Business coaches for tradies in Australia
Five Australian coaches who work specifically with trade businesses. What each one actually does, who runs it, and who it is for.
Every tradie business coach in Australia sells the same headline. Get off the tools. Build a business that runs without you. Stop being the bottleneck. It is the right diagnosis, which is why they all use it, and it tells you nothing about which one to pick.
Two things separate them, and both are easy to check before you book a call.
The first is whether the coach has run a trade business. Not consulted to one. Run one, with staff on the payroll and a bad debtor at Christmas. A coach who has only ever coached will give you good general business advice, and general business advice is where most tradies come unstuck, because trade margins, retentions, progress claims and seasonality do not behave like a retail business.
The second is whether you get a person or a program. Some of these are one-on-one only. Some are a membership with training modules, group calls and a community. Neither is better. But a sole trader who wants someone to look at their actual numbers is buying the wrong thing if they join a program, and a five-van operation that needs systems will get more from structured material than from an hour a fortnight.
Nobody paid to be on this page and there are no affiliate links. Everything below was read off each coach's own site in August 2026.
Lifestyle Tradie
Andy and Angela Smith ran Dr.DRiP Plumbing for more than 20 years, growing it to 17 staff before stepping back to systemise it. They started coaching in 2009, which makes this the longest-running trade coaching business in the country.
It is a membership, not one-on-one. Tools, templates, training, accountability and a community of other trade owners, plus The Tradie Show podcast. They take members still on the tools daily and businesses with teams already in place.
Best for: owners who want structure and other tradies to compare notes with, rather than a single adviser. lifestyletradie.com.au
Tenfold Business Coaching
Operating since 2002 out of Camberwell in Melbourne, with more than 20 years coaching the Australian construction industry. Sessions are face to face or over Zoom.
Tenfold is the most explicitly selective of the five. Established businesses only. No startups, no group coaching. They build financial reporting and KPIs around your business rather than issuing a template, and they structure the engagement in four stages that run all the way to selling or handing over the business.
Best for: an established business with real numbers to work on, and an owner who is thinking about the exit. tenfoldcoaching.com.au
BusinessSight
Miles Primrose spent more than 33 years in construction before becoming a coach, and has worked one-on-one with trade business owners for over 20 of them. Offices in Reservoir in Melbourne, Parramatta in Sydney and Capalaba in Brisbane.
One-on-one only. His framing is the owner bottleneck: the business outgrows the systems that got it started, and the owner keeps approving every quote instead of changing jobs. The pitch is a 12 minute call rather than a form, which tells you the shape of the relationship.
Best for: an owner who wants one person who knows construction, and who would rather talk than fill in a questionnaire. businesssight.com.au
UpScale Business Coaching
Based in Byron Bay and working with trade and construction businesses across Australia and New Zealand. Live coaching calls, video training modules, and one-on-one support alongside them.
The mix is the point here. You get material to work through on your own time and a person to take it to, which suits an owner who cannot commit to a fixed weekly slot but does not want to be left with a login and good luck.
Best for: a growing crew that wants training and a coach rather than choosing between them.
Tradie Accelerator
Sydney, the outer suburbs and regional New South Wales, working mostly by phone. They name electricians, plumbers and boutique builders as who they take.
The smallest operation on this list and the most regional. If you are running a couple of vans out of a town three hours from a capital city, a coach who already works down the phone is worth more than one who wants you in a Melbourne office. There is no contact form worth using and no published email, just a number.
Best for: regional NSW trades who want a straight phone relationship. Ring 1300 658 403.
What coaching will not fix
A coach cannot make you money you never invoiced. The most common thing a trade coach finds in the first month is not a strategy problem, it is that the quotes went out late, half of them were never followed up, and nobody knows which invoices are overdue. That part is admin, and it is cheaper to fix than an hour of coaching.
Yamate does that half: quoting, invoicing, chasing what is owed and GST estimates, from the phone. It is $19 a month flat if you sign up before 30 September 2026, $29 a month after. Get that straight first and your coach can spend the hour on the business instead of on your paperwork.
FAQ
What does a tradie business coach cost in Australia?
None of the five publish a price, which is normal for coaching and is why every one of them opens with a call. Expect the conversation to start at a monthly retainer rather than an hourly rate.
One-on-one or a program?
One-on-one if the problem is your specific numbers. A program if the problem is that you do not have systems and would rather not invent them from scratch. Tenfold and BusinessSight are one-on-one, Lifestyle Tradie is a membership, UpScale runs both.
How were these five chosen?
Each one's own site says trade businesses are their specialty, each is independently run rather than a franchise, and each was read in August 2026 before being listed. Nobody paid to appear and there are no affiliate links.
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