking and you know it's just to make sure that what we've done is going to stand the test of time. I remember going in there and it was sort of I think it was springtime. You know it's a little bit chilly outside and as I've gone and met the client, he's in his office like with a full-on fleece on I was like this is what I'm like all the time. I'm like we really should have insulated those walls, shouldn't we? You know? But again, cost-saving exercises but end up trumping practicality. But it's education actually over and above all of them. So you know it's our job.

Jamie Mills:

If we can get in there early enough to have those conversations. You know we've got someone within the business. You know who will take that lead for us, um, you know, maybe she should have been on the podcast, uh, but nicola will take the lead and and work through our sustainability schedule. Look at if it's actually feasible, look at what those cost savings might be, and and that's great. But for us it's about how do we get in there early enough with.

Jamie Mills:

You know, with delivery partners that we work with consistently, that's fine. You know, during that whole tender process, where you know it's a bit of a beauty contest, sometimes a race to the bottom, it is challenging to get in there early enough and I'm sure you have the same challenge. You know you get brought in after the contract has been appointed and that you know they're all that. You know foundations are in the ground. We should really think about, think of her m&E and sustainability and it's like, well, yeah, like six months ago would have been the right time. The next best time is now, but you may have missed the opportunity to do certain things at that stage.

Darren Evans:

But it's also just bringing it back to your experience at the top of Kilimanjaro is choose your pain. So the pain is. Well, I can save myself an advert to commerce, 40 grand by not doing this, or 100 grand or however much it is for insulation, and I can sit there and and walk back down the mountain, but then I've got the pain living with me forever of me being in my study or in my office or in the orangery or whatever. It is overd.

Jamie Mills:

So it's choose your pain. It is, but it's also even being aware that there's going to be some pain. I think that you know, go back one step, like this chap. I don't think he was aware, and you know we weren't back then. We weren't either. Really, you know we blindly follow what's set in front of us and you know we wouldn't do that again. But so, yeah, follow what's set in front of us and you know we wouldn't do that again. But, um, so yeah, it's being aware that there's going to be some pain, which one, you know, is up to you. But you're absolutely right. So, um, choose it, choosing your pain or poison.

Jamie Mills:

Now, um, and fit and and being happy with the help and down the line, I mean most of our clients. The money they spend with us is the largest single amount of money they're going to spend on anything in their entire lives. Not all of them you know those that knock about in Belgravia probably do this all over the world in their various estates. But you know a lot of our clients. This is it. So you want them to get it right. It's going to be a legacy for them. It's going to be, for their children, very different. It would be totally fair. Children different. You know.

Jamie Mills:

And and also you know if you look at things like bream and you look at other sustainable sustainability, um, methodologies, um, you know, if a house has been built to those standards, it will also hold more value. You know, down the line it will mean more as well. Because there, you know, there will be increased legislation, there will be increased compliance and that will require, you know so, when people are selling houses. That's going to be, you know, that's going to be like your new alloys on your car, oh, you've got your new alloys. All right, that's another four grand.

Darren Evans:

You know, whatever it's worth, now translate that to their property but people are also going to understand, just in the, in the general public, what these different certificates and different standards actually mean.

Darren Evans:

It's going to have meaning yeah where now it's like well, I don't really don't really quite get it. When I, when I first set the company up back in 2007, everybody thought I was bonkers, leaving a very well-paid job to come and set up in an industry that wasn't established, that no one really knew and understand and understood. But now, looking back on the decision that I made in 2007, I don't think I can find anybody that I speak to and say, look, this is my consultancy, this is what we do. No one says, well, yeah, I don't think that there's any legs in that. I don't see, yeah, but back in 2007, yeah, and so I think that, moving forward, you know, 2030, 2035, 2040, buildings that have got a certain standard when it comes to sustainability I don't think they're going to be looking back and saying, you know what, 2025, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have built it this way. I've done something different.

Jamie Mills:

No, you're right, yeah, um, and that 40 grand will seem like money well spent, right? So, um, yeah, I completely agree. And you just have to look at, whilst it's never fast enough and the adoption is never quick enough or absolute enough you only have to look at where we've come since 2007 to where we are now. You know where it sits among the zeitgeist, where it sits amongst people's priorities it's increasing. It's never enough, it's never quick enough, but it is increasing. And you know, like I say, in this group, this coaching group that I'm part of, every Monday morning there's about 40 construction businesses that sit on a call and we talk about our challenges and our problems. And you know, you bring your challenges to the group and we discuss it and, you know, hopefully people get to take away their solution or some ideas as to how they might solve a problem.

Jamie Mills:

Sustainability is coming up all the time. You know, know those conversations, a lot of it's around differentiation. Actually, how do we set ourselves apart from the, you know, from um? You know joe blog's builder, and sustainability is is something that's spoken about a lot. A huge bugbear of mine is the greenwashing element of it, or the soundbite element. Going onto your website and there's a couple of paragraphs um, what's the action behind that? You know, and so you know, within our business, you know, we've settled, we've, we've set out our own internal mandate you know, here, every job, here's what we're going to do and there's a bare minimum.

Jamie Mills:

It's it's the sustainability schedule that we create for every project. Um, you know, and sometimes we do that just in-house, sometimes we'll do that with the appointed consultant, but then having the opportunity to sit down and talk to a client about it and really trying to educate them as to why this makes sense and why don't do an option 10 if you haven't done options 1, 2 and 3. You're going to be disappointed when you've got your fleece on in your living room. So let's do one, two and three and being practical about solutions and genuinely bringing that to our clients. And you know we have those meetings ahead of time. Nicola will lead those and the team delivery team will support her in those.

Jamie Mills:

But that's how we're trying to differentiate um, the retrofit market, the renovation market, um, you know it, it's that's the tricky one to crack when it comes to sustainability. But if we don't try, we won't crack it. So we've got to keep trying and we've got to take one step in front of the other, and, and you know that's what we're trying to do on a daily basis and I think that concept of one step in front of the other, it's never going to be quick enough we're not running up, isn't never running on the mountain?

Jamie Mills:

no, it isn't. It isn't but what? You know what are the alternatives, and you know just, we go back to that, to that once again. You know, if we're not stepping forward, we're standing still while we're going home. You know, and, and neither of those two are an option yeah, jim, it's been great catching up with you.

Darren Evans:

I'm just wondering, just for the audience that we have got, if there's anything that you wanted to mention that we haven't discussed already, that you would like them to kind of go away with from this, from this conversation that we've yeah, look I one of the challenges I see across the coaching community I'm part of, and in the broader network.

Jamie Mills:

It leads us to the conversation we're having today and lots of the things we've touched upon those experts that are being employed to build these houses for you to renovate these luxury houses, for you to renovate and retrofit these properties. You know you're employing these people because they're experts, because we are experts at what we do, and if there's one bit of advice that I wish I could have all clients heed, it would be whoever you're working with, would be to engage early, to have those conversations way earlier. Identify someone you'd like to work with, negotiate with them if you can. Tendering is a solution. Everyone wants to be competitive, but in my experience, what tendering tends to do in the market we're in is it ends up rewarding the contractor that made the most mistakes right, the contractor that didn't understand a drawing or, or you know, missed something out or played a game with provisional sums. And the reason it's important in this context is because you know, if you go through that full design phase and you're already designing your interiors and then your contractors brought on, the ability to talk about sustainability has almost vanished.

Jamie Mills:

So, engaging early, having those conversations, um, you know, at the very beginning, identifying that contractor, that person to work with, that consultant to bring in um as early as possible, will get you the best outcome.

Jamie Mills:

You know, and we benchmark our projects, uh, you know, and, and those where we have been able to engage early has allowed us to enter into those and deliver projects with you know, more of those sustainable elements remaining in scope and not getting scratched out in red pen at the value engineering stage. Leaving that too late removes that opportunity. And I feel like you know, if you're, if you're responsible for the renovation or build of a house or a property, I think kind of all have a duty of care and that's the clients included to really look at sustainability, really look at what we're doing um within our homes and the way that we live in order to benefit the environment in the world we live in. I do think there is a duty of care to start having that very important conversation much earlier and I think the outcomes will be much better for everyone I love that.

Darren Evans:

I share that sentiment fairly percent myself. Yeah, because there is more you can do. Um, I love metaphors but I know that you like cars. If you drive and just focus your sight at the end of the bonnet, yeah, then your steering is going to be really erratic. The chances of you crashing is really high, absolutely, especially if you're going at speed. If you lift your eyes up and look to the horizon, your driving is going to be less erratic, so you're going to be able to drive quicker.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, and everyone, I'm sure, remembers the experience when they first started to drive and the panic and oh, I'm going so fast. You look at the thing and you're doing 15 miles an hour, but it feels like you're you're flying is is, the eyes were focused down at the edge at the end of the bonnet when you first started to drive, and it's only through experience that you lift those eyes up and you realize that you're able to take in more and do more by by looking further forward. Which is exactly the point that you made is get involved early because you've got further, you've got sight further down the road, absolutely, and you can.

Jamie Mills:

you can correct direction, you can correct course. Sorry, very easy. You know that one degree to the left or the right early on makes a significant difference by the time you get to your destination. Yeah, I completely agree, gio. It's been great, thank you. I've really enjoyed it, really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me Good.

Darren Evans:

Thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this. But before you do that, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you subscribed.