How BASC Services Went From Overworked to a 4-Day Week and Better Margins

Overworked, thin margins, no time. Now a four-day week, a team of four, and 20–25% margin on every job.

Where things were at

Barry wasn’t short of work. Jobs were coming in. But he was stuck in the middle of all of it, doing too much himself and not making the margins the business deserved.

He knew his trade inside out — 27 years in electrical, 16 in property maintenance. What he needed was someone to help him build the business side properly. Better systems, better processes, a more structured way of running things so the business could grow without it all landing on him.

He chose Small Fish because Jon specialises in trades businesses. Not generic small business coaching — specifically tradies and builders. That mattered to Barry.

What we worked on

We started with marketing. Barry built relationships with property managers through consistent, low-pressure relationship marketing — delivering muffins and coffee as symbols of goodwill. It sounds simple but it works. Work started coming in more steadily.

As the pipeline grew, we turned attention to capacity. Barry needed people.

• Hiring process — a structured approach to bringing on the right tradespeople, not just whoever was available
• VA for admin — outsourced the administrative load so Barry could focus on running the business
• Job profitability tracking — timesheets and materials invoices logged in Tradify to see where money was being made and lost
• Price increase — margins lifted to a consistent 20–25% across every job
• Price list — individually priced every service Barry offered so quoting became faster, more consistent, and less prone to undercharging
• Site visit fees — started charging for site visits, covering the cost of the admin assistant and eliminating unpaid travel time

What happened

Barry went from overworked and thin on margin to a four-day week, a team of four, and 20–25% margin on every single job.

The price list alone changed the way quoting worked. Every service had a rate. Quoting got faster, the numbers got consistent, and the margin stopped leaking.

Charging for site visits was a small change with a big ripple. It covered the admin cost and stopped the team wasting time on visits that were never going to convert.

Barry’s journey is still going. There’s more capacity they’re working towards. But the business looks completely different from where it started.

“We knew what we knew but we needed more and different knowledge — that’s where Jon and business coaching comes into play.”

— Barry Szulc, BASC Services

What made the difference

A lot of tradies track cash in the bank and assume that’s the same as knowing their profitability. It isn’t. You need to know what you’re making job by job, person by person. That’s where the leaks show up — and where you fix them.

For Barry, building that tracking system in Tradify was the thing that made the pricing work visible. Once you can see it, you can manage it. Before that, you’re just hoping.

And hiring the right people — with a process behind it, not just whoever turned up — meant Barry could step back from the tools without the business falling over. That’s what a four-day week actually looks like in practice. Not magic. Just the right people in the right seats with the right systems behind them.