78% of customers
go with the business
that responds first.
I catch the calls you miss, the enquiries you forget to chase, and the 5-star reviews you always mean to ask for.
I turn them into booked work and take care of your whole digital admin, leaving you to focus on what you’re good at.
Ryan, your neighbourhood digital expert.
I'm a local, and like you, I run my own small business here in Perth: Aesthetic DJs.
So I know the feeling. You're flat out doing the actual work, and the small stuff slips.
So rather than keep losing customers and losing my weekends to it, I built the fix.
I built and developed the systems, processes and automations that handle it all in the background: catching every call and enquiry across every platform, politely asking your happy customers for reviews, keeping your online presence active, and staying on top of the admin so you don't have to.
The tech I built behind it is genuinely complex, and there's nothing else like it I've come across in Perth. But you never have to touch it or even think about it.
Here's the thing: I built this for myself first. To stop losing work, to win more of it, and to get my own time back.
Now I set the same thing up for other local businesses, and it does exactly that for them.
That's Groundwork.
"The average Aussie small business spends 81 days a year on admin."
Brian Finn · A Local Testimonial
"I bumped into Ryan at the Irish pub where I was singing for $300 a night. He made me a stunning website, but it was the Groundwork™ that meant I never lost an enquiry again. I've since booked five $1,400 weddings off it."
Brian Finn Singer · Perth
Six months of "we're working on it." A week to get a reply to an email. No phone number, no actual person to talk to. Not one new customer.
"Responding to calls, DMs, emails, enquiries within 1 minute boosts conversions by 391%."
Agencies still operate and price like it's 2010. Big office, big team, big promises, big delays, big overhead. Lock you in. Make you wait. Charge you extra for the bookings and enquiries that should've been built in from the start.
You're the one paying for all of it.
Cheaper, faster, and half of it the agencies don't even do. All run by one local who picks up the phone.
"Aussie businesses lost $0 billion of customers due to missed or slow replies in 2025."
Meet Jim, a painter flat out on the tools most days. And Sally, a local chasing a $3,000 paint job before she sells her home. Sally rings Jim on her lunchbreak.
The dedicated time he sets aside to return missed calls, DMs, and emails.
Jim tells Groundwork the times that suit him — most pick their drive home. Set once, runs from then on.
When a customer goes to book a callback, the only slots they can pick are the ones Jim already said suit him. He never gets booked at a bad time.
No answer. About to try the next painter on the list.
The old way — she rings the next painter and Jim loses a $3,000 job without ever knowing it existed.
She knows a call is coming. She stops ringing around.
Her name, number, and job details ready before he gets in the car.
Drive home, booked in. $3,000 job. No phone tag, no missed opportunity.
Got a callback as promised. Didn’t have to chase. Jim’s her painter.
Warm, on-brand. Jim never does the awkward ask.
Most businesses never respond to their reviews — a missed signal Google notices. Groundwork posts a warm, on-brand reply. It tells Google Jim is active, and tells the next reader he cares.
Fresh reviews plus owner replies push Jim up the rankings. Next person searching “painter near me” finds Jim first.
Australian small businesses spend 0 days a year on admin.
That's the chasing, the replying, the updating, the keeping-it-all-straight. I take the lot off your plate, so you can put the phone down and get back to the work you actually do.
Agencies make it complicated. I do three simple things: stop you losing customers, bring you more, and take the digital admin off your plate. Here's exactly what that means, and what each piece would cost you anywhere else.
Same work. Often more. A fraction of the price.
One simple price to build everything and get it running. No surprises.
Everything in the section above, the whole lot, handled for you from day one.
I set the payment plan up on purpose. I understand a website and the system behind it is a real investment, and not everyone wants to fork out the lot upfront, so I split it into fortnightly payments across six months to keep it gentle on your cashflow. No credit checks, no interest, no catch. You're on the full setup the whole time, working for you from day one. Once it's paid off, it drops to a simple ongoing monthly to keep everything running, and we sort the right level for you then. Rather pay it in one go? That's fine too, your call.
An agency would charge you $5,000-plus to build this, then $600 to $900 a month to run it. Same work. One local. A fraction of the price.
Book a quick chat →If you've got a team, a high volume of enquiries coming at you from every direction and platform, or just more moving parts than a standard setup can handle, the standard setup above isn't built for you. This is where I build something properly tailored to how your business runs. Let's grab a coffee so I can hear what you do, and I'll put together a setup made to fit.
The average Groundwork client pays for their entire year of Groundwork services within the first month. Just 3 additional customers either saved or gained, and the rest is pure profit.
Agencies are pretty extortionate to be honest. Priced for a team of six and a fancy East Perth office to pay for, they've been slow to embrace the digital tools that make expert business service more efficient. I'm one local person with none of that overhead. Put simply, you pay for my work, not the building it's done in.
Think of me as Uber to the taxi industry in 2010.
Most people go with the first business that gets back to them, and replying in minutes beats replying hours later many times over. The average small business takes around 47 hours to reply to a new customer, and by then they've already put their money in your rival's pocket.
I build the system that closes that gap. The moment someone calls, DMs, emails, or fills in your form, they get a reply in seconds, even when you're up a ladder or out on a job. Miss a call? They get a text with a booking link before they've had a chance to try someone else. Every enquiry caught. Every one.
Good on you, that's a strong spot to be in. But being booked out is exactly when you've got the upper hand. Every call you'd otherwise miss is a customer you can be choosy with, pop on a waitlist, or a reason to nudge your prices up.
Aussie businesses lose around $8 billion a year in missed calls alone, and the busy ones lose the most, because they're flat out and can't pick up. I make sure none of it gets away. Worst case, you're turning work down with a full calendar and rising rates. Best case, you're building the reputation and the reviews that keep you fully booked for years.
Yep, all of it, and you won't lift a finger. After every job, your customer gets a quick, friendly nudge to leave you a Google review. I'll be honest, I run my own business too, and even being good at what I do, I always forget to ask, or it feels awkward. So I made it happen on its own.
Every review that comes in, good or bad, I respond to in your voice, the same day. Google loves fresh reviews, so a steady trickle of new five-stars quietly bumps you up the list right when someone nearby is searching for what you do.
I'll give it to you straight, because the agencies won't: this is a long game. Anyone promising your phone will ring off the hook next week is having you on. Real marketing is a slow build — it usually takes a good six to nine months before you see the proper fruit of it, and anyone who tells you different is selling you something.
Here's what actually happens. The first couple of months we get the foundation right: site live, Google profile sorted, every enquiry getting caught from day one. From there it compounds — you get found locally, the reviews build, customers stop slipping through the cracks. I built my own Perth wedding business, Aesthetic DJs, from nothing, so I know exactly what brings the work in, and I know it doesn't happen overnight. I'm not the bloke promising you the world by Friday. I'm the one who lays the groundwork that pays you back for years.
In plain English: SEO is whether you show up when someone Googles "your trade near me" in your suburb. That's how locals find you. Agencies charge $500 to $1,000 a month for a "Local SEO Package," most of it filler reports.
What actually gets you found is a Google profile set up properly, kept active, collecting reviews, on a fast mobile site. I do all of that, baked into your monthly, not a separate line item.
You own it, always. Your domain is registered in your name from day one and stays yours. Cancel anytime. No lock-in, no exit fees, and I'll hand over your content.
Worth knowing: the monthly is what keeps the system running, the auto-replies catching enquiries, the Google profile keeping you found, the reviews getting answered. Cancel and you keep the website; you just lose the system working in the background.
Not at all. Your site goes live and the whole system starts working within about two weeks of us getting started — catching enquiries, answering reviews, the lot. The $199 a fortnight just spreads the build cost over about six months so you're not hit with a big bill upfront. It's not finance and there's no lock-in: it's simply an easier way to pay for work that's already up and running for you from day one. Once the build's paid off, it moves to a simple ongoing monthly to keep everything running.
Once the build's paid off, the fortnightly payments stop and it moves to a simple monthly to keep everything ticking over — and because it's monthly now, not fortnightly, it's roughly half what you were paying during the build.
There are three levels — Locals, Locals Plus and Locals Pro — depending on how much you want me handling, from $199 a month. But you won't be picking blind off a menu. By then we'll have six months of real numbers on your business — where your enquiries actually come from, what's bringing the work in, what's gone quiet. So I'll shout you a coffee, we sit down, go through what's genuinely working for you, and sort the level that fits. Might be you don't need the lot — and if that's the case, I'll be the first to tell you. No lock-in either way, so you're never stuck on the wrong one.
Honestly? You'd be lucky to get out under $5,000 just for the website, then $600 to $900 a month on top, and half of what I do they don't even offer. Add up a separate SEO package, a review tool, an enquiry system, someone to answer your messages, and you're well past two grand a month with three different invoices.
I roll the lot into one build and one honest monthly, done by one person who picks up the phone. Same work, a fraction of the cost, and nothing buried in fine print.
