AH Fencing expects to double is revenue in 2023-24 with is Victorian expansion

Two mates who have overcome a slow start in the fencing contracting game have expanded into Victoria and expect to double their annual revenue.

When two best mates started their own fence contractor business six years ago they reckoned they could find a niche in the sector that their former employers couldn’t.

The problem was that when Adam Hall and Matt Carroll, who first met at preschool, started AH Fencing they quickly realised that while they knew all about the sector, they didn’t know about business.

“We had been working together for a bunch of other commercial fencing contractors since we were 18 years old. One of them ended up going bankrupt and that was the catalyst for us to start AH Fencing,” Mr Hall said.

“We saw problems happening time and time again in these other larger companies which we thought were easily fixable so we thought we’d have a crack at it ourselves.

“Little did we know the journey we were up for because at the time we were really good at installing fences but we had no idea how to run a business and it didn’t take us long to work that out.”

One of AH Fencing’s installed security gates.

The pair, who have been friends since they were five when they met at preschool at John Paul College at Daisy Hill and then went through to Year 12.

They recently moved their 30 odd staff into a new headquarters in Northgate and have opened an office in Melbourne. Among the projects in Melbourne they have secured a development at Bunnings in Coburg.

The company focuses on the commercial sector and supplies and installs permanent security fencing and gates. They have had 70 per cent year-on-year growth since they started.

In 2022-23 they will notch up $6.2m in revenue with a 20 per cent net profit margin. With their expansion into Victoria they are looking to double their revenue in 2023-24.

Mr Carroll said it was a tough start for the bootstrap company with a profitless first two years but it has grown into one of Brisbane’s largest commercial fencing contractors.

“We started with nothing. We started doing small jobs for whom we found organically friends and family and we built off the back of that,” he said.

However, what gave the 33 year olds the kickstart they needed was their relationship with Protrade United – which offers business coaching for trades people.

“They are targeted to exactly what Matt and I were – good tradies but not sure how to run a business and they’ve given us a lot of guidance over the years,” Mr Hall said.

“One of the biggest things that we learnt from them was targeting our ideal client – working out who that was, what that type of client looked like and going after that sole type of client.

“So instead of doing residential work we decided to hunt those commercial clients. It’s what we enjoy doing and they pay on time. It’s very black and white.”

They also found an important niche in the commercial fencing sector in the $100,000 or under bracket.

AH Fencing directors Matt Carroll and Adam Hall.

Mr Hall said they have systemised everything in the business.

“We’ve coined ourselves as the McDonald’s of fencing. You get the same product every single time. We’re very consistent and we are able to get a lot out of the door which is a massive advantage for us.

“The smaller commercial projects of around $100,000 or under is where we fit. We turnover a lot of them and the only reason we’re able to do that is because of the system and process we have. The other companies we have worked for in the past do about 20 or 30 large projects and we do about 200.

“We’ve standardised the quoting system and we have a ridiculous spreadsheet with about 500 different fence types and you pick the fence type and put in how many lineal metres it is and it spits out a quote.”

Mr Carroll said while the ebb and flow of the construction sector does affect them their business model has allowed them to smooth out issues like material costs increases.

“We’re constantly getting quotes from our clients for future projects which they have on but fencing comes later and projects where they are just tendering on it are two to three years away,” he said.

“That means our pipeline is relatively full even when the short-term market moves up and down. I would not say we are immune to it but I would say we are a lot more protected than other companies.”

Mr Carroll said while they want to grow they were determined to stick to their business strategy, hence the move interstate.

“With the work that we do it became clear that for the growth that stays true to our business strategy, expanding into another state was a better option than trying to chase the really big projects in Queensland which we found was a race to the bottom,” he said.

“The margins are razor thin which is not a game we wanted to play. We thought let’s replicate what we have here and Victoria was the best fit.”