For trade business owners who hired the wrong bloke
He interviewed well.
That is the problem.Learn how to hire good people.
A bad hire is not bad luck and it is not bad judgement. It is what a business gets when nothing in it was ever built to find out who someone actually is.
9,000+ trade business owners trained
You are not the only one
49
of the 496 coaching calls we can read from the last five months have a bad hire or an empty job in them.
“This tradesman just didn’t work out.”
“I’ve just found it’s really hard to find good people.”
49 of 496 coaching calls with readable transcripts, 26 March to 27 August 2026. Quoted with every identifying detail removed.
The thing nobody tells you
You can pick people fine
You wrote the same ad as everyone else, so you got the same people.
You asked what he would do, and he told you beautifully.
You found out on a customer’s job. And now you are certain you cannot pick people.
The interview was never the test.
A trade business hires whoever its ad attracts, whoever its questions let through, and whoever its first ninety days never checks. An interview measures how well somebody interviews. Everything that actually matters shows up later, on someone else’s house, at your expense.
“This time we’re going to take a bit longer to get the right person.”
The Academy is at full capacity. Joining the waitlist costs nothing.
What it is actually costing
The wage is the smallest part
The wage was the cheap part
The rework, the callbacks and the materials cost more than he ever did. And you paid him while he made them.
The customer who saw it
They rang you, not him. That is a reference you will never get back, and it was earned over years.
The year you lost
One member put it at six to twelve months of progress, gone. Not the wage. The time you were not building anything.
The hire you now will not make
Burnt once, you go back on the tools and stay there. The business stops growing because you stopped trusting.
What changes
A business good people want to join
An ad that filters before you read it
Written so the wrong people do not apply. Changing two words in a job title is enough to change who turns up.
Questions he cannot rehearse
Ask what he has already done, not what he would do. Past behaviour is checkable. Intentions are free to say.
A first ninety days that tests
A trial, a review date in the diary, and a standard he is measured against while it is still cheap to be wrong.
A business that runs without you
The point of the right person is not the labour. It is that the job leaves the yard and you do not have to.
“I suppose it gives me that little bit of breathing room to not be in too much of a rush and try and find the right person rather than just someone to fill a gap.”
He is not describing a better judge of character. He is describing an owner who stopped hiring to fill a hole, which is the only reason the wrong person ever gets the job.
Proof it changes
Owners who used to be where you are. Not any more.
Real members, real names, on the record.
“I work four days a week and about four to five hours a day, by choice. I could work more if I wanted to, but I choose to be time-rich. Without Tradies Success Academy, there's no way I'd be doing that.”
4.9 from 123 Google reviews, and 9,000+ trade business owners trained across Australia and New Zealand.
Individual results. Where a member is quoted, it is in their own words. What any owner gets out of this depends on their business and the work they put in, and any cost or saving named here is an example rather than a quote for your business. Results vary.
Greg interviews the owners who fit when a place opens.
The interview
When a place opens, you talk to Greg
Greg Allan built his own trade business, and he interviews every owner himself. It's about you: where you want the business to go, and what's in the way.
Where the business is now, where you want it to be, and the life you want it to give you.
What is actually in the way, and what is capping it.
What your last hire really cost, and what let him through.
The first thing to change before you advertise again, and the order to change it in.
How the Academy's training, programmes and tools would help you do it, and what it costs to join.
Why Greg
You speak to the owner who has already done it.
Greg built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with 1,950+ five-star reviews. A general manager runs it.
He has trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.
He grew a coaching company to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches, then cut it back so every owner deals with him directly.
Most coaching companies hand you to a salesperson, then to a coach who has never run a trade business. Here you get the owner.
The Academy is full because it works, and Greg keeps it small on purpose so every business gets looked at properly, by him. He reads every application himself, interviews the owners who fit and only takes on owners who are building for the right reasons and give back to the group. Join the waitlist and he'll be in touch when a place opens.
Greg Allan
Founder
Built Response Electricians in Perth to 30+ staff and 1,950+ five-star reviews.
A general manager runs it day to day.
9,000+ trade business owners trained across Australia and New Zealand.
What changes for you
The old way. The new way.
More customers meant more people doing the computer work, and more wages nobody invoices.
You stay with your customers and your team. The office stops landing on you.
The old way
More jobs. More paperwork. Less of the owner left.
Most trade businesses grow the same way.
More jobs means more quoting, invoicing, chasing and scheduling.
None of it gets paid for.
So the owner does it at night, after a full day on site.
Or hires an office person to do it.
The office grows. The wages grow. The margin does not.
And the owner is still the one everything waits on.
Where we take you
More work. More profit. More of you left.
The phone rings with the jobs you want, at the price you set.
You grow when you're ready, never faster than the business can carry.
Every job is priced to make money, so the busy months show up in the bank.
The best tradies in your area want to work for you, and they stay.
The chasing, the paperwork and the 9pm admin stop landing on you.
The business runs the day. You pick which parts of it you're in.
Bigger, without the headaches. Getting bigger stops meaning getting busier.
Where you end up
Where we take your business
Not a pep talk. The best tradies in your area want to work for you, and they stay.
You already know what a good hire looks like on your site. You've known it for years. What's been missing is a business that finds out who someone really is before day one, not on a customer's job.
A crew good tradies want to join
The right people apply because of how you run the place, and the wrong ones don't bother.
You find out before they start
The bloke who interviews well and works badly gets found out before he's on a customer's job, not after.
Off the tools, safely
The job leaves the yard without you, run by people you trust, so stepping back stops feeling like a risk.
The apprentice cost calculator
What a hire actually costs you all in, and how much billable work they have to carry to break even. Free, on this site. The number is almost never the hourly rate you carry in your head.
Take a lookBefore you apply
Who the Academy is for
Apply if
- You are turning over $10k a month or more and a hire has already gone wrong
- You are back on the tools covering for somebody, or for nobody
- You have a job ad out now and you are not confident about who it will bring
- You want to get off the tools and cannot see how to do it safely
- You want a hiring process, not a better gut feel
Give it a miss if
- You are under $10k a month, in which case the free app is the better start
- You want somebody to do the hiring for you
- You believe good people simply do not exist any more
- You are not willing to change how you advertise or how you interview
Straight answers
What owners ask before they apply
Will Greg talk about joining the Academy?
Yes. When a place opens, Greg interviews the owners who look like the right fit, and he talks openly about how the Academy's training, programmes and tools would help and what it costs to join, because that is the point of it. Joining the waitlist costs nothing and there is no obligation.
What actually happens when I put my email in?
The waitlist form opens with your email already in it. A few quick questions about the business and you are on the list. No card.
Who will I be talking to?
Greg Allan, himself. He built his own trade business and has trained 9,000+ tradies. Most coaching companies put you through a salesperson first. Here you talk to Greg, and if you are accepted you work with Greg, live every week, alongside other owners. The Academy is at full capacity, so every new owner starts on the waitlist.
I am not hiring right now. Is it still worth it?
Usually more so. The changes that make a hire work are made before the ad goes out, and the owners who get burnt are almost always the ones who advertised the week they got desperate.
I have tried a business coach before and it went nowhere.
Most owners Greg speaks to have. The difference here is that you work with Greg directly, not a coach who has never run a trade business, and 9,000+ owners have been through the training.
Learn how to hire good people.
The Academy is at full capacity. Join the waitlist and when a place opens, Greg interviews the owners who look like the right fit. It costs nothing to join.
Turning over under $10k a month? Start with the free app instead. It costs nothing.
P.S.
He interviewed well because interviews reward interviewing. That is not a flaw in your judgement, it is a flaw in the test, and the test is something you can change before you advertise again. Another year on the tools covering for a hire that did not work costs more than fixing the test does. Joining the waitlist costs nothing.