Who Are Jake and Nicole?
Jake is a builder based in a remote part of WA. He spent a decade working toward his building licence — studying full-time, making sacrifices, finishing his diploma in 2020 in the middle of COVID. His wife Nicole is a full-time teacher and the backbone of their family. Together, they launched a construction business from scratch with big ambitions, young kids, and — as Nicole puts it — absolutely no idea how hard it was going to be.
When they found Ladies with Tradies, they were two years into the business, turning over $500K, and running on empty.
The Problem: Turnover That Looked Good on Paper but Felt Like Nothing in Real Life
Here's what $500K in turnover actually looked like for Jake and Nicole day to day.
Jake was on the tools all day. Then he'd come home and do the quotes. Then the invoicing. Then the bookkeeping — entering data into Xero, reconciling accounts, chasing payments. Often until 2am. Nicole was teaching full-time and carrying the household and the kids almost entirely on her own. She rarely saw Jake. When she did, he was exhausted.
"There was no beauty in it. It was just an absolute shit show. I never saw him. If I saw him, he was exhausted. I was grumpy. I was doing all the other things." — Nicole
The cash flow was unpredictable — not because work was slow, but because the invoicing was sporadic. Jake would get buried in jobs, push the bookwork back, then suddenly cash would get tight and he'd invoice a big batch all at once. The cycle repeated every month.
He was also saying yes to everything. Any job that came in, he took it. Small jobs, marginal jobs, jobs that barely covered costs. He'd work weekends to deliver them — and still not make the money the hours deserved.
The core problem wasn't the market. It wasn't the economy. It wasn't even the workload. Jake was running a growing building company the same way he'd run it as a sole trader — doing everything himself, with no systems, no team, and no financial visibility.
The business needed him to be a business owner. He was still operating like a tradie who happened to have an ABN.
How Ladies with Tradies Helped
Nicole made the call — literally sneaking into the backyard so Jake wouldn't hear — and they were matched with their coach Shani. From the first session, Shani could see exactly what was happening.
The work with Jake and Nicole focused on three things.
1. Getting the right people in the right roles
The first and most urgent fix was getting the bookkeeping off Jake's plate entirely. He was spending hours every week on a task that wasn't his strength, wasn't his zone, and was actively preventing him from doing the work that actually grew the business — quoting.
Shani helped them find and set up a remote bookkeeper. It felt like an expense they couldn't justify. Within weeks it became the clearest ROI decision they'd made. Jake got his nights back. Invoices went out on time. Cash flow stabilised. And he had the headspace to quote the bigger, better jobs he'd been too buried to chase.
From there, Shani pushed them to build a full finance team — accountant, broker, insurance — and to actually use the Master Builders membership they'd been paying for but not leveraging. Nicole, who had always felt like the finance side was Jake's domain, started taking ownership of those relationships. She learned the right questions to ask. She pushed their advisors for results.
2. Fixing the yes problem
Shani pulled up the numbers on Jake's marginal jobs and showed him exactly what saying yes was costing him — not just in dollars, but in time, opportunity, and team morale. The maths was confronting.
Every small job Jake accepted meant two to three days of organising to keep the team busy, tight margins, and a missed opportunity to quote something worth doing. His team were asking why they were working on jobs that felt beneath the standard they were capable of. And Jake was exhausted chasing work that wasn't moving the needle.
Learning to say no went against every instinct he'd built as a tradie trying to keep workflow coming in. But once he made the shift — focusing only on quality projects, new home builds, clients worth working for — everything changed. Margins improved. The team had projects they were proud of. And Jake had time to pursue the work that actually matched what he'd built his licence to do.
3. Building a team that didn't need Jake for everything
When Jake started, the business stopped if he stopped. He was the business. Every decision, every problem, every phone call — it ran through him.
Shani worked with them on building team structure, setting clear expectations for staff, and creating a career development pathway for carpenters so they had something to work toward — not just a wage. They started hiring differently, thinking about who they needed for the long term rather than just filling a gap for next week.
Gradually, Jake learned to delegate. To trust. To let the team carry jobs without him hovering. Nicole stepped into her own role in the business too — not as a bookkeeper or a second-guesser, but as the person who held the standards, the client relationships, and the culture of their business together.
The Result: Two Years. Six Times the Revenue. A Business That Runs Without Them.
At the end of their coaching program, their coach did the sums. From $500K in turnover to six times that figure — in under two years.
But the numbers are only part of it. Here's what actually changed:
"You've achieved in two years what some people take ten years to do. That really is the beauty of opening your mind to coaching — and being willing to actually do the work." — Shani, Ladies with Tradies Coach
What You Can Take From Jake and Nicole's Story
If any part of Jake's situation sounds familiar — doing too much yourself, cash flow that doesn't match your turnover, saying yes to the wrong work — here's the honest truth:
The problem isn't the market. It isn't your clients. It isn't that you need to work harder.
The problem is that you're running a growing business with a sole trader mindset. And that gap — between where you are and where your business needs you to be — is exactly what coaching is designed to close.
Jake and Nicole didn't get to 6x revenue because they got lucky, or because they're exceptional people. They got there because they were willing to ask for help early, do the work consistently, and trust the process even when it was uncomfortable.
"You've got to trust your coaching team the way you'd trust your sparky or your plumber on the job. They're looking at it from a higher level. Trust the process — it's a long-term gain." — Jake
Sound Like You? Let's Talk.
If you're working hard but the cash flow doesn't show it, doing too much yourself, or saying yes to work that's quietly costing you — we can help you change that.
Book a What To Fix First call and we'll have:
• A relaxed, no-pressure chat about where you're actually at
• Real talk about what's working — and what's quietly killing your profits
• Honest conversation about where you want to go and what's in the way
• A clear picture of how we can support you — if it makes sense for both sides
Book your What To Fix First call here
No judgement. No pressure. Just real strategies from people who get it.
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