As a young buck stepping out into the business world in the trades, I took strides through learnt lessons of text in how a business should aspire to greater heights. Expand. More employee’s. Tender contracts. Government contracts. Chase the dragon. Bottom line! bottom line! bottom line!

After several years stepping down said path, I came to realise I was just like all the other conglomerate assholes with no actual ethics within an astronomical unit of reality, solely existing to drive profits and not caring who we stand on in the process.

I still remember going to the local hardware in Nerang with my father. Asking the man who owned / operated the establishment what his thoughts were on the particular project at hand, to recieve knowledge not only greater than ours on the subject, but from someone who actually cared about the result…as opposed to modern day hardware employee’s who wouldn’t know their asshole from elbow (for the most part). Best just remaining quiet to prevent losing brain cells through in depth discussion with the resident slugs who make up the cogs of the ever expanding wheel of profiteering.

From those early lessons, then subsequently from my lessons learnt travelling the wrong path early on, I soon directed the business into a more personal establishment, where the crew might be small, but the experience high and someone you can trust when in conversation, every word from my mouth is honest and with your best intentions in mind for the outcome of your project.

I also tend to make this simple frame of thought expand thoughout my entire business. The material suppliers and manufacturers I choose to work with not only offer high quality products, but also value their customers and their business, along with their return business through a quality relationship.

My conrete supplier? 11 years I’ve been with them. The last time I spoke with their rep, I simply said “I’m not one of these guys who goes around several companies and plays one against the other, we’ve been working together for a long time, I think the prices have gotten a bit high, can you see what you can do for me?”. The next day my rep dropped the prices 15% all across the board, much more than I was expecting, but only received through an above standard relationship over the last decade.

My steel, resurfacing, epoxy and machine suppliers, are all leaning closer to 10 years working with me than anything else, hell, Ollie my longest employee has been with me for 14 years. I value long term relationships that I can trust. Which leads to me the point of this post.

Today, the line was crossed and I flipped. I don’t get angry often, so when I do, you should listen closely and take heed.

Now I’ve been in the game a really long time. I snicker when the concrete supplier, who is an hour late, tells me the “plant broke down”. If only I had a dollar every time huh?…

I have a laugh on the blue bird skies day when a machine operator says he got a puncture, knowning damn well he’s a fishmerman and always takes a day off on days like today. It’s cool. A common understanding. All little white lies with a little tongue in cheek. They know, we know, whatever.

But when you’ve expanded your business and your 20 yo is trying to tell me how to run my business, I get a little agitated. When that 20 yo, after a week waiting on a repair to my grinders, says that there’s no news yet and we need to wait a bit longer, I’m patient, I sit. When I  touch base again Friday, only to be told I’m being pushy and the repairer is waiting on parts to fix a $20 tag and test lead on the grinder which should have only taken 2 days….I smell and rat and get a little fucking frustrated.

When I finally get in contact directly with the 3rd party repairer you sent it off too, finding out the grinder had been repaired for the last 3 days and you simply haven’t bothered contacting them to find out, wasting my time and not appreciating the exxy profit I was prepared to pay you for the service, knowing I haven’t got a second to scratch myself at the moment with how busy we are to fix it myself? You’re lucky I didn’t come down there and ram the grinder up your ass. This isn’t a white lie, it is blatant disrepect for my money and my business, take your medicine boy.

All an old school bush kid like myself requires, is honesty. Tell me you’re busy and haven’t had a chance to follow it up. No problems. But treat me like an idiot and piss down my back telling me it’s raining, I’m taking my money elsewhere. Just between you and me, it’s not a small amount I spend on floor grinding.

I’ll explain that to your boss when he realises why I haven’t been in for a few months.

I suppose at the end of the day, I don’t expect your business to stay small, you travel your own path. But, I do require industry level respect. I’ve earnt that much through being a quality customer.

So here we are, back into the hamster wheel again and beginning to tumble towards our business goals. It was a long 4 months of Covid19 madness for us consisting of 70+ hour weeks for pretty much the entire 4 months, then 2 weeks of bliss as soon as they opened up travel again as we went north for boating, fishing and swimming relief.

The first week or so back has seen a few tantrums (by me of course), not wanting to let go of the holidays, but alas, my head and toes are all pointed in the same direction again.

Having a second to breathe over holidays and our first week back, where the pressure of our schedule hasn’t been too crazy, has allowed me to see what is maybe a fault in the marketing of our designs and what we can offer our clients. If you look through our work on social media and website, we have a hell of a lot of pieces that are very customised throughout, but we have made the mistake of giving each artistic piece a design name. Now although this is really cool to name some of the creations I’ve delved into, I think there is room to separate the sections into categories.

So what I’ve done firstly, is just adjust our Custom Concrete Designs page to show the following area categories.

This design process if leaned towards what the name suggests, a more natural stone appearance. It consists of several blending tones applied through several layers and can be completed in several different colour and tone combinations. This allows us to bring this particular design process into any home or work place and allow it to flow with it’s surroundings.

This is the design category where I work in depth with our clients to create something more directed towards artstic creation as opposed to a natural appearance. There is no end to colour combinations and flowing, either give me a little direction, work right alongside me or let me go with true autonomy to put a one of a kind piece of art onto your home or workplace setting.

From here, we have an absolute nightmare schedule in front of us for at least another 6 weeks to get on top of things, then we can hopefully breath a little bit and maybe even work on some new designs. We’re booked pretty solid up until Christmas at present, but as always, we’re still quoting any potential clients who are firstly not bothered with the waiting period, or who are looking for that something different and unique to stand out from the crowd.

Keep up to date with what we’re up to on our Instagram, we post nearly everything up there.

Hope everyone out there is doing good with all the madness in the world at the moment. Victoria might be back in the shit again, but the night is darkest before the dawn, hang in there guys.

See you next time I find some mental energy to put some words on paper.

3 weeks with no days off. Or is it 4? 5? Who the hell knows. I do know however it’s at least over 3 months where 70+ hour weeks have just become so normal that the numb feeling above the shoulders blends into the same mundane mood the body portrays on a daily basis….limping and whinging as we stumble down the road ahead whilst telling ourselves we should be thankful for being so busy, there are plenty who aren’t.

Which of course, we are, but that isn’t to say my old body isn’t getting tired, along with the few braincells that still output some semblance of stability starting to spark failures.

Thanks to government incentives, effectively throwing money back into the general persons pockets (one could say lowering taxes *cough*), whilst cutting a little of the red tape and letting business go as hard as they can to try and limit what was seen as a devastating pandemic, turning it into a “possible” economic recovery…..from the GFC in 2008!

Yes, I said that correctly….2008. Maybe my mind is a little too analytical at the expense of common sense, but if you wish to have a further conversation on this topic, a concreter’s blog isn’t the place to do so.

Let’s just say, I’m noticing changes that “could” help re-adjust the inflation and wage disparity caused by the 2008 GFC, and bring things more in line with how the every day person lives their lives.

But I digress…

Since rebuilding after 2008 myself, I had a focus in mind for what I wanted to acheive with the business and we’re slowly making progress towards that. I have an end goal in mind, of staying small and providing quality, customised hardscape services to residential clientelle throughout South East Queensland.

My end game? Nothing but high end, decorative concrete, epoxy and overlay installations, booked steadily for 4-6 months at a time.

Whether we get there or not is one tale to tell, which we will only read about through constant and consistent hard work and dedication to our trade, projects and clients. We shall not fail this section through lack of trying hard enough.

But, in the mean time, we also need to tread carefully on the cobblestone road, because although it is paved, it is easy to stumble and slip in the joints when we’re too tired to take notice of the little things, the minor details that will cause a trip and take us backwards from our future.

After over 3 months without a break, we are now looking to take a small, 10-14 day “reset” away from work. We have clients and projects booked in until January now and we completely appreciate your bookings and your trust to have us complete your work, but, without a reset when we are exahusted, we will find ourselves (at times), tripping over the smaller details and not fully appreciating the workmanship that has gone into building the road in the first place.

We understand that some of our near future clients have been waiting patiently for us to start their projects. We also completely thank you for understanding that we need a break. If you can have just a little more patience, we promise to deliver to you a great piece of workmanship that is not only worth the wait, but that you can trust will remain that way for years to come.

We have about another week of work left before heading off (weather permitting). We will inform all of you as we make the decision and we thoroughly look forward to starting your project as soon as the brain (and body), have received a reset.

Cheers guys and chat soon.