For commercial services · $1.5M–$30M

You won the contracts. Now they own you.

For founders running commercial cleaning, fire & safety, maintenance, security, grounds and building services businesses turning over $1.5M–$30M who can’t step out of the procurement room.

Apply for coaching → $1,500 Altitude Audit
The trap

Cleaning, fire & safety, maintenance, security, grounds, building services, scaled past $1.5M. Now you can’t step away.

Four pains every owner in this niche describes within five minutes of the first call.

01 · You still close every major contract personally

BDM keeps the pipeline warm, but when the procurement meeting happens, it’s you in the room. Always.

02 · Margin erosion is killing you

Contracts won 3 years ago at decent margins are now break-even. Wages went up. Fuel went up. The client won’t accept variations.

03 · Your supervisor layer is weak

Field staff turn over constantly. Supervisors get poached. You’re recruiting from a thin pool and training replacements yourself.

04 · One client is 30%+ of revenue and they know it

Every contract renewal becomes a margin negotiation you can’t win.

Why this happens in commercial services

The economics punish unsystematic owners.

Commercial services scale on recurring contracts. The founder built the business by being the relationship — winning the first big contract, then the next, then the next. The skill is sales and contract management at the corporate procurement level. That stays with the founder because nobody else has the relationship history or the negotiation experience.

Margin discipline is the silent killer. Service contracts won 3–5 years ago at decent rates are now under-priced. Cost-of-living adjustments don’t keep pace with actual wage growth. Founders watch profit slowly evaporate while revenue looks fine.

Coaching for commercial services means pricing discipline, BDM accountability, and a supervisor layer that holds.

Why me

I made the same mistakes — in apparel manufacturing.

I’m a mechanical engineer who started Seight Custom Cycling Wear from my kitchen table. By 24, I was running a $300,000 business. I thought I’d figured it out.

I hadn’t. The dollar tanked. My marriage ended. The business collapsed under $200,000 of debt. I’d built the company on skill, not systems — same trap every owner I now coach is in.

I rebuilt Seight with proper systems and sold it. Since 2017 I’ve coached founders out of the founder-on-the-tools dependency.

Different industry. Same trap. Same fix.

Read the full story →
What coaching is — and what it isn’t

Clear, before you book.

What it IS

  • + 1:1 sessions with Tristan, every fortnight or every week
  • + The Business Evolution Framework applied to your business
  • + Honest accountability for the changes you commit to
  • + Between-session access for high-stakes decisions
  • + Long-term — most clients are 2+ years in

What it ISN’T

  • ✕ A motivational hype-up
  • ✕ A group program or course
  • ✕ An accountability buddy who texts you reminders
  • ✕ A 90-day intensive
  • ✕ Free advice. Real coaching costs real money.
The six steps

How we’d work on your business.

  1. Step 01

    Diagnostic — map the business

    $1,500 standalone, or free strategy call. We map your company against the five BEF layers. You leave with clarity on what’s broken and what to fix first.

  2. Step 02

    Fix Foundation — cash, margin, owner energy

    Cash flow forecast. Real job-level margin. Owner schedule audit. Without Foundation, everything above wobbles.

  3. Step 03

    Build Supporting Systems — people, process, tech

    The operational machinery that runs without you. People, processes, technology, knowledge.

  4. Step 04

    Operate the Success Triad — strategy, marketing, sales, fulfilment

    A real pipeline, real positioning, real delivery. Growth from systems, not heroics.

  5. Step 05

    Sharpen the Inner Core — vision, values, leadership

    The owner-level work most coaches skip. Who you’re becoming as a leader. What the business is actually for.

  6. Step 06

    Reach Core Fulfilment — business serves your life

    The endpoint. The business funds your life, doesn’t consume it.

Who uses coaches

Quietly, most of the operators you respect.

The owners turning over $5M+ and not drowning aren’t naturally better operators. They’ve got someone in their corner who’s seen the next two moves before.

20
Active 1:1 clients
8 yrs
Longest active relationship
5+
Clients past the 5-year mark
$1.5M+
Revenue floor for this niche
Real commercial-services client

Ed Rios. Cleaned. Seven years.

Direct fit. Ed Rios runs Cleaned, a commercial cleaning operation in NSW. Seven years of coaching, from owner-operator to systemised multi-crew business. Plus two adjacent operator-led services on the roster for cross-portfolio context.

Ed Rios — Cleaned — is a 7-year client and the closest direct industry fit. Billy Sheldon and Darren Crichton-Browne are included for adjacent operator-led-services context.

What to look for in a coach

If you’re shopping around — three filters.

  1. 01 · They’ve actually built something

    Theory is cheap. Has your coach run a real business? Made real payroll? Lost real money? If not, you’re paying for theory.

  2. 02 · They understand the trade economics

    A coach who’s only worked with SaaS startups doesn’t get progress claims, plant finance, or shift work. Industry context matters.

  3. 03 · They’re long-term, not 90-day

    Anyone offering a 90-day transformation is selling a course, not coaching. Real change takes 18–24 months minimum.

The endgame

A business in this niche that doesn’t depend on you.

It’s not about disappearing. It’s about choosing when to be in it. The end state for an owner I coach in this niche looks like:

  • → A BDM closing contracts you only see at signature stage
  • → Pricing discipline with CPI clauses and renewal cadence built in
  • → A supervisor pipeline with retention plans and clear development
  • → Client concentration under 20% — no single account can break you
  • → Margin tracking by contract so you see erosion before it kills the year
  • → A service-delivery system that doesn’t depend on you walking the routes
Is it worth it?

Direct talk on cost.

Fortnightly coaching is from $2,000/month + GST. Weekly from $3,000/month + GST. Six-month minimum. A $1,500 Altitude Audit stands alone or rolls into coaching.

One contract renewed at the wrong margin costs you $50K+ over a 3-year term. One large client churning costs 30% of revenue overnight. One supervisor walking out destabilises field operations for months. Coaching for commercial services pays for itself the first time it prevents one bad renewal or one critical loss.

Real coaching pays for itself the first time it stops you making the same mistake again.

Cross-portfolio proof

No commercial property / facilities operators on the roster yet. Honest answer.

I’ve been coaching $1.5M–$10M service businesses since 2017. The current 1:1 roster is heavy in agencies, advisory and operator-led services — not commercial property managers or multi-site facility services specifically. The Foundation-up sequence transfers — cash discipline, contract margin, supervisor cover — because the breaking points are the same. The honest disclosure matters more than a stock photo.

If you want to validate fit before the discovery call — book a $1,500 Altitude Audit on your real Xero + sales data first. No coaching commitment.

By city

Commercial Services coaching by city.

Coaching is delivered globally over Google Meet — but if you’re looking for the city-specific page:

Commercial Services — Melbourne →
Commercial Services coaching for Melbourne-based owners.
Commercial Services — Sydney →
Commercial Services coaching for Sydney-based owners.
Commercial Services — Brisbane →
Commercial Services coaching for Brisbane-based owners.
For commercial property & facility services

Multi-site service pain — the operating model that doesn't scale.

Four things I hear from commercial services owners in the first call. If three or more land — we should talk.

  • 01 Every new site needs you to set up. New supervisor, new client relationship, new commercial terms. The expansion playbook lives in your head and doesn't transfer.
  • 02 You've got 60+ staff. 20% turnover. Recruitment and onboarding eats the operations manager's whole role.
  • 03 Margins are tight by industry standard. You're slightly above market and you can't see what the next 3% comes from.
  • 04 You won a big contract last quarter that's technically profitable but operationally chewing up half your management capacity. You can't turn it down and you can't serve it well.
Real examples

What we'd actually work on.

Three current/recent engagements in this space. Names redacted, specifics intact.

Example 01

A commercial cleaning operator going from owner-operator to multi-crew. 7 years of coaching: Foundation first, then Supporting Systems, now Triad. Crew supervisors own their sites end-to-end, founder works on the next geography.

Example 02

A facility services business with 60 staff and a turnover problem. We rebuild the onboarding + first-90-days process. Turnover drops from 22% to 13% across the year. Recruitment time recovered: equivalent of half a senior salary.

Example 03

An events production business that won a $700K anchor contract in NZ — and then nearly lost its founder to the operational load. We rebuild the contract handover, train two senior leads, founder runs strategy not delivery on the next bid.

Not ready to apply?

Find out where your business is, before you book a discovery call.

The Altitude Audit tells you exactly where you are in the BEF and what to fix first. From $1,500. Standalone — no coaching commitment.

Book the Altitude Audit →

Ready to step off the tools?

The $1,500 Altitude Audit is the entry point. One hour over Google Meet, full BEF map, written plan — yours to keep whether we work together after or not.

Apply for coaching → $1,500 Altitude Audit