By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
What apps does a tiler business actually need?
Most software sold to a tiler business was built for every trade at once, plumbers, electricians and tilers all squeezed into the same quote template. A tiler quoting a bathroom on a square metre rate for the floor and a day rate for a tricky shower recess needs a quote that reflects both, not one generic field. The app does not know why waterproofing a wet area with a membrane and falls takes longer than a straight splashback, so the owner ends up editing every quote by hand anyway.
This matters because the quote is where the tiler's margin is either protected or given away. A generic app treats tile supply, breakage allowance and large format handling as an afterthought, when for a tiling business they are the line items that decide whether a job actually pays.
Why does the office work still land on the tiler at night?
Most tiling businesses end up re-entering the same information three or four times because the apps they use do not talk to each other. A quote gets written in one place, the invoice gets raised somewhere else, and photos of the membrane and falls kept for warranty proof sit in a third app on someone's phone.
What looks like a tiler being bad at paperwork is usually a symptom of data living in too many places. Chasing a builder for a progress payment, waiting on the plasterer or waterproofer before the screed can go down, and tracking which jobs still carry a waterproofing warranty are all office jobs that depend on the same information existing somewhere the owner can actually see it. When it does not, the tiler becomes the system, carrying it all in their head after hours.
What changes when the system is built on the tiler's own data?
You can choose to own a system built around how your jobs actually run, your square metre rates, your day rates, your supplier pricing on adhesive and grout, instead of renting an app built for every trade. That is what it means to go data first: the system starts from your own numbers, not from a template someone else designed for a plumber.
A system built this way knows that a bathroom renovation quote needs floor preparation, waterproofing, tiling and grout priced as a sequence, and that a commercial floor job on large format tile is priced completely differently. It can carry your own breakage allowance and your own warranty wording on wet area work, because it was shaped around your business, not a generic one.
What can AI agents actually do for a tiling business?
An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would do it yourself, using your own prices, your own wording and your own rules. For a tiler, that can mean an agent that drafts the follow up on a renovation enquiry, chases a builder for a progress payment in your own tone, or flags that the waterproofing membrane needs its cure time before the next trade or the tiling itself can start.
AI agents do not replace the judgement that comes from running a tiling crew for years. They take on the admin that sits around the job, so the time you would have spent writing quotes at night or chasing invoices goes back into actually tiling, measuring up, or being on site when a builder needs an answer.
Should a tiler cancel every app they already use?
No. Some off-the-shelf apps genuinely suit a tiling business, a supplier ordering app for tile and adhesive stock, or a simple timesheet app for the crew on bigger renovation jobs. The data from how those apps actually get used is what shows whether they are earning their keep or just adding another place to enter the same job twice.
The point is not to throw everything out. It is to look at what each app is actually doing against your own job and finance data, and build the parts that are missing, the quoting logic, the warranty tracking on wet area work, the chasing of builders for payment, around your own business instead of hoping a generic app will eventually catch up.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching, built by Greg Allan, starts from the tiler's own job and finance data through the Trade Business Intelligence, not from a list of apps to try. It looks at where quotes slow down, where warranty and waterproofing records get lost, and where the owner is still doing work an agent could do in their own wording and prices, to find where the real cost sits rather than treating the symptom again next job.
The how, which apps to build first and how an agent is shaped around a tiler's own quoting and scheduling, is worked through inside the Academy, with other members. The Academy is for owners who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member, for every member.
Looking for a business coach who starts from your numbers? Tiler Business Coach or every answer for tilers.
