Our story — Surviving the ups and downs of owning a trade business

 Andy
That’s right. Over the years we’ve helped so many businesses in Australia and New Zealand, we’ve helped over a thousand businesses set their businesses up the right way and, and gain success. So what are the, some of the things we’ve seen in the industry is that most tradies are set up to fail for three key reasons. And the number one reason is that TAFE only taught us the rules and regulations, and they didn’t really teach us how to be a business owner. And let me just explain that. You know, most of us, we go to TAFE and we learn our rules and regulations, and our boss teaches us how to be good with our hands. And there’s no doubt everyone listening to their beliefs, they’re an incredible tradie. But then what do we do? We get to a point and we go, well, hang on. I want to go out on my own. What am I gonna do? So you buy a nice new truck and you get some tools and you jump in your van or your Ute and you go running down the road to your friends and your family and you pick up all this work and for the first few months you’re thinking this is absolutely incredible. And then all of a sudden you get to about the six month stage and you’re like, wow, business is so different than I actually thought it would be. And it actually, then you start to realize, hang on a moment, no one has taught me how to run a successful business. And another reason tradies have been set up to fail is isolation. You know, making business decisions that start and stop with you, but you don’t know what you don’t know. And there’s a real point that as a business owner, it’s you and you only, and you need to make these tough decisions. But when you don’t know the real answer and no one’s really taught you how to do this, You become paralyzed and then you’re afraid of making mistakes so you don’t make the decisions at all. And I know that a lot of us tradies have a lot of mates that you chat to, but most of the time you can’t talk about the real big issues with your mates, can you? You know, you might have a beer and say, how are you going? And most tradies really don’t tell you the truth, they, ah, yeah, I’m killing it. Life’s good. I’m amazing. You know, they don’t really talk about their struggles and what they’ve been through, and that’s a real problem because if you don’t know what you don’t know and you’re making the wrong choices, or you’re paralyzed and you don’t make a choice at all, it is a real problem. The other one is, your business model is wrong. Yeah. They don’t teach this at TAFE, that’s for sure. But it’s like building a house. You’ve gotta get the foundations of your house right from the very, very start. Because otherwise, if you build a house on, on poor foundations, you know when there’s a storm or a cyclone or something brewing, there’s a real good chance that when times are good, the house will stand, but when times get duff, the house will fall. And that’s no different to most trade businesses. When you’re making money and the economy’s flying and you’re feeling good about yourself, then you’re doing okay. But it’s when the dark clouds start appearing and the economy’s not going so well is where most businesses fail. So when we talk about the business model, I try to look at it like a game of Trivial Pursuit. Now, I know I’m talking about when I was a kid, but a game of Trivial Pursuit is you run around the outside of the board collecting pieces of the pie. You need to collect six pieces of the pie. Once you’ve done this, you’ve gotta head into the middle of the game with your six pieces of the pie. You’ve gotta answer the right question to win the game. Now, I relate this back to business because most business owners, especially trade business owners, we run around outside of the board. We don’t actually collect all the pieces of the pie. Things aren’t going so well in business. You’re stressed. You’re struggling and you think to yourself, well, I’ve just gotta win the game, so I’ve gotta employ more staff. I’ve gotta market harder. And you try to go to the middle of the board and you try to win the game, but you may only have two or three pieces of the pipe, and those pieces of the pie could only be 25% done. You’ve got to get your business model right. You’ve gotta run around the outside, you’ve got to get all six pieces of the pie at a hundred percent. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got your business model, right? You get into the middle of the game and you will definitely win. And we’ve been teaching this to trade business owners for well over 10 years, and they’ve been getting some incredible results.

Ange
Andy and I have experienced the loaves of business ownership, but we’ve come out the other side stronger because of it and because of that, we thought there was no better way to start this first podcast than sharing our story.

 Andy
Yes. I started my business in 1999, Dr. Drip Plumbing, and we were an incredible business, but like most of us, I started as a one-man show with my van and my tools, and I drove down the road and tried to find as much work as I could. And over the years we grew extremely rapidly. At our peak, we had 17 tradies. 8 vehicles on the road, and life was really good. And I really built my business around ego really. And as the money came in the door, we had the best trucks, we had the best jetters, we had the best cameras, we had the best excavators. Everything was the best. We had the best uniforms. And we also had these big warehouses in the center of Sydney that said Dr. Drip. I walked around with that real sense that I was bigger and better than everyone else, and even that wore off to my tradies out in the field, and we were extremely profitable. We were a great business. Everything was running a hundred percent fine. And we were really from the outside, you know, past bosses and friends were like, you’re absolutely killing it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But then all of a sudden we’d grown so quick. Things just started to go a bit wrong and the wheels started to fall off. And what we realized looking back on it, was our business model was completely wrong. We went from making $50,000 a month profit to 50,000 a month’s loss. We had outstandings of 188 thousand. You know, all of a sudden that big ego of mine was starting to shrink. I had no control. You know, back then we didn’t have job management systems. We were using these yellow job cards and I had a pile of them in front of me and everything was just outta control. We had customers ringing saying, you have an invoice for us? And I’d be like, oh my God, where is that card? We’re losing things. It was completely outta control. I had the phone stuck to my head twenty four seven, seven days a week. I’d start in the morning at 6:00 AM, I’d finish at 8:00 PM at night, and then even when I did come home, I’d sit on the coffee table and still do work. You know, it was unbelievable. And it just came to that point where people were still looking from the outside and thinking that we were so good, and I just didn’t really know what to do. I just thought that I just had to work harder and I’d put in more hours and I’d start earlier and I’d work later, and I was just in this real spot that just really started to be crushing around me. But when it really hit breaking point was the day that I arrived home late one night and Ange said to me, you know what? I have had enough. I said, what? You’ve had enough, and I straight away turned into a fit of rage. I thought, how dare you? How dare you say you’ve had enough. I’ve done everything for this family. I work like 150 hours a week. I do everything. We live in a nice house. I’ve worked my ass off. I’ve put so much work into the business, and you just think that’s it. Oh, and you know what? You know, Dr. Drip was my baby and she was calling my baby freaking ugly, and I absolutely hated it. I walked out and yes, I did throw a few words towards Ange as I walked out the door, which I’m not proud of, and I walked away and I really didn’t come back for 24 hours. I sat up on the headland and it’s a place that I’ve always gone to think, and I thought, how dare you? I worked so hard. I worked so hard, and through the tears, to be honest, I started to realize. He’s sort of right. Am I really happy? Is this the business that we want now, you know, we’ve come from such high highs and now we’re going to such low lows, and I really don’t know how to get out of this position. And after a 24 hour period, I decided to finally go home with my tail between my legs, and I said to Ange, you know what, I’m really sorry, and I a hundred percent agree with what you’re saying. What Ange didn’t know though, was that I was taking money out of our mortgage to pay our staff. I was manipulating our numbers to make it look better. I was sitting down with my accountant in a panic with my, you know, my head in my hands and he’s saying, what the hell has happened in this business? And I just really didn’t know. And I dunno if any of you out there have been in this position, but it comes to a point. Where there’s so much going on in your head that it’s almost blank and your head is throbbing because there’s so much going on in your head, but you just physically can’t think. And I think at that time now, and that’s the time when most people really need help. I would say that is definitely my darkest day. So I went back to Ange and I said, you’re right darling. But I just, and I was crying. I don’t know how to fix that. And that was a real, looking back on that, that was such a big thing for me to go to my wife, someone that I provided for, for so many years to go. I’m stuffed here, and I, I just don’t know the answer. So I thought to myself, what am I gonna do? So I went to my brother and he’s a great businessman in his own right. And I sat down with him. He’s like, Hey mate, how are you going? You know, what’s this all about? You wanna come up for a coffee? And I sat down with him. He said, I’m in, I’m in trouble. He’s like, why? And I said, oh, business is not running the way it should and, and financially I’m losing money. And he’s like, oh, really? So he listened to me for about five minutes. He goes, you know what? Andy, you are one of the best entrepreneurial business owners I know. He said, you’ll be right. Just get back out there. Get back on the horse and you’ll make it work. And I walked away from that coffee thinking, oh my God, I am here crying out for help. And people were just pushing me away. So I went to a passing boss and I said to him, how are you going? He goes, oh yeah, I’m great. He. What about you? You are killing it. Everyone in the industry is talking about you and your business and how far you’ve grown. You are killing it. And I turned to him. I said, well, it looks great on the outside, but on the inside I’ve got some real big challenges. And he edged as close as he could to me with a massive grin on his face. He’s like, oh, really? What? The grass isn’t always greener and I thought, F you mate. Like seriously, I’m coming to you for help. Do not run it in my face. And it’s the next sentence that sent me off. And he said, there’s always a job here for you, Andy, if you like. And I thought, how dare you put me into that. So I walked away again and I just was like, I have no one to turn to. I looked in the arena for trade business coaches and someone that could help me in business and there was none. But we did realize, didn’t we Ange? Education was key, and when I came to you, you were my rock. Then it went from I was always your rock. To me really being , the one in tears and, and you saying, okay, this is how we’re gonna fix it.

Ange
We actually realized that everything started from the truth. It was a really interesting conversation and I liken it to actually. You know, looking at this, we’re starting at A, and we’re trying to get to B, and our conversation first had to B. Well, what’s 12 months look like? You know, some people say you should look at maybe two years away, five years away. But I was like, you know what? We just need to know what 12 months looks like. And we said, okay, here are our options. We can either close the business down, we can move away to a place where no one knows us. Or this business actually is a wicked business. It just seems to have fallen apart. Plus, we had a team of 17 who had married, children, mortgages, and we had a responsibility. So it started with us telling the truth. We actually had to write down, you know, Everything that Andy had been doing, we needed to look at all the finances, understand where all the money was. We sat with our accountant and stripped line by line. We had to look at every single one of our tradies and say, if you had to stop this business today and re-employ your team tomorrow, which ones would we keep? You know, which ones would we hold onto? We literally ripped the part, the whole business to shreds, and when we actually understood where we wanted to get the business. Because we knew it was gonna take some work, but at least we knew that those late nights were actually gonna be worth it. 

 Andy
And I, I think the interesting thing is when we strip the business back, and I just loved listening to what you were saying then Ange because you actually got tears in your eyes. It’s still a memory that we both have, we talk about often, and it’s a turning point out of our life and we both don’t regret it. It’s certainly something that happened and we are better for it. We started to strip the business apart and it was amazing. Within that next month I’d taken, we’d taken $300,000 worth of expenses. We were a multimillion dollar business, and we cut our expenses by 300,000. I think that’s a lesson to everyone learning out there. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one man show or you’ve got a big team. There’s so much shit you’ve got in your business now that you are paying for on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis that you don’t know. I would say that most people, I’m listening, that are listening right now, I could come into your business and probably strip $50,000 minimum of expenses out of your bottom line. So make sure you definitely check that. 

Ange
So once we actually realized that talking the truth, like understanding what we wanted to do, Andy and I rolled into, okay, we know what we want the business to look like, but how on earth do we get there? And that was a really interesting conversation because at the time there was no one, there was no like business coaches for instance, that exclusively worked with trade. And we put on a coach and within three months we were coaching him because he didn’t understand business, especially trade business. Yeah, it was, it was awful. We just had our first daughter, our first baby, and we’d had her through ivf, so that was like a whole nother issue. So here I was at home and couldn’t travel. And so Andy is the one that had to put his hand up to pretty much seek out the best of the best and would go to so many different training courses. You know, the best of the best in marketing, best of the best in PR, best and the best in people and systems. 

 Andy
And we’ve spent over the years, well over 300,000, I’d probably say well over 500,000 now. You know, and it’s the best money that we’ve ever spent because sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know. And, and, um, we talk about this, it’s sort of like buying, you know, buying that speed and buying what other people have already created. And it’s a proven track record and it was amazing. And, due that period within 13 months of us being at that point where I was crying and not in a great place, within 13 short months, we’d completely flip the business around, hadn’t we? And we’re back on track. 

Ange
I remember the day that we literally sat down and reflected on the business and said, oh my God, this thing is just so different. We’ve actually achieved what we wanted. It looked completely different. We’d got the business to a point where it was profitable again. And Andy actually came to me one day and said, Uh, I’m feeling a little lost. Like I don’t really know what I’m doing in the business. I said, what do you, what do you mean ? I thought you, uh, I thought you wanted to get to a point that the business was epic and your ultimate goal was to actually get off the tools. That’s what you wanted, was not to be involved in the business every day, and you’d achieved it and you didn’t know what to do.

 Andy
Yeah, it was a really funny situation and since then I’ve had quite a few business owners talk to me about the same thing. You know, we completely systemized our business and structured our business and near the end of that, I came into the office and our staff was like, Hey, what are you doing? I’m like, well, coming into work, and so what’s going on? And they’re like, oh, you don’t need to know. And they were really pushing me away. So I went and sat in my office and I was like looking around going, okay, what am I gonna do now? And I was really lost, And it was actually a real struggle that day. And yes, I went home and said to Ange, you know, I had a terrible day because no one wanted me anymore. And she said, but that’s exactly what you wanted. And I said, I know . 

Ange
It’s a really different position to be in when you can actually go on a family holiday. And for the very first time, Andy didn’t have a phone stuck to his head the entire time, and he was actually really present with Hannah. And we would actually come back and the business was so streamlined and systemized and everything was profitable and we would go, oh my God, this is just like a breath of fresh air. It’s just so different. 

 Andy
Yeah. It was, and I, we just got the business back on track and it was amazing. And listen, we worked harder than we’d ever worked before, but we worked on the right things, and I think that’s a really important message. You know, you can work hard all day long, but if you’re working on the wrong things, you’re just not getting the results. So it’s the old saying, you know, don’t work harder, work smarter. And we finally it switched. And with all the education and everything around us, we knew we were good business owners and I did know how to run a business. I just had to get that self-belief back in myself and get back to Jim and get that ego going a bit and just believe. And you know, we had the business, my family, everyone around us at stake. So we turned that around, as we mentioned, in a short 13 months and everything was going great. But I was a little bit lost and at that time I had a mate give me a call. Um, his name is Chen Tai. He’s a mentor of mine from years ago. And he rang me and he said, so Andy, how’s things going now? And, and I’d told him the story and what we’ve done. He goes, oh my God. That is just incredible. He goes, imagine how many trade business owners and contractors around Australia, New Zealand, around the world are in the same position you were in and want to get their life back. And I’m like, yeah, that’s, that’s right. So we got off that phone call and it sort of finished at that and, and I thought about it, the phone rang again about an hour later and he said, Hey Andy, I need you to fly up to the Gold Coast. And I was like, okay. He said, I want you to bring Ange and I went, okay. I said, for how long? He goes, no, fly in at nine. You can leave at four. And I said, okay. I said, what are we gonna talk about? He goes, I’ve got a new business venture for you. I said, okay. He said, it’s gonna cost you $7,000. Now, that was 11 years ago. $7,000 with everything we’d been through was like a bucket loaded cash. It really was. I’m like, really? He goes, it’ll be the best money you’ve ever spent. Just trust me. So I put 7,000 in his account and we traveled up there and we sat down in a hotel lobby and he presented to me pretty much what we do today, which is Lifestyle Tradie and a big shout out to my mate. Chen Tai, an absolute superstar. This is how we started our business Lifestyle Tradie.

Ange
It’s pretty much that question, Hey, well why don’t you teach them every trade business owner experience the same thing you do. So no better person to actually be that person that leads from the front. 

 Andy
A hundred percent. And I think the thing that he mentioned as well, that really resonated with you and I Ange is we didn’t want any other trade business owner or contractor to go through the same heartache and struggle with their families. You know, I’m, I’m just gonna call it, you know, mental health and divorce rate in the construction game in Australia and around the world is absolutely terrible. And that is because you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s a part of it. And we didn’t want anyone to have the same challenges that we had, did we?

Ange
Too many tradies just do this trial and error, right? Everyone seems to think that they know best. But like we’ve highlighted and through our own experiences and even on reflection of what Andy even did through TAFE, we totally realized that Tradies just did not get taught how to be a successful business owner. So it was so cool to be able to implement that now through Lifestyle Tradie. This is what we do. This is where our passion is. There is nothing more fulfilling. Knowing that these guys can actually gain the profit that they want inside their business to actually gain control properly with their team and have everyone on side. And actually get to a position where they actually do have time. You know, we talk about this topic of freedom, and freedom actually means different things to different people. It’s either people decide that they actually wanna stay on the tools with their tradies, but they can honestly take time away, earn profit, and come back to a streamlined business. And it’s like humming or they say, no, I actually do wanna get off the tools and manage my team from above, but I wanna be able to take time off whenever I want. You know, things are cushy and there’s profit coming in, or they say, actually I’m really ready to set myself up to actually maybe sell the business or sit in that business passively and have someone else actually run that business. So freedom now is what’s really critical to arrive at this location and this is what we’re teaching trade business owners all the time. 

 Andy
Yeah, and we look back now, we’ve helped thousands of trade business owners all around Australia and New Zealand, and I do look, and I’ve had many, many talks with especially the wives and no doubt Ange you have as well and how we’ve saved their marriage. And I suppose there’s two parts of every business and there’s a lot of people that don’t have a partner or a wife in the business and they say they never do and that’s totally fine and, and there’s some that want their wife or partner in the business. But when you work together as husband and wife in the same business, it certainly can be a challenge at times, and there’s certain ways you’ve gotta deal with that and yeah, because all the money’s coming from just one business and you’ve gotta be making sure that business is absolutely humming. 

Ange
So perhaps you guys out there, even hear yourself through listening to our story, and what we want you to know is that there is a way to actually stop running on this wrap wheel. We know because we’ve lived it, we’ve solved the problems now in our own trade business. 

 Andy
And now it’s about working so many other businesses, right? 

Ange
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. So what’s up next? So glad you asked. I want you to listen in as we’ve got some awesome business tools and ideas to share. Plus, we’re joined by marketing experts, business entrepreneurs, and body language experts to name a few. And if anything hits home and you wanna chat about your personal situation, then I urge you to head to our website, lifestyletradie.com.au. And book a free strategy session with our team or with Andy, it’d be great to have a chat with you to actually understand what’s going on inside your business and help you work out how to change your world.

 Andy
Yes, definitely. I’m definitely looking forward to having a chat with you all and I hope the podcast we’ve got coming forward, you’re in for a treat. It’s gonna be absolutely awesome, and we’re so passionate about this and we’re really looking forward to it. We’ve got a heap of incredible things lined up. So I hope you love it as well. So we’ll catch you all very, very soon. 

Ange
See you then.