“Business coaching is where you're gonna get your true accountability. If you're a self-starter, you can only go so far on your own. But having somebody outside of your organisation that can really drive you forward, I think is really, it's the most important part.”
When Michael and Vanessa first joined APB, 12-14 hour days 7 days a week were the norm, but it wasn’t sustainable.
Michael had his phone attached to him at all times and every phone call needed to be attended to, so there was never an opportunity for a break.
“APB helped us get aligned with what our goals were, and allowed us to remove ourselves from lots of aspects of the business, and let team members that excel at those positions do that work, rather than us try to just push through it.”
Since joining APB, Michael and Vanessa have grown their business, increasing their profit margins from 13% to 26%. They've also expanded their team accordingly to spread the workload, leaving them in a much better position to focus on the parts of the business they genuinely enjoy and regain their personal lives.
“Before joining APB we went with a markup of 15% and hoped for the best, whereas now, we’re doing markups of over 30%, and some jobs end with a gross profit margin over that.”
To learn more about the tools and systems that lead to Michael and Vanessa’s success, click on the link in bio to watch the APB Membership Demonstration
The Association of Professional Builders is NOT for everyone.
If you are just starting out or you’re a solopreneur, tradie, handyman, commercial builder, or developer…
This is not for you.
However, if you are the owner or director of an established custom home building company who wants less stress, a better work-life balance, respect from your team, and more financial security…
You might like what APB has to offer.
Some of the problems we help builders solve include:
- Not growing fast enough despite trying a lot of tactics…
- Feeling isolated or alone in your building company…
- Working too much IN the business…
- Being frustrated with poor systems and processes…
- Competing on price and charging low margins…
- Overcoming a lack of confidence in your financial performance…
- Not paying yourself what you are worth…
- A constant fear of failure holding you back…
- And a lack of clarity on where you are going or how you’ll get there…
If any of that sounds familiar, then APB might be just what you are looking for.
Through coaching, training and resources, we help custom home builders go from struggling to generate enough leads, to running a fully systemised building company that earns a net profit of over 10%, all while letting the owner take more holidays.
If this is you, then get in touch with us today!
Most builders who try AI start with Phase 2 and stop there. One email draft, ten minutes saved, and the conclusion is "it's useful but not life-changing."
The real shift sits in Phases 1 and 3. The prep before the meeting. The follow-up after the site visit. The invoice review before approval. These are the tasks that only the owner handles because nobody else can.
The framework is simple: three phases, and one of them is currently leaking more of your time than the others. Start there, build one workflow, and the return compounds quickly.
Which phase is eating the most of your week right now?
A pair of our builders were eating the cost of every concept and prelim. No deposits. No detailed scope. And every surprise during the build came straight off their margin.
Rick, their Business Coach, helped them flip the model. They built a paid pre-construction process priced at 3% of the contract value. Suddenly, pre-con was a real service with real deliverables, not free work disguised as sales.
The proof landed fast. On a recent build with complex zoning and septic issues, the paid pre-con funded the deep dive that the project actually needed. Along the way, it saved the client $35,000 on a single concrete change order, more than double what they had paid for the planning.
Free work trains clients to expect free work. Paid pre-con sets the relationship straight.
Australian builders are integrating AI tools into their businesses faster than most industries, and the gap between early adopters and everyone else is already showing up in how efficiently those businesses run.
APB has watched this accelerate sharply over the last quarter. Builders using AI across quoting, client communication, and estimating are cutting the time those tasks take and reducing the errors that come from doing them manually at pace. The expectation from clients, staff, and suppliers is shifting with it.
The builders who are ahead of this right now are not the ones waiting to see how it lands. They are the ones already using it, adjusting as they go, and building the habit into their team.
If you're a builder who has started integrating AI into your business, what's working? We'd genuinely like to know, drop a comment below.
Most builders believe if they do great work at a fair price, the jobs will just keep coming.
And they might. But not consistently. And not at the margins you deserve.
Without marketing, you're forced to take whatever work comes your way just to keep the lights on. With it, you get to choose who you build for, what you charge, and how fast you grow.
In this episode of Professional Builders Secrets, Carl and Annameika from Edwards Family Homes share their honest marketing journey, from doing it all themselves to outsourcing it to an agency they trust, and the real impact it's had on their pipeline, their margins and their business.
Listen to the full episode to learn how to take control of your marketing, attract better clients, and build a pipeline that gives you the freedom to say no.
This episode is proudly sponsored by @apparatusteam
"Once we got into coaching, we never turned back. It was either coaching or nothing, because once you get your eyes open to what you don't know, it's a no-brainer."
That's how Owen from Gardner Construction describes the impact Coaching with APB had on business. He and his co-director Matt have been in business together since 2010, running a true design-and-construction company with roots going back to 2001.
By most measures, they were doing fine, experienced, established, and busy. But 'fine' wasn't the same as 'sustainable'. They were running four to five jobs at a time on a 10% gross profit margin, managing cash flow on gut feel, and were unsure of how to actually get to that next level.
Like many builders, the idea of paying for coaching raised eyebrows at home. "I remember before we did it, our wives said, 'Why are we doing this? It's gonna cost us money. Do we really need to do it?’ We weren't doing bad." But the decision to invest in APB turned out to be one of the best ones they've ever made.
What APB delivered was a framework. Owen and Matt learned to understand their numbers, build systems, and put the right people in the right seats. They set a deliberate target to push their gross profit margin from 10% to 20%, and achieved it. Annual turnover doubled year on year from 2020. The business even scaled to 35 employees and 15 simultaneous projects.
"You can take on as much work as you want because you've got all these systems in place and people in the right place, and it just all comes together."
For any builder wondering whether APB is worth it, Gardner Construction has a clear answer. "There's no other coaching around that is solely dedicated just to builders. If you want information that's purely tailored to what you do and how you do it, and people that understand it, APB is definitely the people you want to deal with."
The investment pays for itself. And once you're in, there's no going back.
Ready to find out what your building business is really capable of? Click the link in our bio to learn more.
One of our builders was personally managing every field selection and every technical spec, and half his week vanished into the bottleneck.
The cost showed up in the numbers. He missed his Q1 revenue target by nearly 40%.
Leah, his Business Coach, told him enough was enough. They worked through pricing for profit, set up a dedicated deposit account to clean up the financials, and used the AI-powered SOP framework to formalise the technical selections process. Once it was documented, his project team took it on.
The shift in capacity hit fast. He now has $8.5 million of work in the pipeline to convert and a clear path to 9% net profit this year. Last year, he ran at a 5% loss.
When the owner is the bottleneck, the business has a ceiling.
Material costs are up. Land is tight. Cold leads are coming back to life across the US market, but the builders who convert them will be the ones who have their numbers right before the conversation starts and a sales process that doesn't leave clients second-guessing.
What does your estimating process look like right now?
60% of US builders are reporting supplier price increases tied directly to tariffs. The average cost impact is sitting at around $11,000 per home.
That figure needs to be in every client conversation happening right now, before contracts are signed and before budgets are locked. Clients don't absorb cost surprises well at the back end of a project. The builders managing this well are the ones presenting the full picture upfront, quoting with current material costs, and building contingency into the numbers before the client ever sees them.
Demand is returning. Cold leads are resurfacing. The phone is ringing again in many parts of the country. But a full pipeline means nothing if the margin isn't protected from the start.
How are you handling material cost uncertainty in your quotes right now? Drop a comment below.
The ANZ construction market is stabilising, but it is doing so slowly and unevenly.
In Australia, builder confidence is improving and cost escalation has slowed everywhere except Brisbane, where Olympic-related construction and labour pressure are keeping costs elevated. Across the country, clients are increasingly hesitant to commit. Global economic uncertainty is pushing more people toward smaller renovations rather than new builds, and petrol, trades, and supply costs are all creeping up with little warning. The good news is that AI adoption among Australian builders is accelerating, and the efficiency gains for those using it are already showing up in how those businesses operate day to day.
New Zealand is grinding through the bottom of its cycle. The Reserve Bank has cut the official cash rate, residential consents are up 6% year on year, and the sector is forecast to recover this year, driven by infrastructure investment and multi-unit housing activity that is laying the groundwork now. Buyer behaviour hasn't responded yet. The lag between rate relief and actual market movement is real, and it is taking time to flow through. Residential builders need to hold their sales activity through this period rather than wait for the market to confirm the turn before they act.
Both markets are moving in the right direction. Neither is moving fast. The builders who are building the pipeline now are the ones who will be busy when they do.
You can build a world-class home and still end up with an unhappy client.
It's not always about the quality of the work. Most of the time, it comes down to expectations that were never set, communication that fell through the cracks, and an owner who became the bottleneck in their own business.
Get it wrong and you're firefighting all the way to handover, watching your margins disappear with every delay. Get it right and every project becomes a referral machine that fills your pipeline for years to come.
In this episode of Professional Builders Secrets, Russ Stephens, Co-founder of APB, and Cameron Jahn from Houzz Pro, break down exactly what the best builders are doing differently to keep their clients happy, and how you can do the same.
Listen to the full episode to learn how to set better expectations, systemize your client communication, and deliver an experience that wins referrals long after the keys are handed over.
This episode is proudly sponsored by @apparatusteam
