When a client pays a builder a million dollars, they assume the builder keeps it. The reality is closer to fifteen percent, and that fifteen percent has to stretch across a build that might run two years.

In this episode Ange Scott sits down with Em Jackson of Jackson Dwellings to talk about the money side of running a building company, and the part almost nobody sees. Em came into the business from a completely different career, learned the numbers the hard way, and built the systems that took Jackson Dwellings from fumbling through to one of the strongest names in her area.

Between them they cover what a million dollar build actually leaves the builder, the high interest loans and the seven years it took before Em's business was making money, the fifty thousand dollar credit card Ange hid from her husband to keep food on the table, why Em charges for quotes and holds firm when clients push back, how she built procedure manuals and a team from nothing, and what it's really like being the only woman at the table at industry events.

Both of them are honest about the parts that still sting, including the backlash Em copped online and the assumption that because he's the builder, he makes all the money. If you're the one running the business side of a building company, you'll hear yourself in a lot of this.

She stood next to her husband when someone recognises the business and watched them turn straight back to him.

She's put three kids in daycare to build something she believed in, carried the guilt of that, and wondered if anyone would ever understand what her role actually was.

Em Jackson is the woman behind Jackson Dwellings in Gisborne, Victoria Australia and in this episode she doesn't hold back.

We talk about the phone call she made in tears when the business was at rock bottom, the high-interest revolving line of credit and what changed everything.

If you've ever been asked "but what do you actually do?" this one's for you.