I feel like I have a unique view on Australian tradies and the problems they encounter as they try to scale their businesses.

I've been fortunate to see every industry from every angle.

I've worked with and spoken to hundreds of builders and tradies. National builders like Kane Constructions to sole trader painters and handymen.

I've spent 20 years working with some of the best Aussie tech startups leading product innovation and building automation products across a range of different industries. 

More recently and importantly, I ran a trade business.

Before starting ServiceScale I scaled a trade business from 100k to 500K in my first 12 months. On the tools, quoting, managing subbies, and everything else required to run a trade business.

Hang on Pat 12 months isn't very long, How much could you know about being a tradie?

I admit it wasn't very long but it was long enough for me to understand what life is like.  

I know that tradies work bloody hard.

I know what it’s like to wake up early and be on the tools all day. Juggling phone calls, and talking to clients on the road. Squeezing in site visits while you try to get home.

I know what it's like to miss dinners trying to catch up on creating quotes, sending invoices, and chasing payments.

I know what it's like to ignore my kids sometimes because I'm stressed about the cash flow or whether there are enough leads to keep paying the bills.

I know what it's like to make a lot of money but wonder where it all went at the end of the month.

I know what it's like to be physically exhausted, mentally drained and crash into bed only to wake up, and do it all again.

Ok sounds like you get us Pat, what's the solution?

There is no silver bullet to running a trade business. At the end of the day, you are still accountable for everything.  For me what helped was reducing the number of activities being done manually across the business. Through automation of my trade business, I was able to reduce a lot of noise in the business and my mind. "Has this invoice been sent, I really need to chase payment on that". Removing those questions because I KNEW things were happening on autopilot reduced the friction happening when we were scaling as 

Now my mission is to help as many other tradies as I can to create more scalable, less stressful businesses.