WORKING THE TRADE, LIVING THE LIFE
You don’t need the biggest team, the most vans or the highest turnover to build a bloody good life.
This week, Kate sits down with coaching clients Tim and Steph Price from Price Concrete Co., a small but mighty concreting business in regional New South Wales.
Tim grew up in the trades, completing his bricklaying apprenticeship with his dad before eventually taking over the family business and moving its focus towards concreting.
Steph’s entry into the business will sound familiar to plenty of tradie wives.
She married a tradie and naturally found herself taking on the admin.
But stepping into an established family business came with its own challenges.
There were old ways of doing things, handshake agreements, paper everywhere and the expectations that come with running a business carrying a well-known family name in a small community.
Then Tim and Steph decided they wanted to do things their way.
Over the past few years, they’ve worked on understanding their numbers, formalising their quoting process, improving their marketing, building systems and getting much clearer about what they actually want their business to achieve.
One of their biggest discoveries?
Bigger wasn’t necessarily better.
When they had a bigger team, they had bigger turnover, but not necessarily bigger profit. Today, they operate with a leaner crew, bring in subcontractors when the work requires it and have created a model that gives them flexibility without carrying unnecessary overhead and risk.
And that business is helping them create a pretty incredible life outside of it too.
They’re building their forever home, taking on property projects, raising seven kids and continuing to dream bigger about what they can create together.
In this episode, Kate, Tim and Steph unpack:
- Taking over a generational trade business and finding the confidence to do things differently
- Steph’s experience stepping into the family business as the “in-law”
- Why business coaching initially felt foreign to Tim
- Moving from handshake agreements to a proper quoting and sales process
- Why it can be uncomfortable changing the way you do business in a small regional community
- Going from checking the bank balance to actually understanding their profit and loss
- How knowing their numbers helps them identify which levers to pull when things aren’t going to plan
- Why targeted marketing has helped them generate the right kind of work
- What happened when they realised a bigger team gave them more turnover, but not necessarily more profit
- How they use subcontractors to stay lean while still having capacity for bigger projects
- Building their dream home while running the business and investing in other properties
- How business gave them the confidence, resilience and problem-solving skills to dream bigger
- Steph’s journey rediscovering her own creativity and identity outside the business
- Why creating space for yourself can feel uncomfortable when your tradie is out working
- Making health, connection and time together part of the bigger picture
- Why success doesn’t have to look like 20 employees and a fleet of utes
- And why sometimes the smartest thing you can do is run your own race
There’s a really simple message underneath Tim and Steph’s story.
You get to decide what success looks like.
If you want to build a massive trade business, go for it.
But if what you really want is a profitable business, a small team, a good income and enough freedom to build a dream home, spend time with your family, chase other opportunities and actually enjoy your life, that counts too.
As Steph puts it, they’re working for their lifestyle.
And maybe that’s the metric that matters most.
✨ Key Takeaways
Bigger turnover doesn’t automatically mean a better business.
Tim and Steph discovered that having five people didn’t necessarily leave them with more profit than running with three. A leaner team has meant fewer overheads, less risk and fewer headaches, while still giving them the flexibility to bring in subcontractors when bigger projects come along.
Know what you’re actually building towards.
Their forever home started as a dream that once would have seemed almost impossible. As their business knowledge and confidence grew, so did their belief in what they could achieve outside the business.
You don’t have to run somebody else’s race.
There can be pressure in business to keep growing, hiring and chasing the next revenue milestone. Tim and Steph’s story is proof that success can also mean knowing your numbers, making good profit and building a business that funds the lifestyle you actually want.
And sometimes, you just have to start.
Tim’s advice is to get the foundations and processes right. Steph’s is to stop waiting for the perfect time and have a crack.
Put the two together and you’ve got a pretty good recipe: know where you want to go, build the right foundations and then do it your way.
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