The Good Builder Podcast

What does it really take to be a good builder? And we're not just talking about building great homes. Every now and then, a conversation comes along that reminds us exactly why The Good Builder exists. This is one of them. At just 32, Jordan Rogers has spent the past two and a half years building his Gold Coast construction business, J3 Built. He's already stepped off the tools, built a team and d...

We've spent the past few weeks travelling through Victoria, New South Wales and the Gold Coast, meeting builders, visiting businesses and hearing what's really happening across the industry. And one thing keeps becoming clearer: there's an enormous amount we can learn from each other. In this Monday solo episode, Az shares some of the conversations and lessons that have stuck with him, from Cheyne...

AI can help builders produce estimates faster than ever. But when your margins, cash flow and reputation are on the line, who's checking the numbers? Recorded live from the TPB Summit, Az sits down with Haydn, founder of Price A Plan, for a conversation about the future of construction estimating, the growing influence of AI and why experienced people still matter. Haydn didn't set out to build an...

We're taking The Good Builder Podcast on the road. In this special series recorded at The Professional Builder Summit, Az sits down with builders from across Australia for honest, unscripted conversations about running a building business, the challenges they're facing and what they're learning along the way. No presentations or rehearsed answers. Just real conversations with the people doing the...

Sydney home values are falling, but the NSW Government is pushing ahead with faster housing approvals and new measures to get projects off the ground. In this Monday edition of The Good Builder Podcast, Az is heading to Sydney to find out what's happening on the ground and what it means for residential builders. According to figures discussed in the episode, Sydney home values have fallen 8.6% fro...

Growing a building business should mean more opportunity, more profit and hopefully a little less pressure on the owner. But as many builders have discovered, more work and more staff don't always deliver those results. In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Cheyne Hall, founder of Build Launch, to talk about one of the biggest challenges facing growing construction busines...

Being busy doesn't necessarily mean you're running a healthy building business. In fact, chasing more sales, taking on the wrong projects and carrying too much overhead can be exactly what gets a builder into trouble. In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Aaron Ng sits down with Mark Vassallo and Paul Hogan, directors of Dixon Homes Sydney, who bring a combined 60 years of experience across...

Most builders can tell you who their customer is. But there’s a big difference between knowing your customer and actually designing your business around them . In this short episode of The Good Builder Podcast , Az looks at Queensland builder Mayde and the strategy behind its first-home buyer model. Mayde has built a clearly defined offering: 26 home designs, published pricing, two specification l...

What actually makes someone a good builder? For Ben from Stroud Homes Brisbane North, it isn’t simply knowing how to build a house. It’s knowing how to bring the right people together. Ben’s path through construction is anything but conventional. From roofing and carpentry to concreting, rigging, major commercial projects and eventually residential building, he’s built his career by taking on diff...

What actually makes a good builder? For Alex Palazzolo, founder of ATLI Building Co. in Melbourne, the finished home is only part of the answer. A quality build should be the minimum. What separates a good builder is everything that happens around it: communication, certainty, trust and the experience you give the client along the way. Alex brings an unusual perspective to running a building busin...

Does the energy feel a bit off at the moment? There’s a lot weighing on people. Cost of living, government decisions, what’s happening in our communities, pressure in business and the constant stream of things coming at us every time we pick up our phones. For this public holiday Monday solo, Az steps outside the usual building conversation to talk about something we can control: the energy we car...

What happens before a client signs a building contract could be one of the biggest opportunities for builders to improve their business. Site feasibility, zoning, overlays, setbacks, siting, quoting and working out what can actually be built on a block have traditionally meant manual checks, multiple systems and plenty of back-and-forth between sales, estimating and construction. In this episode o...

What does being a good builder actually look like when you strip away the systems, processes and business jargon? In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Mitch Thompson from Vista Built in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges for a conversation about building better homes, better teams and a building business you actually want to be part of. Mitch has deliberately taken Vista Built dow...

540 construction companies entered voluntary administration on a single day in August. It sounds catastrophic. But there’s an important detail buried underneath that number. In this Monday Builder Briefing, Az from The Good Builder takes eight minutes to unpack three stories Australian residential builders should have on their radar this week. First, we look at the extraordinary spike in construct...

Australia needs more bricklayers. But according to Andy Shaw, simply putting more apprentices into the system won’t solve the problem. Andy is the founder of Brickies Network and has spent more than 35 years in construction. He started as an apprentice bricklayer, built and ran his own bricklaying business, worked on the builder side of the industry and has spent the past five years looking closel...

At 23, Carrick was installing aerials when the ladder slipped out from under him. He fell two storeys onto a concrete driveway, broke vertebrae in his back and his wrist, and lost his job before the ambulance had picked him up off the ground. Six months off work. His mum washing him in the shower. Two decades on, that fall is why he does what he does. Now National Enterprise Manager at HazardCo, C...

Most builders only find out a customer is unhappy once it has already cost them. At the end of the build, in a Google review, or in the dreaded Facebook groups. And the referral goes with it. This week Az unpacks The Pulse by Australian Building Research and shares results from the builder trials that have been running quietly in the background. One short text at each stage of the build. Deposit,...

James Drever started as a chippy on the coast. Today he is CEO of QA Build, the fastest growing builder in Queensland, running more than 15 live projects across Australia with thousands of builds underneath them. In this episode, James joins Az to unpack how they did it. The philosophy is simple. See a roadblock, remove the roadblock, take control of the roadblock. When suppliers could not deliver...

Why does the building market suddenly feel quieter? Builders across Australia are reporting slower enquiries, longer decision times and clients holding off on signing contracts. In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az looks at what may be driving that hesitation — including interest rates, consumer confidence, construction finance, affordability and the growing gap between housing approval...

This episode belongs to you. When the $3.4 billion Bathla Group collapse hit, we emailed every builder and tradie in our community and asked one thing: what do you actually want to know? The questions came in fast, and some of them were spicy. Where did the money went is one thing. Whether the administrators always get paid while you get nothing is another. So we put them straight to insolvency pr...

Every builder is being told AI will change their business. Vinnie Vecchio is one of the few actually showing them how. Vinnie leads the coaching team at The Professional Builder, working with hundreds of builders across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. He joins Az ahead of the AI and Marketing Summit for Builders, on at The Star, Gold Coast, 15 and 16 October, where The Good Builder Podc...

He's one of the fastest growing construction profiles on Instagram, because he's saying what most of the industry won't. Johno The Plumber (real name Robert Cragg) has spent 24 years in the trade and runs Cragg Plumbing & Drainage in Melbourne, working across commercial and domestic. In this episode he sits down with Az to talk about the stuff that actually needs saying: falling standards, mis...

Two years ago, prompt engineering was going to be the six-figure job of the future and blokes were buying Mac Minis to run AI agents next to the drop saw. Both gone — not because AI was a fad, but because the platforms built it all in. If you're paying for ChatGPT or Claude, you're probably using about 10% of it. This week, Az walks through the other 90%: four features already sitting in your subs...

What does it take to become the most awarded and highest rated solar company in Australia? Not a secret. Just turning up for customers after installation. This week Az sits down with Leigh Storr, founder and CEO of Resinc, in their Brisbane office. Leigh has spent 24 years in renewables and built Resinc from a startup in 2016 into the country's most trusted solar provider. Over 5,000 five star rev...

Floor heating might be the most loved feature in a home that almost nobody asks for — and once the floors are down, it's too late. This week Az sits down with Rick Florence, managing director and owner of Coldbuster Floor Heating, a business that's been in the Australian market for over 25 years. Rick reckons only a tiny fraction of people building or renovating ever see a floor heating quote befo...