By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does a glazing job look profitable on the quote but still leave the bank account short?
Most glaziers price a window, shower screen or splashback job off glass, frame and labour and call it quoted, but that number rarely carries everything that actually lands on the job. The second trip to the glass supplier for a backordered toughened pane, the subcontracted install crew paid by the hour instead of the job, the safety stock cut for a reglaze that never got charged back. The quoted margin and the real margin on that job are often two different numbers, and only one of them is true.
A glazier running shopfront and commercial work, balustrade installs and residential reglazing all at once rarely stops to check whether each of those job types is actually carrying its share of the overhead. The business can be flat out, vans booked solid for measures, and still be quietly bleeding margin on one category of work while another carries the whole business. Nobody sees it because the bank balance looks fine until it does not.
What happens to margin when breakage and insurance work spike?
Glazing businesses have predictable cycles, a run of emergency boarding and insurance jobs after storm season, a push of shower screen, splashback and double glazing installs before Christmas, and a quieter stretch once that passes. In the spike, owners scramble, bring on a subcontractor to cover the install backlog, pay a premium for glass that is on tight lead time, and chase insurers for payment on jobs already done.
The cycle repeats every year, yet many glaziers treat each spike as a surprise instead of a known pattern with a role to play in it. The activity statement that lands after that busy stretch often comes as a shock, because cash moved fast through the business but was never set aside against the tax and super owed on it. A coach who has actually run a trade business should be pointing this out before the spike hits, not after.
What should a glazing business coach actually look at first?
A coach worth paying checks gross profit margin as something to protect and grow every month, not a figure worked out once at tender time and forgotten. For a glazier that means knowing, in plain terms, what each job type actually returns once glass, frame, toughened stock, the subbie install and the supplier trip are honestly counted against it, every time a quote goes out the door.
This is data first coaching: the starting point is not the owner's memory of how last month felt, it is the business's own job and finance numbers, read fresh each week. A glazier who says there is no time to sit down with pricing and margin is usually the one whose quotes are quietly wrong, because the time never gets spent understanding where the money actually goes once a job is signed off.
How much difference can small gains on measure and install days make?
Small gains in billable efficiency on measure and install days rarely add just a little to the bottom line, they can double or triple it, because the margin compounds on the same job rather than being spread across a new one. A glazier who tightens up how a measure visit, a toughened glass order and an install day fit together is not just saving time, they are protecting the margin that was already quoted and almost lost.
This is where AI agents earn their place in a glazing business. An AI agent is software that does a job the way the owner would, with their own prices, wording and rules, built into the business rather than rented as generic software. Put to work on the non-billable side, confirming measure bookings, chasing the glass supplier on lead time, preparing insurance paperwork for emergency boarding jobs, an AI agent frees the owner and the crew to spend their billable hours on glass, frames and install rather than admin. AI agents do not replace the judgement a coach brings to pricing; they clear the clutter so that judgement has something clean to work with.
What should a glazier ask before hiring a business coach?
Before paying for a coach, a glazier should ask whether that coach has actually run a trade business, whether they start from the glazier's own job and finance data rather than a generic worksheet, and whether their answer to every problem is to hire someone rather than fix the system causing the problem. A coach who leads with a sales pitch before asking a single question about the business is a warning sign worth taking seriously.
Greg Allan, who coaches glaziers and other trades, built his own trade business before coaching others, and starts every conversation from the owner's own numbers rather than a generic framework. The test for any coach is simple: do they make the gap between the quote and the real return on a job visible, or do they just add another voice telling the owner to work harder on the same broken pricing.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts from the glazing business's own job and finance data through the Trade Business Intelligence, not from the owner explaining how busy the last few months have been. For a glazier that means looking first at what each job type, reglaze, shower screen, commercial shopfront, balustrade, insurance work, actually returns once every cost is counted, and at how the business behaves through its known cycles. Greg puts it plainly: “These cycles happen year in year out, like all they're always happening throughout the year”, and the coaching is built around knowing the owner's role in that cycle. The how of fixing it is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who is open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
