Crushing It In Construction

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

Today, we're sitting down with Josh Smyser, the owner of TNT Tuckpointing Building Restoration,LLC. Josh's journey is a powerful case study in how a completely different professional background can become your greatest business advantage.

He was a certified public accountant (CPA) working for a major firm. But when a family tragedy struck, he was thrust back into the family trade business he never planned to run.

So, how did he apply an accountant's mindset to transform a small, traditional tuck pointing operation into a multi-million dollar company? He explains how his financial background provided a roadmap from chaos, why he shifted to cost-based pricing, how he's using AI to build a leaner company, and why hiring for attitude not skill is the key to scalable, drama-free growth.                                   

Connect with Joshua Smyser:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-smyser

Website: https://www.tnttuckpointing.com/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Joining us today is Nate Carlisle, the founder who turned a $7,500 bet into a multi-million dollar framing empire. But to understand how he built his business, you first need to understand what he had to leave behind.

Nate grew up in a controlled, fundamentalist cult where entrepreneurship was discouraged and the outside world was off-limits. His story isn't just about business growth; it's a profound lesson in building personal and professional freedom from the ground up.

He isn't afraid to get real about the hard stuff: how cash desperation creates a race to the bottom, why the right partners are everything, and what it's actually like on the other side of high-profile, high-cost business coaching.

Sharing how Tecton Framing broke every mold, this episode digs into the raw realities of overcoming your circumstances—whether they're financial, cultural, or self-imposed.

For Nate, it all comes down to resilience, smart cash management, and trusting your own gut over the hype. Sounds like the kind of truth we all need to hear, right?

Let's get started.

Connect with Nate Carlisle:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-carlisle-7bb66b14a/

Website: https://www.tectonco.com/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Ever wonder if you're being paid what you're worth? Or if you're paying your team fairly? Martin from Built & Byron's recruitment surveys 500+ actually employed construction pros (not just job-seekers) to reveal real Melbourne salary benchmarks.

👉 Grab the free Salary Insights Report:www.buildingenvironsrecruitment.short.gy/Salaryinsightsreport

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

Joining us to unpack this bold idea is Anna Verghese, Founding Director of client-side consultancy Cerulean.

Anna has a radically different view on stability, and she's built her entire career on it: true security isn't given to you by a company, it's built by you through calculated risks, global experience, and betting on yourself.

Sharing how her journey from massive projects in Dubai to landing in Australia with no job offer led to a thriving business, this episode dives into the post-COVID realities of work - proving just how fragile the traditional career path really is.

For Anna, it's all about self-reliance, transferable skills, and entrepreneurial courage - that's how we build a truly secure future. Sounds pretty necessary, right?

Let's get started.

Connect with Anna Verghese:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-verghese-au/

Website:https://www.ceruleanppl.com/team/anna-verghese

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Ever wonder if you're being paid what you're worth? Or if you're paying your team fairly? Martin from Built & Byron's recruitment surveys 500+ actually employed construction pros (not just job-seekers) to reveal real Melbourne salary benchmarks.

👉 Grab the free Salary Insights Report:www.buildingenvironsrecruitment.short.gy/Salaryinsightsreport

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

This week, we're sitting down with Sean Rice from Proterra Group - an accidental founder who never set out to run an 80-person business.

Starting with a single 6-month contract and a personal credit card used to cover his first payroll, Sean has navigated market crashes, painful downsizing, and the complexities of bringing in - and later buying out - business partners.

Sharing how he built a business serving 45+ local councils without a master plan, this episode is a deep dive into resilient leadership, strategic pivots, and why sometimes the best businesses are built by accident.

For anyone who’s ever bootstrapped, bet on themselves, or wondered how to lead a team through tough times - this one’s for you.

Let's get started.                                                                                    

Connect with Sean Rice:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/s-rice/

Website:https://www.proterragroup.com.au/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Ever wonder if you're being paid what you're worth? Or if you're paying your team fairly? Martin from Built & Byron's recruitment surveys 500+ actually employed construction pros (not just job-seekers) to reveal real Melbourne salary benchmarks.

👉 Grab the free Salary Insights Report:www.buildingenvironsrecruitment.short.gy/Salaryinsightsreport

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

This week, Jordan sits down with Nic Parish - a man who went from designing chairs in college to co-owning and running his family's heavy civil, trucking, and dumpster businesses in Mississippi.

But this isn't your typical "third-generation success story." Nic's grandfather famously sat him down and begged him: "Please don't do this. Go do anything but this. You do not want this life."

He ignored the advice, bought in, and quickly learned why he got the warning. The pressure of the business led him to a dark place where the only way out felt like suicide -a story he shares with shocking honesty.

We dive into how that moment became a catalyst for change, forcing him to take 10 days off (the "best career decision he ever made") and ultimately leading him to implement the EOS system that transformed everything.

Let’s get it started!

Connect with Nic Parish:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicparish/

Website:https://www.burnsdirt.com/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Ever wonder if you're being paid what you're worth? Or if you're paying your team fairly? Martin from Built & Byron's recruitment surveys 500+ actually employed construction pros (not just job-seekers) to reveal real Melbourne salary benchmarks.

👉 Grab the free Salary Insights Report:www.buildingenvironsrecruitment.short.gy/Salaryinsightsreport

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction podcast!

After a chaotic few weeks of scheduling nightmares (thanks, end-of-financial-year madness), we’re finally back with a banger of an episode. I sat down with Kyra Naylor - CEO of Naylor Commercial Interiors and third-generation leader of her family’s Dallas-based architectural finishes biz.

Kyra’s story isn’t your typical "grew up in the trades" tale. She was the kid in cowboy boots translating for supers on job sites, detoured through law school, then got yanked back into construction when COVID hit. Now? She’s running the show with a mix of old-school grit and next-gen strategy like slashing 500 weekly bid requests to focus on clients who actually pay.

We cover Texas's boom-or-bust construction market, why election years bring projects to a standstill, and when "being nice" at work goes too far. Plus: the raw truth about inheriting a family business - from tough firings to construction-style networking.

Let’s get started!

Connect with Kyra Nylor:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyra-naylor

Website:https://naylorcommercial.com/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Ever wonder if you're being paid what you're worth? Or if you're paying your team fairly? Martin from Built & Byron's recruitment surveys 500+ actually employed construction pros (not just job-seekers) to reveal real Melbourne salary benchmarks.

👉 Grab the free Salary Insights Report:www.buildingenvironsrecruitment.short.gy/Salaryinsightsreport

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

At 14, Kazan Hadden was training with Liverpool FC's youth squad. By 18? Injured, broke, and living in a caravan. Today, he's the founder of Nickaz Australia - a construction business that's thrived for three decades without ever chasing tenders.

We're digging into how getting cut from football taught him more than any business degree, why he keeps 15 full-time trades when everyone else subcontracts, how childhood trauma became his unfair business advantage and the $200,000 mistake that changed how he hires forever.

Real stories from a builder who's been through the fire. Hit play.

Connect with Kazan Hadden:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kazan-hadden-nickaz/

Website: https://nickaz.com.au/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Do you have an influential personal brand? 

Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

This week we're sitting down with Todd Bacon, Managing Director of Central Coast-based Collaborative Construction Solutions. Todd's got some strong opinions about our industry, and he's not holding back: from tradespeople who've never seen standard installation guides to clients accepting mediocre work, we're facing a quality crisis that starts with training and ends with expectations.

Sharing how CCS operates differently, this episode takes us inside the challenging world of live-site construction - schools, hospitals and shopping centers where the public never stops moving around your work. Todd proves why this niche might just be the ultimate test of a builder's skill and patience.

For Todd, it's about balancing growth with sanity, investing in proper planning, and remembering to step away occasionally (even if that means battling boredom on a bike trainer). That's how we build better businesses - and a better industry.

Sounds refreshingly honest, doesn't it?

Let's get started.

Connect with Todd Bacon:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-bacon-639b67b/

Website: https://collaborative.com.au/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Do you have an influential personal brand? Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

For Episode 112, we’re sitting down with Kane Keefe, the visionary Managing Director behind Alliance Building Construction.

Based in Toowoomba but operating across Queensland, Kane took the unconventional path - launching during COVID’s toughest months, then systematically purchasing complementary businesses like a 30-year-old earthworks company rather than chasing traditional tenders.

He reflects on this bold journey, sharing how buying competitors became his secret to unlocking 8 figure scale, why vertical integration beats the race-to-the-bottom tender cycle, and how everything changes when you transition from employee to owner with real skin in the game.

Let’s dive in.

Connect with Kane Keefe:

Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kane-keefe-3ba53368/

Website: https://alliancebc.com.au/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Do you have an influential personal brand? Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz

Welcome back to the Crushing It In Construction Podcast!

This week, we’re sitting down with Brodie Haughton, Managing Director of Solidity, a company that’s redefining foundation engineering with screw piling.

Now, screw piling might sound like a niche dark art (because it is), but Brodie’s taken this overlooked corner of construction and turned it into a multi-million-dollar business. And he did it by creating demand, not just fighting for scraps in an existing market.

This is a masterclass for business owners who want to spot and dominate a niche, bootstrap like a madman, survive cash flow nightmares, and use vertical integration to lock out competitors.

If you’ve ever thought, "There’s no room left to innovate in construction," this episode will prove you wrong. Let’s dive in!

Connect with Brodie Haughton:

Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brodie-houghton-86909984/

Website: https://www.solidity.com.au/

Connect with Jordan Skinner:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanaskinner/

Website: https://moonshotmedia.com.au/

Do you have an influential personal brand? Take the quiz to find out:

http://www.constructingaleader.com/quiz