What do you do when your entire business runs on hours you can never fully bill?

In Episode 23 of Unlocking Business, I sit down with Christina Papafilis, founder and director of Connective Services Group. Christina spent years working in the disability sector before starting her own NDIS support coordination business in 2024, and was later recognised as a 2025 City of Joondalup Community Citizen of the Year, an award she nearly missed altogether, the email telling her she’d won almost got deleted as spam three months into the business.

We get into what a support coordinator does day to day, working as the connecting point between a person’s disability supports, their therapists and the other services in their life. Christina explains why there’s no formal qualification required to become a support worker, how NDIS invoicing and plan managers actually work, and why the system itself can be genuinely difficult to navigate for participants and providers alike.

One of the biggest threads in this conversation is the business side of it all. Support coordination runs entirely on billable hours, and the rate is capped by the scheme itself, so Christina can’t simply raise her prices to cover the gap. Travel, admin and the time between appointments all eat into a day that looks full on paper but isn’t anywhere near full once you look at what’s billable. It’s the exact same capacity problem tradie businesses run into with travel time and gaps between jobs, just from a completely different industry, and it’s part of why she’s moved her team onto a contractor model instead of full-time roles.

We also talk about how she landed in the disability sector almost by accident, why she wrote a case study directly to the health minister that ended up shaping the award she nearly missed, the value of networking outside her own industry, and why she’s still learning to shift from doing the work herself to actually running the business.

A genuinely interesting look at running a service business inside a system that isn’t built to make it easy.

Is your business actually using AI, or just using a chatbot?

In Episode 22 of Unlocking Business, I sit down with Sam Fielding, managing director of Echelon AI Solutions. Sam and his team move businesses past chatting with ChatGPT or Claude and into what he calls an AI operating system, a single connected workspace that links your email, CRM, drive and every other tool so you can run the business from one place instead of ten different logins.

We get into why most businesses are still just scratching the surface of what AI can actually do, the difference between a one-off automation build and a full AI transformation, and why a platform like ServiceM8, Xero or Go High Level can leave a business missing data it doesn’t even know it’s missing.

Sam also builds websites through AI. What used to take his old marketing agency two to four weeks with an overseas team now takes him about 60 minutes, for a tenth of the price of a $10,000 quote.

Would you know if your business had already grown past the point of making sense?

In Episode 21 of Unlocking Business, I sit down with Dan Noll, founder of T2U, a new app connecting clients with vetted, insured tradies. Before T2U, Dan spent 14 years building WTS Mechanical Projects, a tier 2 construction and HVAC business he started at 20 and sold last year.

We get into what it felt like handing over a business that had been part of his life since he was a kid, and the biggest lesson he took from it. Growth isn’t automatically good. Dan describes an overgrown, undisciplined business as a bucket with a hole in the bottom, you can keep pouring work in and still end up with nothing, because it’s leaking straight back out through discounted pricing, overhiring, and jobs that never should have been taken on.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Peter Craft, co-owner of ASAP Trades, a Perth plumbing business built around honest service, clear communication and doing the job right the first time. Peter was also one of the very first members to join Hypotential Foundations.

Peter and Kane get into the real stuff: what they would do differently if starting again, why tracking your marketing spend properly changes everything, the challenge of finding tradies who can also sell, how to train a sales process without scaring off good installers, the role of weekly sales meetings and ride alongs, why callbacks handled well turn into your most loyal customers, what separates a good trades business from a great one, and the power of connecting with other business owners who have already been through what you are going through.

If you run a trades business and want to hear an honest conversation about the messy middle of growing a small team, this one is worth your time

At just 21, Myles Gaebler is already facing a problem plenty of business owners would love to have — more work than he can take on.

Myles is the founder of Perth Building Inspection Repairs, a specialist business repairing defects uncovered during property inspections and helping homeowners get major structural issues rectified before settlement.

But this conversation goes well beyond building repairs.

Myles talks openly about starting his business, reaching weeks of around $8–10k in revenue while operating lean, turning away tens of thousands of dollars in work, working towards his builder registration and deciding whether he actually wants to scale.

We also unpack the realities of the building inspection industry in WA, competing against operators willing to cut corners, pricing work properly, using AI to produce professional reports, hiring your first employee, building systems before scaling and why more revenue doesn’t necessarily mean a better business.

Myles is also training for an Ironman — which creates an interesting question:

When the opportunities start coming, do you chase everything in front of you or protect the life you originally built the business to create?

A very different conversation with a young operator who is already thinking seriously about where he wants to be in 10 years.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Luke Randazzo, Director at Burgess Rawson, one of WA’s leading commercial real estate agencies. Luke has brokered over $450 million in transactions and is one of the youngest shareholders in the business.

Luke and Kane get into the real stuff: what the new negative gearing and capital gains tax changes mean for investors, why commercial property is now wide open while residential has been shut down for investors, the difference between office, retail and industrial assets, how self-managed super funds can be used to buy commercial property, the risks of long term leases, make good clauses and fit out contributions, how to cold call your way to a deal, and why customer service and follow up are the real difference makers in any industry.

They also swap stories about building businesses the hard way, why Australia is becoming increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs, and what Luke would do if he had $1 million to invest today.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Aisha Derrick, Brand and Marketing Manager at Smartfix and co-owner of Hypotential, for a practical conversation about what actually works when it comes to marketing a residential trade business.

Aisha has spent four years shaping Smartfix’s branding, advertising and customer experience, and in this episode she breaks it all down for trades business owners at every stage. They cover the biggest mistakes small budget businesses make, why branding and advertising are not the same thing, how to stand out in a market where everyone says the same thing, the role of Google reviews and Google Business posts, how AI is changing content creation and why authenticity is becoming more valuable as a result, and the one piece of marketing advice every business owner should hear before they spend a cent.

If you run a trades business and want to get smarter with your marketing without wasting time or money, this one is for you.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Isabelle Charter, Head of Venture Studios at BetterLabs and CEO of Town Square, who has spent nearly two decades building, scaling and investing in startups across Australia and beyond.

Isabelle previously built and exited Drip, Australia’s first investing app for under 18s, and now leads BetterLabs, the strategic innovation arm of RAC, where she builds and funds new companies from concept to scale.

She and Kane get into what it actually takes to turn an idea into a business, why most founders overbuild before validating, how to fail fast and move on, the AI tools changing how startups prototype and test, what a corporate venture studio looks like from the inside, and why saying no to the wrong clients is one of the most important things a growing business can do. They also swap stories about doing too much, losing focus and what brought them both back to their core.

If you are thinking about starting something, or you are already in it and wondering why it feels so hard, this one is worth your time.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Louis, founder of WestOz Trades, one of Perth’s leading residential and commercial air conditioning businesses. Kane and Louis have known each other for 17 years, going back to their apprenticeship days, and this one has the easy honesty of two mates who have both been through the wringer building a trades business from scratch.

Louis runs a team of around 22 staff across the office and road, with a reputation built on premium service, nearly 1000 Google reviews, and a loyal property management client base. He and Kane get into the real stuff: how WestOz Trades moved into commercial work, the cert two course debate and what it is doing to the air conditioning industry, CRM and job management software, SOPs and team communication, the Monday morning toolbox talk that keeps the whole team aligned, a detailed walk through of the WestOz Trades sales process including follow up, how to charge a premium rate and actually win the job, Google ads and lead costs, door knocking as an underrated sales tactic, and what they both wish they had known when they started out.

If you run a trades business and want to hear how someone who has been doing it for nine years actually operates day to day, this one is worth your time.

In this episode, Kane sits down with Sarah, co-founder of Typeset, a Perth-based content and writing business, for a wide-ranging conversation about what actually works when it comes to marketing, storytelling and content strategy for business owners.

Sarah has a background in software development, enterprise sales and writing, and has spent over two decades helping businesses communicate more clearly and build content that works as a long term asset. She and Kane get into the real stuff: why storytelling matters more than most people realise, how AI has changed the content industry and what businesses should actually be doing with it, the difference between paid ads and organic content, SEO vs content marketing and how to make the two work together, how to find a real expert in a market full of people claiming to be one, and why niching down and saying no to the wrong clients is one of the smartest things a small business can do.

If you are a business owner trying to figure out your marketing without wasting money on things that do not work, this one is full of practical advice from someone who has been in the trenches for a long time.

Follow Hypotential:
Website: https://www.hypotential.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hypotential_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HypotentialCo

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Connect with Sarah and Typeset:
Website: https://typesetcontent.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcmitchell/