TradieSpec — Where I'd Take the Account

The honest read on your page

Straight up — you don't have a content quantity problem. Roughly 4 posts a week, real variety, real effort. But here's the honest bit worth saying up front, because it points straight at the opportunity.

Your biggest numbers — the 61K, the 24K, the 11K — are all collabs and co-posts. Borrowed reach from influencers, Victor Radley, customer brands, Channel 9. That's no knock — it proves the ceiling's real and you know how to pull off a hit.

But strip the collabs out, and your own content — standing purely on TradieSpec's audience — sits around 1–2K views. That's your real starting line. Here are your genuine own-steam winners:

Kieren's day in the lifethe crew on camera

45 ❤ · 2.0K↗

Would You Rather: Tradie Editiontradie culture / opinions

24 ❤ · 1.2K↗

Nick walks the new-site cleanbehind-the-scenes / team

22 ❤ · 1.2K↗

Tim's pie-chart cost breakdownfounder value

21 ❤ · 1.1K↗

And it's not random — your own winners are the team on camera, day-in-the-life, founder value and tradie-culture prompts. That's the seed of everything I'm about to show you. The whole game: build content that pulls like a collab on your own steam — so you own the audience instead of renting it every time you want a spike.

The one shift

Don't build a page about TradieSpec.
Build a page for tradies.

The north star isn't "how do we get more people to watch videos about TradieSpec?" It's "how do we make TradieSpec one of the most valuable and entertaining trade-business pages in Australia?" Nail that, and the exact audience you want is sitting here every day. When they need a ute — you've already earned the trust.

The filter I'd run on every post

"If you stripped the TradieSpec logo off this video — would a sparky in Penrith still send it to his mate?"

If the answer's no, it's probably not our strongest organic. It's the whole philosophy in one line. Right now your finance explainers fail it hardest — 11 posts, averaging ~10 likes / ~400 views. The content that actually holds your own audience is the team, the day-in-the-life and the founder-value stuff. That's the direction: more of what a tradie would genuinely watch, less of what only lands if they're already shopping.

The content machine — 5 pillars

Not 40 random ideas. Five repeatable buckets — so the page always knows what it's for.

Pillar 01

Make tradies better at business

"You charge $120/hr — you're not making $120/hr." Break down the real number.
The $100k/yr tradie vs the $100k/yr trade business
When should you actually hire your first apprentice?
3 numbers every self-employed tradie should know

Some of this won't sell a single ute. That's deliberate — it earns the follow.

Pillar 02

Tradie opinions & culture

What trade would you never do?
Most overrated tool brand? Ranger or Hilux?
What's the most you've ever been owed?
Worst advice apprentices get

This is where being an actual tradie matters — not a coordinator guessing how to talk to the site.

Pillar 03

Vehicles — through the tradie's eyes

"I'm a sparky. Here's how I'd spec this Ranger if I had to work out of it tomorrow." Walkaround, real recommendations.
Then plumber. Then chippy. Then HVAC. Then landscaper.

One vehicle = 6 videos. Product content that doesn't feel like product content.

Pillar 04

Customer & character stories

The bloke the banks knocked back, getting the keys to his own ute
Recurring characters — lean into Eddy, build the crew into a cast

Your proven winner (Eddy, Radley, the handovers) — just made intentional and recurring.

Pillar 05

Reactive & trend

A deliberate weekly trend-jack — ute/tradie flavoured
Comment-driven reels (see the community loop)

"New Ute who dis" did 61K on accident. Make it a scheduled swing, not luck.

Three franchises I'd actually sell you

Named, repeatable series — this is how a company IG turns into a media brand.

Rate My Rig

Followers submit their work utes, you review the setups — funny, knowledgeable, audience participation. Close each with "want us to rate yours? Send it through."

→ Now your DMs start filling with next month's content.

Smoko Questions

Real sites, one question, five tradies. "How much should a 4th-year earn?" "One tool you'd never cheap out on?" "What do customers do that drives you insane?"

→ Dead simple, dead native, endlessly scalable.

The Business of Trades

Interviews with successful trade-business owners — but the specific shit, not "tell us your journey." First-year turnover. When they hired #1. What nearly killed it. Their margin today.

→ This is where TradieSpec becomes a media brand, not another company IG.

How two shoot days actually work

The elephant in the room is "but we're hiring someone full-time." I'm not going to argue with that — I'll show you the alternative.

Shoot 1 — HQ

10–12 videos captured

2–3 business / value pieces
2 vehicle pieces
2 FAQ / objection pieces (as stories, not explainers)
2 talking-head pieces
1–2 reactive / trend pieces
B-roll bank refreshed

Shoot 2 — Field

10–12 videos captured

Customer story + ute walkthrough
Smoko Questions
Rate My Rig
Site content
Trade-business interview
Behind-the-scenes

By the time I arrive, concepts are done, scripts are done, people are organised, locations are locked, shot list is done. The shoot day is execution — not ideation.

The engine behind it

I don't want to contractually film 20 ideas and blindly post all 20. I want to over-capture — 30+ opportunities sitting in the edit for 20 posts. Not everything earns a post just because we filmed it.

Research→ Ideas→ Scripts→ Shoot→ Edit→ Publish→ Analyse→ Iterate

The biggest thing: month two shouldn't look like month one. Which faces work? Which hooks? Which topics earn saves vs shares vs comments? Then we make more informed bets.

Feedback loop in action

Say Rate My Rig unexpectedly does 180K. We don't just celebrate — we squeeze it:

Apprentice Edition$100K SetupSparky EditionPlumber EditionOwner vs Apprentice

We find what the audience tells us they want, and squeeze the shit out of it until they tell us they're bored.

Community is part of content

I'd treat the comment section as an ideation tool. Someone comments "renting a ute is a waste of money, mate." Don't delete it. Don't reply "thanks for your feedback, John!"

Make tomorrow's reel: "Someone said renting a ute is always a waste of money — he's actually right in some situations." Then show both sides.

That's more trustworthy than instantly defending TradieSpec — and suddenly comments → content → comments. That's a real organic flywheel.

Three things I'd shoot in month one

Rather than talk theory — here's literally what I'd want in the first month. Three videos, three completely different jobs.

"Your ute isn't costing you $250 a week."

It's finance, rego, insurance, servicing, tyres, depreciation — and every hour it's off the road. So let's actually work out the real number.

Earns attention — through money

"I was a sparky. Here's how I'd spec this ute if I had to work out of it tomorrow."

Genuine walkaround — drawers, conduit, cable, ladders, tools, what I'd change and why. Product naturally embedded.

Connects the product — to the audience

"I asked 10 tradies: one thing you wish you knew before going out on your own."

Fast montage → genuinely useful answers → TradieSpec branding almost invisible.

Builds the brand — through value

Three videos, three different jobs — attention, product, brand. That's a content mix — not just filling 20 slots.

Another model worth considering

You went to market for someone internal — and that might still be the right call for you. But there's another way to get the same outcome.

One full-time hire

One person owning strategy, ideation, scripting, filming, editing, posting and analytics — five days a week in your office.

Plug into a system

You plug into an operation already doing all of that for trade businesses every week. You still get someone who gets close to the brand — the production just doesn't need a desk five days a week.

I'm not interested in being the agency you hear from once a month. I'm presenting another way to hit the outcome — not attacking the decision.

The north star

A tradie who doesn't need a ute, isn't shopping for one, maybe hasn't even heard of you — sees one of your videos and thinks "fuck, these guys actually get it."

Then when he does need the vehicle, you're already the brand he knows. That's building something much bigger than consistently posting reels. If this direction resonates, I'd love to sit down and flesh out what the model could actually look like.