Trade Legends | Construction Podcast

This week on the Trade Legends Podcast, landscaper and content creator Tom joins us for his long-awaited return, and he doesn't hold back. It's been nearly three years since Tom last sat in the studio, and in that time his life has changed beyond recognition. Tom opens up about the moment, two years ago to the day we recorded this, when he hit rock bottom. He talks honestly about the help he got, the people who stepped up, and how he pulled himself back.

This isn't a sob story. It's one of the most genuine, hopeful conversations we've had on the podcast, and Tom tells it the way only he can. Since we last spoke, Tom has gone from around 1,000 followers to closing in on 24,000, picked up brand deals and ambassadorships, and completely transformed how his landscaping business operates.

He tried scaling up with a team of three, decided it wasn't for him, and went back to working solo, finishing every job ahead of schedule and making just as much money with far less stress. He also lost seven and a half stone. At his heaviest, he was 22 stone, and the weight he lost was equivalent to the combined weight of his two boys. We touch on Mounjaro, the journey that came with it, and why there's a part two coming on that topic alone.

We round off with Tom's take on dodgy customers versus dodgy tradespeople, why he now takes a 50% deposit without exception, and what he'd tell himself ten years ago, starting out in the trade. If you're going through a difficult time, please reach out. Samaritans are available 24/7 on 116 123.

This week on the Trade Legends Podcast, Toni from ALO Electrical has spent over 15 years building a fire and security business from the ground up, and in this episode, he holds nothing back. Toni left school without grades, enrolled on a BTEC business course, bought a motorbike the same day and never went back.

He ended up becoming a chef before retraining as an electrician in his 20s, inspired by a family member in the trade. His first job interview involved being handed a plug and told to wire it on the spot, and that moment stuck with him. He went self-employed in 2009, founded ALO Electrical, and has been building it ever since.

But it hasn't always been smooth. Toni opens up about a large-door entry and auction system job at a stately home — £14-15k of work — that didn't pay for 9 months. Lying awake at night, wondering where the money was coming from. And how that experience made a 50% deposit on every job completely non-negotiable from that point forward.Toni also get's into the real challenges of taking on apprentices as a smaller firm, what colleges are getting badly wrong about preparing young people for the trades, and the hidden electrical dangers Toni regularly finds on site that builders have left behind, including a fire alarm system in an HMO that had been relocated, cabled chopped off, and left dead in the wall with tenants still living there.

We round off with a conversation about the financial burden on self-employed people right now, and why understanding your own numbers is the single most important thing you can do as a trades business owner.

On this week's episode, Al sits down with Jermaine from Stately Home Developments, a luxury renovation and construction brand built from the ground up over the last five years. Jermaine's path into the trades is one of the most unexpected we've come across. Starting out on weekends with his granddad doing kitchen and bathroom fits in East London, he quickly realised construction was where he belonged. But before going all in, he took a serious detour into the world of acting, extra work on Spider-Man sets, BBC and ITV productions, film festivals, networking with directors, and eventually a gig in Atlanta after living in Malta and South Africa. When Covid hit, he came back to the UK and went full steam ahead with Stately Home Developments, and hasn't looked back. In this episode, we cover how social media has transformed the way he wins work, why putting your face to the brand gives you the upper hand before you even arrive on site, what he learned watching a terrible builder somehow win premium jobs, the real cost of running a construction business on relationships and mental load, and why investing in yourself early is always cheaper than waiting. Follow us on Spotify and YouTube, and use the link below for discounts from our sponsors, Powered Now and Pocket Receptionist.

On this Episode of Trade Legends, we talk about how Britain needs 25,000 new electricians a year. We're producing maybe 5,000. Mark Allison has spent 20 years in the electrical industry and is now on a mission to fix the training crisis from the inside, hands-on, accredited, no shortcuts. We get into the £12k course scams robbing people blind, why employers have stopped taking apprentices, what the government keeps getting wrong, and why the next decade is going to make electricians seriously wealthy, if they're ready for it.

Luke Freeman joins the Trade Legends podcast to talk about life as a self-employed electrician for two years. We cover the apprenticeship journey, going self-employed with no domestic experience, cash-flow realities, toxic trades on social media, pricing wars, and why building your reputation matters more than your follower count.

This week on Trade Legends, Sophie McGee is a third-year electrical apprentice, and she's had the full experience, good employers, bad ones, and everything in between. We talk about leaving nursing mid-COVID, getting into the trades with zero background, the apprenticeship system that's quietly falling apart, and why more women in trades is good for everyone. Honest, straight-talking, and worth your time whether you're an apprentice, an employer, or just thinking about making a change.

Two Trade Legends return. Dom and Reiss are back on the podcast. Both businesses have grown, the jobs are bigger, the money's bigger, and so are the headaches. In this episode, we get into how having kids changes everything when you're running a business, why most tradesmen are leaving serious money on the table with their accountant, the real reason growing your team too fast will bury you in admin, and how Dom is building a multi-business group with a clean exit/business sale in mind.

Chirag is back on Trade Legends, and this time he's revealing all, including how he went from recruitment and estate agency to qualifying as a gas engineer in just two weeks. We get into whether that's actually enough to be safe on the job, the real cowboys in the industry, growing a YouTube channel to 16K subscribers, why long-form content beats shorts every time, the customer comments that make every tradesperson's blood boil, and why consistency is the only thing that actually builds a career.

Bespoke furniture maker Josh from Emerald & Grace returns to the Trade Legends podcast 3 years on, and a lot has changed. Josh opens up about growing his workshop, investing in machinery, taking on the biggest project of his career and the realities of running a one-man trade business. We also get into social media, brand deals, comparing yourself to others and why the long game is the only game worth playing.

Anthony from Rothenberger joins us to talk about how a 75-year-old titan of the industry is staying ahead of the curve. From Lee’s start as an engineer in '97 to Rothenberger’s massive €2 Billion global presence, we dive deep into the tech that’s making tradespeople faster, more efficient, and more profitable.