The Good Builder Podcast

We've spent the past few weeks travelling through Victoria, New South Wales and the Gold Coast, meeting builders, visiting businesses and hearing what's really happening across the industry.

And one thing keeps becoming clearer: there's an enormous amount we can learn from each other.

In this Monday solo episode, Az shares some of the conversations and lessons that have stuck with him, from Cheyne Hall's experience growing a national building business to Paul Hogan's approach to delivering better outcomes for homeowners.

We also reflect on our time around Newcastle with Mark Sutton from...

AI can help builders produce estimates faster than ever. But when your margins, cash flow and reputation are on the line, who's checking the numbers?

Recorded live from the TPB Summit, Az sits down with Haydn, founder of Price A Plan, for a conversation about the future of construction estimating, the growing influence of AI and why experienced people still matter.

Haydn didn't set out to build an estimating business. After an operation left him unable to return to the tools for nine months, he started helping other builders with their quotes. Eighteen years later...

We're taking The Good Builder Podcast on the road.

In this special series recorded at The Professional Builder Summit, Az sits down with builders from across Australia for honest, unscripted conversations about running a building business, the challenges they're facing and what they're learning along the way.

No presentations or rehearsed answers. Just real conversations with the people doing the work.

In this episode, Az meets Leithen, Jordan and Ange from Brisbane-based Baihn Construction. What starts with a fairly hilarious introduction quickly turns into a conversation about AI, marketing, customer relationships and what...

Sydney home values are falling, but the NSW Government is pushing ahead with faster housing approvals and new measures to get projects off the ground.

In this Monday edition of The Good Builder Podcast, Az is heading to Sydney to find out what's happening on the ground and what it means for residential builders.

According to figures discussed in the episode, Sydney home values have fallen 8.6% from their February peak. That's not just a concern for homeowners. Falling valuations can create problems at the final claim, leaving builders exposed when clients struggle to secure the...

Growing a building business should mean more opportunity, more profit and hopefully a little less pressure on the owner. But as many builders have discovered, more work and more staff don't always deliver those results.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Cheyne Hall, founder of Build Launch, to talk about one of the biggest challenges facing growing construction businesses: getting the right people into the right roles without letting overheads get out of control.

Cheyne knows the pressures firsthand. After growing his own construction business to 60–70 staff across multiple st...

Being busy doesn't necessarily mean you're running a healthy building business. In fact, chasing more sales, taking on the wrong projects and carrying too much overhead can be exactly what gets a builder into trouble.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Aaron Ng sits down with Mark Vassallo and Paul Hogan, directors of Dixon Homes Sydney, who bring a combined 60 years of experience across residential construction, land development, finance, sales and business leadership.

Between them, they've worked with some of Australia's biggest building and development businesses, including McDonald Jones, Mojo Homes, Mirvac and...

Most builders can tell you who their customer is. But there’s a big difference between knowing your customer and actually designing your business around them.

In this short episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az looks at Queensland builder Mayde and the strategy behind its first-home buyer model.

Mayde has built a clearly defined offering: 26 home designs, published pricing, two specification levels, narrow-lot options, standard facade choices and a simplified selections process. None of those things is revolutionary on its own — but together they reveal something interesting about the way the business has been desi...

What actually makes someone a good builder?

For Ben from Stroud Homes Brisbane North, it isn’t simply knowing how to build a house. It’s knowing how to bring the right people together.

Ben’s path through construction is anything but conventional. From roofing and carpentry to concreting, rigging, major commercial projects and eventually residential building, he’s built his career by taking on difficult jobs, backing himself and learning along the way.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Ben for a conversation that goes well beyond c...

What actually makes a good builder?

For Alex Palazzolo, founder of ATLI Building Co. in Melbourne, the finished home is only part of the answer. A quality build should be the minimum. What separates a good builder is everything that happens around it: communication, certainty, trust and the experience you give the client along the way.

Alex brings an unusual perspective to running a building business. Rather than coming through the traditional trade pathway, he spent years working across scheduling, estimating and operations, including seven years with a volume builder. That experience shaped how he...

Does the energy feel a bit off at the moment?

There’s a lot weighing on people. Cost of living, government decisions, what’s happening in our communities, pressure in business and the constant stream of things coming at us every time we pick up our phones.

For this public holiday Monday solo, Az steps outside the usual building conversation to talk about something we can control: the energy we carry into our businesses, homes and communities.

Because while it’s important to protect your own energy, it’s just as important to think ab...

What happens before a client signs a building contract could be one of the biggest opportunities for builders to improve their business.

Site feasibility, zoning, overlays, setbacks, siting, quoting and working out what can actually be built on a block have traditionally meant manual checks, multiple systems and plenty of back-and-forth between sales, estimating and construction.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Mark Garner from Canibuild and Megan Burraston, Sales Manager at Stylemaster Homes, to look at what happens when you start changing that process.

Megan brings...

What does being a good builder actually look like when you strip away the systems, processes and business jargon?

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az sits down with Mitch Thompson from Vista Built in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges for a conversation about building better homes, better teams and a building business you actually want to be part of.

Mitch has deliberately taken Vista Built down the high-performance and healthy-home path, working across new homes, renovations and extensions. But some of the most interesting lessons in this conversation have very little to do wi...

540 construction companies entered voluntary administration on a single day in August. It sounds catastrophic. But there’s an important detail buried underneath that number.

In this Monday Builder Briefing, Az from The Good Builder takes eight minutes to unpack three stories Australian residential builders should have on their radar this week.

First, we look at the extraordinary spike in construction insolvencies. All 540 companies that entered voluntary administration on that day belonged to the same corporate group. Remove that event and construction’s share of company failures across July and August falls from 37.4% to 23.5%.

Australia needs more bricklayers. But according to Andy Shaw, simply putting more apprentices into the system won’t solve the problem.

Andy is the founder of Brickies Network and has spent more than 35 years in construction. He started as an apprentice bricklayer, built and ran his own bricklaying business, worked on the builder side of the industry and has spent the past five years looking closely at how bricklaying businesses operate across Australia.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Andy and Az go deep into a trade that operates very differently from most ot...

At 23, Carrick was installing aerials when the ladder slipped out from under him. He fell two storeys onto a concrete driveway, broke vertebrae in his back and his wrist, and lost his job before the ambulance had picked him up off the ground. Six months off work. His mum washing him in the shower. Two decades on, that fall is why he does what he does.

Now National Enterprise Manager at HazardCo, Carrick joins Az for what Az calls the darkest episode The Good Builder has recorded, and one of the most important.

They get...

Most builders only find out a customer is unhappy once it has already cost them. At the end of the build, in a Google review, or in the dreaded Facebook groups. And the referral goes with it.

This week Az unpacks The Pulse by Australian Building Research and shares results from the builder trials that have been running quietly in the background. One short text at each stage of the build. Deposit, slab, frame, handover. Every reply lands in a live dashboard so you know exactly who to ask for a review, who to call, and what...

James Drever started as a chippy on the coast. Today he is CEO of QA Build, the fastest growing builder in Queensland, running more than 15 live projects across Australia with thousands of builds underneath them.

In this episode, James joins Az to unpack how they did it.

The philosophy is simple. See a roadblock, remove the roadblock, take control of the roadblock. When suppliers could not deliver, QA Build bought them. Their solar, electrical, air conditioning and cabinetry businesses now all sit in house, including a cabinetry operation that grew from 15 staff to more than 55...

Why does the building market suddenly feel quieter?

Builders across Australia are reporting slower enquiries, longer decision times and clients holding off on signing contracts.

In this episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az looks at what may be driving that hesitation — including interest rates, consumer confidence, construction finance, affordability and the growing gap between housing approvals and actual building contracts.

The key point is that housing demand has not disappeared.

But clients are taking longer to make major financial decisions, and that delay can have a significant impact on builder pi...

This episode belongs to you.

When the $3.4 billion Bathla Group collapse hit, we emailed every builder and tradie in our community and asked one thing: what do you actually want to know? The questions came in fast, and some of them were spicy. Where did the money went is one thing. Whether the administrators always get paid while you get nothing is another.

So we put them straight to insolvency practitioner Chris Baskerville of Jirsch Sutherland, the leading voice on this collapse across the national media. Ten questions from real subbies, suppliers and builders. Chris...

Every builder is being told AI will change their business. Vinnie Vecchio is one of the few actually showing them how.

Vinnie leads the coaching team at The Professional Builder, working with hundreds of builders across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. He joins Az ahead of the AI and Marketing Summit for Builders, on at The Star, Gold Coast, 15 and 16 October, where The Good Builder Podcast will be recording live.

In this episode:

- The real difference between a tradesperson and a business owner, and why your business can't grow if...

He's one of the fastest growing construction profiles on Instagram, because he's saying what most of the industry won't.

Johno The Plumber (real name Robert Cragg) has spent 24 years in the trade and runs Cragg Plumbing & Drainage in Melbourne, working across commercial and domestic. In this episode he sits down with Az to talk about the stuff that actually needs saying: falling standards, missing accountability, care factor between trades, and how we bring apprentices up instead of writing them off.

Rob doesn't point the finger without pointing it at himself first. From copping a lesson...

Two years ago, prompt engineering was going to be the six-figure job of the future and blokes were buying Mac Minis to run AI agents next to the drop saw. Both gone — not because AI was a fad, but because the platforms built it all in. If you're paying for ChatGPT or Claude, you're probably using about 10% of it. This week, Az walks through the other 90%: four features already sitting in your subscription that can genuinely help your building business — this week, not someday.

In this episode:

What does it take to become the most awarded and highest rated solar company in Australia? Not a secret. Just turning up for customers after installation.

This week Az sits down with Leigh Storr, founder and CEO of Resinc, in their Brisbane office. Leigh has spent 24 years in renewables and built Resinc from a startup in 2016 into the country's most trusted solar provider. Over 5,000 five star reviews. 150% growth in the last 12 months. A team of 25 dedicated purely to proactive customer care after the sale.

In this episode:

Why Resinc refuses to compete on...

Floor heating might be the most loved feature in a home that almost nobody asks for — and once the floors are down, it's too late.

This week Az sits down with Rick Florence, managing director and owner of Coldbuster Floor Heating, a business that's been in the Australian market for over 25 years. Rick reckons only a tiny fraction of people building or renovating ever see a floor heating quote before the floors go in — and he's built his whole business around fixing that gap.

In this episode:

Builders are being approached from outside the industry more than ever. Coaches, planners, consultants, software reps. All of them want the same thing: access to your trust.

In this short solo episode, Az shares the background check The Good Builder runs on everyone who approaches the platform, and why builders should run it on everyone who approaches them.

Two searches. Five minutes. Before a dollar moves or a meeting is taken.

Search one is ASIC. Run their name through the banned and disqualified register. It covers disqualified company directors, not just finance. Run...

Solar and batteries are on nearly every new-home wish list, and hardly any builders are putting them in as standard. Az sits down with Gary Higgins, owner of Sunshine Coast solar and battery installer Halcol, to work out why, and what it's costing builders.

Gary's path here is not the usual one. An electrical apprenticeship in Ireland cut short by the GFC, a stint in retail and business management, then the Northern Territory in the middle of wet season installing satellite dishes hours outside Darwin. He joined Halcol as a business development manager, became general manager, and...

Mark Sutton has just stepped into the GM role at Goop Guys, the surface protection business builders rely on at handover. He's spent his career in hardware, paint and construction materials, starting in his father's hardware store in Cleveland, Brisbane, then leading business development for Wattyl across Australia and New Zealand, growing a network of more than a hundred stores at Everhard Industries, and working with Crimsafe Group before joining the twenty five year old family business behind Goop Guys.

Az sits down with Mark to talk about:

- What it actually means to protect...

Az runs solo through the small, low-cost moves he's watched actually shift leads for builders — no bigger ad spend required.

First, 3D walkthroughs and rendered tours of your own designs, including homes not yet built. Az's own experience — not a cited study — put these at roughly four times more likely to convert a visitor into a lead, with the added bonus of fewer variations once buyers can see how a home flows before it's built.

Second, live chat monitoring, actually staffed rather than left switched on and ignored.

Third, lead magnets, giving something of val...

Az sits down with Matt Hope, founder of Wattle Court, on building a franchise brand that is bigger than the person who started it.

Hope has run building companies and led one of the strongest performing segments of a major group. Wattle Court is the first brand he has built from scratch, and he explains why he turned down the obvious name, what the wattle tree has to do with the first homes constructed in Australia, and why the street he grew up on in regional Victoria ended up on the sign.

Covered in this...

Alex Harris from Wattyl on the couch for the first time, and Bec from Adapt Modular back for a second run.

They join Az to talk about what the construction industry keeps getting wrong about its people, and what a few operators are quietly getting right.

They cover the difference between being hired for your ability and being hired to fill a gender target. The sites that still have no facilities for women. The Census question about unpaid hours at home and what it made everyone sit with. Why...

Az unpacks five red flags to watch for before entering a business partnership.

As The Good Builder has grown, the partnership approaches have grown with it. Some are worth taking. Many are not. This episode covers the signals that show up early, what each one actually reveals about the person across the table, and why backing yourself is the first defence.

Covered in this episode:

The love bomb. Three messages and a calendar invite the night you meet, and what that intensity says about their order book.

The fluff. Product market...

Josh Tyrrell signed with GJ Gardner Homes at twenty nine, opened in October 2016, and has since built around 250 homes across Warragul, Drouin, Morwell and Traralgon. Today he has 18 staff, an average contract price near $800,000, and a second office about to open in the Latrobe Valley.

He got there by chasing the work the big builders avoid. Flat greenfield sites are a brutal fight against Metricon and Simonds. Ten metres of fall is not. Josh set out to be the volume builder for difficult builds, and now the competition sends those clients his way.

He takes...

Construction is one of the strongest performing sectors in the Australian economy right now. Louise Southall has the data to prove it.

Louise is the Xero Economist. She joined Xero in 2020 and brings 30 years across economics and business advocacy, working with business organisations, councils, government agencies and charities. Her focus is Xero Small Business Insights, a program that uses anonymised and aggregated data from the Xero platform to show what is actually happening inside small businesses. Real sales, jobs and wages figures rather than survey responses. The Australian data set covers more than half a million small...

Most builders were never taught marketing. For most of the last decade they did not need to be. Orders came in, the phone rang, and whatever budget existed went to whichever sales rep called first.

That market has tightened. New franchises are landing in established patches, buyers are researching harder than they ever have, and the builders who cannot be found are losing work to the ones who can.

This is episode one of the Monday Marketing series. Az sits down with Paul from Viva Digital, an agency the industry does not hear much about...

Rod Gibbs has had three jobs in construction. He has done almost everything inside them.

He started out tiling, switched to carpentry, and served his apprenticeship at Glover Building Group before becoming a partner in the business. Then thirteen years at Plantation, moving from supervisor to construction manager to building manager, running volume at a scale most builders never see. Fifty to sixty slabs a month. Fifty to sixty handovers. Supervisors carrying fourteen to sixteen jobs at a time.

He has just been appointed General Manager of Construction at Bold, and he unpacks the move...

Phil runs WD Constructions in Melbourne. He started in 2018 with one week of work at a mate's house and a first child on the way. Six years on he has never spent a dollar on advertising. Every job has come through word of mouth.

He has also built a serious following on Instagram by showing what most operators keep off camera. The mistakes. The rectification. What sits behind the plasterboard.

Az asks him why he spoke up about prefab, and what the public is actually being sold when a home gets promised in a month...

Most builders open an AI tab, type into it like it's Google, close it, and get back the same generic content everyone else is posting. Hard hat emojis. Crane emojis. Transforming spaces, one build at a time.

Builders are publishing it, and audiences are picking it straight away. That does not just waste time. It chips away at trust in the brand.

The tool is not the problem. The setup is.

In this solo episode, Az walks through a one time setup that takes ten to fifteen minutes and improves everything the tool...

Az runs through the week that was.

Every state is quoting a big housing number. Queensland says 100,000 homes. New South Wales says 150,000. Victoria says 300,000 unlocked. South Australia says 50,000. Add them up and they clear the 1.2 million National Housing Accord target. The problem is that none of them are counting the same thing.

Victoria's figure is zoning capacity measured out to 2051, and nobody has proposed those homes yet. New South Wales is counting projects handed a faster assessment pathway, which is permission to apply, not permission to build. Queensland is counting land where water, sewer and...

Two states. Same data. Same method. Queensland doubled and Victoria did not. That is the headline from the first State of the Land reports, and it is close to the least useful thing in either of them.

In this episode Az walks through what is actually inside the Queensland and Victoria editions, section by section, and what to look for when you open them. The reports are built on 26 straight quarters of real lot sales inside active estates. Not building approvals. Not median house prices. Every release and every unsold lot is counted and sorted by frontage...

Most builders treat a communication breakdown as a people problem. Dan Okart says it is a clarity problem, and it starts at the top.

Dan from A Thousand Feet Deep is back with Az for a third Monday in a row. The brief was simple. What does effective communication actually look like inside a building business. The answer went a long way past a five point checklist.

Dan opens with the line that frames the whole conversation. The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

From there...