It’s hard yakka owning a trade business — Guest starring owners of Green Planet Plumbing, Jodie & Dan Murray

Jodie
Really good, thanks Andy.

Andy
So good to have you here today.

Ange
So Dan and Jodie, own Green Planet Plumbing, they’re based in Newcastle and they’ve been members of Lifestyle Tradie for over four years now. They’re joining us today because their story of how they overcame so many challenges that we are all faced with at some point, but still managed to come out the other side is truly inspirational.

Andy
Yes, it certainly is. So Dan, when you first started your trade business, he also had a second job, right? I mean, how did you manage to run a trade business and have a second job as well?

Dan
It was difficult. A lot of hard hours, and I was working full-time underground in the mines. There were sort of 50 hours a week there, plus any daylight hours. I could manage plumbing and admin work on top of that.

Andy
Mate, you’re an absolute machine. You’re one of those guys that just goes and goes and goes.

Jodie
He does. never stops.

Andy
Never stops.

Ange
So Jodie, what was it like for you having Dan working two jobs? I know you work part-time with two small kids, right?

Jodie
Yeah, we had two small kids at home and I was working two days a week at the Vets, so it was certainly a very busy time for us. Dan was, we kind of called him the ghost. He was just never around. There were signs that he’d been there, but he was never there. We had a goal all along and we knew that it wasn’t gonna be easy and that there would be sacrifice. So we just, you just do what you’ve gotta do and we’re very fortunate to have our families very close and we’ve got a great support network. And without them, I feel like it would’ve been much more difficult.

Ange
So, Jodie, you said something that was really important to me. You actually said the two of us together had a goal. We had a plan, and so we just pretty much dug in and just got it done. So can you tell me what that goal was? What drove you?

Jodie
Well, Dan had always wanted to run his own business and obviously I was very supportive of that ever since we met. When we were young, he was constantly reading books and studying business and that was his long-term plan. And obviously being his wife. I wanted to support him on that. I didn’t realize how driven much I would have to be involved. You’ve been involved in that plan in the end, but it’s been great for both of us and I absolutely love it.

Ange
So, so your intention was, your thought process was Dan will eventually come back from the mines and this business that we’d already started was gonna be his baby and this is where he’s gonna end up. Is that what you were thinking?

Jodie
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Working for himself was his goal. And it just, it takes hard work and, and that’s what he put into it. Definitely.

Andy
He’s a classic, isn’t he? Dan? You know, he has got so many ideas. He’s got so many things going, you’re like, you know, Dan, there’s no doubt about it. You do things a little differently to most people. For instance, don’t you own a gold mine? I, I think, you know, as always we say owning a trade business can be a gold mine, but, mate, you literally own a gold mine. It’s absolutely nuts. How’s that all going?

Dan
Yeah, let’s go. I do, I do own a gold mine, Andy, but it’s part of a gold mine. Part of a goldmine. Yes. You are nice to have the whole thing. But yeah, consider myself a bit of an investor and I like to play around with these sorts of things.

Andy
Uh, so come on mate. Tell me, tell me, are we, are we, you sort of at a point where the writing’s on the wall, you, you’re gonna be a billionaire tomorrow? Or are you finding gold? What’s going on?

Dan
There’s been gold found, but there’s no writing yet.

Andy
No, there’s no writing yet.

Jodie
Stay tuned.

Andy
Right? Stay tuned. And is it like, is it like you see on Aussie gold hunters, where you’re out there with the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Or you’re actually talking, you’re moving a shitload of dirt.

Dan
Yeah, it’s a, it’s a proper operation. Yeah.

Ange
Wow. Didn’t you know that? That’s the name of their boat.

Dan
Gold Fever.

Andy
Gold Fever. Oh, there you go. There you go.

Ange
If it’s not, it should be it.

Jodie
It might be tomorrow. Yeah, I’d say it.

Andy
No, there’s no, there’s no doubt about it. Danny’s one of those guys, I don’t know if you know Jodie, but I’ve been quietly getting these emails asking me if I wanna invest and buy into a whole plumbing supply chain at the moment. Have, has he mentioned that to you?

Jodie
No. Yes.

Andy
It just sneakily just comes across a few text messages here and, Hey Andy, look at this. Hey Andy, look at this. Hey, have you heard about this? Ah da. Ah mate, you’re a classic.

Jodie
Alright. There’s always something here is, welcome to my life, Andy . Every day there’s a new idea.

Dan
There’s opportunities everywhere. Andy.

Andy
There is mate. Just gotta look around.

Ange
Isn’t that what’s, isn’t that what we love about life though? Right? Exactly. You gotta love these opportunities. So, hey, I wanna take you back to this plumbing business and I wanna ask you a question, which is, what do you guys think are some of the biggest hurdles that you faced in business? And then how did you overcome them?

Dan
The biggest hurdle was going from a one man band. And, growing and having ideas. I, I always had an idea on what I wanted and I could see some of the competing companies and bigger companies in the industry doing very well and, and doing things much more polished than what we were doing at that stage. And that’s, that’s sort of when I reached out to you guys, I’d been following Andy’s emails for your Lifestyle Tradie’s emails for months. Yeah. And then reached out, put all those things into place once we started.

Andy
So let me, and obviously when you started with us, you were a one man show, but uh, I know you guys are constantly growing, but where are you sitting at the moment? How many staff do you have these days?

Jodie
Uh, we have . I have to answer that cuz Stan probably won’t know. We have 11.

Andy
Oh, you got 11 people now?

Jodie
That’s 11.

Andy
Yeah. Wow.

Jodie
That includes both of us. We’re essentially here full-time, so we’re included in that.

Andy
Great. So yeah, the business has gone from strength, isn’t it? And yeah. Um, it’s been great to watch you guys just smashing it on the way. So tell us what you have implemented in the trade business that’s probably made the biggest difference. Like you talked a bit about what you wanted and how the biggest hurdles and going from a one man show and getting the growth, but when you got started to get that growth, what’s been the biggest things that you’ve implemented in your trade business that’s really taking you to a whole nother level.

Dan
For me, it would be the office staff after implementing some of our systems and taking payment on site and all those little things, and then eventually growing to a site where we could have an office staff and have, where you’re not answering the phone yourself and making those mistakes. So, all the scheduling gets taken care of via the office. Most of the payments, everything just happens sort of automatically. It’s almost automated.

Andy
Yeah. So what you found was, as a one man show, the hardest thing was breaking through that bubble of three or four guys when you’re still trying to do everything to yourself and pushing through. So a lot of people talk about pushing through the $1 million barrier, you know, and pushing through, but you found at the beginning, you found it a lot tougher, and as you grew, things got easier because you had the right staff around you. And I know, um, Jodie, you’re in the office doing an incredible job and sometimes as you said, you know, Dan doesn’t even know how many guys you got, so you are hiring and firing and going down that path as well, but, Obviously you are in control of that office, right?

Jodie
Yes. Day to day. I take care of most of the day-to-day running of the business. Dan’s still on the tools. We still need him out. Yep. Working on the tools at this point. Yeah.

Andy
And that’s what you love too, mate, isn’t it?

Jodie
Yeah, he loves it.

Dan
I got a bit stir crazy in the office, so Yeah. I like to be a little bit busy.

Jodie
We like to keep him busy because whenever he is sitting, those ideas come and,

Andy
He’s buying another mine or something.

Ange
I could imagine he’d be really disruptive.

Andy
Was it, was it true? Is it true that he pretty much put your house on the market and bought another house without you even knowing?

Jodie
It wasn’t a purchase of a house but we had been talking and we had a long-term goal of buying a new house and he found a house to rent. So he told me 20 minutes before the rental inspection was booked that he was going, and did I wanna come with him? , um,

Ange
It wasn’t nice that he included you?

Jodie
Yeah. Um, I have a tendency to overthink things and sometimes that can procrastination and, and that leads to hesitation and nothing happens. So he just kind of, I think he gets that about me and, he, yes.

Andy
That was a big, big nudge mate. But, um, there’s no doubt about it. We’ve known you guys for a long time. You’d need to be a very patient person to be the wife of Dan. That is for sure. . So you’re doing an amazing job, Jodie. .

Jodie
He’s amazing. He’s got, he’s got so many ideas and so much drive and so much ambition and yeah, I’m just here to help and facilitate.

Ange
I think, I think you watch, you’ve actually also highlighted though the perfect balance of a couple, and I think this is the epitome of, of any trade business, especially when a husband and wife is involved because so many tradies, like you’ve, you guys have heard us say a thousand times that the guys out on the tools when you first started your business, and they understand their trade and they do really well and they’re likable guys like Dan and you come to come to your house and he sell ice to Eskimos. You’re just that really likable guy. But it’s not the only part of a trade business. You know, your billable time is really important, but this admin side, this what I class is back of house versus front of house. Your front of house, Dan, you’re out on the tools. That’s where your team is. But the back of the house is the admin side. If this bit doesn’t hum perfectly with regards to processes and streamlining and putting little links together to ensure everything is really harmonious. That to me is just absolutely gold for any trade business. And you guys have done that exceptionally well. Hats off to you both because, beautiful balance and it’s, it’s actually really hard to find that balance at times. So saying that, Jodie, what’s it like actually coming into this business? And you’ve got your own ideas. You are the one that runs that admin side, and, and now you’ve moved from being the partner. You know, you were friends once upon a time and had children and you knew he had this drive to, to have this business. And then you’ve left your position in the vet as a vet nurse and come into the business. And now your role is really different. You know, you, you, you’re working with him, you’re working together to make this business incredible, of which you have, but then you still actually have to balance the house. Like how, how does that work in your world?

Jodie
It’s busy. When he started with the business, I didn’t realize that I would become a part of it, but over the years I just sort of started to help out a little bit and realized I had a real love for it. I love coming to work every day. I love what we do. I’m really proud of the business that we’ve built and of our staff and I’m really glad for the career change. It was the right time for me.

Andy
Yeah. That’s awesome and you’ve definitely stepped up to the plate. Obviously we know what you guys have both been doing within the business over the years, and you’ve just gone from strength to strength, which we are very proud to sit back and watch you do that as well. Has Covid made much of an impact on your business over the last couple of years?

Dan
When, when it first happened, obviously there was that, that first month of a shock sort of afterwards, and nobody really knew what was happening. And we did actually downsize a little bit in that month. Um, we didn’t, we didn’t have work or we didn’t have a lot of work for that month, and we’re just lucky that we kept some existing, you know, real estates and things like that going, just keeps us going when it’s quiet, those sort of jobs. But the phone basically stopped ringing. But since then we’ve, we’ve been like every other tradie in the country and flat out, so, yeah. Yeah. Since that sort of wound off.

Andy
And do you guys look at that strategy? I know I talk about it a bit, but that strategy you have your hand in. Instead of having everything in one basket, you’ve actually got little bits and pieces. You’ve got a bit of residential there, and you’ve got a bit of real estate. As you mentioned, you’ve probably got a bit of strata, a bit of commercial. Is that the way, did, have you tried to really do that or it’s just naturally happened?

Dan
A lot of the strata stuff’s sort of come naturally. We’ve, we’ve had a focus to try and attract them and we haven’t been able to really attract them directly and it’s, it’s just comes. From word of mouth and doing things for clients, and that’s fed to that. They don’t send us work every month, but they do send us work and there’s a, there’s a lot of ’em that do send us little jobs. Yeah. And then there’s a couple of real estates that we do look after exclusively. And yeah, I’ve, I’ve always wanted to keep that in the background because of, there’s, you know, you, it’s free work. It might not pay a lot, but it keeps the voice and keeps the bills paid. Yeah.

Andy
And I just wanna, I just wanna touch on that mate, because you know, a lot of the time real estate work, you’re not making massive profits necessarily. Right? And, and I know where you are, you’re probably not doing a lot of units, you’re doing housing. You know, in that regard, it just ticks over. The boys keep busy and it’s just a bit of a gap filler for those gaps sometimes that you’re looking for when you’re doing your residential customers. So overall during the covid though, have you, you know, the, the buzzword for a lot of people was adapt, you know, and us tradies. We’ve had a lot of stimulus money. We’ve had a lot of help and you know, I talk to a lot of tradies and a lot of people have got more money now than they’ve ever had through Covid and they’ve like, ah, COVID o’s been incredible for me. , but if you had to adapt in any way your business for Covid or has it sort of been life as normal?

Dan
It’s fairly well been life as normal, but we’ve, we’ve tightened up on, we, we only do maintenance work now, maintenance and, and reline of sewers and plum and sewer work. That’s just our, that’s everything. So we don’t do any new builds. We don’t do any solar hot water really anymore. And we don’t do any sort of subcontract work for anybody. We’ve just really focused on what we do and, and we, you know, even bathroom renovations, we don’t go near.

Andy
Can I ask you why? Because I know you’ve done what we’ve done and you know your numbers, you know what’s profitable, you know what’s easy. We talk about our A, B, C, and D customers, all that kind of stuff. Is that what you’ve done? You’ve just analyzed your business and gone, where’s our money? Where’s our niche? Where do we wanna play? This is, we are just gonna knee down into these sectors.

Dan
Yep. We moved 18 months ago into a commercial unit and we’ve tightened up how far we travel. We’ve, we’ve just brought everything in and tried to be tighter and tighter and it’s a slow process, but you’ve gotta slowly weed out the customers you don’t want and the work that you don’t wanna do and, and the areas that you’re not willing to travel to. So,

Andy
Yeah, man, that’s gold because there’s so many trade business owners and people out there listening now that they know there’s probably a good 20 or 30% of their customers, they’re probably thinking, ugh. I probably don’t wanna work for them. I’d love to be working for this other 70% of my customers, you know? But you’ve actually put that in play and said, well, we’ve grown to a team of 11 now. We are happy with our level of size. We’re not just gonna keep growing for growing sake. What we’re gonna do now is we are gonna keep it at this level, get rid of some of the unwanted stuff, but have the ones that are high profit margins where we are gonna make the money we need and and really just take the hassle away from the business as well.

Dan
Yeah, that’s right.

Jodie
Yeah, definitely.

Ange
I love the fact that you’ve actually niched, not just geographically really pinpointed where you wanted to locate yourself, but you’ve gotten really sharp on market segmentation. So like you said, you’re doing a lot more residential work, maintenance specifically, and that pipe relining. So for you, this is really where the profit is. I love the fact that you know this stuff, this is where tradies get this so wrong, is the fact that they just say yes to every single piece of work and wonder why they’re so busy and finish a financial year going, why don’t I make any money? Like, why? What am I doing this for? It’s just so crazy. So the fact that you know this stuff, you look at reports, you look at metrics, you understand your numbers, you know when to say no to work and you know when to say yes to your work. And now we are getting really tight on these one percenters to ensure that we just squeeze the living daylights out of absolutely everything you’re doing. Systemizing, streamlining, making sure the team does everything the same way. Uh, just love it. It’s really good.

Andy
Yeah. Another question I wanna ask, we, we hadn’t, it just came to me then, but you guys bought a second business, is that correct?

Dan
Yes, that’s right.

Jodie
Yes.

Andy
And how did that go? Come on, come on. Give me something like, was this business up for sale and you just stumbled across it? Did you approach this guy and how did it all go?

Dan
I’d had the idea for a while, but I’ve always kept an eye out for these sorts of things. But this just happened. I walked into a Reese store and it was pinned up on the notice board. On a scrap bit of paper.

Andy
Right. And you just went in there and had a chat and negotiated a price that was a good price on your end. You know, how did he come to a price? How do you know what was good and what wasn’t?

Dan
First thing I did was turn around and the manager was sitting there and I said, does this guy pay his bills and does he actually do any work?

Andy
Yeah. Right.

Dan
And he said, yeah,

Ange
Great question.

Dan
Does pays his bills every month? Does he? He gets plenty of work. And I thought, oh, well that’s, that’s pretty good. Yeah. Cause it was just a one man band at that stage. So they’re very hard to work all that out. Then I met, went and met him and went through all the gear and just had a good chat, got a good vibe about it all, and he talked my ear off. He was quite the salesman. Then, he was going on holidays for two weeks and he said, here’s the phone that’ll prove it to you, and

Andy
Wow, wow.

Dan
That just kept ringing. . So we got the money organized. Jodi was a bit hesitant to start with.

Jodie
I must say. I was, this was another idea that Dan came to me about . Um, he said he literally went into Reese and he came out and said, I wanna buy another business, so I said, all right, what do we know? And it was a paper-based system. There was no database. There were a few red flags for me, and I said, you take it to our account and if he’s happy, I’m happy. And he said, we’d be mad not to do it. The timing was really good for us because one of our tradies was taking two months leave and we wanted to have enough work to sustain him when he came back, as well as the tradesman that we’d employed to replace him for that two months.

Ange
He was really credible though. The business that you bought, this older guy, he was super credible in the geographic area though, right?

Jodie
Yes, very much so.

Ange
So at the end of the day, in essence, you’re buying good. I imagine Jodie, how anxious that would’ve made you feel .

Jodie
Yeah. I thought the accountant would’ve backed me, but he was like, oh, you’d be mad not to do it. It really did work out well because apart from the fact that we got a, you know, we managed to buy a very successful business. Um, it worked out. Dan actually got a friend and a, and a mentor through it as well.

Andy
But he came over with the business as well. And how long has he been working? Or did he work?

Dan
I haven’t been able to get him to do any work at all. We’ve become quite close. .

Jodie
Yeah. Ah, they’ve got a good friendship and, and it’s, it’s years on, years down the track and they’ve maintained that. So there were so many positives that came from it.

Andy
Ah, that’s awesome.

Ange
I love the fact that he even had the gumption to stick handwritten notes up in Reese to actually sell his business. I would imagine the number of these guys that would just shut up shop and just turn the phone off.

Andy
Yeah, but you know what? I’ve just got this vision. He’s in his truck. Hello? The customer rings and goes, Hey mate, I need you to break that invoice down for 29 35. And he’s got, oh, I’ve had a gut full of this. He just got his diary out, wrote a bit, wrote on it. I want to sell my business, call here and stick it up on the board and you just happen to get in there, mate. So that is awesome. It’s a great story. And for anyone out there that hasn’t thought about buying another business, it’s a really good idea to, to look at that. There’s some killer businesses out there that if you can get at the right price, can make a massive difference in your business as well. You don’t wanna buy a business and tack it onto your business if you don’t have your business model right from the start. Cuz all you’re doing is bringing more headaches to a model in your business that potentially is already broken. Just wanna mention, Dan, you hurt yourself pretty bad, didn’t you? And can you tell us a bit about what happened?

Dan
We were doing a new build and doing the roofing on that new build and I rolled my ankle on the roof quite badly and ended up tearing a tendon in my ankle and slowed me up a little bit. Ended up having to have surgery later. We don’t do roofing work anymore.

Andy
Uh, can I ask mate? So firstly, you’re up there, you rolled your ankle and, and how long were you out of action? Like, I can’t remember. I know that, you know, you were sitting there with a big thing on your leg for a long time.

Dan
Yeah, it was, uh, it wasn’t, I’ll let Jodie answer.

Jodie
I’m gonna answer this for him because what Dan did as opposed to what the doctor recommended were very different. At that stage, it was still fairly early.

Ange
I was surprised. Yeah.

Jodie
No surprise. We were still fairly early on and we simply just couldn’t have Dan off the tools for the amount of time that it would’ve taken for him to have his surgery and for the recovery. So he had a few days off initially. Put his work boots back on and got back on the tools. But

Ange
Oh my goodness.

Jodie
12 months later when we’d grown to a point that he could get off the tools, he got the surgery then. In saying that, the doctor told him to stay on crutches and in a moon boot for six weeks, and then he could go to the moon boot. He was only in a moon boot after two weeks and on an excavator, so damn, Dan posing around our apprentice.

Andy
So yes, that’s, that’s Dan, all that classic Dan. So, guys, it’s been great having you here today and there’s a little game that we always play. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna throw three questions at you and I need you to answer them in rapid fire. They’ll take less than 30 seconds. Are you ready to go?

Jodie
Yes.

Dan
Yes.

Andy
Okay. First one, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

Dan
Employing the wrong people.

Andy
Employing the wrong people. Isn’t that It can definitely be a massive disaster.

Ange
Yes. Right people on the bus.

Andy
Definitely. Exactly.

Dan
So they can do so much damage to your reputation, to the whole business without you even knowing before you work out that they’re the wrong person. Long time.

Andy
Exactly. And how often do you hear of people saying, I’ve been wanting to sack that guy for a year or two years, or three years in that, hang on to that bad apple just corrupting the system and really causing a problem within the workplace. So yes, as soon as you get that feeling that this person isn’t right, definitely move them on. Number two. So what’s the one piece of advice you’d give other trade business owners?

Dan
Charge what you need to to make a profit.

Ange
So, perfect.

Andy
Perfect. Well that, you know, it’s short and sweet, isn’t it? We all know how many guys out there that just aren’t charging the money they need to make the profit they need to even use that money so they can grow their business. So if you’re not charging enough and you don’t have enough money to even pay yourself, you haven’t got enough money to pay your staff and you haven’t got enough money to market, and you don’t have enough money to take the business where you want it to go. So you definitely gotta make sure you make the money you need from the very, very start.

Ange
You need to understand your hourly rate. You need to understand what you are worth and stick to your guns.

Andy
So number three, what is the best thing about being a business owner?

Dan
Uh, knowing that you’re creating an asset that you can support your family and achieve your life goals through constant learning and there’s always something new to change or implement, try and improve.

Andy
I think for you guys as well. I know, Jodie, you’re saying you still work pretty hard and all of us work hard, but you know, with your boat and you’re out whale watching and I know Dan, you always love sitting in those videos through and you’re out the door. , you guys are, you know, you’ve got all these other interests as well. Do you feel like you’re starting to build that lifestyle business you’re always dreamed about?

Dan
Yeah, we absolutely, we, we’ve got, we can have time off whenever we need it. The business essentially can run by itself. Yep. And yeah, we’ve had holidays the last couple of years. , COVID sort of knocked that around a little bit, getting away. But yeah, you know, you can have time off and everything’s the same when you get back.

Jodie
So yeah, it’s, it’s given us the freedom to, to choose what we want. We both love working in the business and we both want to keep growing it and fine tuning it, but we can still take time off to go and, you know, watch the kids at school if they’re getting an award or having an Easter hat parade or, or take time off to, to have those really important family holidays and, and those sorts of things as well.

Ange
You guys are so awesome and we love having you as Lifestyle Tradie members. Thank you so much for joining us here today on the podcast.

Jodie
Thanks so much for having us, and thank you for your guidance over the years. There is no question in my mind that we would, we wouldn’t be where we were today without you guys. Yeah. Your support and guidance and, and just the awesome community you’ve created, Green Planet would not be what it is today without you. No question. So thank you.

Andy
Oh, thanks guys. We really appreciate it. I will say that I’ve enjoyed many laughs and having a quiet beer at our events that we have with you, Dan, you are a superstar. Ange’s got a little tear in her eye. That’s how much it means. And we love you guys. So thank you so much for being with us today.

Jodie
Thank you.

Dan
Thanks very much.

Jodie
Thanks for having us.

Andy
Yeah, if you run your own trade business like Dan and Jodie, or you are thinking about starting a business, join our Facebook group right now. The link is in the show notes. We share so many great resources and trade specific conversations. It’s such a great place to start your trade business journey, or if you’re sick of putting a hundred percent into your business and not feeling the love in return. Head to our website, lifestyletradie.com.au and book a strategy session with me. It’s a totally free chat where you can ask me anything that’s been on your mind, you know, or share your business pinpoints and together we can work through the solutions together.

Ange
What a great way to cap off our mid-season. If you like, most tradies could use a bit of health boost, then join us next week cuz we are joined by editor of Men’s Health Magazine, Scott Henderson. He’s just finished a shoot with the Hemsworth brothers.

Andy
Ah, come on. I’m better looking than those guys. Right, Ange?

Ange
Of course, babe.

Andy
Anyways, guys, we will catch you next time.

Ange
See you later.