By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does a waterproofing quote that looks fine still lose money?
A waterproofing quote can list the membrane, the labour and the subbie costs and still hide the real story. The job's true cost only shows up once overhead, cure time delays and any warranty rework are added back in, and that number usually sits lower than the one on the quote. Most waterproofers price each wet area, balcony or basement job on the materials and hours they can see, not on what the job actually nets after everything else is counted.
A bathroom or shower recess might price cleanly: so many square metres of membrane, a set number of coats, a day of labour, a tiler waiting on the flood test to pass before they can start. But the same job can blow out if the substrate needs extra prep, if the flood test fails and has to be redone, or if a defect turns up during inspection well after the job is finished and the warranty means the waterproofer goes back at no charge. None of that shows on the quote. It shows up later, in the bank balance, long after the job is marked complete.
Why can a waterproofing business be flat out and still not know if it's profitable?
A waterproofing business can run flood tests, chase certificates, and keep crews moving between balconies and basements every week and still have no real idea whether the business is making money. Being busy and being profitable are different things, and the gap between them is where most owners get caught out.
Saying there is no time to look at the numbers is often the most expensive thing a waterproofer does. Remedial work on someone else's failed membrane, insurance work with its own paperwork, and warranty callbacks on earlier jobs all pull non-billable hours out of the week that never get costed back into pricing. The owner who is too busy to check is usually also too busy to notice the margin sliding on every new quote that follows the same pattern as the last one.
What should you be checking at the moment you quote a wet area or balcony job?
You should know the gross profit margin on a job the moment you quote it, not weeks later when the bookkeeping catches up. Checking it at quoting, job by job, wet area by balcony by basement, is what keeps the business profitable rather than just busy.
Every waterproofer's jobs carry different margins. A straightforward shower recess with a known builder is not the same as remedial work chasing a leak behind tiles already laid, or a basement job with a long cure time before the next trade can start. If gross profit margin is only checked when the accounts are done, the owner finds out after taking on a run of jobs that quietly ate the margin, not before. Checking it at the point of quoting means you can see which jobs to chase and which to walk past, before the crew is committed.
What does a good business coach for a waterproofer actually look like?
A good coach for a waterproofer has run a trade business themselves, starts from your own numbers rather than a generic framework, and looks for where a problem actually starts rather than treating the symptom again next quarter. Greg Allan, who built his own trade business before coaching others, works this way: from the data first, not from a script.
Before signing up with any coach, ask what they will look at first. If the answer is your branding, your website, or a worksheet about goals, that is a warning sign. The numbers that matter to a waterproofer, the margin on wet area work against balcony and basement work, the cost of warranty rework, the time lost to insurance work paperwork, should be the starting point, not an afterthought. A coach who answers every problem by telling you to hire someone, without first checking whether the business can carry that cost, is not looking at your business, they are reaching for a stock answer.
What changes when AI agents take on the compliance paperwork and quoting?
AI agents, software that does a job the way you would do it yourself, with your prices, your wording and your rules, can take on the flood test records, the certificate paperwork and the quote follow up that currently eats into unpaid hours. That frees you and your crew to spend more time on the actual membrane work, the customer conversation and the next job, rather than the admin around it.
A waterproofer juggling several jobs a week, each with its own flood test, certificate and warranty paperwork, can lose hours to work that never gets billed. An AI agent built on the business's own data can draft the certificate, chase the builder for sign off, or flag when a job's actual cost is drifting from the quote, all in the owner's own wording and pricing rules. This is what data first coaching sets out to build: not a generic app, but tools shaped around how your jobs run and how your builders and tilers actually buy from you.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts with your own numbers, not a conversation about goals. For a waterproofing business that means looking at what each wet area, balcony and basement job actually nets once overhead, cure time and warranty rework are counted, through the Trade Business Intelligence that reads your job and finance data alongside years of coaching other trade businesses. Greg Allan has said, “Those two Masterclasses will ensure that you're gonna be profitable.” The aim is finding where the margin actually leaks, not just where it looks thin on paper. The how, the detail of building that for a waterproofing business, is worked through inside the Academy, with members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member.
