Top-tier team culture, knowing your numbers and finding freedom! Guest-starring Lifestyle Tradie members, Damian and Hannah Connor from Evermore Plumbing

Andy
It’s awesome.

Ange
So you know what we thought it was only fitting to give our listeners just a little insight into their worlds.

Andy
Absolutely. These guys are superstars. So everyone, let’s give them a round of applause, Hannah and Damian Connor. Woohoo.

Damian
Hey guys, it’s great to meet you.

Andy
Yeah, it’s so good to see you guys again and have a chat with you today. So let’s kick off with some of the basics. Damian, what made you decide to start your own trade business?

Damian
Uh, look, I’ve done all the qualifications, uh, and decided one day, we wanted to have a family, basically, we wanted to have kids at home. I wanted to generate a job where Hannah could work from home with the kids, and I wanted to be able to go to nine o’clock, 10 o’clock rehearsals or whatnot if I needed to, without having to ask a boss for that. I didn’t think I was the world’s greatest plumber or any better than the next person. But in doing that, I noticed it. There was a bit of a hole in the market that no one else, no one else had a business where you could go and do dance recitals or whatnot because you had kids. So we wanted to build a business that was genuinely family.

Andy
Yeah, that’s awesome mate. And you’re right, there’s a lot of business owners out there that just physically don’t have the time to do this stuff and there’s a lot of people out there working for other business owners and it’s tough to be able to say, Hey, I want some time off. So it’s a great opportunity when you have a trade business, isn’t it to be able to do what you want when you want, but you’re still gotta make sure you’re making the money as well. Right?

Damian
Yeah, that’s it. And I was genuinely happy where I was working. I didn’t have any resentment or think I could do any better than them. I just wanted to build something different.

Hannah
I would say as well that he very much saw a gap in the market in that for women, Employers are a bit more understanding about flexibility when it comes to kids, but for men, they’re just expected to work. But men wanna go to their kids’ school things just as much as the mothers do. And so that was something really important that he wanted to be able to offer.

Damian
Yeah, the adaptability isn’t present in the trade industry businesses because it’s not as such a recognized thing with males. It’s more of a recognized thing for the female to be able to go and look at it for the kids.

Andy
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Ange
I totally agree. So that being said, we talk about the importance of, you know, the office being half of a business, right? We talk about guys out on the tools being one half of a business, being the front of house and the office being what I class’s back of house. And I know Hannah, you’ve really taken ownership of this role inside your business. So when did you actually start in the business and what made you wanna become a part of the team?

Hannah
Uh, I’ve been quite heavily involved since the beginning. I used to work a full-time job and I would get to work at five o’clock in the morning so that I could do a few hours of work for Damian before anybody else arrived. Uh, and then I’d walk home from the train station doing letterbox drops Along the way, I had my little map where I’d be highlighting where I’d done. So I was always kind of doing as much as I could. We actually had our first interview with Andy over the phone from a conference room at my work while I was on my break. So I was just trying to sort both things at once, but it was definitely joining Lifestyle Tradie that gave me the confidence to actually leave my job. Uh, I basically reached a burnout point when I realized that I was doing basically two full-time jobs in one, you know, one person’s day. Uh, and Lifestyle Tradie kind of gave me the confidence, I suppose, that there was a role there for me. It was only Damian and one other person, or maybe two other plumbers at the time. But yeah, we sort of just decided to take the leap. I was so nervous about it. I thought I had to get a part-time job as well. And then I just did it and within two weeks I was irreplaceable.

Damian
Yep. She took the phone the first day and gave a crack. She was telling me she wouldn’t take the phone for a month cause she needed training and then she woke up in the morning and said, gimme the phone. I said, yeah, done.

Ange
Well, let’s be honest, Hannah is a go-getter. You know, I don’t think you shy away from anything and that’s such a huge asset to you.

Damian
Our first revenue job, our first invoice was a referral from Hannah.

Andy
Oh, nice. It was interesting. Um, I forgot all about them when we first had that chat that you’re sitting in at work and now went, oh yeah, that’s right. That was almost four years ago, I think so, yeah. It was quite a while ago. So can you let us know a little bit more about you, your business and what the business is like now? Where you’re located, how many people do you have in your team? And what sort of type of services do you guys offer?

Damian
Yeah, so we, um, we’re based out of Brisbane, Northside in Rhino Hills. Essentially we live three minutes down the road, so we chose the nearest commercial estate to home. Yep. So it’s nice and easy to get to work. So Brisbane, Northside, we covered the entire Brisbane region. Our business we have nine people at the moment, and our main thing is we are a service industry, so we are service plumbers, uh, or maintenance plumbers, some we’ll call it. Basically, my general rule of thumb is I tell people if the block of land is flat and has no nothing on it, we’re not touching it. Yeah. If it exists, we’ll touch it. So that doesn’t limit us. We got industrial, we got high rises, we’ve got stratas, we’ve got insurance. We’ve got domestic next door neighbors, their food factories in the industrial as well. So high rise hotels, we don’t limit ourselves. As long as the place exists, we’ll fix it.

Andy
Beautiful, beautiful. And that gives us a really good understanding of where you are, and I know you guys are, uh, doing an incredible job as well.

Ange
So, in your journey, what has personally been the most challenging aspect of being a trade business owner?

Hannah
For me, it’s definitely the emotional side of things. I guess we both feel like our business is our baby, which means that as soon as anything goes wrong, it feels like I’ve personally done it, even if I had nothing to do with it. It’s just I take everything quite personally. I’m quite sensitive. Um, so separating work and home, I’ve made a rule. I can’t check my emails past 7:00 PM because if we ever get a bad email, I won’t sleep for 3 days. And that’s,

Damian
you take it personally.

Hannah
Yeah, I take things very personally. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s the hardest thing for me.

Damian
I think a lot of business owners would struggle with that cuz you get that, you get a bad email from a cranky client cause they’re at home at 7:30, 8 o’clock at night and obviously you take that on yourself, which is what my biggest issue would be with deep burden. The word we’ve talked about a lot lately, burden seems to be sticking with me as a business owner. You take all the burdens of the business, so I feel burdened with getting all the guys paid each week for their kids at home, for their family. I’ve got the burden of even when things are going good, then I make sure they keep going good. Uh, the burden to keep them happy. Uh, the burden when we don’t have the work to keep them working, uh, keep them paid. It’s just everything comes back to you. If it’s bad in business, it comes back to you. If it’s good, it does seem to go back to the guy who actually did it. Cause you’ve gotta give them the praise. It’s bad, comes back to the business owners. So there’s a massive burn.

Ange
What, why, why is that right? Us as trade business owners, we are always so forward focused and you know, we’re always driving for that next thing and our to-do list is never ending. Uh, and we are always giving praise to our team, which is really important. And they definitely need it more than currently. It’s almost like they’re demanding it, but we never stop to really pat ourselves on the back about how incredible the journey has been, like the successes we’ve had or even some of the challenges that we’ve learned from. I do think it’s really important that we take that opportunity every now and again just to stop and reflect and say, you know what? Well done. Like, you’ve really done such a good job over the last quarter or half a year, one year, whatever. Why is it that we do that?

Andy
I think the big thing is being a business owner, you’re gonna cop criticism. In this world, it doesn’t matter who you are and what you do, you’re gonna cop criticism. I, I totally understand, Damian. When you run a trade business and you have a lot of staff and everyone’s looking at you, you’re like, oh, wow, what have I gotta do? And that’s the joys of being a business owner. We all know there’s some high highs and there’s some low lows. It’s definitely a tough time, but, I, I’d like to say there, Hannah is, I had one of our members reach out to us recently and, and it was a scathing attack on his business and, um, he was the same. He was like, oh my God, I haven’t been outta sleeping. I feel sick to my stomach. He says, deep down, I know we should have been better, but it’s actually hurting me so much. It’s mentally draining. I, I, it’s just affecting me. And I just said to him, I get it. You know, most business owners that are really successful, They have that guilt because we’re always trying to be number one and be the best we possibly can. But sometimes you’ve just gotta take the criticism on the chin, say, no worries, I understand. I get it. We’ll fix it. I’ll be better next time. And then you gotta try and just go, gone, forgotten. Put new structures and systems in your business so that never happens again, and move on and get on. Because in anything in life, if someone’s critical of you and you take that on board, like we all do muds sticks, there’s no doubt about it, but if we let it get the better of us, it really isn’t good for the business, um, you personally, or anyone around you as well. So, um, there’s no doubt about it. I know you’re a lot better at that these days, Hannah, but business is tough, right?

Hannah
So tough. It’s a lot harder than I think anybody realizes before they get into it.

Damian
Oh no. Business is easy. Everyone’s giving a crack mate.

Andy
Get out there. But I think too, also with social media at the moment and needing five star reviews and all this kind of stuff we need, it’s just very easy for someone to take a potshot off you at you. It’s a low blow and sometimes it’s not even your problem. It’s not even anything you have done as a business, it’s them, and you really just want to walk around there and just put one straight on their nose. But we all know we can’t do that. But sometimes you just gotta take a chill pill, take some deep breaths, and, and as you know, we’ve gotta combat it, the, the right way to reply to these comments. And so, you know, it’s tough.

Ange
Well, I actually have a question about that. You guys have a team of nine, right? And making mistakes is actually quite normal. And although you’ll do your best possible job to train your team the way you want them to represent your brand out in the field directly with a customer, like they can have a bad day too. And although you say to them, leave that stuff at the door, you gotta show up with a smile on your face. What do you do? Knowing full well that this team does represent your brand. What do you, how do you coach them?

Damian
It’s how you respond to the issues. Like, there’s always gonna be a problem. People aren’t perfect. We’re working with their hands, with our tools, uh, and I’ve followed all our major clients. The real judging point is when there’s a mistake, how you handle the fixing of that mistake is what judges whether you get more work. Sometimes in the private residential, it’s a bit harder to do because people just jump on Google, bad reviews business rip you apart and there’s nothing really you can do about it. And you could, as Andy said, go around there and punch them. But

Andy
I didn’t, hang on. I didn’t recommend it to anyone. Listen, I said I would like to do that, but I wouldn’t. I’m a calm head these days. Now I’m a bit older, in my calm head.

Hannah
We have a, we, we tell all of our team that if they, if they make a mistake, mistakes are going to happen. But as long as they can explain to us their thought process as to why they did that, we will back them 100%. And then even then, sometimes they just say, I have no idea why I did that. That was stupid. And that’s going to happen as well. Everybody has off days. We’ve got plumbers that have really young kids. Sometimes they don’t sleep. And they are a bit of a wreck the next day, it’s going to happen. Everyone is human. I make mistakes. Damian makes mistakes. So we can’t expect anyone else to be perfect.

Damian
As long as they take, take ownership. Don’t make ridiculous excuses, like just tell us what’s going through your head. And as I say to all guys, we talk about that and it makes sense, which normally does. Or even if it doesn’t make sense, we talk about what would make sense and then we just don’t do it again. As long as it doesn’t get repeated, it’s not really a problem. Yeah. Everyone will make a mistake.

Andy
And that’s the perfect way to do it and and I used to say the same like when you get people that are telling lies or white lies or manipulating what really happened, Most time business owners, we pick up on that and they’re spinning it and it just doesn’t sit well with me and with some of my guys. I’d say if you do that, all of a sudden I don’t trust anything you’re saying. Yeah. So just be real, be honest. We all stuff up at times and that’s okay. Obviously we don’t wanna do it all the time, but everyone makes mistakes, as you guys said, but it’s about telling the truth because I think every business owner just wants to understand, as you said, the process and, and what happened. You know, you don’t wanna be one of those bosses that just absolutely rips your staff a new one. Because if you are one of those guys, especially in this environment, you probably won’t have many guys for long.

Damian
Yeah. That’s the old school way, mate. It doesn’t work anymore.

Andy
It is. Exactly. Exactly. So what I want you to do, I mean, you guys, uh, got a super business these days and things are going incredible for you, but I just want you to cast back to the, to the days before Lifestyle Tradie, and I just wanna give us a bit of a rundown of what business was like before then and, and how has it really changed to where you are now?

Damian
So for us it was, uh, we started this Lifestyle Tradie pretty much in the first year.

Andy
Wow.

Damian
So we were nine months into business. So we weren’t much chopped then. Uh, we decided, we hired our first full-time employee in about nine months. I’d had services before that. Uh, and then we went to a few coaches to have a walk around. Went and saw a Lifestyle Tradie cuz master plumbers Jason sell put us onto you and said these guys are brilliant.

Andy
Come on, you’re a champion, Jason.

Damian
He’s a good dude. Yeah. So we went, had a look and um, sure enough, Andy, it just resonated with us. You ran a business that was a plumbing business that already was successful, could run well. So I wanted to be like you and then you said something where I resonated with me. If you said, uh, we all get taught how to be good plumbers and good tradies, but we don’t get taught how to run a business. They go to uni for that sort of stuff, mate. Yeah. None of us know how to run a good business, so we need to get something on board. It’s gonna give us coaching and compared to the other school, you’ve actually done what I want to do. So we signed up with you. That was nine months in. Just found out, hired our first, uh, full-time tradie, now what we’re about 5 years in. So he’s been with us for over four years. He’s still here, that first time employee.

Andy
Wow.

Damian
And we’ve grown substantial, uh, well sustainably, not substantially, sustainably each year. We’ve roughly doubled in size to the point where we’re at nine people now. Um, we haven’t done any great jumps and leaps because I’m not that kind of person. I’m more of a sustainable, slow build. And now we’re, yeah, now we’re much bigger. We’ve got a warehouse, got a whole bunch of vehicles, jetters. Nine people. Uh, great team.

Andy
And I think what you guys said, which really makes sense to me, was you guys were smart enough to sort of go. We need a hand with this and we need it now. So there’s no doubt about it. The best time to be involved with us is sooner rather than later because once we get the structures and the systems and the procedures in place, and you know your dollars and cents, you understand your cash flow, you know where your business is at any given time, it’s so much easier to grow. And you guys have done it well. You haven’t exploded and gone too big, too early. Like some people you’ve, you’ve just doubled in size every year, which is a huge achievement.

Hannah
Thank you. No, we were very, I think we kind of play it safe to a degree. We are happy with the growth that we’ve had, but we don’t do anything crazy. We make sure that it’s the right decision before we do it. And so far it’s worked well for us. Uh, but yeah, Lifestyle Tradie, we just knew we wanted to be, we wanted to be organized. We didn’t wanna just kind of be a baller gate. Going hard. We wanted to do it properly, so I think that’s why we jumped onto it. And I think we’re, we’re far from perfect.

Damian
We still have a border gate though. Plenty successful people board the gate.

Hannah
But yeah, we still, yeah, now we’re still, we’re still not perfect by any means, but we’re much more kind of structured than we were back then, or the direction we were heading, we would’ve been in a different situation. Whereas now we actually feel quite stable.

Ange
We talk about getting, obviously, the foundations of a business, right? Hey, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a startup or scale up or end up in this kind of, um, sell up phase of growth, you just end up with different challenges, different questions to solve, and we’re always aiming for business excellence regardless. And as your team changes and you’re dealing with different personalities and different types of clients, this aim of business excellence never gets removed. So I agree with you that it will never be perfect and that’s okay. I would rather just have progress, right? I’d rather just keep up. What I love about you two is the fact that you are a husband and wife team, and this is very common in the trade industry. You know, the female either organically coming in or having actually made the decision to come into the business, which is your situation, Hannah, and you two seem like a truly perfect team. You, you do work seamlessly together. It’d be interesting to know what you think each other’s strengths are as to how you work well together in this business.

Andy
Are we trying weaknesses in as well, or is it a strength?

Damian
Ooh, don’t start fined.

Andy
Be really funny if you did that.

Hannah
This one’s easy. Damian’s strengths are his leadership and his management. So he’s like, he always says that he hires tradies that are better tradesmen than him, but he’s, it’s his leadership, his management. That’s kind of where he’s a bit of a rockstar. Um, he also loves numbers. He’s a massive Excel nerd, so he, as Andy would say, knows his numbers well.

Andy
And that is the trick there. Though, if you know your numbers, you know how to grow your business right?

Damian
That’s it. Uh, Hannah’s, Hannah’s strengths are pretty easy too. Uh, she’s got the general one with the females versus the males. We’ve gotta understand a male, we can only do one thing at a time. Yes, we can do it very well. Multitask. We can’t do it, own it guys. We can’t do it. The ladies can multitask and Hannah is one of the best at it that I’ve seen. She can do 10 different things at once, and you, none of the plumbers, everyone who looks at her computer gets dizzy. We just can’t keep up with her computer. Yeah. Uh, and her empathy, uh, genuine empathy, she generally actually cares about everyone. It’s been like that since the start. Like we haven’t changed anything along the way. She actually cares about the guys and the team.

Andy
Yeah. You guys have got an amazing business, an amazing culture. You, your team, I just want you to talk about, you know, how do you develop this and how do you keep the morale so high to make sure that you’re getting the best outta your guys all the time?

Hannah
I think it’s, it’s just what Damian just said. We genuinely care about them. Like I think of them as my little family, that my little work family, and I love and adore every single one of them. I want them to be happy. Which means if they’re having a bad day, we kind of take it personally and we see what we can physically do to make that better. Uh, like if it’s a super hot day, we’re in Queensland, so we have sweltering days and as we all know, plumbers are out, they’re digging for eight hours straight. I’m sitting in an air conditioned office. If I can take 20 minutes out of my day and $3 at 7-Eleven to go and buy them a slushie and that’s gonna turn their whole day around, that’s the least I can do because they are working their asses off for us, while I sit in front of a computer. I think as well, we, our team is just, they all get along. They actually want to be around each other. They actually enjoy each other’s company. Like we hired a lovely 20 year old admin girl, and I don’t think she quite realized it along with the job. She’s got herself seven new big brothers. They’re so protective of her. She got a boyfriend and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man be quizzed quite so much about, he’s, he’s a concreter, he’s not a plumber, so they’re a bit iffy on that. But yeah, she’s,

Damian
Sorry, Harry.

Hannah
He’s gonna hate hearing this, but she, they all, they all have just taken on the big brother role with her like, I, I can, I’m so proud of them, how much they’ve all, and they’ve all helped her. If we’re not there, she brings any of them and they give her help. We all just kind of want, we all have each other’s back and we want to help each other. So I think it’s easy in that we just actually like each other.

Damian
See, I told you empathy was her strength though. I just have so many feelings.

Ange
That just doesn’t happen overnight, though, right? Like what you are talking about. So how do you think that started for you? Did that just start with regular toolbox meetings or were you literally inviting them around to your house? Or do you stay back for beers after work? Like how did that really begin? I, I think our listeners would be quite interested to know if someone wanted to replicate what you have, how do they start growing this culture and friendship?

Hannah
I think we, we actually hire strategically so that, that is more important to us than growing the business, is having the right team. You can teach them skills. You cannot teach someone personality.

Damian
And I also say authenticity. So we’re, we’re authentic about it. We generally actually do care, uh, putting it on and fake it. It’s not gonna make it in this day and age, uh, plenty of people are putting it on and faking it to try and be that way. You can’t do it. People see straight through it. There’s not enough employees. Uh, and they’ll jump ship until they find someone who does.

Hannah
And I think it’s just taking the time to actually listen to people. We have had probably 75% of our team crying in one of our offices at some point. Men, women. We’ve, we’ve had them all crying and talking to us about things, and we take the time, like we don’t care that they’re, listen, the last time Yeah. We, yeah. About personal life. We don’t care that they’re late for a job. If they’re having a rough day, they need to talk about it, and you need to give them that time and be someone that can listen, otherwise they’re not going to see you as family.

Andy
Yeah. And I think that’s a really big one there. And I know that like on average, over the years Dr. Drip staff would stay for about six years. And, and that was something that was really critical for us as well. Uh, and getting to know their partners, getting to know their family, getting to know what happens on the weekend. Getting to know them if they’ve got issues, as you said, being able to communicate with them. I mean, this is all what brings in a good culture. And I’m just gonna have to say what Damian said was a hundred percent correct there. There’s a lot of businesses that know they need to do it and they try and do it, but deep down they don’t really give a shit and it comes through that way. So you’ve really gotta genuinely show that love and, and that’s the way, I mean, let’s face it, it’s very, very hard keeping staff for a long time these days. But if you can build that connection, it doesn’t matter what’s going on around them, they’re just not looking and not taking any notice of it. Because they love the family and the group. And um, I think Damian was saying on the weekend that you’ve only ever had one guy leave and he went to do his own business. Was that right?

Damian
He went to join the firies. Guess what? I wouldn’t join the firies. Try to join the firies when he became a plumbing apprentice. Plumbing Apprenticeship was his backup for firies.

Andy
Wow. Wow. So mate, that is unbelievable. That’s a pretty good strike rate right there, isn’t it, Ange?

Ange
Absolutely. We all know that, um, although you pay well, wages aren’t necessarily the thing that your team actually wants. They wanna be appreciated, uh, and know that their opinions are heard and the culture you’ve created is like second to none, and I so hats off to you both.

Andy
And I’d have to say on Instagram when I see you rocking up with a tray of slushies and crispy cream donuts and pizzas, and you name it. Handing out to your tradies like that is a real killer way to make sure that they understand that. And the way you explained it before Hannah was like, I’m in an air conditioned office and I’m

Ange
so true. Right?

Andy
That, that is, that was beautiful. And I know that is why you guys and, and what Damian does as well, that is why you guys have such a great culture. There’s no doubt about it.

Damian
And on that one, I see that we talk a lot about these slushies and these coffees and all that that gets dropped out. Funny enough, Hannah used to do that for about a year before we started putting it on Facebook or Instagram. We got a new employee and he turned around. He goes, that’s really good that you did this. You should share it. But she sat around and said, well, no, I don’t want you guys to think that I’m doing this, the publicity stuff. I’m actually just bringing you a coffee or I’m bringing you a snack.

Ange
That’s sweet.

Andy
Beautiful.

Hannah
Yeah. I refused to put it on Instagram because I thought that then they would think I was only doing it for a post. But then they all sat me down and they were like, no, we know why you’re doing it. Now film it.

Andy
Ah, it’s killer.

Ange
That just goes to show that they’ve got your back just as much as you’ve got theirs. So over the course of time, um, you know, you guys haven’t been necessarily immune like the rest of us, to the, to the effects of kind of what’s been happening in the industry with the pandemic or whatever. Can you share, like what kind of impacts you’ve seen and what you think your key to survival has been?

Damian
Yeah, so everyone’s felt the impacts. This is one of the hardest times of business that I’m seeing, uh, changing of the guard is what I like to call it. That’s what I talk to everyone about. I call it changing of the guard. Andy and I would know back in the day, the old ways were you went to work, you got paid. If you got paid a fair rate and you had to secure a job, well that was a jackpot. That’s all you cared about.

Andy
Yeah, exactly.

Damian
Um, That doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone can get a secure job. Uh, it’s the old ways that are no longer working cuz guys want something nice to work. They wanna be treated right. They wanna be paid well and they don’t wanna work ridiculous hours. Uh, like we don’t do any of the on-call or after hours work for that reason because guys wanna be home with their families. Yeah. So it’s a bit, the old ways are no longer working. Some people are losing a lot of plumbers because they’re not changing with the guard. Um, as my wife said to me on Friday when we were flying out to Sydney, uh, I was having a little bit of a whinge about how everything’s changing. It doesn’t make any sense. How come I can’t just do this and that? And she goes, the world’s changing though, mate. Get over it. Try to light a cigarette on a plane. It might change.

Andy
Yeah. Well, it’s so true. It’s so true, isn’t it? The world has changed and if you are not constantly adapting in your business, looking at the future, thinking three years and in front adapting with what you’re doing, then you’re being left behind. There’s no doubt about it.

Hannah
I think it was actually Ange that said to us that the beauty of small business is that if you are, if you’re a big cruise ship, you have to make all of these turns to turn, you know, nine degrees this way. And it takes weeks for that change to take effect. But if you’re a small business, you’re like a speedboat and you can zip around as soon as there’s obstacles. And Ange said that, and that has stuck with me so. We just try and keep our business like a speedboat in that we come up on things and, and we have to completely change direction. But we are also, we’re a very diverse business. Like what Damian said at the start, we have a lot of different kinds of clients. So obviously when the pandemic first hit, We had a lot of hotels that just completely dropped off because nobody was staying in them. But then at the same time, everybody was at home and nobody could go on holidays. So our private market went through the roof. And so we just kind of tweaked our marketing and everything kind of tweaked, targeting more towards domestic and we obviously had a slight drop off, but it was very unsubstantial and that’s because we could just change if, uh, if hotels were our only client, we would’ve had a major issue. But we’ve kind of got a fair few different industries that we work in. So as they kind of, it’s sort of an ebb and flow and we’re constantly adapting as one gets busier and another one drops off.

Damian
And just recently we had the private works dropping off because the interest rates are rising. All of a sudden the insurance works were repairing the houses from the floods. So something always fills that gap because of diversification. So diversification’s key, I’d say adaptability is also key. You gotta accept the change is unknown. And as you touched on there, Andy, like survival is all about being adapted all this day and age. Because everything’s changing. It’s not what we’re used to and team training and awareness. So you gotta train your team up. Give them all the, we did room training and rigid training the other week for them to be the best skilled they could possibly be. And when I say awareness, I mean mental health. Uh, it’s a big thing these days. Be aware of where your guys’ heads are at and work with them. If any of them are struggling, we’ve had one struggle before and we’ve just set out some of the other guys, Hey, give this guy ahead. If anyone’s going home early, he’s going home early. If he reached out to you, just listen, I don’t care if you need to stop your job for half an hour, listen.

Andy
Yeah, that’s mate, and that is, and that’s being adaptable definitely in this day and age, and that’s why you guys are superstars. I mean, obviously you recently won, I think it was the biggest award of the night at the MPAQ Plumbing Awards. And can you just give us a bit of a breakdown, you know, you took out that award and tell us why awards are important and, and maybe even what you needed to do to win the award?

Hannah
Uh, so I wrote the application, so you have to apply to nominate. Um, I wrote the application and it was just, you basically have to prove how you do service excellence. Um, you have to give clients as references. They will call and interview them and talk about what you do differently. Um, but in line with our culture, I think that happy people make people happy. So if you’ve got a team that is happy, they’re then out there leaving happy customers. Whereas if you’ve got someone that’s just been screamed at or they’re grumpy, that then reflects onto the customer. So for us, service kind of starts with our guys. That’s why they are number one, they are the most important thing because then the ripple effect of that is it all goes out to the customers. So I guess what it takes to win is obviously just providing that exceptional service, but also you have to have the evidence to back it up. So you have to have repeat clients, you have to have physical evidence that you can give to them as to, to prove what you’re doing is actually working.

Damian
What’s so important to us is winning this award, it’s a recognition of the entire company. It’s a very distinguished award. It’s one of the, it’s one of the prize ones as a plumber in Queensland to win. Um, and look, it goes, it goes to the entire team and it means a lot to us. Gives a lot of recognition out there. It’s great for marketing, great for selling, as you can see. Andy and Ange, you guys have jumped on and advertised it for me, so it must be a good little award. So it goes really well to advertise your business and get your name out there. I even had the plumbers who work for people congratulate us on it, so, Yeah. Goes one way to get these awards.

Ange
It does.

Andy
Definitely does.

Ange
A true reflection on your business. You don’t, it’s not a light win like it, it’s not easy to win. And to your point, great reflection on the business. Great reflection on you two as business owners. Incredible reflection on your team because you cannot be doing this on your own. They’re out there representing your brand every day. And I’m sure it will help to attract fabulous new team members into the future, cuz they all wanna come at work with a multi award-winning business.

Andy
And I think you just hit the nail on the head with, when we talk about changing of the guard, I think if you’d gone back five years ago, everyone would say, the customer’s always right. The customer’s the number one thing. You guys are sitting here going, no, no, no. It’s not the customer. Our staff are our number one. We protect them, look after them as their number one. And we will go into bat for them, full tilt like a family. But obviously we need to make sure if they’re happy, they’re gonna be giving exceptional services out to the residential or commercial, wherever you’re dealing with as well.

Damian
A hundred percent.

Hannah
Yep. Hundred percent.

Damian
Happy. Happy workers. Happy clients.

Hannah
Yeah.

Ange
The service excellent award is a great one to win. So again, huge accolades to you. We’re huge advocates of even just applying for awards as you well know. So I, I’m stoked you’ve gone through the process. I think even forcing you to sit and think about the questions and reflect on what you’ve been doing in business is a really great exercise for any trade business. So, for any of the listeners, you know, we would definitely urge that you participate in awards because even just going through the question, Not only is that a fantastic review for you just to kind of see where you’ve been and make you think about the future, but it from a marketing perspective, whether you’re a finalist or whether you are like these guys and you actually win an award. It goes so far from a marketing perspective that people even trust you more as a business. So for Hannah and Damo, you guys know that a lot of our listeners are trade business owners and a hundred percent I know that they’ve learned so much from listening to this podcast. That being said, what would be your top three tips to any struggling trade business owner who’s listening right now?

Damian
Uh, those three top tips would be, work on you. Mental fitness is very important. Ride the waves, they’re normal and don’t ever undervalue yourself.

Andy
Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and they’re real, you know, they’re real top notch those answers, mate. Cause I’d have to say that is one thing that most trade business owners out there don’t do. They don’t look after themselves as number one. They, everyone else is number one, but themselves, and they don’t look after their mental fitness, as you said. They don’t necessarily eat the right foods. They don’t necessarily look after their body, they’re not at their premium. Because if you are out there on the tools and you have a lot of stress, you need to be at your very, very best. So that is a great answer there.

Ange
Well, as the analogy goes, it’s uh, Sitting on an airplane and wearing that oxygen mask drops. They’d tell you to actually put the ox oxygen mask on yourself first, don’t they? Before they say to actually assist anybody else. And I think that’s really true for trade business owners. So, um, I definitely second it. Yeah, you are absolutely number one because if you have a team, how do you help them be the best they possibly can? Because that’s your job when you’ve employed them, is to be their leader and show them the way and get the best out of them. You can’t get the best out of them if you can’t get the best out of yourself.

Andy
And you mentioned the ups and downs of business. It doesn’t matter how small, how big, how poor your businesses run or how great your businesses run. There’s ups and downs always in business. Yeah. But what happens is those downs in business aren’t such a big impact on your business when you’ve structured and systemized and, and set it up the right way.

Ange
Running a trade business is tough. There’s no doubt about that. And one of the things that is so important for all of us is to be resilient and that you are gonna get knocked for six all the time. It doesn’t matter what stage in business you are at and your gift to yourself is to look after yourself so that you can actually pick yourself up every single time, because that’s the power of being a trade business owner. Every single time. You must just get back up and keep going.

Andy
There’s no doubt about it being a business owner is like being a heavyweight boxer. You’re gonna cop it to the face. You’re gonna hit the deck a couple of times, but if you just pick yourself up and keep working on it, work with people that can help you take your business in the right direction. At the end of the day, you’ll be holding that world champion buildup going, I am the winner, baby. Guys, it’s been absolutely awesome having a chat with you, but we always play this little game. I’m gonna hit you with three questions and take up to 30 seconds to answer them. Are you ready to play, guys?

Hannah
Yep. Let’s do it.

Damian
Sure.

Andy
Okay. I’m gonna start with this one. Hannah or Damian, either or both of you can answer this one. If you didn’t become a trade business owner, what do you think you would’ve ended up doing?

Hannah
I probably would’ve ended up being a lawyer because that was my original plan.

Andy
Wow. Wow.

Hannah
I have recently been thinking that if this doesn’t work out, I think I’d like to be a Librarian.

Andy
Go back to Summit Cruisey.

Hannah
Just wanna hang out with books all day.

Ange
See, that’d be a tough song.

Andy
What about you Damo?

Damian
Mine’s easy. I’d be a pilot. Hundred percent.

Andy
A pilot.

Damian
Pilot, yep.

Ange
What sort of plane do you wanna fly?

Damian
If I’ve done better at school, I would’ve been an Air Force pilot, but I look, I gotta understand, I wouldn’t have been an Air Force pilot, but I would’ve been flying some.

Andy
Nice. Nice.

Ange
That’s awesome.

Andy
I think everyone wants to go after top, come back out, everyone wants to be an Air Force pilot again. Uh, well

Damian
I was born in the generation of the first Top Gun, so ever since then I’ve wanted to be a pilot. Ah, actually starting my pilot’s license now.

Ange
Are you?

Andy
Well done.

Ange
Awesome.

Andy
That is awesome. Awesome. So this question is just for you, Damian. What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

Damian
Oh, that’s easy. Touching back on, uh, mental health. So not working on myself enough at times and my mental fitness. Yeah. And the stage that a lot of us all gone through when you have those stages where you drink too much.

Andy
Yeah, mate, I’ve been through it as well and, and I don’t think people talk about it enough. You know, and, uh, we all, let’s face it, you and me, Damo, we love beer. There’s no doubt about it. But sometimes that love of a beer on a weekend can start to creep into the week and then can start with one, and then it ends up being three or four. And even though I went through a stage where I’d go, I just had a little scotch, and then that little scotch was like a triple scotch. And then once I had a triple scotch, I was glowing. I’ll go, Ooh, I think I need a beer. And then I’d have a beer. Ooh, I think I need a red. And you know, there’s times in your life that when things aren’t going as well or you’re having a few struggles, we sometimes use it as an excuse. And I always say this, that if you are feeling that way or you know, you just drink a little bit too much. If you train well, you’ll eat good food and you look after yourself. But I can tell you now, if I am having a beer, I am dead set, not going home to a salad with Ange.

Damian
And that also touches on you always gotta remember if your team’s unhappy, it comes back to you. Yep. If there’s a problem in the team, or anything going wrong in the team that usually comes back to their leader. Heard that from Wayne Bennett the other week and it’s dead so true.

Andy
Yeah, it is. That’s true. So this last question is just for you, Hannah. What do you love most about being a Lifestyle Tradie member?

Hannah
So I know everybody says community, so I’m gonna say something different. Yes. I love R&R and I feel like they’re perfectly spaced. So leading up to the R&R, we both start getting tired and grumpy and like our motivation is low and then we’re just hanging in there until the R&R and that, I think we get the most out of them. Probably a big part of that is the community, but just the R&R are a weekend to like reset. So I’m, yeah, I’m gonna say R&R.

Andy
And just so our listeners know, we run an event for a couple of days over the weekend and we call it the R&R. And, um, the main reason we run these events, we run them at around a three and a half, four month period. And, and realistically, if you’re a part of a Lifestyle Tradie or you’re not, I believe every single business owner has to take time out around three and a half to four months, three times a year to reflect on your business, to take a chill pill, to just pull your head outta the sand sometimes to stop being a heavyweight boxer and give your face a chance to clear up and just get back to the basics and understand that you’ve done a lot. You’re doing great and you’re on the right path.

Ange
You need to elevate yourself, don’t you?

Andy
You do.

Ange
You need to actually be able to get yourself to this bird’s eye view and become Damo in that airplane. Yeah. And be able to say, okay, lay the land. We get so entrenched in what we’re doing, so R&R been reignited and reunited and so to your point, uh, perfect timing, I agree with you, Hannah. Just perfect time to go. Okay. I need a really good kick up the butt. Uh, I need to stop and actually reflect on what I’ve actually been doing so that I can kind of gather my thoughts again and actually go in strong. And that reunite part about being around other people who are trying to work on their businesses the same as you and are gonna be so open at helping is like a huge, huge benefit to every single one of us. It’s a great response. Love it. Absolutely fabulous. That was so amazing. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It’s always great to have our members share their journey.

Andy
Yeah. You guys are absolute superstars and we love catching up with you in person and also here today as well. So a huge thank you. I know all of our listeners would’ve got so much out of this podcast today.

Hannah
Awesome. Thanks for having us guys.

Damian
Thanks for having us. It’s been great fun.

Ange
We love showcasing our Lifestyle Tradie members cuz it’s proof in the pudding, right? If you are willing to learn and you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and really accelerate your business journey, then becoming a Lifestyle Tradie member is literally a no-brainer.

Andy
Absolutely. You can find out more about a membership by booking in a strategy session with me where we can chat a little bit about your business right now and where you want to take your business in the future, and how Lifestyle Tradie can help you get there. Head to lifestyletradie.com.au to book it today.

Ange
Well, Andy, I think that’s a wrap for today.

Andy
Yeah, it’s time for a smoker break. Meat pie from the cervos.

Ange
I dunno about that.

Andy
No, no, I don’t. I don’t eat meat pies from the cervos these days. My body is a temple.

Ange
Body’s a temple. All right, see you next week.

Andy
See you later.