The Good Builder Podcast

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 pipelines, pre-construction, cash flow and project scheduling. Az also breaks down three important industry stories. First, the fallout from the Bathla Group collapse and what the administration process could mean for subcontractors and suppliers further down the creditor queue. Then, a New South Wales court decision involving a tiny home on wheels — and why calling something a caravan does not necessarily remove planning and land-use requirements. Finally, the episode looks at Sekisui Chemical’s move to acquire a controlling 51% stake in Queensland builder Ausbuild, and what Japanese manufacturing and industrialised construction knowledge could potentially bring to the Australian residential building market. For builders, the message is not to panic or start discounting work. In a more cautious market, knowing your numbers, managing your pipeline, tightening pre-construction and giving prospective clients greater certainty becomes even more important. In this episode: Why builders are reporting slower enquiries What consumer confidence means for residential construction Why approvals do not automatically translate into contracts Interest rates, affordability and delayed building decisions The impact of longer sales cycles on builder cash flow What the Bathla administration could mean for subcontractors and suppliers Tiny homes, caravans and planning law Sekisui Chemical’s investment in Ausbuild Prefabrication and industrialised home construction Construction finance and project feasibility Why builders should avoid discounting simply to stay busy How trust and certainty can help hesitant clients make decisions References: Chris Baskerville Podcast on Bathla A Tiny Home on Wheels Was Ruled a Caravan and Still Lost. Planning Law Follows the Use, Not the Structure. Sekisui Chemical Buys 51 Per Cent of Ausbuild, Bringing Japanese Factory Housing Into Queensland’s Private Market Sponsors: A big thank you to our sponsor, Australian Business Research for being the sponsor of this podcast. Check out their platform The Pulse that will keep you ahead of the game: https://australianbuildingresearch.com.au/the-pulse-cep

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 only saw five in advance. The rest he answered cold. No filtered corporate answers. Just the questions you asked: whether the money owed to you is coming back, how to work out your exposure, what the second meeting of creditors decides, how to check any builder or developer before you sign with them, and what to do this week if you're feeling the pinch. This is the first episode built entirely from your questions, and it won't be the last. Chris returns after the administrators' report drops to decode it in plain language. If you've got a question for that one, reply to any of our emails or get in touch. We'll put it to him. Learn more about Jirsch Sutherland: https://www.jirschsutherland.com.au/ Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by MyConstruct, the job management software built for Aussie builders and tradies. Start your free 30-day trial at myconstruct.com with your CODE: GOODBUILDER #thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #australianbuilding

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 your identity doesn't - Why The Professional Builder coaches the person first and the problem second - The five levers you can pull before a job is even priced to lift your margin: positioning, marketing, sales, pricing and contracts - How to fill your pipeline at least 12 months in advance with profitable projects, and why you never stop marketing - The five levels of AI adoption, from a free ChatGPT subscription through to AI agents that work like team members - Simple AI wins any builder can set up today: a morning brief, inbox triage, quote follow ups, client updates and bookkeeping - The three new AI tools launching at the summit that build your offer, your lead magnet and your ad copy for you - Why every summit day includes a structured implementation session, so you walk out with the work done, not just a page of notes - Vinnie's answer to the question we ask every guest: what makes a good builder? Get $200 off your summit ticket with The Good Builder: https://event.theprofessionalbuilder.com/Gold-Coast-Summit-OCT2026?discount_code=GOODBUILDER Coming to the summit? Email admin@thegoodbuilder.com.au and we'll get you on the couch at our live recording.

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 from the ATO as a young subbie, to sitting in front of five directors and agreeing his work wasn't good enough — his message is simple. Failure is your best teacher, and integrity is what makes a good builder. In this episode: Why the older generation leaving is the industry's biggest threat The Cassandra effect — why nobody listens until it's too late Care factor: the real reason trades cost each other money What it takes to build apprentices into future leaders The one word that makes a good builder Follow Rob: https://www.instagram.com/johno__the_plumber/ [https://www.instagram.com/cragg_plumbing_and_drainage/ This episode is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct — built by Australian builders, for Australian builders. Get a 30-day trial at myconstruct.com with CODE: GOODBUILDER The Good Builder is Australia's independent construction industry media platform. Free for the builder community. https://linktr.ee/TheGoodBuilder #thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #australianbuilding #plumbing #tradie

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: Agent mode (Claude Cowork / ChatGPT agent mode) — the spec-vs-quote check: one question that finds unpriced work in a 90-page spec before you sign a fixed-price contract, plus how to rank tenders by risk Scheduled tasks — the Monday 6am DA report that pulls every development application in your council area into a spreadsheet while you're still in bed. Every DA is a future job. Image & video generation — ending the "I can't picture it" conversation at the kitchen table with skillion-vs-gable concepts on the spot, and the hard rule: never pass off AI images as your finished work Memory & projects — set up a client comms project with five of your real emails and every draft your team sends sounds like your business, every time. No $3k/month agency required. Pick one. Try it this week. And if your Mac Mini is holding down invoices, you're in good company. How-to videos for all four are coming on TGB socials this week. Know a builder, tradie or supplier who'd get something out of this? Send it their way.

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 price, and why customers wouldn't want them to The golden rule Leigh built his first sales team on: activity times skill equals results Why post installation service is a growth strategy, not a cost centre "What gets inspected gets respected" and how it lifts team standards Handling 150% growth in a year without losing the customer The community giving engine: 30 surf clubs, a Community Heroes program, and a plan to give away a solar system a day to veterans How builders should approach solar with the NCC changes coming, and the battery rebate mistake to avoid Whether you build homes or run any business at all, there are lessons in this one. Resinc operates across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT. Find them at https://resinc.com.au/

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: The four misconceptions that stop clients considering floor heating — and why "it's a luxury, it must be expensive" no longer holds up Why Rick says you should never ask a client if they want floor heating — quote first, present second Electric vs hydronic: Rick's case for why electric wins on cost, running costs, and maintenance How floor heating slots into a build program without disrupting a single trade The value-add argument: why Rick calls floor heating an investment, not a cost Quoting for developers and multi-res — three ways to structure it What to do when it is too late: rug heaters, radiant heaters, heated towel rails and mirror demisters Rick's answer to our signature question: what makes a good builder? Whether you're a volume builder, a custom builder or a reno specialist, this one's about a simple habit — send the plans, get the free quote, let the client decide — that costs nothing and could set your builds apart. All Coldbuster links, socials and contact details below. Like, subscribe, and share it with a builder who should hear it. Connect with Coldbuster Floor Heating: Website: https://www.coldbuster.com.au Get a Free Quote: https://www.coldbuster.com.au/get-a-free-quote/ Tradie Registration (trade discounts & installer program): https://www.coldbuster.com.au/trade-registration/ Running Cost Calculator: https://www.coldbuster.com.au/cost-of-running-underfloor-heating/ Phone: 1800 85 75 65 Email: sales@coldbuster.com.au Address: Unit 10, 14 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086 Follow Coldbuster: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coldbusterfloorheating Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coldbusterfloorheating/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coldbusterfloorheating/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYvKv7rlMCehLulIumkApYg Pinterest: https://pin.it/ymQNOHR

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 their company through ASIC's company search. Check the ABN. If they claim a licence of any kind, check it with whoever issues it. Search two is the news. Their name and their company through the Google News tab. Bans, court judgments and tribunal findings get reported, and they do not disappear. Plus the three questions to ask anyone who makes it into the room, and the reaction that tells you everything. Run the check: ASIC banned and disqualified registers: asic.gov.au/online-services/search-asic-registers/banned-and-disqualified-registers ASIC register search (company search): asic.gov.au/online-services/search-asic-registers ABN Lookup: abr.business.gov.au Financial Advisers Register: moneysmart.gov.au/financial-advice/financial-advisers-register A clean search is not a clearance, and none of this replaces professional advice. It is the five minutes that too many people skip. Think you'd make a good guest? There's a front door: podcast.thegoodbuilder.com.au/apply Stories and tips: news@thegoodbuilder.com.au Everything else: admin@thegoodbuilder.com.au

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 bought the business with his wife Rosie four years ago. Halcol now runs six or seven internal install teams plus subbies out of the Sunshine Coast and Hendra, was a Smart Energy Council top-five finalist nationally last year, and by Gary's count has been the highest-volume solar installer on the coast for the past six or seven years. In this episode: Why battery attach has flipped. Halcol has gone from roughly one in ten installs including a battery to solar-only being close to unheard of. The real reason builders shy away from solar: rebates, Energex, compliance, and the warranty question. Who actually carries the warranty under Australian Consumer Law (the builder), and how Halcol takes that off the builder's desk. The margin conversation. How volume pricing turns solar into a line item builders make money on rather than one they avoid. How Halcol works through a 93-unit Azure Build project: pre-wired at frame, panelled with the roof, inverter fitted last. If it's planned properly the builder never sees them. Why a south-facing roof quietly costs 20 to 30 per cent of winter output, and the design-stage conversation that fixes it. Inspections in Victoria, and why Queensland is heading the same way. Hiring for attitude over paper, and running every department as its own business inside Halcol. Why Az reckons builders have about two and a half years to get a solar process in place. Gary's answer to what makes a good builder, which nobody has given in more than 330 episodes. Plus an offer for builders who haven't worked with Halcol before: your first install at cost price. FOR MORE: To learn more about Gary and the team at Halcol Energy head to: https://halcolenergy.com.au/ https://halcolenergy.com.au/solar-news/builders-put-halcol-energy-to-the-test/ SPONSOR: The Good Builder Podcast is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct, construction software built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Start your 30-day trial at myconstruct.com using code: GOODBUILDER

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 an investment, for the builder and the customer at the other end of it - Franchise growth in the construction industry, and where the opportunity sits for builders - Why Australian manufacturing capability matters, and what it will take to rebuild it - The project management habits that separate a good handover from a bad one - Seventeen years of community football leadership at the Wynnum Wolves, and what building a team on the field taught him about building one in business And as always, Az closes with the question every guest answers: what makes a good builder? Head to https://goopguys.com/ for more.

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 value away before asking for a quote request. Plus a few bonus ones Az couldn't leave out: the customer experience program behind reviews and referrals, the 12 to 24 month post-handover check-in that's more psychological than transactional, and results from a TGB survey on the third-party listing platforms builders rate most, with REA well out in front. A shout to MyConstruct for sponsoring the episode, and a look ahead to Wednesday's conversation with Mark Sutton from Goop Guys, and Friday's solar special with Gary from Halcol Energy. Hosted by Az. MyConstruct: 30-day trial at myconstruct.com. Use code: GOODBUILDER

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 episode: The origin of the Wattle Court name, and why a builder trading under his own name is building something he cannot sell. Exclusive territories. Why one builder given a whole market outperforms three builders splitting it, and what it does to the way franchisees help each other. The thirteen week onboarding program, and why none of it is about construction. Market confidence after the federal budget, the drop in new home construction searches Hope is seeing across the market, and why franchise enquiry rises when the phones go quiet. Internal design and drafting, with plan redesigns back to franchisees inside twenty four hours. AI takeoffs in development, taking a quoting job from eight hours to one. Site presentation, reviews and trust, and why all of it is marketing whether builders call it that or not. Where the brand goes next across regional Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Hosted by Az, brought to you by The New Home Electrical Specialist.

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 apprentices are walking off the tools and the role supervisors play in it. And why the fix is not men against women, or builder against supplier, but everyone against the problem. Bec also talks about speaking at the Master Builders Inspired Minds lunch, why she got on stage, and the line she keeps coming back to. This too shall pass. Then the market. Where modular is winning right now. Regional and remote work that traditional builds cannot reach on cost or time. A QBuild project past Mackay at the end of fifty kilometres of dirt road. A home installed on site five hours after it left the factory. Barndominiums, dark roofs, and where Alex is seeing demand head on the Sunshine Coast. Plus Bec's call on how much of the housing market modular takes from here. Hosted by Az. Proudly sponsored by MyConstruct. Built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Thirty day trial at myconstruct.com with code: GOODBUILDER #thegoodbuilder #womeninconstruction #modularhomes

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 fit, ecosystem, still working on that piece. The one sentence test that sorts the operators from the searchers. The profile sweep. Twenty seconds of thumb, zero seconds of thought. Bagging the last partner. Accountability as a filter, picking up the thread from Josh Tyrrell on responsibility. Vague on the money. Why nobody is ever vague about their own numbers. The through line is presentation over substance, and how to spot it before it costs you time. Hosted by Az. This episode is brought to you by The Pulse from Australian Building Research. The Pulse tracks the customer experience across the build, so builders find out what clients think while there is still time to act. Book a twenty minute walkthrough at australianbuildingresearch.com.au/the-pulse-cep Coming up this week. Wednesday, Bec Askin and Alex Harris. Friday, Big Matt Hope from Wattle Court. #thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #buildingbusiness

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 Az through all of it. The shift from builder to business owner. Bringing accounting inside the business and what tighter cashflow reporting exposed. Why he hires before he needs to. The year twenty five of thirty jobs triggered planning permits and he wore the hole rather than lay anyone off. Why nobody on his team quotes a price without standing on the block first. The Good Builder has recorded more than 300 episodes. This is the first time a guest has answered the question with a single word. Responsibility. Josh's own podcast is linked below. https://open.spotify.com/show/53fZLgWHZwu35jQwf3tIDe Proudly brought to you by The New Home Electrical Specialist: https://tnhes.com.au/

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 businesses. In this episode she joins Az to unpack the June quarter for construction. Sales up more than ten per cent on a year ago. Employment up more than five per cent. Wages up around three per cent. She explains why the sector is outperforming most of the economy, what is cushioning it against cost of living pressure, and why Queensland keeps showing up near the top of the table. The conversation goes well past the numbers. Louise makes the case that productivity is not one big step change. It is small changes at the margin. She talks about the red tape sitting inside your own business rather than in Canberra, the friction between quoting, doing the work, invoicing and getting paid, and why the Christmas shutdown conversation with your accountant needs to happen months before December. Her answer to what makes a good builder is worth the listen on its own, and it comes from three decades of watching small businesses succeed and fail. Most builders serve a trade apprenticeship. Very few serve the second one. Businesses rarely fail because the trade work is poor. They fail because the cash does not come in fast enough. Also covered: skills shortage as the sector's main headwind, why the five to twelve staff bracket is the hardest place to sit, what technology adoption actually looks like when you are running quotes from the ute, and what the New Zealand experience shows about a construction sector under pressure. Hosted by Az. This episode is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct, built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Get a 30 day trial at myconstruct.com with your CODE: GOODBUILDER

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 but whose work sits behind some of the biggest names on the Sunshine Coast. Paul does not sell. If a builder does not need an agency, he tells them so and sends them on their way with the advice to do it themselves. In this episode: The three pillars of marketing spend, and why builders reach for the wrong one first Why the website is the only digital asset a builder actually owns The three second rule, and what a prospect decides before they read a single word What a builder's website should genuinely cost, and where six figure quotes lose the plot The apple tree analogy: Google Ads catches the fruit, Meta shakes the tree Facebook or Instagram, and the age where the audience splits SEO explained without the jargon, and the one metric to demand from any agency Where AI search pulls its answers from, and why citations now matter Lead tracking, and why almost no builder in the country can say where their work came from Choosing an agency, and why Paul treats it like a marriage Practical, logical, and free of the usual agency noise. If marketing is the part of the business that has been sitting in the too hard basket, start here. Hosted by Az. This episode is brought to you by Viva Digital. vivadigital.com Download the episode resource: https://leadtracker.thegoodbuilder.com.au/download Subscribe for a new episode every week, and follow The Good Builder for independent reporting on the Australian residential construction industry. #thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #buildingbusiness #australianbuilding #marketingforbuilders #digitalmarketing #buildermarketing #constructionmarketing

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 in this episode. The move is not the reason to listen. The reason is the hour of practical detail on how a building business actually runs when the people side is done properly. Rod covers why the five out of tens hold a team together better than the A graders. Why complacency in a good market shows up two years later as a problem you cannot fix. Why the supervisor is the most important link in the chain through the customer's eyes, and why that workload has roughly doubled since 2016. How to pass the baton between departments without dropping the customer at handover. What he looks for when he hires, and why a bloke who got knocked back twice is now a construction manager. There is also six years on the HIA technical committee, and what that taught him about getting ahead of code change instead of pulling bathrooms apart after it lands. Then the standing question. What makes a good builder? Rod's answer comes back to three things. Quality across every department, the customer journey, and communication that happens face to face. Hosted by Az. Sponsored by The New Home Electrical Specialist, the experts in new home electrical. Visit https://tnhes.com.au/ for more

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. Phil walks through display home finishes and lands on one word. Disappointing. The conversation turns to what the trade stopped teaching. Carpenters who have only hung doors and glued on skirting. Apprentices pushed through with modules missing. His trade school teacher's line that roofing is the difference between a carpenter and a handyman. Phil finished his apprenticeship without ever seeing a purchase order. He argues quoting, invoicing and basic business skills belong in every trade qualification. He also gives a straight read on Melbourne. Plenty of work about, a hard twelve to twenty four months ahead for anyone who rode the COVID wave, and renovation and extension work about to run hot as investors sell up and spend on their own home. His answer to what makes a good builder is two words. Care factor. Treat it like your own, or don't take it on. Hosted by Az. Sponsors: Head to MyConstruct for your 30-day FREE trial with code: GOODBUILDER Learn more about Phil and WD Constructions: https://wdconstructions.net/ | https://www.instagram.com/wdconstructions_/?hl=en

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 produces after it. Four things go in: Who you build for, and what they are actually scared of. The three things you post about, plus the one thing you never post about. How you actually sound, pulled from writing you have already done rather than a voice someone invented for you. And your rules, the never dos. Then he covers where each of those things goes. In Claude, that is Projects, and the two boxes you will find inside one. In ChatGPT, it is either custom instructions in your settings, or a project. No verdict on which tool is better. Just where things live. Do it once and you are done. No more hunting for the thousand best prompts. The free Setup Sheet that goes with this episode is at https://aidownload.thegoodbuilder.com.au/download Also in this episode: the Milwaukee giveaway, and the State of the Land reports for Queensland and Victoria. Coming up this week, Phil from WD Constructions on Wednesday and Rod Gibbs on Friday.