In this video series, Mark Harris from Stroud Homes takes you through the top 5 reasons Australian builders go broke and offers some sound advice on how to avoid these pitfalls. Top 5 Reasons Builders Go Broke No 1 Bad Cashflow Bad Cash flow - not having enough money coming into your business to pay your bills. Stroud Homes can help solve cash flow problems by providing increased sales, profitable jobs, management assistance and happy customers. Getting these four things right will reduce … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Trevor (Rockhampton, QLD)
Video Transcript: James: What was life like before you joined Stroud? Trevor: Well, before I joined Stroud, building is enjoyable but hard. So, just knowing where you are in the build financially, having no systems and things like that, it just made it really hard, to the point where it made it unenjoyable, wasn't enjoyable at all. James: What's the biggest thing that made you more competitive to more builders in the local area after joining Stroud? Trevor: Once I joined Stroud, … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Tom (Lockyer Valley, QLD)
Tom: I am Tom Sachs from Stroud Homes Lockyer Valley. I've got quite a broad experience in the construction industry, I've done commercial sites, car parks, but my love is the residential construction and that's what brought me through to Stroud Homes. I chose a franchise because there's a lot already set up for you in the systems, the plans. And it's all very smooth running. I chose Stroud Homes because they're all about quality. And that's something I really believe in. They've also … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Scott & Brooke (Young & Goulburn)
Scott: Yeah. So I left school at 15, started my apprenticeship. And from there, I've subcontracted. From 20 year old, I was fully qualified. Spent the next sort of 5, 10 years subcontracting, working all over New South Wales. Then decided to get my builder's license, and, you know, started doing it myself. And within the last six or seven years, we've been doing that. But we just needed more. So we, yeah, started looking around at different franchise options. We've looked at a heap … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Matt (Northern Rivers, NSW)
Matt Lowson: Previous to starting with Stroud, my main experience was coming from a tradesman, then onto supervision, then onto management through some of the major companies, the major building companies in Southeast Queensland. And that experience taught me a lot in what not to do and what to do as well, bringing that positive experience into my own company. I just got to a point that I felt that I had to do it myself. It's a bit similar to when you're a teenager wanting to move out … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: VJ (Canberra, ACT)
VJ Tran: I started off working for my dad painting houses up in North Sydney. I fell in love with the designs and the building and decided to pursue the building career and it's now been, you know, 15 years roughly so yeah. I had started off working as an estimator through to administrator, site manager, up to project manager doing both private commercial contracts from residential to commercial. I was looking into systems and procedures and structure. I enjoyed working as a project … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Travis (Wollongong, NSW)
Travis Butler: After I completed my apprenticeship and my builders course I went out and did some renovations and extensions with a builder. And then I was branching out into building my own new homes. I got an opportunity to start doing some TAFE teaching, which I took, thoroughly enjoyed working with some younger guys trades and apprentices and moved on into some head teaching. And after that I looked into going back to building. When I was looking to leave TAFE, I was looking … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Jason (Brisbane West, QLD)
Jason Till: So I started in the construction industry as an apprentice carpenter, from there I did my time and got all the qualifications to become a licensed carpenter, from there I went out on my own, started a carpentry business. So once I got my carpentry team together I worked for a number of different builders. Perhaps at the time at the peak we were doing roughly 100 houses per year. I eventually jumped on board with Stroud Homes as a carpenter, as a subcontract carpenter and … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Thomas (Brisbane South Acreage, QLD)
Thomas Eldridge: I had a master's in civil engineering in the States at the University of Colorado and then moved over to Australia with my wife. And here we moved up to Queensland, started with nothing, and I ended up getting a job with James Stroud at the original franchise, in Jimboomba, as a contracts administrator. I got promoted to an estimator, then the operations manager there, which I've been doing running the office for about three years. So after working there for five … [Read more...]
Franchisee Testimonial: Yarren (Coffs Harbour, NSW)
Video Transcript Yarren: I left school, I did my apprenticeship, I started out doing a little maintenance role, and then ended up working in Sydney at Fox Studio. A few other places doing a lot of film set work. I've had a fair bit of experience with some commercial stuff and a lot of more high-end one-off sort of architect builds and jobs like that, that we used to fit in in between the film industry work. And I've always had my own business. Sometimes I'd subcontract to other guys, … [Read more...]