Welcome back to the Carpentry Australia podcast
I’m here today with the fantastic Mark from MCap Carpentry
do you wanna do you wanna do a little bit of an intro mate
yeah go mate
yeah I’m Mark from m Cap Carpentry
we commercial carpentry service here in Melbourne
very commercial fit outs commercial carpentry
and where did it all start mate
like all started our business started just after June
2020
was I redundant from a position I had and I decided to to start m cap
okay and when did you get qualified
like how long you’ve been an actual shipping for
a few years now yeah
a few years straight after high school
so that was yeah maybe 18 years ago okay
yeah yeah
a little while ago little bit skin in the game
yeah yeah
little bit yeah
and have you always been in commercial or was it
yeah most of it yeah
did start my apprenticeship doing house renovations and stuff
but yeah predominantly all of it’s been commercial commercial building
and what do you think the sort of the biggest differences are between
you know
like a resi carpenter and someone that works in commercial full time
we probably get a lot more like paperwork
more red tape and and things like that to work through
it’s not as much jump in and and get it done
I think we probably do a lot of building inductions
a lot of site inductions things
like that I think we probably
and how do you look after all the safety side of things as well
do you use any
any apps or do you have any other sort of things in place
or are these done by the builders that you’re sort of
we would have to always supply like our own swims yeah
definitely have our own swims
and then each builder would have their own
you know safety procedures
or they might have a platform that we need to sign on to
so they can be they can vary from builder to builder okay
and how many builders do you reckon you’ve got sort of in your
in your pipeline at the moment
is there a few that you go to all the time or like
yeah probably half a dozen
six to eight guys builders that we that we work for and they keep us
they keep us pretty busy how big is the team
my team’s three tradesmen two carpenters
plasterer
and we’ve got a couple of guys help us out with estimating and
counting and stuff like that okay
and then when the workload’s bigger
do you do you have to bring in subbies or do you
yeah we’ve got a good team of subcontractors that yeah
come in and help us out so pretty
pretty broad team of subbies
and do you think
think commercial is a little bit of its own sort of niche
cause obviously there’s a lot of commercial carpentry that happens
but I think through CA there’s
we’re predominantly a residential carpenter sort of business
and that’s sort of where we’ve
we’ve had a lot of our members
but I see more and more commercial chippies coming through yep yeah
to a certain degree it’s its own niche but yeah
the skills I still think are like super transferable I mean
a carpenter’s so yeah
I think there’s aspects of it
most aspects I think actually are transferable
but I say the way that day to day sites of
you know commercial sites can run
can be pretty different to a residential site
and what do you think makes a good carpenter
I think a good carpenter just they take their time
you know it’s a new product
they’ve you know read the install guide
they’ve asked questions about the product
they’ve got their head around it
they don’t just dive straight in and yeah
take four or five steps forward
but then have to pretty quickly take a step backwards maybe so
you know retrace themselves retrace but yeah
just just I think just you know
being prepared and understanding what you’re doing and you know
asking questions if you if you don’t know
and what about
so there’s good carpenters and then there’s good builders
like what do you think sort of makes a good builder
someone that you wanna keep going back to
yeah again
it would be organization
I think organization communication from builders is is key
you know
that when they tell you that it’s ready to go and show up to site and
you know it’s clearly not ready that that sort of stuff
I think you know the the better builders communicate well okay
I think that makes a big difference yeah
I’ve always been interested to see sort of how
how bloke sort of ramp up their team
so you said that you’ve got you’ve got a couple of tradesmen
you’ve got a few few other guys that sort of help within the team yeah
how did you sort of pick and choose what you needed at which time
and you know how someone know when that when it’s time to grow
say if I could talk about when you’ve actually got a project on
generally when it’s when you’re in the middle of a project
you’d be looking at the program so the builders will provide programs
if you look at the program
you’d be able to see how much work we need to do in the next month
two months to to meet program
so then I can look at you know
calling in subcontractors or you know
then we can start making
making arrangements making phone calls saying the tea guys up that
you know we’re gonna be ready for you know
X amount of guys in you know a week’s time something like that
so that’s that’s really again
it’s just planning I think just and what about for yourself
so you said that the business started in 2020
so how did you first start
it was just you and then you sort of yeah
it was yeah
it was just me it was me wearing
you know every hat
remember that one of the so I still work for this builder today
but we quoted a job and won it
and I had to carry all this plasterboard upstairs
and I just I just missed it
II didn’t think about it
so as soon as that point happened
I was I was exhausted
I was spent yeah
and as soon as that happened
I actually got a phone call from apprenticeships
they were doing like school based apprenticeships
it was a government incentive
they called me I
I was puffing and panting from carrying all this plaster upstairs
I said yes
I’ll have an apprentice yeah
so that’s how the first hire happened
was I’d sort of
underestimated how hard it would be to do this job by myself
pretty quickly we got the
the guy on and that’s that’s how the first one happened
and it’s been you know
when it’s when I’ve yeah
it’s been when we’ve hired
when we’ve needed to
like it’s been too busy and we haven’t been able
to
to keep up with it then we’ve
then we’ve hired
so that’s generally how that sort of come about for us
and if you got a couple of apprentices at the moment or we don’t no no
so it hasn’t sort of worked out for us with with that
but we do have a couple of great
you know tradesmen full time tradesmen or qualified tradesmen
what do you think goes wrong with apprentices
you know in your own experience or yeah
with stuff you’ve seen
it’s just my experience that maybe what we do commercial fit out wise
isn’t what a 17 or an 18
or an apprentice thinks they’re gonna be doing
as a carpenter like I think
I think a lot of younger guys would think that
apprentices are standing up roof frames or
you know wall frames
everyone’s outside you know shirtless yeah
all that sort of stuff but it’s very different
when you can sometimes come into these
office spaces with us
like it’s it’s very different
so yeah that might not be for for everybody
hmm so that’s probably been what I found with apprentices
they and they they might have been advised by an uncle or a dad or
you know someone like that to hey
go and learn how to build a house first
and then come and do the commercial stuff second yeah
which is probably if like there’s I could understand that as well yeah
yeah and you you said you did start in resi yourself as well
like your apprenticeship and stuff yeah yeah
we did yeah
renovations and extensions and and and stuff like that
but pretty quickly moved into commercial and I’ve always
I’ve always enjoyed it I’ve always I’ve always liked it
that’s good and plenty of
plenty of work in the pipeline make you keep yourself quite busy
yeah we do yeah
we stay we stay relatively busy
we have UPS and downs like like all business owners it can be you know
it’s tough you feel like we’ve gotta knock back work sometimes
we’ve got so much in you worry how we’re gonna get this done
and then at the end of it sometimes I think jeez
we need more work here to to keep the boys going
so it’s I don’t know how to how to get that to be consistent
I haven’t worked that out but yeah
that’s that’s it’s not a perfect formula
no no
it’s not it’s not a one size fits all for yeah
you know for each business cause yeah
depending on how quick your guys are and how sort of
how you get through the projects that you’ve got at hand
it’s it’s tough to sort of judge exactly where you’re at look
what I’ve got there’s other members that I’ve spoken to
and they typically they’re not in commercial carpentry
so it might be a bit different
but they like to be three months four months six months planned yeah
you know yeah
and they’ve even got a schedule yeah
they know every week hey
I’m gonna be in Friday and at the end of November
we’re actually gonna be framing this job and it’s like
how are you that organised
and that’s just sort of how they
I like to do it but it’s it’s hard
I think it’s hard to actually get to that level
that’s a good part of work to have yeah
for sure yeah
yeah that’s that’s very organized
what about a job that’s gone completely
apart from when you were carrying these
plastic boards upstairs and thinking what am I
what have I done to myself
have you had any other jobs that went really pear shaped
but then there was a good result that came out of it
I’ve unquoted jobs before I’ve started
I’ve certainly done that that’s a hard lesson to learn yeah
they quoted an office for a painting company
actually for a builder and priced up the ceiling
and when I got there and I looked up at it and I thought
there’s no way but yeah yeah
look so I back through it
I think I just put a zero in the wrong place to be honest
I just yeah wasn’t doing wasn’t had no process on checking things
you know just sort of threw the quote out there and yeah
and then won it yeah
won it obviously yeah
won it cause I was miles cheaper than everyone else
yeah and I yeah
but we did the job you know
I still do get work off that builder
so it wasn’t like a total dead end
I never told him that I made that mistake
we just did it and you know
sometimes I think that’s something we try to teach our blokes
cause one question that I get through the members a lot is
how do I make sure I’m not losing money when I’m starting out
and how do I quote correctly
and you can sort of give all the tips and tricks
and you can try and walk them through the process
but I think a lot of people and you know this
if everyone that I’ve spoken to has made mistakes
you know yeah
and that’s how you look
gonna do a job where it’s gonna cost you a little bit of money
because you’ve forgotten to add skirts onto your quote
or whatever it might have been
I know
the limitless boys who do a lot of work with us
they had a commercial job when they first started out
and he forgot to unquote
up a kilometer of skirting that needed to be done yeah
and that was included in the quote
but he completely forgot about the labor
that was gonna be involved in actually doing it yeah
and sure enough it was very costly and you know it was a big mistake
but like you said they still got work with this builder to this dad
yeah and they’ve made plenty
of money on the other jobs that they’ve been able to put through
and it’s a good lesson to to sort of learn early
on
they’re hard lessons to learn when it’s coming out of your pocket
you learn them you learn them pretty quick yeah
but then you do take the time like the next quote
you know you know
I’ve got to work on that procedure now like
you know to not let that so what procedures have you put in place
is there a certain method that you like to follow
yeah so keep yourself out of trouble
yep I try not to do quotes
like in the middle of the night
after you’ve been on the tools all day
that’s a good way to to make a mistake yeah
so yeah try to keep that sort of just during
you know business hours and just work on it then I know it’s not
it’s not perfect it doesn’t always work cause you know
there’s we’ve all got things to do and you know
you have to be on site sometimes but yeah
just double checking everything
so we’ve probably spent
a bit of time in that process on how we get the
plans
we quote them you know templates
pricing all that sort of stuff to how it looks
you know when we submit it
so we we yeah
spent a bit of time working on that stuff
I’ve seen this is maybe it’s a new
age thing or something that I haven’t really seen too much
but a lot of people that I’m seeing nowadays
when they do their quotes or tenders
they they tend to include like quite a bit of imagery
and they do it almost like a bit of a
a bit of like a Powerpoint
yeah OK
almost yeah where they sort of showcase the pricing for you know
this part of the job yeah
this part of the job and giving you a little bit of a visual
and that’s been another way that people have been able to work
win work
do you have any kind of specialized stuff when it comes to quoting
or is it really just sort of laying out what needs to be done yeah
it’s probably just laying out what we need to do
making sure like that our square meters linear meters
you know that they’re on the stairs
they’re there on display so the builders can check them with theirs
make sure we haven’t
you know really just been clear what we’ve allowed for yeah
and what I do now is go through with the estimator
like we’ll actually spend time now going through every job
start to finish
like we share the screens with each other and start talking through
we’ll take me through this room
you know did you get that bit of skirting there
like we actually visually do that as well as like another failsafe to
you know make sure we’re not missing things
yeah because once it is submitted that’s
you know you sort of yeah
stand by it sometimes yeah
you can you do have that moment when you
when you win them you go
oh Jesus
I missed something here it was cheaper
but if you’ve got your processes and you making sure double checking
then you know
you’re confident you can you know
what advice would you give to
you know
a young guy that wants to start their own business in carpentry
whether it’s resi or commercial
like what
something you’d want to instil in them early that’ll help them
you know stay in business two
three 10 years down the track
yeah or if you
if you would have reversed it sorry
if you would have reversed it and go back and talk to yourself what
what’s something you would
you would install in yourself from the very beginning
like I think it’s just understanding the scope
it’s nearly like you ask what makes a good tradesman
like taking your time understanding the job
like as a businessman too
as a business owner need to understand the scope too
so make sure you’re speaking with builders
understanding the scope like exactly what you’re quoting
what they’re what they’re expecting really yeah
asking a lot of questions and understanding what the scope is
I think is is a big one yeah
yeah cause builders can have their own scope and do their own
expectations and you put a price in
but if you haven’t excluded or included like you can be yeah
you can come unstuck pretty quick
so yeah okay
yeah really is just understanding yeah
the scope of works all the job hmm
the other thing that I’m curious about is
you’ve been a member with Carpentry Australia for quite some time
hmm you signed up probably
I think it was a couple years after we first started
and you said it was when you
and you sort of created your Instagram profile
and that’s when that’s when it all kicked off
so what’s that been like for you over the years and you know
why did you want to be a part of Carpentry Australia
yeah
so I think I came across top of Australia when I first year signed up
like got an Instagram profile and yeah
signed up then I just liked the idea of someone supporting carpenters
cause I don’t think there was anything
you know there wasn’t any support for a carpenter
I think there’s bodies that support plumbers and electricians
and then registered builders have support
but there was no one supporting carpenters so yeah
I’m more than happy to be to be part of that and yeah
I thought that was a great initiative good idea yeah
yeah of course
and you’re right there isn’t
there isn’t anyone out there that’s doing sort of what we do yeah
and a whole sort of our
whole ethos is really around supporting the carpenter
supporting the apprentice
the carpenter and then the carpenter builder
and really trying to just get longevity out of the trade
cause I think we came up with a new tagline at the start of 2025
which was keeping the hammer swinging for longer
yeah and that’s
that’s really what we’re trying to
trying to live to is
because there’s so many apprentices
that will drop out of their apprenticeship
or there’s blokes that will go qualified
and they might subby for a little bit
and they get a little bit down on their luck
or a little bit depressed with the trade
and it’s such a good
skill to have and there is so much opportunity
and I think it’s just for us
to be able to provide that kind of support system to blokes
like yourself and
and other you know
commercial and resi carpenters all over Australia
yeah it’s needed
you know yeah
11 think it’s the best skill set out of all the trades to have what
what we do when it’s probably yeah undervalued
so I think you know
for plumbers electricians and other trades
service trades they move into some licensing and then
you know they don’t need to work
they don’t need builders to do their job
they can actually go and do a job
whereas carpenters like we either always need to work under a builder
or the progression for us
then I think is to become a builder
but that’s maybe not not the right fit for everybody
and if you wanna be a Carpenter and that’s
and that’s what you wanna be
then yeah I think you need to be yeah
to have support from Carpenter Australia and things like that yeah
well worth it yeah
and for yourself did you ever have you
have you got your building licence
or did you ever think about getting it
no I’m not a builder a carpenter
I’ve done I’ve done the certificate 4 yeah
diploma and things like that
I did that years ago I think I probably did that
yeah like maybe 10 years ago maybe so it was a while ago
I did them and II never acted on it
I just I just didn’t do it to be fair
so it is something that I’ve always you know wanted to do
but we got plenty of experience
so you probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting through the process
yeah I think just the way like where we sit
we in business like we work for commercial builders
so for me to be a builder
it might be a change of business model for me yeah
so but I’ll certainly something that you know
I yeah do you come from a family of builders or is there anyone where
where does the where does the love for the trade sort of come from
I’m not sure actually
it’s a good question yeah
I mean I enjoyed woodwork at school and things like that yeah
but I was just enjoyed you know
I think I did work experience
I must have been 15 or 16 or something okay
you know a mate of mine is
you know had a house extension
I can remember working with the builder then
but and maybe it’s always helping
you know helping
you know your
your dad out in the backyard
yep and doing all that sort of stuff
but and tinkering around yeah
stuff like that but I’ve always enjoyed it like
you know whether yeah
building and seeing a result at the end of the day
I think I’ve always always enjoyed doing that sort of stuff
and do you do you have a family yourself yeah
yeah yeah
three kids three kids yeah
yeah pretty busy yeah
so yeah
boys girls
what what do we have
we got a daughter yeah
son and daughter so I got 7
5 and two wow
so it’ll be a mad house yeah
keeps us pretty busy mate yeah
how do you juggle you know
obviously being a being a dad and looking after the kids
and trying to look after your partner as well yeah
like how do you how do you juggle that as a business owner
to be fair my partner Steph does like a lot of heavy lifting
like really does do a lot of it
and I always take the opportunity when we’ve
if you know
you’re at home on the computer
and I can pick one of the kids up from daycare or kinder or school
I always take that opportunity
just that half an hour to
to go and do it
and if it puts a little bit of time on the back end of the day
then so be it but yeah
try to make the most of it
you know when we can
I love it I love it
and yeah and you
you said that you’re you’re just
you’re local to sort of where we are here
have you did you grow up in the area
yep yeah
yeah yeah
very familiar yeah
yeah very familiar with yeah
these suburbs of Melbourne
yeah very familiar
yeah and do you like where
pivot a little bit
but do you like where building’s going at the moment
or do you
are you hopeful for the sort of future of commercial carpentry as well
yeah I think so
yeah I’d be pretty glass half full about our trade at the moment
I think I think so yeah
I mean I think there’s like
I think you know
the cost of living across the boards
you know probably pretty high for everyone
like not just tradesmen but
you know everybody
it is and that’s probably reflected in like
the price of materials and labour and
and things like that so yeah
I still hope yeah
I still think it’s you know
relatively good shape you know yeah
I think so yeah OK
and what what do you think is gonna change
do you do you sort of
do you see anything happening in the next few years
that might be completely different for
you know your business or for for carpentry as a whole
yeah what about Al and all of these
because there’s a lot of people that are
I guess a bit afraid of the technology that’s coming through yeah
okay and they’re not necessarily embracing it
because even for for yourself
like there there might be some ways in the future where you can get a
a quote out
you know like that yeah
where you’re not really gonna need to spend that much time on the
computer you know
you can spend more time with the with the family and have you seen it
have you tried any of these new
haven’t
I’ve certainly looked at it and I’ve discussed with some other guys
say commercial fit out guys about it about yeah
Al using that for quoting
I still think there’s a lot that we make assumptions for when
when we price jobs whether plans aren’t like totally detailed or
you know whether or not Al would pick up those assumptions yeah
but I’d certainly support that yeah yeah yeah
certainly support that anything that gets us spending more time doing
you know yeah
doing what we wanna be doing what we wanna be doing
instead of sitting in front of a computer quoting
cause that’s that probably takes up the biggest part of you know
your day is a as a as a business owner
carpentry business owner quoting jobs looking over jobs
that’s probably that’s a huge part of it
do you just keep quoting as well
like do you just you don’t ever really stop that process you just no
I don’t think you can stop it every time we stop it
I feel like the work nearly like turns the tap off a
little bit yeah
I think you always need to be yeah
you had in the ring for for jobs
I think you get a good feel if you’re gonna win a job or not or
you know you’re talking to builders and you know
they’ll tell you what’s in the pipeline
or they might even decided that
you know they might know that they might award it to you or not
depending of the price is right
but yeah I think you always need to be yeah
quite jobs like we certainly are that’s yeah
that’s a B Q always be quiet yeah yeah
that’s one thing that we’re always doing is yeah
quite jobs even if yeah
I feel like the tenders come through to us and and realistically
we’re probably not gonna get it
I would still I would still price it up okay yeah
it’s good good practice as well
yeah it’s just good to have that relationship
cause I sometimes I felt like we probably been awarded jobs
because we’d quoted so many things
and yeah the feedback was you know well
thanks for supporting us with all these quotes
we’re gonna award you a job so yeah
I think it has worked for us so it works on the relationship space too
yeah I feel yeah
cause it’s like one less thing well
so they they probably have multiple
you know carpentry crews quite a few jobs
but you know if your hat’s always in the ring
and you’re seeing your name come through a fair bit
then yeah I think it I think it does it does
and what’s a job or a
a project that you’ve been like really proud of
you know like
what’s a really cool commercial job that you’ve done
that you remember
oh we’ve been into some cool places yeah
so we we do get into some
some pretty cool places done a couple of army bases okay
that were up in pop bunker or like where no
in the eastern suburbs eastern suburbs
eastern suburbs of Melbourne yeah yeah yeah
so you get into some really cool places
like you wouldn’t see the inside of a over an army base very often
so yeah it’s pretty cool just to see facilities
what they’ve got there and stuff like that
so that they’re cool ones yeah
and what about before the end of the year
like have you got anything that you’re trying to tidy up
before Christmas time I know that it becomes a bit mad yeah
October turns into November pretty quick
yeah well
we’re looking pretty good
so I think we got some steady work on till the end of the year
and then into into next year
so I think the work should just flow pretty nicely
so for the end of the year
so which is
which is very handy to have the last couple of years have been
we’ve been lucky in that sense
where we’ve had projects span over December and January
which can get a bit hectic
yeah so yeah
to have the projects go over the two months
have you break in between Christmas and come back to the projects
that’s that’s one less headache to
you know to worry about
did you go away over the Christmas period or yeah yeah
always try to make the most of it
you know with the family
so try to go to a different spot
you know go camping or something
so yeah go take the kids camping and take
them away yes
I think we’re heading up to
Merimbula this year oh perfect
which would be nice that’d be really nice
nice big drive with three kids that yeah
that’ll test us out that’s it
just take the second car and yeah
I know I’ll sit in the second car
ha ha ha ha yeah
I love it I love it
I got family members that go up to Merimbula
yeah to camp
so it’s a nice spot yeah
beautiful spot what about like since
since’cause you’ve been in the trade for so long
you know like you got your
is your 40th coming up next
yeah it is yeah
yeah that’s it
yeah bloody hell
it’s
it sneaks up on you yeah
so I wanna know what keeps you so passionate after
you know so many years in the trade
you finished your high school
you got into the trade and you know
it’s 20 years later like what
what drives you to sort of stay within that within that space
I think you know
what I do commercially
like we do see a lot of
you know cool projects
whether places that we end up
I would just say we’ve ended up in army bases
you know we end up in airport hangers
you know we see all sorts of things
so the places where we work are
are a little different and even like you say
some of the products that we might get to work with
you know
we get certain features part of the jobs and they’re really one offs
like we might just do them once time and
and we’ll never do them again
so it’s always different yeah
everywhere building can be always different and it tends to be yeah
we get things that are a little out of the box as well okay
yeah you know
we have to get our heads around and they’re
they’re always cool to be part of like how we gonna build this
how we gonna yeah
how’s this gonna go together
do you think you need to be a little bit creative to be yeah
to be a carpenter and yeah
I think it helps yeah for sure if you can yeah
be creative yeah it certainly helps yeah
so you can sort of
are you were you always a bit of a visual learner
like did you learn like by doing yeah
or you know yeah always visually
and I always enjoyed like
art and things like that as well when I was at school
so I think if a little bit more creative
and can sort of see the end process
I can see the end result and then try to work backwards
but it is a skill set as well
I think carpentry kept coming back to a
a pretty good skill set of being able to
you know
understand how something goes together or see a finished product
and then pull it apart and
you know that’s the process
I suppose
pulling it apart and that’s the process of how it’s gonna go together
I think this is something that I’m interested in because I’m not you
know I know a lot about carpenters and carpentry
but I’m not a carpenter myself yeah
you know
I did concreting for 4 months and I was completely useless so I’ve
I haven’t picked up a barrow since yeah
but I I’m always interested about the the math side of of carpentry
yeah sort of working out your your measurements and stuff yep
what’s different in commercial
is it really just transferable
or is there more intricate stuff that happens in a fit out than
than like you know if you’re trying to put up stick frames
I feel like some of our set outs could be yeah
pretty involved
so we would we would set out like the whole ceiling or yeah
a whole section and then other trades would use that as well
so they we would set out you know
where feature panels would go where plus the margins would go
and then we would have say fire sprinklers come in
and then they’d work out where the sprinklers are gonna go
they’d work out where you know
sparkies will work out where lights are gonna go
speakers are gonna go so everyone uses our set outs
and so we might even like set that out on the ground like set out
you know some
some plywood and flick all the lines out and
and set it all out for everybody
so we can visually see it on the floor
and they transfer it up into the ceiling space
so you’re almost like the
the mastermind behind sort of what actually takes yeah
you know cause I think if it’s if it’s you know
I think it comes back to like communication and planning
and if those things are done well from the start
I mean every trade benefits and you know
we’re only building it once it looks like it works on the ground
you set it all out you know fingers crossed
yeah and yeah
I think it’s just come back to just being organised and okay
longevity within the trade and sort of I guess the culture like
do you do anything for your team in in like a culture sense
yeah we do lunches yeah
we do we do quite a few lunches yeah
always you know if I can we do a site visit in the city
I’ll just take the guys to a to a food court or something like that
and you know
we have lunch together at the end of the projects with same thing
you know might go to a hotel pub somewhere and you know
have lunch with the guys I’m always try to yeah
any memorable sort of end of year stuff that you’ve done as well
you got paintballing or that
ah look
to be fair the last couple of years
we’ve actually had work on in the schools over that period
so it’s been a little quiet in the end of year celebrations
cause the guys have been yeah
on site working and but yeah
we still enjoyed those jobs
say more of like a end of January
start of February yeah
okay celebrated then yeah
of course when it’s warm yeah
at the end of the job and whether it’s a lunch or something like that
yeah always try to celebrate and
you know look after the guys where we can yeah
of course yeah
of course I think it’s important that you yeah
that you just get back even if it’s every now and again
it just it instils
I don’t know I guess that trust between sort of you and your
your team as well yeah
you need to look after them yeah
they and you know
the guys that yeah
they’re a great team what we have
so let’s try to look after where we can yeah
and your with
with your team
and sort of with your culture building and stuff as well
do you do any other sort of future learning
or do you like to go to any expos
or is there or do you just do all of it yourself
yep we haven’t sort of done any
like real training or any expos or anything like that
but I do speak to the guys always
you know make sure they’re comfortable
they understand what’s going on
if the jobs are bigger and they’re gonna be more full on
I just support them the best that I can and make sure they you know
that they they’re feeling good and like their
their mental health’s good
cause the job can get stressful
and it can get pretty full on when you’re at
you know you’re at the cold face of it so yeah
I just try to support the guys the best they can and always be there
answer the phone for them when they ring
talk them through the questions
or you might just need to just to stop for 10 minutes and
you know talk about you know what the problems are on site or you know
like it might be yeah can get overwhelming
I feel like you’re not gonna make the deadline
but we just talk it through
we’ll talk about the next job and you know
what do you think some of the biggest problems are that you know
Chippy’s face
is it deadlines is it just overall work stress
ah
II could say say for for us
sometimes it can be the deadlines
sometimes it can be the the programs can be pretty full on
like it can be daunting to pull apart
say the office of a school or the bathroom of a school
and then you’ve got to put it back together in
you know three weeks so that can be
you can get a week into that and think
there’s no way I’m gonna finish this so they yeah
deadlines can certainly be yeah
very stressful yeah
certainly for us
have you ever done any community work or any
any jobs even just for family
where you’ve sort of looked after them a little bit and
you know dump it backyard or you know yeah
I guess being being the carpenter of the family
you probably get asked all the time yeah
we do yeah
and I think yeah some of the guys are you know
I would say just be honest with them and say hey
this is a real favour for me like if we can you know go and do this
so we’re not gonna be doing a commercial fit out
but if we can go and you know
help a help someone out help a family member out yeah
we certainly do it yeah
where we can yeah
of course yeah
I love it I love it
and I actually wanted to ask you
because you’ve been doing it for so long
and because your business has been running
so before MCAP what what did so were you
on wages with a different company previously
okay yeah
and I think some chippies are a little bit afraid
I guess of being on wages or being with a with a company
do you think it was it’s a good place to start sometimes if you
instead of just going out on your own
cause yeah yeah
I’ve only got like great memories of that I
I worked for my last employer for for the eight or nine years yeah
or something yeah
they were yeah
they were unbelievable yeah yeah
I Learned a lot there as well
Learned a lot it was a great
great team of guys I
I yeah
I would model what I do a lot on like how they how we were treated
how we were supported yeah
it was a great place to work OK
I was very fortunate in that sense yeah
yeah
and was there anyone that you looked up to growing up that sort of
I guess you know
you’ve ended up with your own business
and you sort of doing your own thing
but where does the yeah
was there anyone that you looked up to
and a mentor or someone that you looked up to
I guess in terms of like starting a business
I probably just always
yeah always just had that in the back of my mind to to do it
and I thought you know
you didn’t want to like not do it and you know
die so I guess die wondering
but in terms of mentoring
I do speak with a lot of guys I worked for in particular
like the last employer that we worked for
there was quite a few of us that all worked there
that have started our own businesses or have gone that
so I certainly use those guys as like a sounding board and you know
speak to them quite a bit
so it’s a good
network there of guys that are
dealing with the same problems and the same thing yeah
whether it’s a bigger scale or whatever
but they’re still sort of the same the same issue
so do you have a good sounding board of guys that
you know speak to and ask
you know
their opinions on things or where they are or things like that
so yeah well
how do you think that someone you know
how do you think someone finds that kind of kind of group of people
or if someone doesn’t have
they feel like they don’t have anyone to talk to about sort of
their building problems or now where
where do you think they should go
yeah another good question
I’m probably very fortunate that I’ve got good friends
close friends that I’ve known for a long time
that we do the same business
maybe I have heard there’s
you know business groups out there and I haven’t ever looked into it
but I I have heard of some other trades I’ve worked with
whether it was plumbers and electricians who were part of these
like business groups where they would meet up or
you know might be online or something like that
but there might be a meeting once a month
and I think there’s some B and is I think that they could there’s yeah
there’s those ones yeah
yeah business networking yeah yeah
so that could be a good place and you know to yeah
to get involved in as well I think yeah
that they can be yeah
just to have guys there as a sounding board or listen
you know
to problems in your business or problems you’re facing can be yeah
can be certainly handy
the other place that people can get their problems solved is
through us
we sort of pride ourselves on being able to
to be that sort of sounding board as well
and look we can’t solve everything and we can’t you know
if ever I can’t give the right answer or I’m not confident in what
what’s happening I will always get outside help
and I think being a source of truth and
you know just not sort of waffling nonsense is is very important yeah
and especially when people are in when people are in crisis
they need something someone or something that they can rely on
so I’m glad that we can sort of do that as well yeah yeah
of course you’ve got your group of things
but I’d like to think that you’d still be able to come to us with
with anything else that’s going on or
you know
just even if you’re excited about a new job that’s coming up you know
we can have a chat about what’s happening
come out and see the guys on
site and sort of spread the awareness of what we’re all doing yeah
that’s right
and it goes back to having like a good like a governing body
you know we spoke about you know carpenters
you know
there was a gap there the carpenters didn’t have it but yeah
that’s right yeah
I think for for yourself
like why obviously the fact that there wasn’t that level of support
but why do you think it’s so crucial to to have something you know
for carpenters and for carpenters alone
there just is I I think we are the best trade you know
for sure and I think that there just needs yeah
there does need to be some support there for carpenters
there needs to be a governing body to to champion for carpenters and
you know just push our trade to the front yeah for sure
is there anything else that you think Carpentry
Australia or any other industry bodies out there could be doing to
to sort of further the trade or to give more support
I think certainly like licensing
I know you guys you know spoken about that in the past
but I think if we could license yeah
for for chippies would be a big one
cause it might not be that everyone wants to be
like
a fully fledged builder
but just to have some some licensing or some ticket there or you know
some yeah something very good
it’s definitely been in the pipework for yeah
for quite some time and yeah
it it’s a bit disappointing because we sort of had something very
very very good sort of lined up right when Covid was hitting
I think it was April of 2020
when this thing was supposed to be rolled out
and then it just didn’t happen because of all the
all the lockdowns and all
all the sort of red tape but you’re right
I think it does need to be a licensed trade
and there needs to be that middle ground
that bridging gap between
you know you finish your 3
you know and you might not want to be a builder
but we need something in between
we can’t just have only qualified carpenters yeah
because in different states they’ve already
they’ve already got that
they’ve got the contractor’s licence in New South Wales
and in Queensland there’s
you know there’s like supervising licence
and there’s different stuff before a builder’s license
that gives you more street credit yeah
that’s right yeah
it allows you to do bigger jobs yeah
we are a little bit behind in that space for sure
yeah
I think anything that they can help yeah
the qualification and yeah
for carpenters is yeah
the way forward for sure
and do you have any other sort of
any other advice that you can give for
for anyone that wants to get into commercial or
you know yeah
just any other sort of parting words for
for the younger guys out there
advice for commercial carpenters
it’s Joe Brendan bar yeah
look I
I’ve said this to like a couple of the younger guys in particular
like an apprentice we had that didn’t stay with us but yeah
it’s a good
you know I
I really think it’s a it’s a good area to be in
we don’t work in the rain and if it’s too hot outside
generally it’s alright inside like we
we do get good conditions yeah
and we do end up working in some really cool places and you know
we do some
some
you know some one off sort of
you know features and things like that in the job
so I think if you know guys can stick with it
it’s yeah it’s a great place to be
it’s a great place to work and you still end up with a
like a really good skill set yeah
still yeah
you can get a really good skill set out of it
that can be transferable to
you know many different things
not just carpentry but you know
I think in life you could probably transfer a carpenter’s skill set to
to a lots of different things yeah
definitely yeah
and are you looking to expand the team
any mate maybe next year
or are you looking for maybe an apprentice
or any other tradesman that might wanna
come and work with MK yeah
we sure would take on a couple yeah
some apprentices I think that is yeah
one thing I know I’ve spoken to you about it yeah
it’s certainly one thing that yeah
I’d like to do
cause I feel like we do have a lot to offer in that space to
to train some guys or girls up
I think yeah
we’ve got a lot to offer there
so it’s certainly something where that I would look at OK
yeah and
where can everyone find you
are you on any of the social medias if you got one
yeah yeah
we do I’m on Instagram
so it’s m cap underscore carpentry yeah
on there or and yeah our phone numbers on there as well
so they can perfect we’ll link it all in
get to us through there yeah
yeah we have had a couple of
a couple of people reach out to us through there yeah
actually yeah okay
I do find that the lead source
I’m like doing it through socials has actually been really
really handy yep
there’s there’s a lot of
a lot of people that either find carpenters through there
or they find work through there like
you know different jobs that might be starting up
it’s just the way of the world now
it’s not all sort of just word of mouth or just phone calls
there’s yeah
there’s stuff you can actually find online yeah yeah
so and they’ve they’ve found us
a couple of people here have certainly like sort us out and you know
directly messaged us so yeah yeah
I guess before we go
is there one building myth or carpenter myth that you’d like to bust
you know that gives you the shit you like
it’s just not true it’s something that the world thinks
but it’s just not it’s not true
there might be I think you know
there there’s a conception that
maybe the commercial guys don’t work as hard as
you know the residential guys
I’d like to bust that I feel like
you know that’s that’s not true yeah
I feel like they we really do
you know like I like all carpenters working hard
I feel like all tradesmen are working hard
regardless of it’s residential or commercial
so if we could bust that one
I think you know
we’re all we’re all working hard yeah
yeah there’s a bit of a healthy rivalry there yeah
I think there is I think there probably always was like a yeah yeah
yeah I think there always is
so yeah yeah perfect
well thanks for coming in and thanks man and having a chat and yeah
I think it’s
it’s really important for us to sort of keep connecting with members
and keep connecting with blokes like yourself
who run a great business and yeah
you know you got great values and you you tend to you know
you you’re really interested in all the stuff that we’re doing
and all the advocacy side of
things and you know
we wouldn’t be able to do that sort of blogs like yourself
yeah no worries thanks
thanks mate thanks big fella cheers thanks alright