The Million Dollar Comeback of Simon Davis | F&D Mastery Podcast #30

Simon Davis is a third-generation fencer from New South Wales, Australia who started fencing on weekends to escape a government wage, discovering he could earn more in a day and a half of solo work than in a full week at his hospital job.

After scaling North Coast Fencing to roughly 20 staff and 10 subcontractor teams with 'no business sense whatsoever,' one bad project with a big client cost him nearly half a million dollars, forcing him to liquidate and lose his home.

He rebuilt smarter over seven years to hit roughly $1 million turnover with just three workers, and recently sold a 50% profit share to a construction company — coming full circle back to the same factory he once rented, now as the owner.

The turnaround came from adopting Mike Michalowicz's Profit First model (via Katie Crismale-Smith's version for tradies), restructuring the business so it now averages 40-50% gross profit — margins he'd never achieved before.

Knowing your numbers is the foundation: a coach once showed Simon his conversion rate was 23% when he assumed it was 80%, meaning he was burning fuel and time chasing jobs he wasn't winning; he now targets a chosen, more profitable niche.

Competing on cheap price undermines everything — quality, employee retention, and reviews — so Simon charges a premium, even charging for quotes and turning away price-shoppers, which keeps him booked six to seven months out with better jobs.

He named the business 'North Coast Fencing' strategically (a region, not his surname) so the brand is sellable and geographically portable, and it still ranks number one locally with no SEO purely on that perception.

Speed to lead wins work — Simon responds to every call and email, and clients routinely hand him the job simply because he was the first fencer to call them back after months of being ignored.