Guest: Adam Hall
Adam Hall on bankruptcy, fences, and building a national contracting brand
Adam Hall built AH Fencing with schoolmate Matt Carroll in 2017. He talks bankruptcy, the first two years that did not make money, and the difference between a fencing crew and a company that can run hundreds of commercial jobs a year.
From this episode
- Adam and Matt Carroll started AH Fencing after years on commercial fencing sites.
- The early years lost money. The later years built a multi-city contractor.
Show notes
In Episode 6 of Behind the Facade, Jake Gorry from Proline Group and Daniel from Complex Facade Install Pty Ltd sit down with their first ever guest, Adam Hall, Managing Director of AH Fencing. They have a raw conversation about the brutal realities of scaling a subcontractor business, nationwide expansion, trade cash flow, leadership, and what it really takes to survive the early years.
This episode dives into the true story of how Adam and his business partner Matt built a multi-state company from scratch after a previous employer went bust. They share the massive wake-up call of losing $200,000 in year one, waking up to find the ATO had wiped their bank account to $0, and how they recovered to build a highly profitable nationwide operation.
They also break down the transition from a gun tradie to a world-class leader, the power of organic growth versus acquisition, building custom ERP software using Claude, dealing with cultures of entitlement on site, and why you need a level of sustained delusion to back yourself in this industry.
If you work in construction, fencing, project management, site management, subcontracting, fabrication, or business ownership, this episode is packed with hard-learned, practical insight from people living it every day.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro: Welcoming first guest Adam Hall
01:08 - Organic growth vs interstate acquisition
02:24 - Building culture and setting standards across multiple states
08:14 - Leadership structures and fixing the site to office disconnect
14:31 - Extreme ownership, actionable core values and positive reinforcement
19:54 - Setting clear expectations and avoiding the entitlement loop
27:04 - The origin of AH Fencing: Two tradies with zero money
29:27 - Wiped to $0: Surviving the first year loss and the ATO wake-up call
35:17 - Trading tools for coaching and introducing commercial acumen
42:58 - Subbie metrics: Knowing your costs vs the danger of undercutting
53:50 - Why gun workers don't always make great business leaders
01:04:57 - Using AI to build custom tools and accelerating your path to $100M
ABOUT BEHIND THE FACADE
Behind the Facade is a construction podcast hosted by Jake Gorry, Director of Proline Group, and Daniel from Complex Facade Install Pty Ltd. The podcast goes behind the scenes of the facade, cladding, glazing and construction industry, sharing real conversations about business, leadership, site work, project delivery, culture and the people building the industry from the ground up.