The Powerhouse Husband & Wife Team Redefining Trade Family Business

In This Episode

• How Lucas Built Vivid Energy Electrical From the Ground Up

  John: Good morning guys and welcome to your Trade Business School podcast. Today I am sitting here with Lucas and Kel, who I've known for some time. They've got a very, very successful electrical contracting business and work very well together as husband and wife. So I'm really looking forward to talking with you guys today. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and about your business. We'll start with Lucas.

  Lucas: It's nice to see you again, mate. It's always good to see you. Yeah, so as you mentioned, Kelly and I run an electrical contracting business, Vivid Energy Electrical. We're based out in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but basically service any metropolitan areas of Melbourne and then push out into some regional areas as well. We're sort of based in the Yarra Valley area and then we go beyond, sort of northeast from there, then back into town. Kelly and I steer the ship together. Kelly's kind of fundamental to running everything and keeping me in line because Kelly's very much get things done and I can tend to drift off. So it kind of works well like that. Kel started working with us a couple of years ago. She came from an operational background in a much, much bigger company. So it's been fantastic. We're residential and commercial based service and project sparkies. Anything from a powerpoint for mums and dads if they call us about it, to school extension programs and maintenance on towers in the city. We've also got some specific work in the commercial farming sector and doing some stuff with LED signage. But generally we're run-around-town electricians.

  John: Kel, anything that you want to add to that?

  Kelly: I don't think so. I think you just about wrapped it all up. I was only gonna really add more about me and what I did before coming into the business, which is why I'm now in the business. But we kind of gathered that too.

  John: What about a little bit about what you guys do outside of business, because you've got a couple of cool things.

  Kelly: So we have a little girl, Remy, she's four. She well and truly keeps us on our toes. We also live on a 50 acre farm with highland cows that we breed. So between business, our child and our farm, we're pretty busy all the time. If it's not Vivid work, it's farm work, but it just feels different. It's a bit more of a pleasure work rather than a daily grind.

  John: When I was out at your place, that was the first time I'd seen those Highland cows before. They're cool, aren't they? And they're different. They're sort of bred to be more like pets, is that right?

  Kelly: Yeah, that's right. They have their calves and we halter train them and brush train them and then sell them off to be ornaments really.

  Lucas: Paddock ornaments. It's kind of cool seeing where they go. They go to different homes. One lady got one because her little boy was gonna take her to shows. Another lady got one for her son as a bit of a comfort animal. So it was kind of cool. It's rather a bit nicer than seeing them just go off on a truck.

  John: Yeah. I get that. Alright, so back to business. Why did you go into business for yourself?

  Lucas: I was thinking about this and it was two things, probably three things. The two main ones were I was in a job which, to be blunt, I hated. Just doing highrise stuff in the city, going in there every day and doing the same thing every day. And add on to that was working with guys in their fifties who hated it and whinged every day. And I thought, I don't wanna be one of these guys. I just didn't see myself there for the rest of my life. And the other aspect to it was, being in my mid twenties in that role, there wasn't really much room for growth. You're kind of earning what you're earning and that's really it. I was actually having a chat with my brother who's in wealth, and we were discussing about having money to do something else. And it was like, well, the only place that money can come from is from money that I put into my home loan, which wasn't excessive. So that conversation with him was, well if we don't have the excess money, the way you're gonna do that is with business. So those were the two main things. Not being happy where I was, not wanting to be there for the rest of my life. And if we wanna do more, I'm gonna have to do something about it.

  Kelly: When you did leave though, you were already doing your own stuff. You'd been doing your full-time job plus your own stuff for at least 18 months. And I was in a business development role as a team leader at that point. So I think we were just fortunate that we were at a stage in life where we weren't having kids or anything yet. And so we were like, well, while I'm still making a pretty decent income for myself, we can justify going for it. You'd already got a bit of a clientele to at least go, yep, I've got the confidence that I know I'm gonna have a job tomorrow. So that was like that transition really. And then we just went from there.

  John: So if we sort of break it down a little bit further for the people that might be in a similar boat. I remember when I was working on union sites, it's just not where I fitted in. Nothing against the guys that work there, I liked them, but the mentality wasn't where I fitted in. And I didn't really know where I fitted in until I started to get serious about business and hung around other business owners and I was like, oh, these are my people. So for perhaps younger guys or even older guys that are in that boat, you just went and got your contractor's license. Talk us through that.

  Lucas: So basically exactly that. I just went and got my contractors and then would pretty much work RDOs and work weekends. And then that turned into working nights and working RDOs. And then I had a pretty good idea that I was gonna leave. At the time I was like a leading hand, sort of running crews on different sites. And then I ended up taking my long service leave pro-rata and I spent all of that working and finding more clients. And I got to the end of that and picked up a couple of really good jobs and I was like, I'm not finished, I'm not ready to go back to work. And I just kind of didn't say anything. My boss actually called me and he said, mate, are you coming back or what's going on? I was like, I am coming, I just need two more weeks to finish this job off. And by then he well knew what I was doing. So I did that, then went back and probably stayed another six months. But I was taking days off, working all of the time of a nighttime. And it got to the point where I was like, I can't keep doing this. So I just went and spoke to them and said, I'm gonna go and have a crack at this. And he said, yeah, the writing was on the wall for a long time. He basically just said, wish you all the best. There's a spot here if you ever need to come back. So that was kind of cool. But yeah, committing to spending my long service leave working was the catalyst.

  John: Do you remember much about back at that time? Were you guys married at that point?

  Kelly: John, we were married after 12 years of being together. No, we were not.

  John: But you guys were living together.

  Kelly: Yeah. We had a house in Lilydale. I do remember it. Like Lucas would get up at four o'clock in the morning, it would be sitting on the train with his beanie over his eyes looking half homeless, dragging himself to the city every day. So it was a big shift of just being like, I am starting to represent myself, rather than it just being that slog of working for someone else. And you know, as much as he's always been a good sparky, there was definitely that difference between even just how he sort of made himself appear and how he envisioned himself really, which was the big difference between leaving there and going out on his own.

• The Biggest Challenges of Building a Trade Business as a Couple

  John: This isn't necessarily right at the start. This can just be on your whole business journey. And it'll be interesting to ask both of you the same question. What are the three biggest issues you've faced in business? We might start with Kel. And I want to preface it, because I've been working with you guys for a while now. And when we first started working together, Kel wasn't in the business. But we were talking about bringing her in. And what's happened since she's come in?

  Lucas: Always had exceptional growth and just backend organisation.

  John: And with the growth, what else have you had? Because revenue's important, but what's more important?

  Lucas: Profitability. Yeah. Profits have been really strong.

  John: Yeah. And that's no coincidence, is it? So what are the three biggest issues that you can think of, Kel?

  Kelly: I think just from a collective, when you start your own business, as much as people say flexibility and all of that, I feel like we're bearer of bad news for those that want to hear that, that it's not always like that. Our journey as a relationship has been a lot of sacrifice. And from a wife's perspective that's going to bed by yourself, waking up by yourself, going to things by yourself. If you're not understanding the goal and you're not realizing that you've got your part, and obviously before I came into the business, my part was to hold the house and be the partner that was able to support him and almost nourish him to keep doing that. And then since coming into the business, it's been a bit more of making him, instead of just being on that hamster wheel of what happens every single day in the operation side of it, being a bit like, well, you need to be thinking about what's going on in three months and six months. And I feel like I'm the one that's constantly driving him to just pause and have a think about that. But yeah, I think some of the hardest parts is probably reminding yourself that this is the goal and that you're working towards it. But of course there are gonna be sacrifices along the way.

  John: A really good answer. There's one part of that that I loved, and it was at the start when you said, people might not want to hear this, but how hard you've worked. And the reason I love that is because there's this perception out there that you build a business so that you can have a relaxed lifestyle, a lifestyle business, you can do what you want, you've got time and money. And for the most part, it doesn't exist to get to that point. It's incredibly hard work. Which you guys have done and are doing. How hard you guys have worked to get to where you are is the price that needs to be paid. And more people need to know that it's actually that hard to get to where you are. I know we've spoken at times, one of the reasons that you guys have been successful, you didn't use the word neglected wife, but it was something like that. What was it?

  Kelly: It's a good descriptive term.

  John: But I kind of changed it and I said, no, it's supportive. Because Lucas wouldn't have been able to do what he did had you not been so supportive at home. And I know there would've been times when it got tense. But you always had Lucas's back. That's one of the reasons you guys have got this beautiful farm out where it is and you're doing what you're doing.

  Kelly: Yeah. I think being a husband and wife working together, it's very much trying to create the, we're now husband and wife, not employees. And I find that very easy. He doesn't. So it's often we'll be getting ready for bed at like nine thirty at night and all of a sudden he is spit firing all these things coming out of his brain. And the amount of times, like two months ago I looked at him and was like, send me an email and I'll address that in my business hours.

  Lucas: In fairness I say that to you at times as well. You'll get busy one night and you'll be doing something and I'll just be like, today's been a big day. I've had enough. It's ten o'clock at night.

  Kelly: And I think that's probably the initial challenge for us, me trying to do my job but half of my job relies on getting information out of his brain. And if he's been out on site all day and hasn't given himself enough time in the office, which has been a massive thing for us until recently, it would be at nine o'clock at night that I'd be on a roll trying to get all the answers to my questions so that I could actually feel like I was doing my job role. And that's where it was a challenge, because that's not the time of day that he wants to be doing that. But then I felt like I was just twiddling my thumbs between seven and three, waiting to try and get an answer from him without calling him fifty times and him being like, what now? So yeah, that's probably been a challenge for us too. Having that dedicated time to actually collaborate on where are we at as a business, what's our forecast, and the growth that we want to have and where are we going. But also just the day-to-day stuff.

  John: Is there something that you guys have done recently that's helped that?

  Lucas: The key one is putting on an operations manager. That's definitely changed our working landscape.

  Kelly: And before that, the building that we sit in every day.

  Lucas: Yeah, moving into our factory. For sure. It has created some separation. Probably not as much as I had planned, because on our goals board for last year we had no work talk at the dinner table and no work after nine PM as a standard. And I was actually looking at that the other morning and I thought, well, I've kind of been failing at that one. So it was kind of good just to see it. But yeah, that shift between having the office at home and being in our factory office space has been pretty fundamental to having separation.

  Kelly: Yeah, I think that's it. I think when we first started working together, it was definitely the dynamic of just working out how we work together. Because obviously we know how to work together in a relationship, but you're often a different person when you go to work than what you are in your home life. So trying to navigate through that. And I always thought that he was a controlling bastard, but God, he really is so nice. So working with him originally, he would just not micromanage, because there was definitely a part of it being like, well, I don't know this, I'm not a sparky, I'm not interested in being a sparky, so just let me figure out where I can benefit in this business and let me focus on doing that. So that took us a bit, but I feel like now that we're in our third year of working together, definitely last year and now this year we've gotten our flow a lot better. It was just that first year.

  Lucas: And I've kind of been able to step out of a lot of things now as well that Kelly's kind of taken on. She says she's not an electrician, but she's picked up a lot of stuff. Great confidence in Kel doing all of our remedial work, quotes for inspections and all of that, and I don't need to be a part of that anymore. Whereas once upon a time I'd be going over every single one with her. So my expectations from that aspect of the business were probably unfair as well. And even just talking with other people in the industry and where they're at with the people they've got working for them, I would say that Kelly's picked stuff up and run with it so much better than what people do who have been in the industry for a period of time. So I'm very fortunate in that aspect.

  John: I said something and Bec used to always say that she didn't like work John. And then one day I said, well, work John pays for everything. So we need him. But I know what it's like because when you're at work and you're under pressure, you've got a lot of things going through your head, you've gotta make decisions, things have to happen. So you go into a zone. It's not ideal when you bring that back home. And having the separation that you guys now have because you've gotta drive from your factory to your house is a really good way of taking the work hat off and putting the home hat on.

• Knowing When to Get Help and How to Build a Trade Business Team

  John: What do you think your biggest issues were, Lucas?

  Lucas: I would say from early days, it's probably knowing when to get help. I would just take on way too much work and I'd be doing the work of a couple of guys when we probably should have brought people in. So instead of working fourteen hour days straight, you know, get someone to help you. Which I was not very good at. And then a large one is just having that business and quoting and general industry knowledge, which I probably jumped into working for myself with less of than what I imagine quite a lot of people would have. If you were a 2IC in a smaller electrical company and you're kind of involved with discussion around quotes and your boss has got you doing small quotes and you kind of see how the back end of it works a little bit, I kind of went from big commercial site where basically it was just boots on the ground to, okay, I've gotta learn to quote, I've gotta learn to invoice, I've gotta learn to do all this backend stuff, which was extremely foreign to me. So that was probably the early days struggle.

  John: How did you deal with that?

  Lucas: Trial and error. Doing things the wrong way for a long time. Doing things the slow way for a long time. Putting in more hours than probably were needed.

  Kelly: One of the key influences has been your job management system.

  Lucas: Yeah. That's fair way down the track though. So the early days of quoting everything in your book and then making material lists, and then getting that back and writing every quote up, not using templates. So that operational business side of things was a real weak point of me starting out. And then from an actual workload point of view, I probably didn't have a huge network of people in the industry outside of the commercial guys who were just new on site. So in terms of coming from a smaller company who had an AV guy or an antenna guy, just not having those kinds of people around the industry. You're just starting up fresh relationships everywhere. Those were probably the biggest ones in the early days. And then more recently it's just been finding good solid staff. Not so much now, but in recent times before we got the guys we've got now, it was sort of, yep, something really good's about to happen, and then it didn't, and now something else comes along that falls through. So I just kind of felt like I was on a little bit of a hamster wheel in terms of building a team. And then probably even more recently is that separation of you're in workspace, you're in family space. Because I've just got that worker bee mentality where I'm always thinking about work all the time. I'm sure business owners across the board are like that. Or ones who are trying to go somewhere. But I'm probably just exceptionally bad at it.

  John: Do you think that's something that needs to change or do you think that's something that has been important to get you where you are? Or is it both?

  Lucas: It's probably both. I feel like, as Kelly mentioned earlier, the business isn't all sunshine and rainbows when you start up. It can be quite a lonely place as well. I found that a fair bit. Which has been another reason why Kelly's been so important for me too, because coming home and having somebody that you can have discussions with about issues in your business, and because Kelly's got such a background with people, she's really strong in that area. Just having someone who can strategize with, plan with, and set goals with. I feel like if you didn't have that, business would be even harder and even lonelier. So to answer your question, it's probably a bit of both. Need to keep that because I feel like the people who do really well always have an aspect of that drive and they've got that drive to not just rest on their laurels. But then also, yeah, it can't be at the cost of your family.

  Kelly: Yours is just a shift now. It's a shift between doing the things every day, on the tools, versus keeping that busy bee mentality but shifting it to be about where's my business going and what I want my business to look like. While you've got a solid team behind you to assist with actually doing it. Once you've got it, it's just a shift.

  John: Having a good work ethic is important for success. Being prepared to work hard. And I think you guys have got to where you are on the back of a lot of hard work. But to get to the next level, it's gonna be a hard thing to explain. You've gotta keep your work ethic, but you've gotta get out of the worker bee mentality. And you kind of mentioned it there, Kel, because what's more important now is the ability to think and strategize and visualize where you want to go, and implement some systems and strategies to get other people to do things for you as opposed to doing it all yourself. And I remember when I was at that point, it was so hard because you get used to being busy. I remember vividly just thinking, no John, you've gotta hustle to be successful. It was very hard for me to stop hustling. But I was capped out when I was hustling. And so I had to change my mentality and learn that to go to the next stage, I actually need to do less.

  Lucas: Yeah. I get it. And that's probably something that Kelly reminds me of often. If I've got a little gap somewhere she's like, you just find things to fill it. Like you go and go to that job and you don't have to go to that job. So she's always on my case about prioritizing priorities. And that's another aspect of having Kelly come from her operational background and also her business development background. Okay, we've got some time. Let's redirect energy and our roles are changing. So let's be productive with our time in a different way. I still feel like that worker bee mentality is still there, but not from a turning a screwdriver aspect. It's from, okay, let's put that mentality into the other role change that I'm now facing. So yeah, I disappointingly for Kel, I probably will never be the twelve o'clock I'll go home type because I've got some time. I'll probably always fill my days with stuff. Because that's just me. But it's just filling it with the right stuff.

• Identity Shift: From Tradie to Business Owner

  John: You know, people change too. Because I remember when we first started working together, you didn't want to get off the tools. You loved it.

  Lucas: Yeah. And I must admit, I got introduced by a friend of mine to another older, very successful business owner. And we were having a wine and a chat. And he sort of asked me what my vision was and what I thought of myself and my business. And it kind of put me off because I was just kind of stepping into that space, and it's like, oh, this is a different way to look at things. And now I understand it much more. But at the time I said, well, I'm always gonna be a tradie, because that's how I viewed myself. And he actually said to me, he said, you know, what does that mean? And I said, I'm really good on the tools. And he said, and it's something that you have said recently as well, he said, as you progress through life, the way you view yourself changes. And that's kind of stuck with me. And it definitely has. So that was kind of a key moment. And an interesting step into people who are thinking around the way you look at yourself.

  Kelly: You always used to tell John that you would always be on the tools. But it's because you couldn't see yourself being anything else.

  Lucas: And that's just what I knew. The next, the business owner not on the tools realm was kind of a bit uncomfortable to me because it's outside my comfort zone. Whereas being on the tools and on site and driving guys on site, that up and about energy of being on site, that was my spot for the past ten years.

  John: So what changed?

  Lucas: Probably a large reason for the shift in my mentality is when you and I started working together and what you've got me implementing in my business and just in my personal life. So I feel like that's been a really important part for me. Working with you is having a business coach, but there's also been a really strong life coach aspect to it as well. And that's something that really resonates with me about you. So that's why I enjoy working with you so much.

• Why Lucas and Kelly Got a Business Coach

  John: That's a good segue into the next question, which is why did you get a business coach?

  Lucas: I got a business coach and this is another pivotal conversation. I came home from something and Kel was having what Kelly calls a mini mental bee. So like, it's not really a mental breakdown, but it's just like a bit of a moment. And I was at home on the farm and I was having a conversation with my brother and I was like, I'm on this hamster wheel and I can't see myself getting off it. Same stuff, working way too much, no time for anything else. And I wasn't enjoying it. And at the time I was thinking I might get out of this. I was trying to think, can I go back to doing what I was doing? And I can't go back there. And I was actually thinking about just ditching electrical completely and just going and doing earthmoving. Because that's kind of where my heart is. My dad's an earthmover and I love doing that. So I was very seriously contemplating packing it in and going to do that. Then I thought, well, I'll try something different. So I signed up to a group coaching thing, just with the hope of getting some guidance and some direction, which I did. And it was fundamental to actually understanding where I was at as a business, which was making fifty cents an hour with the charge out rates that I was charging. And implementing some software and management to go along with it to hopefully create some growth. And that went for about thirteen weeks and it was really, really important for me. It kind of got me back on track. At the time I think we were doing twenty thousand dollar months and thirty thousand dollar months. And then I got away from that because I felt like they were sales grooming you for the next stage and I didn't like that. So I kind of took what I learned from that and ran with it from there. And then sometime after that, you and I started working together. And I was keen to work with you largely because you'd been in the space that I was wanting to go to. And I just connected with you on a personal level.

  Kelly: Yeah. We, when you both did a little bit of that group coaching stuff together and I was in some of the women admin office groups and Lucas was obviously in the director group. And a lot of it was, you know, we've got this in our business, we've got this in our business. We kind of felt like the core structure and the foundation of our business was there. Yes, there were tweaks that were making things more efficient. But especially you, you kept leaving these meetings being like, but I just don't know what's next for me. And it was kind of feeling like you wanted someone to tell you that. And we were never gonna get it out of that, because no one was looking at our business individually to say, I can see that this is where you are. Tell us what they can see about our business that we just couldn't see ourselves. And that was a big shift in you wanting to do more one-on-one stuff as well.

  John: What do you think, if there's people out there looking for a business coach, what do you think they should look for?

  Kelly: A big personal aspect. I think the personal connection rather than it just literally being about, oh let's go and charge this person this amount for that job. There just needs to be a little bit more of a holistic view rather than it just being guns blazing.

  John: What would you say, Lucas?

  Lucas: Yeah, I would say very much someone that can teach you life lessons as well. The little group coaching thing that I did was pivotal. But beyond that, okay, get simPRO, okay, we need to charge this, okay, this is your charge out rate. Beyond that, I think it's someone that yeah, you can learn a lot from business wise and also on a personal level. Because I would say that yes, the business coaching and having meetings and dialling in on numbers and stuff has been extremely important. But I would say there's probably been almost as much growth in the business because of my personal growth as a person, which has come from working with you and having discussions, and you putting me onto things to listen to and to read. So my personal growth as a person has been almost as important as what we've been doing in our sessions. So for me, having both is really important. And then just having a really good calm sounding board, because business is like this all of the time. Particularly if you're working by yourself and if you don't have a partner, or if your partner's not interested in your business, you're kind of doing this by yourself all the time. And you don't have that leveler. So I'm fortunate to have a leveler at home, being Kelly, and then the leveler of you at meeting time as well. And that was kind of even recently really prominent because I felt like we'd had a really turbulent month, and I was like, we've been busy but our numbers are gonna be terrible. And then Kelly did all the forecasting and reviewing, and she levelled me out again. And then we had a meeting with you and you were basically like, relax, that's actually pretty good.

  John: Yeah. I remember you mentioned something that was very important to me. I had a mentor that said, your level of success or your income will be directly proportionate to your level of personal growth. And I think that's something that people who have ambition and want to go and achieve things neglect. There's a lot of work outside of the work. So the work is on yourself.

• What Advice Would You Give Yourself Starting Out

  John: What advice would you give yourself now if you were starting again? If you could go back to Lucas ten years ago, what would you tell him?

  Lucas: Get help sooner. And back yourself and take some more risks, which I'm sure is pretty common for a lot of people. But yeah, early days I was very like, this isn't my strong point, I'm not great at this. Now it's like, okay, I know I'm good at this, I know I'm good at meeting people, let's go and do it. So that backing yourself and taking calculated risks. Because I'm very, I cross my t's and dot my i's before I do something. But I'm probably more so now like, alright, let's just do it. Because there's been a lot of instances in personal life and business life where I've kind of should have done it, haven't quite done it, and missed out. And now Kelly said to me one day, she said, on your gravestone it's gonna say that.

  Kelly: Well, yeah. It's just about failing fast really. Take the risk and if you realize it's not working out, just cut it quick. And that was us with Google Ads last year.

  Lucas: Yeah.

  Kelly: We spent what, like thirty grand on online ads and yes, that might work for some businesses, but it really didn't work for ours. Which was the clear indicator for us to be like, we are very much a business to business type of electrical business. Yes, we still work for mums and dads down the road and do business to client type of work. But our strength is business to business. So let's focus our energy on that rather than pumping money into Google and competing against one man bands that are still growing, whose operational expenses don't allow them to be at that price anymore. And that's just part of growth.

  John: Kel, if I could put what you just said in a bottle, I would give that to almost every tradesperson I talk to. Because I remember that conversation when we were looking at the costs of Google and one of the really good things about you guys using simPRO correctly is we could track your gross profit on our Google spend. And we may as well have just taken a wheelbarrow of money to the Google head office and given it to them.

  Lucas: Pretty much. Yeah.

  Kelly: Literally.

  John: Yeah. And then we made the decision to turn it off. What happened?

  Kelly: I think we spent thirty and we made nine.

  John: Yeah. It was pretty confronting. When you turned Google off, what did you do instead? Because the business has grown and grown very well.

• How Vivid Energy Electrical Grew Without Google Ads

  Lucas: Kelly is very big on targeting your low hanging fruit. So existing relationships that you have with clients that you can be capitalizing on. And that's been important because we've gone back to the well with people and got more work out of it. And then just focusing on some really key relationships and clients and putting time into those. Going to people where it's not just a once off job for mum and dad around the corner, but going to people where that relationship means a lot of different avenues to work. Those are probably the two main things.

  Kelly: Yeah. I think the big part of it was just remembering that you have to nurture your relationships. You can't just be working for someone and think that because you've been working for them for a year they're just gonna keep giving you the work. It doesn't always work like that. Someone can walk in the door and be right in front of them and offer them that pot of gold that's tempting to take. So something that was a shift for Lucas was calling our clients more often. And me assisting with being like, we haven't done a job for this client for a while, give them a call, find out why. And the amount of times they were like, oh yeah, I've got something on, I've got some plans. And then within two hours there would be some emails coming through. It's because we just weren't front of mind at the time. And it's not in their mind either. And it came to our mind because we popped up and just generally were like, how are you going? Not always just about what work have you got for me. It was just a general, how's the climate for you? Which then helped. So I think it was just literally, instead of focusing on trying to get jobs from mums and dads, it was, let's just focus on nurturing our existing relationships and asking them what other network they've got that they could introduce us to. Because if you like us, well surely your friend will too.

  John: Where did you learn that, Kel?

  Kelly: I think I've always kind of been like that. Being in a BD role. I worked in childcare with my original career, and then I went into training and assessing, and then moved into business development for a training organisation. And instead of walking in there with the pamphlet of the four childcare courses that I had to sell them, I just used to go in there and just talk to them about their centre and what was going on. But then I would hear about what was happening with someone down the road. And then I'd walk in and pretend I was their best friend because I knew half their life because someone up the road told me about it. So I just always was a bit like that. And it just kind of worked. When I was doing that job role, it made my whole region sustainable. And even when I left, it was still one of the more successful regions based on the relationships that I had built.

  Lucas: And then you went to key accounts manager after that as well. So that was probably a space where you were nurturing clients as well.

  Kelly: Yeah. And then worked as a territory manager within a before and after school care company. And that was a pretty dynamic role, half the state with all these schools and regional operations managers. So that was probably the shift in more of keeping my mind on finances, because it was very much about your budget. How many kids are coming in, what your resource budget is and things like that. So I think some of that really shifted my mind of showing more interest and actually looking at spreadsheets. But yeah, I feel like I've just kind of always had a forecast mind, which is good in business but not good in family life. I'm like, what's next? What are we doing? I wanna plan out the next twelve years of our farm life. And it's like, can we just focus on the current job we're doing now?

  John: Look, I know from the outside looking in, one of the reasons that I think you guys have been really successful is because no matter how busy Lucas got, you were always telling him, actually you need to call this person. We need to follow up with them. Because we would have a look at some of the target clients, and I think there's one on the top of our list that we're chipping away at. And you said a great thing, like just give them a call and say, hey, I'm gonna be in your area next week, can I come and see you? And so many tradespeople in business, they get busy and they stop doing the BD stuff.

  Lucas: Definitely.

  John: And you guys haven't stopped doing it and that's why things keep working. And if I go back to when I was in business, that was something that my coach and I were always talking about. No matter how busy I got, you had to still do the BD. And as far as I'm concerned, growing a business hasn't really changed for hundreds of years. It comes down to personal relationships. And it doesn't matter what technology we bring in, the businesses that succeed will be the ones that have good relationships with their existing clients and are prepared to develop relationships with potential clients. The only way, or the best way you do that, is face to face.

  Kelly: On that though, like if we think about bringing in clients, I wouldn't want anyone to think that we have all of these new clients, because we really don't. If we actually look at the core foundation of the clients that Lucas has literally had since when he started, we've probably only brought in like five or six clients since then.

  John: Five or six good ones. A-grade.

  Kelly: Yeah. And that's part of it. It's not always about, oh, I've gotta be networking and bringing in fifty different real estates that make me shit GP, so I'm working my ass off but I'm actually not making that good amount of money. It's actually trying to be strategic on what type of clients that you want and then working them hard and getting as much out of them as possible. And going back to what you said before, like we thought we had a bad quarter last quarter because our revenue wasn't that good, but our net profit was actually really high. So we actually did really profitable jobs. The actual job turnover of them wasn't as high as what we were aiming for.

  Lucas: And I think having that solid foundation of relationships and the right clients for your business can really flatten out what's happening in just the general economy as well. Because if you've got those fundamentals in the right areas, you kind of have, not a known thing, but it's a reasonably sure thing in terms of revenue. And typically with that work for us anyway, it's pretty stable in terms of the GP on it as well. So if you can target the right people and look after them and be good people first and foremost, it can just create a really nice base for your business to then go and target other bits and pieces.

  John: Well, that is a great place to end today's podcast. It's gone so quick. So I'd like to thank you both for coming in and being part of this. I've really enjoyed it. Is there anything you'd like to say before we finish? And where can people find you?

  Lucas: I would just say for anybody starting out, a friend of mine said to me a few years ago, and he built a really successful directional drilling business and then sold it. He said to me, spend your thirties working your ass off, and then go from there. And that's kind of stuck with me when I started. So that's kind of been my little window of time to work like hell and get stuff done and set yourself up for the rest of your life. Don't be afraid of hard work, but try to enjoy it along the way.

  John: Good advice. Kel?

  Kelly: Where can they find us?

  Lucas: Yeah. We're on the usual socials, that's Kel. If anyone needs to find us on socials, you'll be chatting with Kel. And then just find us online, just on Google if anyone ever needs anything. Vivid Energy.

  John: Vivid Energy. Once again guys, thanks a lot for coming in. I really appreciate it.

  Lucas: Thanks, John. Cheers.