I am the founder and CEO of Thriving Tradies, a business that consults self-employed tradies to scale and grow their businesses.
Through my years of experience as a carpenter and running my own successful company, I believe I have the skills and knowledge to help others be widely successful tradesmen AND business owners.
My goal is simple: To help tradies become successful business owners through consulting services tailored to help them get their time back, and LIVE WELL – all while keeping overheads low and profit high.
Through the delivery method of face-to-face workshops, seminars and retreats, we empower tradies to think of themselves as businessmen. We encourage them to scale their business through intensive and interactive learning, helping them build a better future for themselves, their families and communities.
I founded Dynamic in 2010, a construction contracting company working in Melbourne. The company began in the domestic housing space and grew over time until it operated only in the commercial space, building multi-residential developments, schools and libraries.
As sole shareholder and Director, I developed the company from a small onsite team and home office to over 50 staff onsite and 8 support staff in a professional office.
The key to my success was being able to differentiate the company in an extremely crowed market place. I did market research to find what our clients frustrations were, then developed and tested solutions. Once we found ways to produce results, I would systemise the process (then test and refine the systems.)
The main onsite systems were based around Safety, Quality, Timeliness Budgets and Client Satisfaction. I backed this up with strong support systems, particularly around Recruitment and HR to get the best people and build strong teams.
Every business (and especially every entrepreneur) needs accountability. By creating an Advisory Board at Dynamic, I created a monthly accountability ritual. Every department had to present a dashboard of key metrics backed by a full report of activities and goal progress. By watching not only our lag, but our key lead indicators, we were able to see problems coming and manoeuvre to avoid them.
It was the consistent performance generated through well-crafted and simple systems as well as the monthly evaluation of our performance that enabled us to grow through a significant industry downturn.
March 2015 two partners bought into the business; Brad Cull and James Laird. Brad, who had previously been in the role of Construction Manager, moved into the role of Managing Director. James, previously a Senior Project Manager, moved into the role of Construction Director. I left all operational involvement with the company, but continue as a member of the Advisory Board and major shareholder.
In November 2011 I acquired a struggling allied health business that specialised in Pilates and Massage, located in Ivanhoe, Victoria.
I modernised the management systems and implemented a strong sales and marketing focus in order to reverse the slide in client numbers. I brought in new practitioners including; Physiotherapists, Exercise Physiologists and Naturopaths.
I introduced and tracked key metrics for practitioners and managers. I created a strategic marketing plan and implemented a monitoring system to ensure the business could accurately quantify the:
- Cost per client acquisition through each marketing medium
- Conversion rate from initial assessments (including tracking individual staff conversion metrics)
- Projected lifetime value of each client
The business was able to establish a strong brand and position within the market. I was able to sculpt and create unique services in an established market of which I had no previous experience.
The client numbers went from 120 at acquisition to 90 after the first 2 months (despite heavy client consultation, changes had to be made and some old clients were lost.) 12 months after acquisition the business had 470 clients, predominately on subscription based memberships.
COMCARP 88
Comcarp is another construction company that I cofounded and of which I am the largest shareholder.
Leveraging off my experience with Dynamic Possibilities, Comcarp has been setup to fill a need in the Medium Commercial sector of the Australian Construction Industry.
Whilst it is in its early days, it has started strong and shows great potential. Within the first 3 months it has turned over in excess of $1 million and has 8 full-time staff.
Craig D Robinson 