Building a business on barriers: How AH Fencing’s work-life split spurred $6.2m in revenue

Queensland commercial fencing company AH Fencing has expanded to Victoria, with two major projects already in the pipeline, including a development at Bunnings in Coburg that will see the company construct the precinct’s chain wire fencing and gates.

It’s been a profitable few years for AH Fencing founders Adam Hall and Matt Carroll who had big dreams to change up the commercial fencing industry in Queensland. The company has increased its revenue from 2021 to this year by 94%.

During the last three financial years, AH Fencing has seen $3.2 million in total revenue figures in 2021, $4.4 million in 2022, and $6.2 million in 2023.

The company currently has a team of close to 40, including a Brisbane office that manages projects across all of Queensland, and has just opened a Melbourne office that will be managing work all over Victoria.

With the construction industry facing significant cost pressures, AH Fencing Managing Directors, Adam Hall and Matt Carroll said there is a big gap in the market for delivering smaller projects under $100,000. 

Carving a niche

“We’ve been able to create a niche for ourselves in the value bracket of $100,000 and under by providing quotes and delivering results in record time thanks to our streamlined processes and in-house automation systems”, Carroll said.

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“We had worked for most of the other large commercial fencing companies operating in Queensland and the way they were operating was causing unnecessary problems for their workers, themselves and their clients. 

“It was very obvious that there were some simple changes that could be made that would benefit everybody but everyone seemed set in their ways and believed that nothing in the industry needed to be changed. We decided that we should start our own company and start doing what the others weren’t. This led to us deciding to start AH Fencing in October 2017.

“We wanted to create a company that we would want to work for. We wanted to create a culture that had us, as well as our team, excited to come to work each day.”

Hall said they attribute their success and growing expansion not only to highly systemised processes but also to AH Fencing’s work culture. 

“Every employee at AH Fencing is paid above the industry award and we also provide additional paid training and a genuine career path,” he said.

“A lot of trades businesses have issues with staff retention because they are built off an unsustainable model of expecting their employees to constantly work overtime with no work-life balance. We’ve come to realise our business is nothing without our employees so they are our number one priority.”

Headed towards growth

Carroll revealed that they realise about a year ago that the business they had developed over the last 4-5 years was doing really well and they started to look at different possibilities for growth within Queensland. 

“We eventually came to the realisation that in order to continue to grow while staying in line with our business strategy and core values it was smarter to look at another state rather than force growth in Queensland. We then spent the next six months looking into whether New South Wales or Victoria was a better fit and it was clear that the latter was where we wanted to expand into,” he said.

“We then began introducing ourselves to potential clients and putting together pricing for projects that they currently had live. This led us to securing the fencing and gates package on multiple projects in Victoria, including a new Bunnings. We will begin construction on these projects this month (April).”

Carroll said at this stage they have secured multiple projects in Victoria and are assisting current and potential clients with any confirmed or possible future projects they are currently working on.

“The new era of construction brings with it new challenges, especially around material shortages as well as the volatility of material pricing. We believe our ability to adapt to these challenges and provide consistent and effective solutions to our clients is what has led to the growth of our company across Queensland,” he said.

“We are looking forward to bringing our knowledge and systems down to Victoria to provide a reliable and effective solution to these problems for our new clients.”

Carroll and Hall said the short-term plans are to continue the establishment of their business in Victoria while continuing to deliver on their current and future projects in Queensland.

“Long-term we will be looking to expand into further states in the coming years with the ultimate goal of being in every state in Australia within the next 5-7 years,” they said.