‘We are not the McDonald’s of the building industry where everyone’s a robot doing the same thing as the next builder,’ says Glenn Leet, Director and Company Founder of Integrity New Homes.

‘Every one of our builders is unique, has a unique business plan, has a unique position in the market, sets their own pricing, and decides what they want to build and where they want to build it. And we are then just helping them be successful with whatever they choose.’

Glenn began his career ‘building homes from the ground up’ – he has first-hand experience with all the challenges today’s builders face, which is partly what informed his decision to establish Integrity New Homes. He could see the benefit of creating a way for locally owned builders to access and use big builder business systems.

At the core of this incredibly successful model is one-on-one business coaching. The focus is on helping franchisees implement smart business systems tailored to their circumstances to improve efficiencies and profitability. It works equally well for new builders entering the industry who want to ‘do it right from the ground floor’; and for established business owners who are ready to take things to the next level, but don’t know how to get there.

‘We don’t think size is the key to a successful business,’ Glenn says. ‘The key to a successful business is profitability and sustainability. There is no magical turnover threshold that must be achieved. Simply increase your profitability and improve your lifestyle - that’s the win.’ 

Ultimately, Glenn adds, ‘we see ourselves as a supplier of intellectual property and training to the building industry. Our builders are not working for me. They’re running their own business with our help.’ 

Visit Integrity New Homes to find out more about the opportunities they have to offer.

A builder with integrity

As a young franchisee and award-winning builder, Morgan Burger’s philosophy is to ‘raise the bar and take it to the next level’ – in business and onsite.

A self-described perfectionist who’s never been ‘afraid of hard work’, Morgan Burger, builder and Director of Integrity New Homes Geraldton, won the Liveable Home category at last year’s HIA Mid-West Housing Awards. It was the first time he’d ever entered the awards – because it was the first home he’d ever built, top-to-bottom, himself. Quite an achievement for anyone, let alone someone in their early twenties.

‘Delivering that product, that house, I’m super proud,’ he says. ‘Just seeing the outcome of what you can achieve when you put your mind to it. We established a great bunch of trades on that project, and everyone did such a good job - it was a real group effort.’

Morgan grew up in Geraldton, a WA coastal town 400km north of Perth. He loves surfing and the laid-back lifestyle and spent his teens working around town and on crayfish boats. While he didn’t have a particular career path in mind, ‘It was definitely going to be outdoorsy.’ Eventually, residential building chose him. ‘The opportunity presented itself, and I was like, sure, yeah. I wasn’t manifesting on it very long,’ he laughs.

He began his apprenticeship as a concreter, but everything clicked into place when he switched to carpentry. ‘I got a passion for it and really enjoyed it. I was always interested in how can we take it to the next level? How can we get it better and better?’

Working for a different host trainer in each year of his apprenticeship, both in WA and on the East Coast, gave Morgan a well-rounded technical education. Along with a natural flair for carpentry, his uncompromising attention to detail quickly set him apart on the job site. ‘I just really care about what I’m delivering,’ he says. ‘If it’s not plumb, it’s not plumb. If it’s not square, it’s not square. You stop, and you fix it. It only takes five minutes to be a better chippy.’

By age 19, he was qualified and employed with a builder in Geraldton. The work was enjoyable, but soon Morgan was ready for more: ‘I got to a point where I was like, all right, I’m doing all this work but I’m not going to make much more money or be able to get much more ahead.’

When a friend approached him about some reno work, Morgan decided to strike out on his own as a sole trader. However – as many HIA members know – while apprenticeships teach you how to build a house, building a successful business is a whole other ballgame. There’s a lot to know and so much that can go wrong. 

He checked in with an industry mentor, Glenn Leet, Director of Integrity New Homes Franchising, for advice. ‘Funnily enough, Glenn had a franchise in town that he’d just sold to a bloke, and that bloke had skipped town.’ Glenn offered Morgan the franchise. Morgan took it with both hands and hasn’t looked back. The liveable house project was already booked, and Morgan says, ‘It was meant to be. It was a great job. It was a very good learning curve.

Obviously not knowing anything about running a business or running people, it was sort of straight in the deep end.’ It was a challenging but ultimately incredibly rewarding build: the client ‘loved it’ and described Morgan as ‘an absolute dream to build with’. 

Along with an award-winning project under his belt and as director of Integrity New Homes Geraldton, Morgan now has another carpenter and an apprentice on the books. He’s finishing a large farmhouse project and has two years of work in the pipeline. He credits all of this to the Integrity New Homes franchising model, which puts business mentoring front and centre. 

‘I’m super stoked with Integrity,’ Morgan says. ‘The support network and the coaching are second to none. The building industry can be a pretty lonely place. Everyone’s competing against everyone, whereas Integrity New Homes is a big hub of help.’ 

Being part of the franchise means that although he’s a small operator, Morgan is cocooned by the expertise and knowledge of an established, national residential building business. Whenever he has a question or a problem, the answer is only a phone call away.

Along with that professional support, Morgan leverages Integrity’s home design portfolio and established systems for trade agreements, paperwork, and quality control checking: ‘I’m not an accountant, I’m not a bookkeeper, I’m not a draftsman, I’m a chippy. I’ll focus on that and delegate the rest of that out. It just makes life a lot easier.’ 

While Morgan suggests he wouldn’t be where he is without Integrity, Glenn says he’s a super switched-on operator who has ‘got it as a business owner. One thing about Morgan is his passion for the industry. He’s both detailed as a tradesman and has a high aptitude for business. And that’s incredibly rare.’ 

For now, Morgan’s happy to be living where he loves, doing the work he loves. His five-year plan is all about sustainable growth. ‘It’d be nice to have a good number of projects on at once, but not too many that we start to lose control of the quality.’ 

His advice to other young apprentices looking to get a foothold in the industry? ‘Just care about your work, focus on quality and the rest will come. A good chippy will never be out of work.’

• Brand promotion: This article was compiled with contributions from Integrity New Homes.

First published on 2 April