The Trade Den

Deciding what margin you should be charging can be the make or break of whether you win work AND whether you actually have a profitable business.  But the hidden cost that most trades business owners miss is getting their markup and their margin mixed up.  Today’s episode we’re going to take you through what the difference is between markup and margin, what you should be aiming for AND how you can...

When you think of job costs, what comes to mind?  For most people, it will be labour and materials to complete the job.  If you’ve got those 2 you’re well on your way to understanding the true cost of a job BUT if you aren’t also factoring in incidentals, recouping costs for equipment you own OR you’re using an hourly rate when you don’t understand the true cost of labour - this could be one of th...

Where did your pricing model come from in business?  For most trades business owners it’s usually something they got from an old employer, shared from a mate or something that sounded right at the time.  With the increase in trades businesses shutting down or running at a loss we thought it was time to do a series on all things pricing.  In part one, we are going to take you t...

A lot of Trades business owners get to a point where they know they need to hire help BUT they either don’t know who to hire and when… or hire the right person at the wrong time.  When this happens instead of unlocking your growth, getting time back, and allowing yourself to get off the tools it often ends up costing you more time, energy & money and in some cases even reputational damage.  To...

Are you getting what you want out of your life? Not just your work life… But your family life too? What have you missed out on because of work or needing to do ‘just one more thing’? Are your family missing you? Do you have hobbies any more? What about your friends?  Today we’re talking about the truth behind Work/Life Balance and the changes you need to make to be able to have success in health,...

How do you GROW your business when you have no more hours to give and you’re only JUST paying yourself a wage?  Today’s guest was working 100 hours per week, sleeping 4-5 hours a night, felt like he could only focus on his family OR his business, and was faced with the choice to either scale his business back OR make a change.  We’re joined by Phil Dawes from The Great Outdawes Landscaping, who st...

Every time we talk about this topic people find hundreds of thousands of dollars (and no we’re not exaggerating).  Getting a quote together usually takes a fair bit of time, energy and money… and one of the biggest mistakes we see in the trades and construction industry is after they send out the quote, they jump on to the next one.  If you’ve been quoting as much as you can but your pipeline and...

Do you want to reach out to NEW customers to fill your pipeline or expand your business but don’t want to come across as pushy or desperate? Sales and Business Development CAN be quite easy but most people overcomplicate it. In this episode, we’re going to take you through a strategy that will help not just with the challenging market we’re in now but moving forward to make sure you’ve always got...

How’s Business Going For You Right Now?  The most common answer we’re hearing from the industry right now is that ‘Leads & sales are starting to dry up’ and ‘it’s getting harder to win work’.  In this episode, we discuss what a pipeline is and the 4 Steps we coach clients on so you can anticipate and become confident in where you are heading in the next 6-12 months.  This episode is a little l...

One of our core principles in Pravar is to ‘Never Settle’ and Ben Wolff from Wolff Energy Solutions is someone who lives and breathes that principle. Ben previously worked 60 hours a week on the tools, only to come home and do another 20 hours in the office on top of that at nights and weekends. Like so many other trades business owners he got into business to try and get some more freedom and tim...

Almost every Trade & Construction business owner is losing money in these 5 areas. In last weeks episode we spoke about an all too common scenario where business owners will go from $750k to $1mill to $1.25mill or more and expect to make more cash than they’ve ever made before, but what we see instead is they grow and the money problems they had at $750k follow them so instead they make less t...

If you’re experiencing cash flow problems you just need more cash right?  WRONG.  Well at least in our experience … throughout the hundreds of clients we’ve coached we’ve seen that if you see the numbers aren’t going the way you want and just start to look for more sales without solving the root cause of those money problems first, you’ll often end up in a WORSE situation than where you started wi...

If you’re currently working ridiculous hours in your business, wearing all of the hats and trying to keep everything a float, the reason you’re probably pushing through is for your family.  But as you heard in our origin story often you working so hard can be the thing that completely tears your family apart, like it almost did for our guest today.  Nathan Wilson owns Rescue U Plumbing and when he...

In our last few episodes we’ve told you how to get more time, grow your business and cut your phone calls in half BUT we all know even with the best intentions and well trained team you’re still going to get the occasional interruption. From phones, to emails, to news, to social media everything in the world is trying to grab your attention so when you couple this with trying to grow a business an...

There’s a cycle that every trades business goes through before they figure out how to stop it … tell us if this is you.  You’ve had a great few months and have been SO BUSY doing work - the team are flat out and you’ve even had to jump on the tools … but looking at the books there’s not much coming up. You get a bit stressed, you feel like you might have to let some of your team go so you rush out...

Getting off the tools is usually so you can have MORE time right?  But the day you put them down, the thing most people have to pick up instead … is their phone.  When they come to us most business owners are fielding between 50-100 calls a day from their team or clients - which leaves NO time to get any of their own work done.  The bad news … the reason your team call you is because YOU’VE create...

“If I wasn’t in coaching and I didn’t face the facts I don’t think I’d be in a relationship, my family would be broken … and I'd be stressed and dealing with all sorts of problems.” This weeks guest is Anthony Rentzis from Hypower Electrical & Security and Absolute Airflow, he started working with Pravar in 2021 and aside from the obvious business success we are going to talk about in this epi...

Most trades and construction business owners will hit a ceiling when they are growing their business.  They can get to $1 million, $1.5 million or even $2 million but then often will get stuck and aren’t sure how to break through.  In this week's episode, we’re talking about how you can smash through that ceiling PROFITABLY because the other thing that we see WAY too often is when business owners...

As a business owner in the trades and construction industry, your to-do list can often feel never-ending… and just when you get a handle on it, the phone rings and a client or one of your team needs you urgently.  We learnt last week that you can’t MAKE more time so if you are going to make a change this year and you want to GROW your business you need to DECIDE where you are going to invest your...

Most people get into business so that they can have MORE TIME. But the wish for almost every business owner you speak to is ‘if they could just have some more time’ … and the wish for their families is often that they could have MORE time with them as well.  It’s one of the biggest challenges in business and something that will continue to hold you back unless you master it.  So today we’re going...

When Ahmad started working with us, all he wanted was to go on a holiday with his family where he wouldn’t be interrupted.  Fast forward and not only has his business doubled, he’s moved out of an industry where he was losing money on jobs, he has just purchased another business AND had three weeks completely uninterrupted with his family.  For so many men in the trades and construction industry,...

Have you hit a plateau in your business and life, where you can’t break through no matter how hard you try?  Last week we took you through why principles are the key to success in not just your business but your life as well and why Face The Facts is the first step we take with our clients.  This week we’re introducing you to two principles that unlock the next stage of business growth and letting...

Welcome to the first episode of The Trade Den.  This is a podcast we’ve wanted to start for such a long time (and had quite a few requests for) because the world of being a business owner in the trades and construction industry can be pretty challenging and lonely at the best of times.  So many tradies start their business because they want to create a better life… love what they do, earn more mon...

There is a lot of correlation between sports and business.  When you look at some of the greatest sporting teams that have been successful for so long there’s a common thread between all of them and that thread is the key to success.  The good news about this thread, it’s something that you can integrate into your own business and life… that thread is Principles and Culture.  Today Dan and I are g...

There are things in this episode I have never spoken about before.  Welcome to Episode Two of The Trade Den, an episode I was a little apprehensive about recording.  This week we’re giving Dan Stones creative control to ask any question about my origin story and how Pravar Group came to be.  We go right back to the start, talking about what it was like being a kid with a Dad who was the typical tr...