Who Should You Hire First in a Plumbing Business?

Qualified plumber carrying tools and pipework from a plumbing van to a residential job, representing hiring and growing a plumbing business team.

Key takeaways

Your first hire should solve the constraint in your plumbing business, not simply be the cheapest person you can employ.
An apprentice can increase your capacity on site, but they still require supervision and training. That may not create much time for you to work on the business.
A qualified plumber costs more but can potentially take responsibility for jobs independently once you trust their ability.
Technical gaps can often be trained. Attitude, honesty and willingness to learn should carry significant weight when hiring.
As your plumbing team grows, documented processes and clear expectations become increasingly important.
Retaining good plumbers requires more than wages. Development, flexibility, communication and the way people are treated all influence whether they want to stay.

Who Should You Hire First in a Plumbing Business?

This article draws on an episode of Unlocking Business, the Hypotential podcast hosted by Kane Tyler-Smith, with Rhys from Oceania Plumbing and Gas. Rhys started the business in 2019 and has since grown it to a team of around nine people and six vehicles, giving the conversation a practical look at the hiring decisions that appear as a plumbing business moves beyond the owner doing everything.

For many plumbers, hiring the first employee feels like a simple capacity decision: there is more work than you can physically complete, so you need another pair of hands.

The harder question is what kind of employee you actually need.

An apprentice may be more affordable and gives you an opportunity to train someone in your way of doing things. A qualified plumber is a much larger wage commitment, but may eventually be able to take a van and complete jobs without you.

Neither option is automatically right. The decision depends on what you need that employee to change inside the business.

When does a plumbing business actually need its first employee?

Rhys’s first hire came after experiencing one of the biggest weaknesses of operating completely alone.

He had weeks of plumbing work booked ahead when he became sick and needed three days off. Suddenly there was nobody available to complete those jobs.

Customers were waiting and the entire workload depended on one person being physically capable of turning up.

That experience pushed him towards hiring.

It is a useful way to think about the first employee because the issue was bigger than simply being busy. The business had no redundancy. If Rhys was unavailable, the work stopped.

The same problem appears when a sole trader becomes consistently booked out.

There is a limit to how many hot water systems, blocked drains, maintenance calls, renovations and general plumbing jobs one person can physically complete. Eventually you either decline work, extend your lead times or add capacity.

But before placing a job ad, identify what you actually want the new person to solve.

Do you simply need help completing larger jobs?

Do you need somebody who can take a second van and handle jobs independently?

Are you trying to free yourself up to quote, manage customers and grow the business?

Those are different problems and can require different hires.

Should your first plumbing hire be an apprentice?

Hiring an apprentice first is attractive for obvious reasons.

The wage commitment is lower than hiring an experienced plumber, and you have an opportunity to teach someone your standards from early in their career.

For an owner who intends to remain on the tools full-time, that can work well.

The apprentice can help with the physical workload while gradually developing their skills. Over several years, you potentially develop a tradesperson who understands how your company operates because they learned within it.

The limitation is independence.

Kane described the problem simply during the conversation:

“It helps you do the work, but it doesn’t help you grow the business.”

An early-stage apprentice generally needs to work alongside a qualified tradesperson. If that qualified tradesperson is you, hiring them does not necessarily release you from site.

You now have an employee, but you may still need to spend most of your working week on the tools.

That distinction matters if your goal is to start moving into the owner role.

There are quotes to complete, customers to follow up, invoices to manage, jobs to schedule, suppliers to deal with and systems to build. As the business grows, somebody needs time to manage those responsibilities.

If your first hire still requires you beside them for most jobs, you have added labour capacity without necessarily adding much owner capacity.

When does hiring a qualified plumber make more sense?

A qualified plumber becomes more attractive when the main objective is to create independence.

Once you are confident in their technical ability, customer service and reliability, you can potentially allocate jobs without attending every site yourself.

That can create an entirely different type of capacity.

Instead of two people attending the same job, the business may eventually have two plumbers completing separate work at the same time.

Rhys’s first employee was already well advanced in his trade pathway after coming from the UK and completing the requirements to work locally. Within a relatively short period, he was able to operate at tradesperson level.

For Rhys, having somebody capable of covering work was important because that was the original problem he was trying to solve.

A qualified plumber is obviously more expensive, particularly once you account for wages, superannuation, workers compensation, a vehicle, fuel, tools, uniforms, software and the other costs attached to putting another plumber on the road.

The question therefore should not simply be whether you can afford the wage.

Ask what additional capacity the hire creates and whether the business has enough profitable work to support it.

Hire for attitude, then identify the skill gaps

One of the strongest hiring lessons from Rhys and Kane’s experience was the difference between skills and attitude.

As Rhys put it:

“You can train someone up, but like can you train someone’s attitude up?”

A plumber may arrive with years of experience and still be wrong for your team.

Another might have gaps in their experience but be honest about them, willing to learn and good with customers.

For a residential plumbing business, technical ability is only part of the job. Your plumbers are entering people’s homes, communicating with customers and representing the business without you standing beside them.

Rhys also pointed out that plumbers do not all need to be equally good at every type of work.

One person may be particularly strong with customers and service work. Another may excel at drainage. Someone else may be better suited to renovations or technically difficult jobs.

The owner’s job gradually becomes understanding those strengths and allocating work accordingly.

That is particularly important as your range of plumbing services grows.

A tradesperson being weaker in one area does not automatically make them a poor employee. The more important question is whether they are honest about what they can and cannot do and whether they can be trained where necessary.

How do you train plumbers without constantly checking their work?

Hiring someone does not instantly create capacity.

Initially, it can actually create more work.

Rhys described the early period with a new employee as checking photos, watching how they communicate with customers and making sure work is being completed to the company’s standard.

That is normal. You are transferring trust gradually.

The problem is when that knowledge remains entirely inside the owner’s head.

As Oceania Plumbing and Gas grew, Rhys began developing clearer ways to identify what apprentices and tradespeople could confidently complete. One example discussed was having a list of common tasks and getting an apprentice to identify the areas they were unsure about.

Those gaps could then become training opportunities.

For a plumbing company, that might mean knowing who can independently handle your common service jobs, who needs more experience with drainage equipment, who can manage renovations and who is ready to supervise somebody else.

Over time, this creates progression rather than simply assuming every qualified plumber should operate at exactly the same level.

Why do systems become more important after you hire?

A sole trader can get surprisingly far with information in their head, handwritten notes and habits only they understand.

That stops working as employees are added.

Rhys said that if he were starting again, one of the biggest changes he would make would be establishing the foundations and basic systems earlier.

His CRM and other systems became more important once employees began attending jobs independently.

That is the point where information needs to travel without the owner.

What has the customer asked for? What has been quoted? What photos need to be taken? What work was completed? What documentation needs to be sent? Has the invoice been issued? Is there enough history recorded if the customer calls again in two years?

Kane described a similar progression inside Smartfix, where different people now have checklists throughout quoting, administration, installation and completion.

You do not need the systems of a large plumbing company when you employ one person.

You do need enough structure that your employee does not have to call you every time they need information or make a routine decision.

How do you keep good plumbers once you find them?

Recruiting is only half the problem.

Once you find a good plumber, losing them means repeating the advertising, interviewing, onboarding and training process again.

Rhys’s approach has been to pay attention to the individual rather than assuming every employee wants exactly the same thing.

He spoke about giving employees some flexibility after particularly demanding periods, recognising good work and being willing to have conversations when somebody is not enjoying the work they are doing.

Development matters too.

An employee who becomes stronger technically can take on more difficult jobs. A strong tradesperson can begin supervising an apprentice. Someone capable of running work and helping others develop is providing more value than when they first joined.

That gives the business a clearer basis for progression and pay increases.

It also gives good employees somewhere to go without needing to leave the company to progress.

Rhys’s own apprenticeship experience demonstrates the longer-term value of this. He stayed with his original employer for several years after qualifying because he had a boss who invested heavily in teaching him.

For plumbing business owners developing apprentices now, the goal should not simply be getting through the apprenticeship. Ideally, you are building someone who can become a valuable qualified plumber within the business afterwards.

Build the role you actually need

There is no rule that says the first employee in a plumbing business must be an apprentice.

Likewise, hiring a qualified plumber before the business can financially support them can create a completely different problem.

Start with the constraint.

If you are happy remaining on the tools and primarily need another pair of hands, an apprentice may make sense.

If you are booked out but desperately need time to quote, manage customers, build systems and run the business, an experienced plumber who can eventually operate independently may create considerably more useful capacity.

Then hire carefully.

Rhys and Kane both reflected on the cost of rushing recruitment. Smartfix’s approach now involves speaking to multiple candidates rather than hiring the first person who appears good enough.

That becomes even more important in a small plumbing team.

Your first few employees shape how customers experience the business, how apprentices learn, what standards become normal and how much confidence you have stepping away from site.

The goal is not simply to put another plumber in another van.

It is to build a team that gradually makes the plumbing business less dependent on you doing every job yourself.

Mental Health for Trade Business Owners: What to Watch For

Trade business owner sitting beside his work van after a long day, reflecting on business stress, work-life balance and mental health.

Key takeaways

Trade business owners can become isolated without noticing it as work, family and business responsibilities take over more of their time.
Losing regular connections through sport, friendships, workplaces or other communities can remove important outlets for stress.
Changes such as divorce, injury, job loss, financial pressure and major business setbacks can increase vulnerability and should not be treated as something you simply have to push through alone.
Looking after your mental health does not have to begin with formal therapy. Reconnecting with people, having an outlet and speaking honestly to someone you trust can be an important first step.
Business owners should also learn to notice changes in their employees and mates rather than waiting for someone to explicitly say they are struggling.

How Can Trade Business Owners Look After Their Mental Health?

This article draws on an episode of Unlocking Business, the Hypotential podcast hosted by Kane Tyler-Smith, with Jevyn from Men’s Talk, a Western Australian men’s health promotion charity. Their conversation explored isolation, connection, work, family and some of the pressures affecting men across trades and other male-dominated industries. It also included Kane’s own experience with injury, financial pressure and running a business while raising a young family.

Running a trade business can gradually remove many of the things that previously existed outside work.

You stop playing sport because you’re too busy. Friday afternoon with your mates becomes another quote that needs finishing. You get home and still have invoices, messages and tomorrow’s jobs sitting in your head. Add employees, a mortgage and kids, and finding time for yourself starts to feel less important than everything else demanding your attention.

That is why mental health for trade business owners deserves to be treated as an ongoing part of running a business rather than something only discussed when somebody reaches crisis point.

Why can running a trade business become isolating?

Many trade business owners begin their careers surrounded by people.

You complete an apprenticeship, work alongside other tradespeople, spend the day on site and often have sport, a gym, a club or a group of mates outside work.

Starting a business can change that structure surprisingly quickly.

As the owner, you may spend more time quoting alone, driving between jobs, doing paperwork at night or making decisions that your employees are not responsible for. As the business grows, you can become even further removed from the social side of being on the tools.

At the same time, life outside the business changes.

Jevyn spoke about how young families, relationships and increasing responsibilities can slowly reduce men’s friendship circles. It does not necessarily happen because somebody deliberately cuts themselves off.

You miss one training session because work runs late. Then another. You stop going to something on a Thursday night because that is the only evening you have at home. Before long, an activity that previously gave you regular contact with other people has disappeared.

For trade business owners, it is worth noticing when this starts happening rather than dismissing it as simply being busy.

Why does connection matter for tradies?

Connection gives people somewhere to exist where they are not simply the business owner, boss, provider or person responsible for solving the next problem.

Sport is one obvious example, but it does not need to be sport.

It might be the gym, fishing, gaming, a community group, church, a regular catch-up with friends or another activity that puts you around people outside your immediate work and family responsibilities.

The activity itself is only part of the value. What matters is maintaining regular contact with other people.

That can be particularly important in trades and construction, where the mental health risk is significant. MATES in Construction states that construction workers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than from an accident at work.

That comparison is confronting because physical safety is already embedded into how trade businesses operate.

You think about PPE. You talk about working at heights. You have procedures around electrical safety, machinery, vehicles and hazardous work.

Mental health deserves the same willingness to notice risk before something goes badly wrong.

What are the warning signs that someone might be struggling?

There is no single behaviour that tells you somebody is struggling with their mental health.

The more useful thing to notice is change.

Someone who normally talks throughout the day becomes unusually quiet. A mate who is always at training stops coming. An employee starts withdrawing from the team. Someone becomes noticeably more irritable, disconnected or unreliable.

Sometimes there is also an obvious event behind that change.

Jevyn highlighted periods such as relationship breakdowns, losing a job, retirement and significant career changes as times when people’s routines, identity and connections can shift dramatically.

For a business owner, financial problems can create another layer.

Kane spoke openly during the conversation about Smartfix losing approximately $2.2 million across a financial year and the pressure that came with trying to navigate that period while also having two young children.

Business stress can be difficult to separate from personal life because the business is often responsible for your income, employees’ wages, debt, vehicles and your family’s financial security.

When something goes wrong, it rarely feels like a problem you can simply leave at work.

Why can business owners find it difficult to ask for help?

Trade business culture has traditionally rewarded people who can deal with problems and keep moving.

That attitude has advantages on a job site. Tradespeople need to make decisions, solve problems and adapt when something unexpected happens.

It becomes less useful when every personal problem receives the same response.

Jevyn discussed the familiar “she’ll be right” mentality that can exist across trades, mining and other male-dominated environments. The problem is not resilience itself. It is when resilience becomes avoiding a problem until it is much larger.

There can also be a misconception that seeking support immediately means sitting in a clinical environment and talking to a psychologist.

Professional mental health support is extremely important when it is needed, but support does not always have to begin there.

Men’s Talk, for example, deliberately operates non-clinical drop-in spaces where men can have a coffee, talk and connect without needing an appointment or referral. It also provides mentoring and can connect people with professional services where a higher level of support is required.

For someone who would never begin by booking a psychologist, a less formal first conversation can make accessing support easier.

What can trade business owners actually do?

Looking after your mental health does not require adding another complicated system to your business.

Start by looking at what work has gradually removed from your life.

If you used to play sport and stopped, why? If you rarely see your mates anymore, when did that change? If every evening is spent catching up on business administration, is there something inside the business that needs to change?

Sometimes the mental health problem and the business problem are connected.

If you are on the tools for ten hours and then quoting and invoicing for another three every night, simply trying to become more resilient does not fix the underlying workload.

You may need better systems, another tradesperson, administration support, different customers or firmer boundaries around when you work.

Kane described how he deliberately creates small periods where he can get away from constant work and think. That can be as simple as leaving the desk for lunch rather than sitting in the same place for another hour.

The specific habit will be different for everyone. The important part is recognising that operating at full capacity indefinitely is not a sustainable business strategy.

How should you check in on a tradie you’re worried about?

You do not need to diagnose somebody or have the perfect opening line.

If someone you know has changed noticeably, start a conversation.

That could be as simple as telling them you have noticed they have been quieter or haven’t been around recently and asking how they are going.

If the first answer is “I’m fine”, that does not necessarily need to end the conversation. Jevyn’s advice was to approach it genuinely rather than making the question feel like a box you are ticking.

You can explain what you have noticed.

“You’ve been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks. Is everything all right?”

Then listen.

If they do tell you something significant, you do not need to immediately solve it. Depending on what they are experiencing, the useful next step may be staying connected, encouraging them to speak with somebody appropriate or helping them access professional support.

If there is an immediate risk to someone’s safety, treat it as an emergency rather than trying to manage it yourself.

Mental health should be part of how you run the business

Trade businesses already spend significant time thinking about risk.

Mental health is another risk worth paying attention to, particularly because the early warning signs can be easier to overlook than something physically unsafe on a job site.

For an owner, that starts with yourself.

Pay attention when the business has consumed every outlet you previously had. Notice when you have stopped seeing people. Take financial or personal setbacks seriously rather than assuming you have to carry them privately because your name is on the business.

Then apply the same awareness to your team.

You do not need to turn a toolbox meeting into a counselling session. You need a workplace where somebody can say they are having a rough time without immediately feeling like they have failed some test of toughness.

A healthy trade business still needs profitable jobs, good systems, productive employees and customers.

It also needs an owner and team capable of sustaining it.

How to Build a Reputation for a New Trade Business in Perth

Perth tradie building a strong trade reputation through quality work, customer service, referrals and positive online reviews.

Key takeaways

A new trade business does not need a huge advertising budget to start building a reputation. The first jobs, customers and referrals matter more than scale.
Quality work is only part of reputation. Communication, reliability, transparency and how you respond when something goes wrong all shape whether a customer trusts and recommends you.
Referrals can be one of the strongest sources of early work because trust has already been transferred from someone the customer knows.
Social media can accelerate that trust by showing potential customers who will arrive at their home and how the work is actually completed.
Early growth often requires taking smaller or less desirable jobs while you establish relationships, reviews and a customer base.
Reputation becomes more difficult to control as you hire, making the quality and attitude of your team increasingly important.

This article draws on an episode of Unlocking Business, the Hypotential podcast hosted by Kane Tyler-Smith, with Mitch Suleau from MBS Building Company. Mitch started his carpentry and outdoor living business after moving from Tasmania to Perth with no established residential customer base in the city. Their conversation explored his first two years in business, including finding early work, hiring, introducing systems, using social media and building trust with Perth homeowners. The lessons provide useful examples for any newer trade business trying to establish a reputation in a competitive local market.

A strong trade reputation is built when customers repeatedly see evidence that your business can be trusted with their home, money and time. In the early years, that evidence comes from the jobs you complete, how you treat customers, the people who recommend you, your reviews and increasingly, what potential customers can see online.

Advertising can help more people discover the business, but it cannot manufacture that reputation. For a newer trade business, the priority should be creating enough positive customer experiences that marketing has something credible to amplify.

What actually builds a good reputation for a trade business?

A good trade reputation is built through consistent workmanship, communication, reliability and customer experience. Customers need to feel confident about both the technical result and the people delivering it.

Mitch’s approach to MBS Building Company was influenced by growing up and working in a much smaller Tasmanian community. In a town with only a few thousand people, poor workmanship could follow a tradesperson quickly because people knew each other and talked.

Perth gives businesses more anonymity, but customers still talk. The difference is that those conversations now happen through Google reviews, Facebook groups, social media, referrals and local community networks as well as between friends and neighbours.

That makes every early job valuable beyond its invoice.

When Mitch first started, he was willing to take work that would not necessarily fit the business today. That included small jobs such as gutter cleaning simply because he needed to establish himself and generate work.

Kane described a similar period in Smartfix’s early days, when the business would respond to small leads through platforms such as hipages that would no longer make sense for the company today.

There is a practical lesson here for new businesses.

You do not need to know exactly what your business will look like in five years before taking the first job. Early work gives you customers, experience and information about what people will actually pay you to do.

Over time, you can become more selective.

Why are referrals so valuable when you are starting out?

Referrals are particularly valuable for new trade businesses because they reduce one of the biggest barriers to winning work: trust.

A homeowner looking for a carpenter, electrician or plumber is not simply comparing technical ability. In most cases, they cannot accurately assess technical ability before the job begins.

Instead, they look for other signals.

Who recommended you? What do your reviews say? Does your business look established? Do you communicate clearly? Have you completed similar work before?

A referral answers some of those questions before you have even spoken to the customer.

Mitch described referrals as a significant source of work for MBS Building Company. His focus on completing work properly and looking after customers creates a natural opportunity for those customers to recommend the business to somebody else.

This is particularly powerful for higher-value residential work.

If a homeowner is considering spending tens of thousands of dollars on a deck, pergola or outdoor area, the decision carries more perceived risk than booking a small maintenance job. A recommendation from someone they already trust can therefore carry considerable weight.

The mistake is assuming referrals happen automatically because the workmanship was good.

Customers also remember whether you arrived when expected, explained the job properly, respected their home, communicated changes and dealt professionally with problems.

Your reputation is the complete experience, not just the finished job.

How can social media help a trade business build trust?

Social media can help a trade business build trust by allowing customers to see the people, workmanship and processes behind the business before making an enquiry.

This has become particularly valuable for MBS Building Company.

Mitch began creating content around an outdoor project in Spearwood, showing parts of the construction process rather than simply posting a polished photograph of the finished result.

One of the first videos reached around 30,000 views and added approximately 250–300 followers to what had previously been a relatively small account.

The follower count was not the most important result.

Mitch subsequently had two customers specifically mention seeing the business’s videos and posts before engaging MBS Building Company. Those projects were worth roughly $20,000–$30,000 each.

That does not mean every tradie should expect their first Reel to generate a $30,000 project.

The useful lesson is why the content helped.

Potential customers could see how MBS worked. They could see Mitch, see members of the team, watch parts of the construction process and understand more about what they were paying for.

For residential trades, this can remove some of the uncertainty involved in inviting an unfamiliar business into your home.

A polished before-and-after photograph shows the result. Content showing the process provides evidence of how you got there.

You do not need a huge following

A local trade business does not need tens of thousands of followers for social media to be commercially useful.

The majority of a Perth carpenter’s potential customers do not care whether the business has 400 followers or 40,000. They care whether the work looks credible and whether the business appears trustworthy.

That changes how tradies should think about content.

The objective does not need to be becoming an influencer. It can simply be making it easier for somebody who has heard about your business to verify that you are legitimate.

A customer may receive your name from a friend, search the business, look at your Google reviews, open Instagram and watch three recent project videos.

By the time they contact you, part of the trust-building process has already happened.

Should a new trade business advertise straight away?

Paid advertising can help a new trade business grow, but it should not replace the foundations that make customers comfortable choosing you.

Mitch began advertising around the same period that he hired his first tradesperson. That represented a significant increase in business expenses at a point where the company was still young.

For other new businesses, there may be opportunities to establish some early momentum before committing heavily to advertising.

That could come through personal contacts, referrals, previous industry relationships, local networking, community groups, subcontracting or organic social media.

These sources are not necessarily enough to support a larger team indefinitely. They can, however, help prove which services customers want and begin building the reviews, photos, case studies and reputation that make later advertising more effective.

Once you do pay to put the business in front of more people, those people have something to investigate.

Advertising gets attention.

Your reputation helps convert that attention into an enquiry.

What happens to your reputation when you start hiring?

As a trade business grows, its reputation becomes dependent on employees as well as the owner.

This is one of the biggest changes between being a sole trader and building a team.

When you complete every job yourself, you control how the customer is greeted, how the work is completed, how the site is left and what happens if there is a problem.

Once another tradesperson is representing the business, those standards have to transfer.

Mitch hired a qualified tradesperson as his first employee around six months after starting the business. Although the financial commitment was greater than hiring an apprentice, he found value in employing someone who could already operate with a similar technical skill set and take on responsibility.

As the team grew, documenting expectations became more important. MBS now uses ServiceM8 and records important job information so the team has clearer instructions around the work.

Kane’s experience at Smartfix shows what happens when this challenge scales further.

Smartfix grew rapidly at one stage to just under 140 employees. Looking back, Kane identifies hiring too quickly and accepting some of the wrong people as one of the major mistakes he would change if starting again.

The reason goes beyond payroll.

If a tradesperson completes several residential jobs in a day and leaves a poor impression at each one, the business can damage multiple customer relationships in a matter of hours.

That is particularly expensive when you have already invested money in marketing to acquire those customers.

Growth therefore makes recruitment part of your marketing.

The people wearing your uniform and driving your vans become part of what customers think about the brand.

How should a trade business handle mistakes?

A strong reputation does not require pretending mistakes never happen. It requires a reliable process for taking responsibility and fixing problems when they do.

Kane gave a simple example from Smartfix.

A tradesperson could accidentally mark a customer’s wall while carrying tools through the house. The best outcome is for the tradesperson to acknowledge it immediately, tell the customer and organise for the business to rectify it.

If the customer discovers it later, the response still matters.

Smartfix’s approach is to investigate complaints and negative reviews, speak to the customer and, where appropriate, return to rectify the issue. In some cases, customers have subsequently changed their review because of how quickly the problem was addressed.

This is important for new businesses because fear of a bad review can sometimes create the wrong behaviour.

Trying to avoid responsibility can turn a relatively minor mistake into a genuine trust problem.

Customers generally understand that things can go wrong. What they remember is whether the business disappeared when they did.

How do you build a trade reputation quickly without cutting corners?

There is no shortcut to a genuine reputation, but a newer trade business can accelerate it by making good work more visible and treating every early customer as part of the business’s future growth.

Complete the work properly. Communicate clearly. Ask happy customers for reviews. Document projects. Show your team and process online. Stay connected with good customers and industry contacts. Make it easy for somebody to recommend you.

Then protect that standard as you grow.

The early years of MBS Building Company also show why you do not need the entire business figured out before starting. Mitch did not arrive in Perth with a detailed five-year plan, established residential customer base and fully developed operating system.

The business evolved as the work came in.

That meant discovering which jobs suited the business, hiring when workload justified it, adopting a CRM as the number of enquiries and jobs became harder to manage, and beginning to step away from the tools as Mitch realised his time could be better used elsewhere.

The direction becomes clearer as the business develops.

What should remain consistent is the standard customers experience.

A new trade business may not yet have hundreds of reviews, ten vans or years of history to prove itself. It can still demonstrate that it cares about the work, communicates professionally and stands behind what it delivers.

That is where a reputation starts.

Hypotential works with Perth trade business owners on the wider challenges that appear as a business moves through these early stages, from finding work and building systems to hiring the right people and working out what the owner’s role needs to become as the team grows.

How Can a Small Trade Business Get More Consistent Work?

Perth tradie with tools and a lead generation plan for building more consistent work through referrals, local marketing and repeat customers.

Key takeaways

Consistent work rarely comes from relying on one lead source. A stronger trade business builds a mix of residential customers, repeat clients, referral relationships and marketing channels.
Residential work can produce strong margins, but demand can fluctuate significantly. Property managers and commercial maintenance clients can provide a more regular base of work.
Local Facebook groups and direct outreach can generate work with very little financial cost, but they require time and become difficult to rely on as the business grows.
Google Ads can create a more predictable flow of enquiries, but the cost needs to make sense against the jobs, margins and services you are targeting.
Flyer drops and other local-area marketing are worth testing on a small scale before committing significant money.
Relationships can become a valuable source of repeat work, but relying too heavily on one property manager, commercial client or referral partner creates its own risk.

This article draws on an episode of Unlocking Business, the Hypotential podcast hosted by Kane Tyler-Smith, with Steve from E-Maintain, a Perth electrical business approaching its second year in operation. Their discussion explored what generating consistent work looks like inside a relatively new trade business, including E-Maintain’s mix of residential, property management and commercial maintenance work, alongside Kane’s experience growing Smartfix. Those experiences provide useful examples throughout this article, but the broader question is one relevant to almost every growing trade business: how do you build a more reliable flow of work without becoming dependent on one customer or one expensive marketing channel?

For a small trade business, consistent work usually comes from building several sources of demand that behave differently. Residential customers may provide higher-margin jobs but can be seasonal and infrequent. Property managers and commercial clients may provide more regular maintenance work, but often at different margins and with greater reliance on individual relationships. Marketing channels such as Google Ads can increase demand when needed, while referrals, local community groups and existing customers can reduce the cost of generating that work.

The objective is not to find one lead source that works forever. It is to build a customer and marketing mix that gives the business enough stability to plan its workload, employ people confidently and avoid panicking every time the phone gets quieter.

Why does trade work become inconsistent?

Trade work becomes inconsistent when too much of the business depends on customers who buy infrequently, seasonal demand or a small number of lead sources.

This is particularly noticeable in residential service businesses.

A homeowner may use an electrician to install downlights, add power points or replace a split-system air conditioner and then have no reason to call again for another year. The customer may have been extremely happy with the work, but there simply is not another immediate job to complete.

That makes residential demand different from a commercial site or property manager responsible for multiple properties. Those clients continually encounter maintenance issues across a larger portfolio.

Seasonality adds another layer.

Kane has experienced significant fluctuations at Smartfix, particularly because air conditioning creates strong demand through Perth’s warmer months. When summer finishes, that demand can fall away quickly. April can also bring school holidays, Easter and multiple public holidays, changing when customers are home, when they spend money and when non-essential work gets booked.

Steve described a similar change at E-Maintain. Residential work such as new split-system installations, replacement systems, downlights and additional power points had slowed, while work from property management and commercial maintenance clients remained comparatively consistent.

That distinction matters because many of those residential jobs are discretionary. A customer can postpone installing new downlights. A commercial client may not be able to ignore a failed power point or lighting issue in a workplace indefinitely.

A rental property also creates ongoing maintenance obligations. Although the urgency and approval process varies between jobs and property owners, maintenance requirements continue to arise across the portfolio.

This is why a business can have plenty of happy residential customers and still experience an inconsistent workload.

The problem is not necessarily customer satisfaction. It may be the structure of the customer base.

Should a trade business rely only on residential customers?

A trade business can operate successfully with predominantly residential customers, but the business needs to understand the cost and volatility that can come with continually generating new residential work.

Residential work has several advantages.

Steve noted that E-Maintain enjoys this type of work and can achieve good margins from it. There is also an immediate sense of value for the customer. A tradesperson enters someone’s home, fixes a problem or improves the property, and the homeowner can see the result.

The challenge is frequency.

If the customer does not need another electrician for twelve months, the business needs another household to fill tomorrow’s schedule.

Smartfix has historically operated heavily in the private residential market. As the business has grown, this has made customer retention and repeat work increasingly important. The question becomes less about simply acquiring another lead and more about how to get back into the homes of customers the business has already paid to acquire.

Depending on the trade, that may include maintenance, servicing, additional services or simply staying connected with previous customers so the business is remembered when another need arises.

There is no requirement for every trade business to chase commercial contracts or property management work. There is, however, value in understanding where your next 100 jobs are likely to come from.

If most require finding 100 completely new customers, consistency will generally require a strong and ongoing marketing engine.

Can property managers create more consistent work for tradies?

Property managers can provide a more regular source of work because they are responsible for multiple properties with ongoing maintenance requirements.

For E-Maintain, property management work has become an important part of creating consistency alongside residential electrical jobs.

The relationship began early in the business and developed as E-Maintain responded when required, delivered the work and continued providing a reliable service. Over time, the scope expanded beyond electrical work into some general maintenance.

That makes the relationship more useful to both sides.

If an E-Maintain electrician is already attending a rental property to replace a light switch and a towel rail also needs repairing, completing both can save the property manager from arranging another contractor. For work outside E-Maintain’s capabilities, Steve can draw on relationships with other contractors, such as roof plumbers and painters.

His background in facilities management has influenced that model: rather than viewing each individual electrical job in isolation, the business can help the client coordinate a broader maintenance requirement.

For a property manager, convenience has value.

They have tenants, owners, work orders and multiple contractors to manage. A contractor who communicates well, completes work reliably and makes maintenance easier to coordinate can become more valuable than one who simply provides the cheapest hourly rate.

The risk of relying on one relationship

Relationship-based work is valuable, but it is not guaranteed work.

Steve experienced this when a property manager changed and brought in their preferred electrician. Work that had previously been going to E-Maintain stopped quickly.

In that instance, the new arrangement did not last and E-Maintain regained the work. It still demonstrated the underlying risk.

If one property manager, builder, facility manager or commercial client represents a substantial percentage of your workload, a personnel change can affect revenue almost immediately.

That does not make the relationship a bad one. Strong client relationships should be developed.

It means concentration should be visible.

A trade business should know roughly how much work comes from its largest customers and what would happen if one disappeared next month.

Consistency comes from good relationships combined with diversification, rather than replacing dependence on advertising with dependence on a single client.

Do local Facebook groups work for tradies?

Local Facebook and community groups can generate leads for small trade businesses, particularly when the owner has more time than marketing budget.

E-Maintain monitors community Facebook groups where local residents actively ask for electrician recommendations.

The obvious challenge is competition.

A homeowner may post asking for an electrician and receive 20 or 30 comments recommending different businesses, friends, husbands and family members.

E-Maintain has tried to improve its chances by going beyond simply leaving another comment. Where appropriate, Steve contacts the potential customer directly through a private message.

That creates a more direct conversation and removes the need for the customer to work through a long comment section before contacting the business.

The financial cost is low, but there is still a cost: time.

Steve acknowledged that when E-Maintain became busy, he stopped monitoring these groups as closely because there were only so many hours available. When work became quieter, the effort increased again.

This is a useful lead source for a small business precisely because an owner can personally put time into it.

It becomes less scalable when the business needs 20, 30 or 40 additional enquiries every week.

The important distinction is that a free lead source is not necessarily a predictable lead source.

Community groups can be part of your marketing mix without becoming the entire marketing strategy.

Do Google Ads work for small trade businesses?

Google Ads can work for small trade businesses because they allow you to appear when a customer is actively searching for the service you provide. The challenge is controlling the cost and making sure the work generated is commercially worthwhile.

This differs from community Facebook groups.

Someone searching Google for an electrician, plumber or air conditioning installer has already demonstrated intent. They are actively looking for a business rather than casually discovering one.

That intent can make Google leads valuable.

It also makes the advertising competitive.

Kane describes paid lead generation for residential work as expensive, particularly once a business is operating at scale. Smartfix has worked with several agencies and providers over the years before finding an arrangement that better suited the business.

For a small trade business, that does not mean starting with a large Perth-wide campaign.

A more controlled approach can be to target the services and geographic areas the business actually wants.

An electrician based in Perth’s northern suburbs, for example, may begin with a relatively small service radius rather than paying for clicks from customers an hour away. Campaigns can also be scheduled around the times somebody is available to answer and follow up enquiries.

Smartfix previously operated extended office hours and offered emergency-style availability, including evenings and weekends. Over time, the business moved away from that model. Its advertising could then be adjusted so money was not being spent generating enquiries during times the business had no intention of servicing.

The lesson is broader than Google Ads.

Advertising should reflect the operation you actually run.

There is little value in paying to generate work you do not want, in areas you do not service, at times you do not answer or at a cost your margins cannot support.

Your online reputation affects the value of the click

Paying to appear on Google does not mean the customer automatically chooses you.

A potential customer can still search the business name, compare reviews, visit the website and look at social media before making contact.

For a small trade business, that means paid advertising and brand trust cannot be separated completely.

Google Ads may get the business in front of the customer. Reviews, the website, recent work and the overall professionalism of the business help the customer decide whether to call.

Before substantially increasing advertising spend, make sure the business looks credible when somebody researches it.

Otherwise, you may be paying to introduce potential customers to a business they do not yet trust.

Are flyer drops still worth trying for trade businesses?

Flyer drops can still be worth testing because they allow a trade business to target a defined local area at a relatively controlled cost.

Smartfix has historically achieved strong returns from flyer drops.

There is an important qualification to that example. Smartfix offers multiple home services, including electrical, air conditioning, plumbing, gas and other work. A flyer reaching a household therefore has several opportunities to match something the homeowner currently needs.

A single-trade business may have a narrower opportunity.

That does not mean flyers will not work. It means the result should be tested rather than assumed.

A small electrical business could choose one suburb, distribute to a defined number of homes and track the enquiries and jobs generated from that area before expanding the campaign.

This approach is useful for most forms of marketing.

Do not begin by asking whether flyers, Google Ads or Facebook “work”.

Ask whether they work for:

your services;
your target suburbs;
your average job value;
your available capacity;
your margins; and
the customers you are trying to reach.

A marketing channel does not need to work for every tradie in Perth.

It needs to produce profitable work for your business.

What is the best way to create consistent trade work?

The strongest approach is usually to combine lead generation with repeat work and recurring client relationships rather than expecting one marketing channel to keep the schedule full all year.

For a small trade business, that mix may develop gradually.

Community groups and referrals may play a large role in the first year because the owner can invest time rather than significant advertising spend. Residential customers can provide profitable jobs and begin building the business’s reputation and review base.

As the business grows, paid channels such as Google Ads may become useful for creating demand more deliberately.

At the same time, property managers, commercial clients, builders or other recurring relationships can provide a base of work that is less dependent on continually finding another household.

Previous residential customers should not be forgotten either.

If you have already done a good job for somebody, earned their trust and paid the cost of acquiring them, there should be a process for keeping the business familiar to them.

The exact mix will look different for an electrical contractor, plumber, HVAC company or maintenance business.

What matters is knowing where the work currently comes from.

If you cannot explain which customers and channels generated last month’s jobs, it becomes very difficult to create more consistency next month.

Track the source of your enquiries. Track which enquiries become quotes. Track which quotes become jobs. Look at the value and type of work each source generates, rather than judging marketing by how busy the phone feels.

That gives you a much stronger basis for deciding where to invest your next dollar or your next hour.

What should you change when the phone stops ringing?

A quiet period should trigger a review of the business’s customer and lead mix rather than an immediate rush to spend more money on advertising.

Start by understanding what has actually changed.

Has one service slowed because of the season? Has a large customer stopped sending work? Have you stopped doing the local marketing activities that previously generated enquiries because you were busy? Is demand down, or are competitors simply becoming more visible?

Then look at the assets you already have.

Previous customers, existing property managers, commercial relationships, referral partners, local community groups and geographic areas where the business already has a reputation may provide opportunities before you substantially increase paid acquisition.

If paid advertising is required, start deliberately.

Choose the services you want more of. Define the area you want to work in. Know roughly what the job is worth. Make sure somebody can answer and follow up the enquiry. Then measure whether the advertising is generating actual work.

Consistency is not created by keeping every marketing channel switched on permanently.

It comes from understanding how different sources of work fit together and building enough diversity that one quiet channel does not leave the entire team without jobs.

What Should a Trade Business Fix Before Hiring More People?

Trade business team on site with a hiring checklist covering processes, workload and business readiness before adding another employee.

Key takeaways

Hiring another person does not automatically fix an overloaded trade business. Without the right structure, it can create more work for the owner.
Processes need to be repeatable before you expect somebody else to deliver work to the same standard.
A new employee should have a clear role and enough sustainable work to justify the cost, rather than being hired because the owner feels busy.
The right people matter just as much as the right systems. Skills can be developed, but reliability, communication and how somebody fits the business are harder to manufacture.
Growth should gradually reduce the number of things that depend entirely on the owner.
One of the strongest tests of your structure is whether the business can keep operating when you are not there.

Hiring feels like the obvious answer when a trade business gets busy.

The phone is going constantly. Quotes are waiting. Jobs are backing up. You are on the tools all day and catching up on everything else at night. Another tradie, apprentice or office person looks like the quickest way to create some breathing room.

Sometimes it is.

But adding another person to a business that already relies on the owner for every decision can also make the problem bigger.

Before growing the team, you need to know what that person is being hired to solve, whether the business can sustainably support them and whether your processes are strong enough for somebody else to actually take responsibility.

The goal is not simply to employ more people.

It is to build a business where more people can operate effectively without everything continuing to run through you.

Why doesn’t hiring automatically make a trade business easier?

Hiring creates capacity, but it also creates another person to manage.

A new employee needs work, equipment, information, training, support and direction. They need to understand how jobs are completed, how customers are spoken to, what happens when something goes wrong and what standard the business expects.

If none of that exists outside the owner’s head, the new employee becomes another person asking the owner questions.

That can create a frustrating stage of growth.

You have increased wages and responsibility, but you have not necessarily reduced your workload.

The owner is still answering the phone. Still quoting. Still solving problems. Still checking jobs. Still dealing with customers. Now they are also trying to keep another employee productive.

This is why team growth and business structure have to develop together.

Anthony Lawlor experienced this while building Nimbus Tech. Before starting the business, he had spent years working inside larger IT businesses and identified two foundations he wanted to carry into his own company: people and process.

The industry is different from trades, but the principle translates directly.

If you want somebody else to deliver work under your business name, there has to be a standard they can actually follow.

What processes should be in place before you hire?

You do not need a 100-page operations manual before employing your first tradie.

You do need the important parts of the business to be repeatable.

Think about what happens from the moment a customer contacts you until the job is finished and paid.

How is an enquiry handled?
Where does the customer’s information go?
Who books the job? What information does the tradie receive?
How is additional work communicated?
What happens when the job is complete?
How does invoicing work?
What happens if the customer calls back?

When it is only you, you can fill the gaps from memory.

That becomes harder with every person you add.

Anthony describes process as creating a standard so the same task can be replicated rather than having everyone operate differently.

That does not mean removing judgement from your team. It means giving them a reliable starting point.

Stop building everything around the owner

Small decisions made early can become surprisingly difficult to undo later.

A simple example is the business phone.

Kane Tyler-Smith has spoken with trade business owners who still use their personal mobile as the main business number. It works when you are an owner-operator because you are the person answering every call anyway.

Then you hire admin.

Or you want somebody else to answer enquiries.

Or you take a week off.

Customers still have your personal number saved and continue calling you directly.

Anthony made a similar decision when setting up Nimbus Tech. Rather than building support, accounts and sales communication entirely around his own name, he set up the systems with growth in mind from the beginning.

The same thinking can be applied across a trade business.

Your phone number, email addresses, quoting, scheduling, job management, customer notes and follow-ups should gradually belong to the business, not one individual.

You do not need to pretend your two-person operation is a 50-person company.

You need to make sure becoming a five-person company does not require rebuilding everything from scratch.

How do you know if the business can afford another employee?

Being busy is not enough reason to hire.

You need enough sustainable work and financial capacity to support the person after the excitement of a busy month disappears.

Wages are only part of the cost.

Depending on the role, there may also be a vehicle, tools, superannuation, insurance, licences, uniforms, software, training and the owner’s time spent getting that person productive.

There is also the responsibility that comes with employing somebody.

Anthony described bringing his second employee into Nimbus Tech as a significant moment because there were suddenly two employees with families relying on the business.

Before making the decision, he went through the company’s information to make sure the business could support the additional person.

That is a much stronger basis for hiring than:

“We’re flat out. We need another bloke.”

A growing trade business should be able to explain what the new person will do, where their work will come from and what the numbers look like if the next few months are not as busy as the last few.

Do not hire too early just because a good person is available

There is another side to this problem.

Sometimes you know exactly who you would like to hire, but the business is not ready yet.

Anthony already has people in mind that he would like to bring into Nimbus Tech as the business grows. The risk is that those people may accept another opportunity before he has enough work to employ them.

That can create pressure to move early.

But hiring somebody before the business can support them creates risk for both sides.

A good candidate being available does not automatically make it the right time.

If the numbers and workload are not there yet, forcing the hire can put pressure on cash, the owner and ultimately the employee you were trying to secure.

What should you look for when hiring a tradie?

Technical ability matters, but it is not the whole job.

For a growing trade business, communication, customer service, reliability and the ability to work within the team’s standards can be just as important.

A tradie can be technically excellent and still create problems if customers do not feel comfortable dealing with them.

Kane has seen this when hiring people from different trade environments.

Someone coming from a large new-build operation, for example, may have spent years completing a relatively narrow range of work. They may not have had the same exposure to fault finding, different job types or dealing directly with homeowners that somebody from a smaller service business has had.

That does not make them a bad hire.

It means the business needs to understand what experience they actually have and what will need to be taught.

Customer communication is one of those areas.

Anthony considers communication one of the most valuable transferable skills somebody can have. In a trade business, that could mean explaining an issue to a homeowner without confusing them, communicating a delay, asking the right questions on site or keeping the office updated when the scope changes.

Those behaviours directly affect the customer’s experience of your business.

Referrals can improve the quality of your hiring pool

Some of Smartfix’s strongest team members have come through referrals from existing employees.

There is a practical reason that can work well.

A good employee is putting their own reputation against the person they recommend. If they enjoy working with the team and understand what is expected, they already have a reasonable idea of whether somebody they know will fit.

Smartfix has used referral incentives when looking for tradespeople, giving existing staff an extra reason to think about people in their network.

It is not a replacement for properly assessing a candidate.

It can, however, give you access to people who may never have applied through a standard job ad.

Over time, Smartfix has also been able to develop people internally. Team members have moved from apprenticeships and on-road positions into management and office roles.

That progression matters.

Hiring is not only about finding more people. It is also about giving good people a reason to stay and creating the capability you will need as the business gets bigger.

How do you stop the business running through you?

Hiring only creates freedom for the owner when responsibility moves with it.

If every customer issue, pricing decision, booking change and technical question still needs your approval, you may have a bigger team without having a more independent business.

This is where people and process come back together.

You need people you trust.

Then those people need enough structure and authority to do their jobs.

Anthony’s team works partly remotely. Rather than constantly monitoring whether somebody is sitting at their computer, the focus is on whether the work gets done and customers receive the expected service.

That requires trust, but the trust is supported by the way the business operates.

Trade businesses have the same challenge.

You cannot follow every van around Perth checking what your team is doing. At some point, people need to be able to represent the business without you standing beside them.

That becomes much easier when expectations are clear.

What does a good job look like?

How should customers be treated?

What decisions can the tradie make themselves?

When should they call the office?

What happens when something goes wrong?

Where is information recorded?

The goal is not to micromanage people more efficiently.

It is to give good people enough clarity to operate without being micromanaged.

How do you know your systems and team are actually working?

A useful test is what happens when the owner disappears.

Not for an hour.

For several days or even a few weeks.

Anthony experienced this after growing Nimbus Tech to a team of three. He took a three-week holiday after rarely taking that much time away from work previously.

Initially, he kept an eye on what was happening.

Then he switched off.

The business continued operating because the people were there and the processes were there.

That is a meaningful stage of business growth.

It does not mean the owner becomes irrelevant. Anthony is still actively involved in building Nimbus Tech, developing the team and planning its growth.

The difference is that the business is becoming less dependent on his constant presence.

Kane has worked towards a similar position at Smartfix.

Smartfix grew significantly over its eight-plus years, reaching around 140 staff before later scaling back. Kane’s focus now is less about making the team as large as possible and more about building a sustainable operation where staff are not overworked, the business can perform over the long term and he does not have to control the day-to-day operation.

That is an important distinction.

Headcount is not the goal.

A stronger business is.

Should you hire another person or fix the business first?

If you genuinely have the demand, numbers and structure to support another employee, hiring can be exactly what the business needs.

But if the owner is already the bottleneck, adding more people without changing how the business operates can make that bottleneck worse.

Before advertising the role, look at the business underneath it.

Can you clearly explain what this person will be responsible for?

Is there enough sustainable work to keep them productive?

Can the business afford the real cost of employing them?

Are the important processes documented or at least repeatable?

Can somebody access the information they need without asking you every time?

Are customers contacting the business, or are they contacting you personally?

Do team members understand what they can decide without approval?

If you disappeared for a week, what would immediately stop?

That last question will tell you a lot.

Growth should gradually remove single points of failure.

For most owner-led trade businesses, the biggest single point of failure is initially the owner.

Hiring can help change that, but only when you build the structure around the people you are adding.

The next employee should not simply give you another pair of hands.

They should help build a business that can do more without everything continuing to depend on you.