Systemise like your hair is on fire, with Paul Bryan (Eps. 1)

Most providers in the NDIS space care deeply about the people they support. That part matters. But Paul Bryan, host of The Profitable NDIS Provider podcast, explains why care alone does not build a sustainable business.

In this episode, Paul unpacks how strong business systems, clear processes, healthy profit margins, and better operational decisions allow providers to support more people, reduce chaos, retain good staff, and deliver better outcomes.

If you are tired of constant staff turnover, compliance pressure, cash flow stress, and feeling like everything depends on you, this episode breaks down the practical strategies needed to build a more stable, profitable, and impactful support business.

Paul works with Australian care providers to streamline operations and shift how they think about growth. His message is clear. Caring about people is essential in the NDIS space, but without the right systems behind the scenes, even the most well intentioned providers can burn out, stall, or struggle to deliver consistently.

In this conversation, Paul shares the frameworks that separate good providers from great ones, including why hiring too quickly, relying on the wrong people, or partnering before your business is ready can create bigger problems later. He also covers how better onboarding, clearer roles, stronger team culture, and practical systems can improve staff retention, resource use, and long term sustainability.

You’ll hear about:

• The common mistakes early stage providers make when scaling from zero to two million dollars in revenue
• Why trying to solve every problem by hiring more people can backfire
• How to replace burnout and turnover with simple, scalable processes
• Practical ways to systemise onboarding and support workflows, even with a small team
• Why profit and margin can help you deliver better care without guilt
• The importance of niching down and communicating your value clearly in a crowded sector

This episode is about building a business that can help more clients, pay its team properly, and keep doing good work without relying on constant firefighting. Whether you are just starting out or already feeling the pressure of growth, Paul’s insights offer clear and practical steps for building a more resilient support business.

Perfect for NDIS providers, care business owners, and support coordinators who want to grow without losing sight of why they started.

Guest Paul Bryan is a business coach who helps Australian care providers grow through smarter systems, stronger operations, and clearer mindset shifts. His work focuses on building profitable, impact driven organisations that can last beyond short term tactics and reactive decision making.

Listen now to learn how to reduce chaos, strengthen your systems, and build a business that gives you more freedom, more capacity, and more room to make a real difference.

Find Paul's podcast - The Profitable NDIS Provider

Or find his programs - Action and Intent

Matt and his team at Steppr offer 'Weirdly Different' Positive Behaviour Support. Find his team at www.steppr.com.au

Thanks for watching!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let's get back to nature. Welcome to the NDIS in the garden podcast with your host, Matt Sevier.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

All right, welcome back to the NDIS in the Garden podcast. My name is Matt Sevier. I'm the founder and director of Stepa. Today we're chatting with Paul from Profitable Provider. So if you're an NDIS uh or care provider owner who's ever felt buried in staffing issues, compliance, cash flow pressure, or just the general weight of trying to grow a business while still delivering quality supports, this conversation will be right up your alley. So a bit about Paul. Paul works with providers across Australia to help them build stronger, more profitable businesses. I had the privilege of attending the Level Up Summit recently, which was hosted by Paul. So Paul, I sat in your content creation elective. And yeah, it was it was such an eye-opening experience. So yeah, um cool. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Oh, no worries, mate. Um, it was so good to have you there. And yeah, we had a heap of fun just finding new ways to do content and actually get in front of people and and get your message out because you're doing amazing stuff. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Um, yeah, well, uh to start, so um, Paul, for anyone who hasn't come across Profitable Provider before, what what do you sort of help providers with day-to-day?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, cool. So what we do is uh business coaching specifically for people who help other people. And so that might be uh NDIS, it might be aged care, um, child protection. Basically, if you operate in a government funding model and you want to provide support to people, business can be really, really tricky. And so I have got uh 20 odd years uh running, growing and scaling businesses, and I've found coaching to be one of the most valuable things that I've had. And so we just help good people who really want to actually help their clients and not just screw down on the profit to actually run a profitable business so that you can help more people. We've got systems, process, ways of doing things, reporting, all that sort of fun stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, awesome. Um, yeah, that's great. So um a lot of people I guess get stuck into this space um because they genuinely care and they want to help. But you know, running a business is a whole different beast. So what would you say that most providers get caught out with early?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Um, probably the number one thing I heard, and we we uh we stopped measuring this about two years ago, but we'd had 5,000 recorded conversations with providers just around their journey. And the overwhelming response was I kind of thought that just caring enough would grow my business. Yeah. Um being being the best that I can be would be the thing that would grow my business. And while it is a thing that will start your business and you get known for that, it's not the thing that will keep you growing. It's the thing that keeps you on track. It's not the thing that keeps you growing.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I guess like sometimes there can be this weird, almost like taboo thing in the disability sector, in terms of like, say, making money means you care less. What's so like what's your take on um building a profitable business while still genuinely doing that that good work for people?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, I think a lot of people got really confused between profiting and profiteering. Yes. And we hear about a lot on the news around you know, people doing fraud and rotting the system and that sort of stuff, that's profiteering where they're screwing down how much they pay their stuff, paying them wrong, or they're way overcharging clients or not even providing services at all, but billing them. That's profiteering, that's rotting. Whereas when you build a business that is profitable, you uh you're creating margin in the business, which gives you the ability to provide better service. Um there's there's this idea, right? If you if your car breaks down and you can't afford to fix it, you can't go to your shift, which means you can't provide support, right? So if you've got margin in your business, then you have profit in your business to be able to pay for really good training. You've got ability to pay your team really, really well. You've got the ability to even do those free services that you want to do. Probably start with the free services and can't sustain it, right? And so when you have this idea of profit, you can do better business. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah, yeah. And that and that's it. Like we see it all the time in the news, right? Like, you know, fraudulent providers and stuff like that. But it's all about like separating yourself um, you know, as as as the good provider while still trying to grow your business so you can support more people. Um yeah. Um, so like in terms of what happens at the start, like what when when prop providers are trying to grow, what usually goes wrong first? Is it people like cash flow systems, um, wrong hiring?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yes. Um there's a bit of a journey a lot of providers go on. It's that this zero to like 100k. It's like the first startup, you might be an independent support worker. You sort of really cap hours because you know it's it's you doing the thing, you can only do so much, and you go, I want to get bigger, I want to have more clients, I'm getting referred, I'm doing a really good job. Yep. So then you start to hire people to do some of the support work as well, and you get to probably around sort of that 500k a year mark, around sort of you know, um uh $50,000, $60,000 a month, which you can do really easily with a few key, really good support workers, maybe a little bit of help on the admin, like not much, like very, very little help. That's a really comfortable little business. But then when you get to that point, you really need to make a decision. Am I going to stay here and be comfortable and enjoy the fact that I can take a bit of time off because my team can do that? There's not so much admin that it's burdensome. Um, or am I going to grow? Which means you actually need to make a decision about am I going to change my way of thinking about business? Because the the pivot point there is actually the owner coming off working the floor, basically, because now the admin of bringing on more people, more staff, more clients starts to really, really jump up. And then you get to around this $2 million mark where people kind of realize they need far more support in the systems of their business. So along these journeys, people will often hire the wrong people too early in admin specifically, um, and they will partner to solve problems with people where they've now sort of given away part of their business and can't make those decisions that they really want to make. So we've got to bring it down to one key thing. Don't solve problems with people, solve them with a process. Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah. Otherwise, you're gonna spend way too much money on people who aren't gonna be as passionate as you about the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, I've heard that's that's the big kicker, right? Like when you partner with someone, yeah. Um, is that sort of what like so you're a coach? Um, so is that sort of what your clients um are dealing with when you come on board? Is that the general thing you see?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So um there's a a a space within say NDIS and care space, you go, oh, you know, I'm really good at the care, I need to find someone who's really good at the business. And so we'll we'll start a partnership. That can be really, really problematic. And I've helped a few people dissolve partnerships because there's just been this almost fighting between the two where someone has different expectations. Um or they bring someone in way too early to be an operations manager or a general manager. Meanwhile, they've got eight clients and they really don't have the means of supporting it, and the person isn't that skill set, they're just I'm just gonna call them operations manager, give them a big pay packet, and hopefully they'll build my business for me. And that also isn't right. Partnering might be literal business partnerships, or partnering might be hiring someone in a much higher level role than what they're really capable of, and your business is able to sustain.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, at the end of the day, we ourselves need a salary, right? Like we need to pay our mortgages, feed our families, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Um before you help somebody else in the air, on the airplane, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Um, so I mean, in terms of staffing, like so it's it's notoriously a bit of a headache in this sector. So why why would some providers seem to build great teams while others are consistently dealing with turnover and chaos?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Uh it really does come down to uh your process behind team and how you develop them. Um, you know, whenever we map this with a provider, maybe they're coming on board and they've got huge team turnover, they just can't keep team or can't find team. It really often comes back to their onboarding. Um, number one, who are they actually looking for? And do they need that person? Are we are we looking for the right skill sets? A lot of owners try and replace themselves. Oh, if only I had a clone of myself. No, you you don't want a clone of you. You want someone who fills the gaps that you can't do or you're not great at. Right? And so it's hiring those people that are going to do the things that you're not awesome at so that you can do the thing that you are awesome at.

unknown 9:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And we get the onboarding, so many. I mean, like I had this conversation, everyone says, nah, nah, nah, until we have a look and go, yes, 100%. Um they aren't really getting clear on the objective of the role. It's just more support work. Right. Well, what does for your business specifically, what does awesome look like in support work? What are the exact non-negotiable expectations? Um, because HR is an absolute mess. And if you haven't been specific in your training and onboarding, you're gonna get absolutely taken to the cleaners when someone files for an unfair dismissal. Yeah, right? Yeah, and we saw that destroying businesses because they go, I just had to pay $20,000 out to someone who I let go. They were terrible support worker, but we hadn't actually identified what they were were and weren't supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's like we're always constantly thinking, you know, how how can we add value to it to our clients? Um, but it's also like your own staff, like how are we creating that culture, right? Like, um, and what are we doing differently?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Um, you get to a certain stage of business, and it's a great quote by um Sir Richard Branson. If you're the owner, the founder, you need to stop thinking about your clients and start investing in your team. Your team will take care of your clients if you're investing in them right.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah, yeah, very good. Now, if you're an independent or you just got a couple of teams, then you mean you focus on your clients. But once you get to a certain point, this between two to twenty million dollars, right? This is a space that you really need to be focusing on your team and them getting the right outcome with your clients. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Um, in terms of let's go to let's move on to content. Um, so for anyone listening, you know, you can go on LinkedIn, um, pulls across it. You know, you you're putting out content, awesome content all the time. Um, and that's that's basically how we met, right? You know? Um you speak really clearly online, um, which is probably why your content cuts through, especially to me. Um, so what's your take on the way the sector loves, you know, acronyms and jugger? And like, do you do you think that providers make things harder for families and participants than they actually need to be? So um, yeah, because we use the we use reuse the same NDIS wording and and confusing term terminology all the time, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, it's it's quite amusing. Like, if you're I mean, no hate to the vanilla ice cream lovers out there. I'm not a vanilla ice cream lover. I like I like coffee chock chunk ice cream from Baskin Robbins. It's amazing, but I I have a specific flavor that I prefer, right? And I can see the different flavors, but if it was a room full of vanilla ice cream, I'd be really, really sad and it's all bland and boring. But the same thing is with content. When everyone's putting out the same thing with a slightly different logo, oh you know, we you know, we we believe in independence and inclusion. You know, we support people becoming you know independent and we're really we're person-centered care. Um Tommy Trout said this amazing at the summit. In fact, you know, I'd really hate to see what not person-centered care is, right? Yeah, it's that where everybody's playing at the absolute baseline, and they're all playing the exact same game, and they're all logos that all look so similar, the colors are all fairly similar. Yep. And what really stands out is the people who really have something to say, who actually go, yeah, here's what we're actually doing. Yeah, if we if we were to remove the word empowerment from all of our content, what would we replace it with? And it's probably three or four sentences. Because now you're getting really specific on what you really mean by someone being empowered.

unknown 13:49

Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Everyone says it's exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

It's not like we're going about our day-to-day, you know, in real life, like saying, hey, do you want to be empowered? or like I'm such a you know, person-sensored person or something, right? Um, in terms of the algorithm, um, you know, people have this misconception about you know the algorithm. And in your in the content elective at the summit, I think you touched on this. Um, so what do you think people misunderstand about LinkedIn, say, and and content creating?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Um, you need to know who your audience is, right? This comes back to Nish. Who is this piece of content for and what should be the outcome of this piece of content? Um just creating across the board content um is not ideal when you're going, we're gonna post this on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram. There's four different markets there, and so it's gonna die in certain areas, it's gonna do well in others, but it's a way of people just being really slack with the messaging that they're putting out. I'm gonna put out something so generic that it works everywhere, which means it works nowhere, right? Um worry about like volume, right? About how I I can't do every day. That's fine, but consistency matters. If you do one really good post that you actually put thought into every week, you will get more traction than 10 posts a day that are just pouring rubbish that no one wants to interact with. Yeah, right. Yeah, totally. Um we've got a a saying, and uh it's you know, if you can really shatter some way, someone's way of thinking about something, they're gonna engage with it, whether it's good or bad, but that gets you in front of people, which is really, really that's the point, getting in front of people on mind.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, that's right, yeah. Cool. Um well, that's we'll we'll move on to the sector. We we've probably got a couple more questions to throw out. Um so I guess we're seeing a lot of changes in the sector at the moment, um, you know, in terms of core supports and and support coordinators, type of scrutiny. Um is, you know, there is really really cracking down at the moment. So what what do you reckon um you know the provided landscape looks like um over the next few years and what kind of businesses are going to come out strong?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah, look, the the standard is if you are systemized, you are um like a lot of people say that you know just being registered is fine. Register is is like a baseline. Um if you can actually show how you get results for someone, this really, really matters. Now, I do think that potentially smaller providers are really going to struggle in this space with the level of reporting and uh systemization that's gonna be required in a sort of space, but there are just as many large businesses who are operating just like a very, very small business because they you can't you can't trace a report through the business, right? You can't find out where it was done, what what was action with it, the the staff aren't doing shift notes, and so that's a problematic area of the business. Um there's way overspending on um people and time rather than giving people systems to use, which makes it actually better outcomes for the client. So over this next little while, uh I I tell everybody systemize like your hair is on fire because it is going to be a defining point of the businesses that work over this next couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah, yeah. And and you think that they should systemize early and and spend more time on that when they start?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Look, as you grow, the the idea of what got you here won't get you there is very, very true. But the your systems can be as simple as a checklist when you're onboarding a client, like a paper checklist on a board, right? That's a system, right? But then as you grow, you'll want to you know bring in more documentation and start to automate sections of it. So that checklist becomes an automation process. And then as you really, really scale, then there's people that run those automations that have that interpersonal connection to make sure it's happening, and the AI does so you can start with something really, really basic. A system is a checklist that you can follow a process of, and that scale, right? It just becomes a different iteration of the same thing. If you're still doing manual checklists and it takes you three weeks to onboard a client, you know, that that's a problem when you have you know a referral a day who are wanting to come and work with you.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, well, I guess like in terms of uh, you know, last question. So if there is a provider listening right now who feels like they're drowning a bit, what would what would you sort of tell them to focus on um the most when starting out?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Um the first thing to do with everyone we look at is jump in, see where you're spending money. Because nine times out of ten, you are not you are spending money in places you just don't need to be spending money on. Yeah. Um so doing an audit of your books, uh doing an audit of your process, like where where can you now be saving money? Like most people are using their software at like 10% capacity, right? And then they're being really inefficient in their other areas. Let's audit that and see exactly where you can be using those tools far better. And if you're using like something like Shift Care or one of those, um reach out to them and say, hey, this is what I do, how can I use this better? And they'll tell you, they'll give you a report on that. Um and then the next thing is just getting really, really clear on your niche of exactly who you serve because the more generic you are trying to cast a wider net, you're actually gonna help less people, right? So it's just getting really fun with people and getting in front of those.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

There's there's something to be said about niching, right? Um yeah. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Hang my head against the wall with the amount of people who go, no, no, I'm gonna help everyone. I said, No, you're not. You like that? I think it's arrogant to think you can help everyone.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

But you can help someone really, really well.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, great point.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

All right, well, uh uh where can we find you, Paul?

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Uh the easiest place is searching Paul Bryan Coach on on pretty much any platform or Paul at actionandintent.com.au.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Cool. Paul, thank you so much for being here. It's been lovely to chat to you.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Mate, so good being here. Uh great. I'm so glad I got to meet you. You have got uh a fire in your belly for the work that you do, and it's really infectious. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

All right, thank you very much. All right, Stuart.