Inspired Builders Podcast

A builder was telling us how heavy the business felt. Every decision from scratch, and a couple of good people gone. So we asked him why he does what he does. He said he'd written it down somewhere, and went off to find it. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Andre break down The Winning Picture, a clear answer to why your business exists that you can say from the heart and y...

One builder now rolls out an actual red carpet when a prospect arrives for their first meeting. The team lines up, each person introduces themselves, and the prospect gets a small welcome gift on the way in. It started with the team listing every touchpoint a client has with the business, from first contact to handover. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Podcast, JP sits down with Mick Hawes...

A family budgets for a renovation, say $500k, and the quote comes back at $610k. Too much, so they put it on hold. Then close friends lose someone in a car accident, and the extra $110k stops mattering next to a home where the family can be together again. The only question left is whether their builder made it easy to come back. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break do...

A testimonial is a Google review with a camera pointed at it. A case study follows a homeowner from the worries they had before signing to what life looks like after handover. Done right, the next prospect watching feels like they're watching themselves. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Franco break down The Guide Position, the reason a builder who plays the guide in the c...

You were taught it as a kid. Never leave a pot on the stove and walk away. JP says the same rule applies to every deal sitting in your pipeline right now. The buyer has not disappeared. They are waiting, and the builders who back off to "see what happens" are the ones who come back to a burnt pot. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down The Simmering Pot, a...

Drive past a Gold Coast waterfront home and you see a fence. Take a boat down the canal behind it and you see the whole house, the view and the work that went into it. Most of what builders create is only ever seen from the road. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, Corne and JP break down The Handover Window, the short stretch before the keys change hands when the story of your build is...

In this week's episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down Expand, Don't Contract, a one-move-a-week approach to growing your building business while everyone around you pulls back. They also cover last week's rate rise and the house approvals number that barely got a mention, plus a builder whose client came in with a $400k budget, saw a first price of $650k, cut it...

The RBA lifted the cash rate again yesterday. If you have a client borrowing for their build, or releasing equity to fund it, the bank can still change the rate on that loan at the final hour. Most builders will wait to hear about it. A few will pick up the phone first. In this week's episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down The Front Foot Call, the conversation to have w...

A client falls in love with a design before they ever meet you. You price it properly, it lands way over their number, and the job dies right there. Builders lose work every week over things the client never needed. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down Must-Haves and Nice-To-Haves, a way to design to the client's number and walk them through the quote so they...

One of our builders shared a win with JP on Friday. Two new projects, one for his next door neighbour and one just down the road. Here is the part worth sitting with. On the neighbour's home, a new build in the $1.5 to $2 million range, he was 10% dearer than the next builder, and the clients signed with him anyway. When he explains why, he barely mentions the quote. He talks about his process...

A builder's client was deep in preconstruction. Fourth design round, price creeping, months on the clock. Then their kid rolled his ankle at soccer, and that night the parents parked the whole build. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down The Energy Transfer, a one-call move for restarting a deal that has stalled in preconstruction. Your client started this proc...

What happens when an entire industry realizes everything they believed about profit and pricing was wrong? Builders often feel isolated, competing on price and mistaking high cash flow for profitability. This episode is about exposing the shocking false beliefs and financial errors holding thousands of Australian builders back. What if you could adopt the mindset and systems of the top 1% of perfo...

Every enquiry that walks through your door is cold. The referral too, and there is a reason for that. Trust and timing are two different scales, and the one every builder measures is the one they cannot control. In this episode of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down The Given List, a one-site walk that finds the ten things you do on every job that no client has ever heard, and wher...

Corne and JP both rode Brisbane to the Gold Coast this year, ninety eight kilometres with thousands of others on the start line. Corne crossed in two hours thirty five, which is roughly where he always lands. His average heart rate was 178. Every other year it has sat around 160. JP came in about sixteen minutes off, and was surprised it wasn't worse given how he felt on the day. Same times on...

The "One Percenter" Approach to Custom Building with Natasha of Regal Homes How does a builder move from "just another contractor" to a trusted advisor that clients won't make a move without? In this episode, we sit down with Natasha from Regal Homes in Canberra. Natasha is what we call a "one percenter"—someone who obsessively looks at how to improve her business...

Somewhere in your system there is a list of people who asked about building with you and never heard back properly. Not because you did not care. Because it slipped. Most builders write those off as tyre kickers. They are usually just people who felt ignored. In episode two of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne break down The Ghost List, a seven-day process for reopening five dead deals with...

Some of Ben Garraway's clients get to handover and tell him they're sad it's over. For a builder, that is close to the whole game. Ben runs Garraway Developments in Mildura, building around 30 homes a year across both sides of the Murray. He sits down with JP to trace how it happened, starting with the one video of his own home that changed his inquiry overnight and moved the business...

Two builders made the final two on a tender. One had been building that exact type of home for 30 years. The other was cheaper, newer, and lost the job. Price was not the deciding factor. Track record was. In episode one of the Inspired Builders Show, JP and Corne unpack what track record actually means to a client, and why you can build a credible one in a week rather than waiting three decades f...

The builder with the best client stories keeps winning work in 2026. Often at the highest price on the table. JP and Corne get into why social proof pulls buyers harder than any claim you can make about your own work. They pull from Robert Cialdini's Influence, then a Tokyo coffee queue that ran 80 metres down the street, then the Xero website that once sold JP on the strength of a single customer...

John and Anthony built Hawkesbury Homes turning over two bathrooms a week. Now they run Micres and develop full time. In this episode they walk JP through the real path from one company to the other. Their first Kurrajong block where they framed the house while away on a cruise, the North Richmond three-lot subdivision, and their first architectural build on the Windsor riverbank. They get into th...

From Obscurity to Authority with Craig Preston (Risen Developments) How do you move from being "just another builder" to the only logical choice for your ideal client? In this episode, we sit down with Craig Preston of Risen Developments to unpack his eight-year evolution from a generalist builder to a dominant force in the Gold Coast’s second-storey addition niche. Craig shares the &quo...

Isn't it frustrating when you feel like the only way to grow is to work more hours, only to realise there aren't enough hours left in the day? What if you could step back from the daily grind and have your business run more smoothly when you aren't there than when you are? In this episode of the Inspired Builders Podcast, we sit down with Jimmy, founder of Penelope Homes, who shares hi...

You know when you're working your guts out, but you still can't figure out WHY? That's exactly where this conversation with Mick Hawes goes. Mick is the founder of Builder Business Blackbelt and has spent 35 years coaching business owners – the last 11 years focused purely on builders. His journey from a reluctant electrician to a touring musician to one of Australia's most respect...

In this episode, Corne, Andre, and JP go behind the scenes of the recent Inspired Builders Summit to deconstruct the high-level shifts they witnessed from 25 of Australia’s top building businesses. Most builders are stuck in a cycle of "manufactured busyness." If you aren't working for 10 seconds, you’re on your phone—distracting yourself from the real roadblocks holding your busines...

Join the Inspired Builders Summit in Feb 2026 (limited tickets available):⁠ https://go.bizvideo.com.au/ibs-feb26dpodcast Ever notice how the "level playing field" of modern tech is making every building business look exactly the same? What if you could make a prospect feel like they’re already building with you before you’ve even set foot on site? In this episode of the Inspired Builders...