Trade and field service businesses are working in a market that feels tighter, faster and less forgiving than it did a few years ago.
In this episode of The Motii Playbook, Fred Schnell is joined by Noam Horenczyk from Simpro and Kate Hay from Motii to unpack what is changing across the trades market, why margins are under pressure, and how better-connected systems can reduce the daily chaos behind the scenes.
The conversation looks at the real operational pressure points: labour shortages, rising customer expectations, admin-heavy workflows, disconnected software and the temptation to throw new tools at old problems. The clear takeaway is simple. Technology helps when it solves a specific workflow, connects the right information, and gives teams more time to focus on the work they are actually there to do.
Intro Motii acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to elders past and present and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this land.
Welcome to The Motii Playbook. If you've ever felt like your systems are technically in place, but somehow still feel chaotic behind the scenes, you're in the right spot. This is where we share what we're seeing, what's working, what's not, and the lessons businesses learn the hard way. Think of it as practical strategies, straight from the trenches. Let's dive in.
Fred Schnell Welcome to The Motii Playbook. One shift, one system, and one measurable improvement. I'm Fred Schnell, Managing Director here at Motii. And today's conversation is about something I believe most trade business owners are feeling right now. And I also believe that most of them are not really talking about it openly. The market's changing. For many years, there was plenty of work going around here in Australia. The phone was ringing, quotes went out and businesses grew without too much effort. But right now, I think a lot of trade and field service businesses are feeling the shift or the pinch. Less leads coming through, margins getting squeezed, and ultimately, leads to pressure on every single job. The businesses that are going to come out the other side are the ones that get smarter about both the front and the back end of their business. Today, I'm joined by two people who see this every day from two different angles. Noam Horenczyk, he's Principal of Technology Partnerships at Simpro. He works closely with trades and field service businesses across Australia and globally. And Kate Hay, a Senior Implementation Specialist here at Motii. She spent many years inside trade and construction businesses, working alongside teams to improve the way they operate day-to-day. Kate, Noam, thank you so much for joining.
Kate Hay Ah, thanks for having me on the podcast, Fred. Awesome to be here.
Fred Schnell Absolute pleasure. Now, Noam, let's start with you. Do you mind giving listeners a quick intro to yourself and what you do at Simpro, and then Kate will come to you after that for a quick intro and your role here at Motii?
Noam Horenczyk Yeah, of course. So, Noam Horenczyk. I joined Simpro, uh, two and a half years ago, uh, in San Francisco. So I actually just moved to Brisbane last year. The goal was to have a global role to lead tech partnerships for Simpro Group. So it's not just Simpro software, we also have AroFlo and BigChange and ClockShark. So it's a, it's a whole group. But the idea is that we wanted one central place where we manage any inbound partnership requests. So if someone wants to integrate with one of our products, with our open API, so kind of manage that, understand what that company does, what value they add to customers, and then help them get onboarded and have their integration approved and put on our marketplace and be available to customers. Uh, as well as what I call outbound partnerships. So trying to understand, hey, where do we have gaps that customers are asking for functionality that we are not planning to build, uh, and how can we partner with specific, uh, companies in those gaps, uh, to, you know, provide more value to our customers.
Fred Schnell Very good. Kate.
Kate Hay So I, I'm Kate Hay. I'm a Senior Implementation Specialist here at Motii and as Fred mentioned before, you know, I've been working with trades and construction businesses over the last nearly eight years, doing implementations and helping them to streamline their operations, you know, put software and, and technical platforms in place that allow them to manage their client experiences. And I help to make AI and automations work in their day-to-day operations and, and processes. So, I build systems, practical systems that help teams to save time, you know, build customer relationships, nurture those client journeys and just help teams to work really smart. So, that's me, that's what I do here at Motii.
Fred Schnell Very good. Well, thank you both. Let's dive straight into it, Noam. From what you're seeing across the Simpro Group customer base, what's actually changed in the trades market over the, let's say, the last 12 to 18 months?
Noam Horenczyk Good question. It's getting harder. When everyone's complaining that it's hard out there, they're not lying. They're not, uh, whingeing. It really is hard globally for trades businesses. I think there's always a labour shortage, right? Everyone keeps talking about it, but especially here in Queensland, in Brisbane, we have the Olympics coming up in six years. Who's going to build all that? Right? Uh, so what's going to happen is that all these tradespeople are going to come from the rest of Australia. Right? So other states are going to be in even bigger shortages because all of the tradespeople will be here building the stuff for the Olympics. So, it's always, you know, something people talk about. And you kind of want to, you know, you don't want to just bring all these people that are not good at their job and just like plug the hole that way because that could be a disaster. So, that whole idea of labour shortages is getting tricky. I think there's a lot of competition. A lot of people are getting into the trades. They see that you can make really good money as a tradesperson or even as a, like leading a company in the trades. So you see a lot of competition. And then you see people having to deal with stuff that, that's not their forte. Like, how do you rank first on Google? Right? How do you make sure that AI captures your, that even someone is using ChatGPT, you show up there. So those are challenges that, you know, if you're a plumber by trade, that's not necessarily, uh, what you're, you're focused on. And I think the whole AI conversation is, is confusing people. I have a long take on that, which I will wait for later in this episode to talk about. But I think, yeah, it's, it's not easy, and the margins aren't there. That's so, I'm going to quote my CEO, he always calls the tradespeople the second responders. Right? So there's the first responders, if something bad happens, police, fire, ambulances, right? And then you have the second responders coming in and having to fix it, you know, if a, a bridge collapsed, if there was a traffic accident, whatever that is. Right? Second responders. I think we all appreciate them very much. If you have an exploded pipe in your house, you will worship the plumber that comes and fixes it. Right? If you get locked out of your house, you worship the, and I have worshipped twice in the last year unfortunately, people coming and helping me open my house. So, we need these people, yet their margins are horrendous. So what we've noticed is that an average trades business has anywhere between a 6 to 10% profit margin, which is a measly percent. For people that do a really, you know, important job. Lawyers get 30%, software is even more, right? So the people that we care about that do really important work are not getting paid enough for their work, and what we're trying to see is like, hey, how can we help them improve their profit margins to somewhere where it's, you know, reasonable so it makes sense and you're not spending your evenings doing paperwork and your nights kind of like, uh, running all the admin for your job. That's where kind of we're trying to help these businesses out. Because it, it really is not easy to do that.
Kate Hay I would say too that um, you know, when I walk into a business, I often see tradespeople who are absolute experts at what they do. They can go out there and fix a bridge, they can go out there and fix a road and patch a hole, or you know build a cabinet or do whatever it is that they've spent years training to do. But you know, because the the margins are tight, the costs are high, you know they're trying to run their their businesses um optimally and quite lean, they're trying to use AI to patch these gaps right? So they're trying to put processes in their business and and you know help to shore up some of those back-end things that you talked about. So the invoicing, you know the quoting, you know follow-ups and things like that. And I think that a tradesperson who is an absolute expert at getting on the tools is not an expert necessarily at putting the right process in place and you know what we're seeing is that the extra money is not there to invest in a whole lot of different platforms or to invest in a whole lot of different tools to do that. So people are trying to moonlight as you know software technicians as well as being on the tools technician and there are gaps there, there are big breaks that are forming because you know those people who are who are trying to do these things to keep their businesses afloat aren't experts at that and it it's falling apart a little bit.
Fred Schnell Oh I think you've got a really good point and both of you have a really good point and I mean in my view there's a lot of tech noise I call it because there's there's softwares popping up left right and centre right? So and and even if if you're not in the industry you're not kind of accustomed day to day you kind of say 'oh that seems to be fixing my problem, okay I'll just I'll just get that in and that's going to magically fix everything that I've all the problems that I've got', which is not the case right? So there's a lot of kind of yeah a lot of technologies out there that really don't really help but kind of create that tech noise I call it. So Noam, Kate, you mentioned kind of the skills shortage, you mentioned the squeeze on margin. So do you think the issue is lack of work or is it just more more competition or what what is it exactly?
Noam Horenczyk A lot. What you said and more. I think I think what what we see causing those margin issues, I think at Simpro we call it like chaos variables. So if you're a software engineer, no disrespect to software engineers, if you're sick one day and you couldn't go to work, okay you know maybe a few pull requests get done the next day. Fine. But if you're running a business where you have to have like five technicians on the road doing eight jobs a day jumping from one place to the other, there's so much chaos that can happen right? One technician could be sick, just not show up that day and then you have to shuffle everything around. You can go somewhere and the door is locked and the person's not there. You can have traffic. You can have weather. There's so many different things. That's what we call chaos variables that you know you get there and you don't have the right tools, you don't have the right parts, who the hell knows, right? You can just uh list this on and on. So with all of that, it's just very hard to run these businesses efficiently when all of that is can happen at any single point in time. Right? So forget all the other stuff right, you don't have enough people, you know the competition is eating your lunch, even if you're doing really well and you have your good customer base, you're really well known in your region and you're like the ranked top of Google and AI and all that stuff, you still have to manage a business that's very unpredictable and that's just a hard thing to do. And then add on top of that all the admin that you have to do that you haven't signed up for and you're drowning right. Like what I always say is that if someone started a plumbing business and now has a plumbing business with a few plumbers, they're passionate about what they do. They're not passionate about reconciling the books between Xero and Simpro. Like that's not what they wanted, that's not what they got into this for. But they have to do it and they have to do it at night, they have to do it on the weekends because during the day it's just like chaos. They just have to like oh man I have to now send this technician there, they didn't weren't able to fix it, they're going to have to come again tomorrow so I have to shift all my scheduling. So it's there's a lot of different elements making it a really hard business to run. And we're trying to identify uh where we can help. Because we did an analysis and we found out anywhere between 27 and 37 workflows have to be done by a trades business as they're doing this. So like a workflow would be like ordering materials, you know dispatching technicians, invoicing customers, all that stuff. Around the 20 to 30 right. So if we can eliminate, if we can automate, if we can help with you know a few of them, one at a time you kind of roll it out, we can help them focus more on what they want to do versus what they have to do.
Fred Schnell Exactly what they actually want to do. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Hay Yeah. Yep. I think too like as you were talking about then Noam, you know you've got what 27 processes you know that that need to be put in place for a workflow for a job to get through from start to finish. If there's a break in any one of those processes, and when we're looking at 27 that's quite a lot, if there's a break in any one of those processes, that means that job needs to be revisited either by you know the person who's doing the job, somebody in the back office, if they've got a back office. You know and that's a luxury for some of those bigger businesses who have more technicians on staff, who have more you know revenue coming through. If you look at the smaller businesses that might be traditionally we're looking at like a husband and wife team or you know maybe two partners or a tradesperson and an apprentice, they don't have that person who's able to go and do that for them. So every minute that they have to go and revisit that work and fix that process that didn't happen, didn't fire, you know or didn't go through properly, that's time off the tools. That's adding to their labour margins, that's adding to their cost. You know and if there's if there's more than one process that breaks down you could be spending almost the same amount of time doing rework and investigation and trying to fix a process as you are on the tools doing the job. So your margins are at huge risk because you know of all this time you have to invest.
Noam Horenczyk Yeah if you're already operating in a very low margin, any error can just put you in the red right. So like you do one error you have to revisit, then you actually paid more for then the money that you got for that job. So easily.
Kate Hay And then you think about those you know small businesses who don't invest a lot up front, you know that means that if they have you know more than a couple of jobs a month where this happens, they're at risk of going under because they cannot support or continue to float themselves in that space.
Fred Schnell Looking at it from a bit of a different angle now Noam, do you think customer expectations have shifted in the market as well from like compared to the boom years?
Noam Horenczyk Yes. So I'm a millennial right. I I'm aware, I'm kind of like in the middle of the millennial era. But yeah it's like it's an on-demand economy now right. Like it used to be that we we just had more patience. I think the generations before me had more patience, I think I had more patience, the generation after does not have that much patience. So and especially you don't have patience if it's a trades thing that has to happen now. Right? If you're locked out of your house, I don't want someone babbling on for ages, I want a locksmith on the way in 30 minutes or I'm screwed. So I think like the expectation is first of all like everything on demand, everything quickly, everything with a smile on your face, which I know not everyone always has that smile on their face. But yes,
Fred Schnell That's our rating right?
Noam Horenczyk Yeah, yeah. And you kind of expect people you know the same way that we got used to like the Amazon of the world. Like everything is on demand, everything is quick, you expect it. So I think people expect something, they expect to get an estimate when you come in, right? They want to know how much it will cost. They don't want to be like oh yeah we'll look at it and we'll send you an estimate in a week. Like that doesn't doesn't fly anymore. Uh you expect it to be solved in one go and you'll be disappointed if if if they have to come again right? There's all these different expectations that just like because of the whole everything else in our life, we kind of expect that from our tradespeople as well.
Fred Schnell Okay yeah very good point. I I totally agree. So let's dive a bit deeper into into that space, kind of looking at a business that is that is doing well in in today's environment. What are they doing differently?
Noam Horenczyk Yeah I think what they're doing differently is they're planning ahead right? They're seeing where the market is going, like oh you know I will you know I see the summer is coming I'm an HVAC technician like you know the cycles are coming so I need to make sure that I'm staffed. Uh which I think a lot of businesses do, like if you're an experienced business you do so I think you just do it better or worse. But I think a lot of them just make sure that their systems talk to each other. Again the more boring part of their job that they did not sign up for, but if you make sure that your job management software is talking with your accounting software, is talking with your estimating tool, then you're saving first of all you know data entry which is like the most boring term in history. Double data entry, but it is a thing, it is a problem right? Because if you do it, it's not just that you spend time on doing it. There's also mistakes right? Now someone typed in the site address slightly wrong and then the materials get sent to the wrong address even though you have the right customer address in your CRM. Like these little things right? Or like a purchase order that then gets sent to the wrong place. And then you start building the road in the wrong place. But um then and then you also have like with a supplier with like a purchase order, you know you you mistyped some part number and you get the wrong part and then everything gets delayed. So like just having your systems talk to each other and integrate, which is kind of my world. So I'm very biased. Like if you ask me what customers are doing that is good I'm like yeah they're doing what I think is important very well, which is having their their technology work for them and talk to each other versus be a burden.
Fred Schnell Mhm. Okay. Kate?
Kate Hay Yeah. I agree with that wholeheartedly. And from the flip side of that, you know I spend a lot of time getting teams to talk to each other or teams to communicate with each other using these software platforms. So you know for me it's about setting up a software platform and these businesses who understand the value of putting in the time to configure um their environment, to configure their platform, their software, their tech stack. To make sure that they are all talking to each other so that teams can efficiently do the work that they do best and then hand it over to someone else to do their work that they do best, you know and whether that's understanding a lead that's coming in, capturing what they're after, capturing you know what they need from you. And then being able to hand that to operations, you know. Where the information just flows from one to the other, so that operations can then do the things that they do really well. And like you said Noam, that might be raising a purchase order that's linked directly to your supplier account, so that the purchase order gets injected into the supplier account, there's no mismatch on product codes, there's no mismatch on delivery address and things like that and everything you know then flows on from there. So I think those businesses who who do take that time to understand you know what does my customer lifecycle look like, what are my needs, you know what do my people do and how do I best automate that for them or make sure that they've got the right tools to do that job in the best way. You know and I think I wouldn't make a cake using a you know a drill to to mix the batter you know and then stick it in the oven and expect it's going to be really good.
Fred Schnell It's going to be clumpy and there's going to be stuff everywhere.
Kate Hay So you know using a spreadsheet to try and manage an entire job life cycle from you know incoming lead right through to invoice at the other end is not going to work well you know it's the same thing.
Fred Schnell I think it's got a it's a bit of a double-edged sword I reckon because I mean you both alluded on the fact that you know you you chasing every job and the margins are so squeezed and you're dealing with crisis like you're a crisis manager pretty much on a day-to-day basis right. So for a business owner of a business like that, when do you take time to get out of that daily grind head down bum up to really think about your customer journey, you think about your workflows and where things fall through the cracks and where the admin burdens are and how how could I fix that right? And probably also coming back to that kind of that tech noise right? You you see this pop up on your screen oh it's going to solve all your issues. Okay I'm just going to sign up, but I think you know that yeah you need to have the right technology in place. You need to take the time to really work on your business to to think it through and to make sure that it actually works and that you're not you're not just having a technology that does something but doesn't really do it well and you still copy-pasting from one system into the other right?
Kate Hay Yeah. 100 percent.
Noam Horenczyk Yeah and and I think nobody has any time for that. That answers your question. Nobody has the time to to think strategically. And honestly us software companies are not making it easy because every software company is trying to like sell the dream right. So a lot of the software you're using has a bajillion functions, but you don't need those bajillion functions. You just need this specific workflow. But it gets really hard when you're already overwhelmed to understand like okay this part of the platform is not for me right now. Maybe I grow into it. Maybe you know in a year I have this part of the business that I actually need it. These are the workflows that I'm using this software for. So like that's why I always say like websites are horrible for if you're trying to evaluate software based on a website. They're just meant for SEO and for like being top right. But like you don't understand what the company what the software actually does. You need to make sure you know it always has to start from the problem. I know it's like something everyone says but like what is my problem, what is the workflow I'm trying to solve. Can I solve it with this software? It might have all these other bells and whistles. Great. Maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't. But I just need to make sure it solves this one thing that I'm trying to do and make it and focus on that when you're talking to the representative from that company and when you're implementing it.
Fred Schnell No, 100 percent. Well unfortunately that is all we have time for today. A huge thank you to Noam and Kate for joining me for part one. The good news is, we are only halfway through this conversation. Stay tuned for part two where we will dive a little bit deeper into the specific tools and strategies you can put at work right now. In the meantime, if you would like to find out how a connected Simpro and Pipedrive setup could work in your business, use the link on our website, motii.co/playbook, to book a demo with the Motii team. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you in the next one.
Outro That's it for another episode of The Motii Playbook. One shift, one system, one measurable improvement. All information shared in this podcast is general in nature. For tailored advice specific to your business, visit motii.co/playbook and book a momentum call with our team. See you next time.
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