Gubbs Motors has been operating in Warkworth since the early 1900s. Over a century of mechanical work, the same Hudson Road address, a reputation built entirely on doing good work and reliability. When they came to us, the website didn't reflect their quailty and current services.
That's a pretty common starting point with trades businesses. The work is genuinely good, the reputation is great, the clients keep coming back and referring new ones. But somewhere along the way the branding got left behind, or was never really sorted in the first place, and the way the business looks online doesn't come close to matching what it's actually like to work with them.
We see this a lot. A mechanic who has been in business for decades. A flooring company whose craftsmanship is obvious the moment you walk onto a job site. A fitout team that commercial clients keep recommending to each other. Good businesses with a real point of difference, competing in a space where first impressions matter, and presenting themselves in a way that undersells who they are, what they do and who they do it for.
The other thing we see a lot is how time poor these people are. A tradie running a busy operation doesn't have an etie afternoon to spend talking through brand strategy. They're on the tools, they're managing jobs, they're running a business with physical demands on their time. The idea of a lengthy design process can feel like just another thing to deal with, which is often why it keeps getting pushed down the list.
We keep it to one simple compact conversation about where the business is, who it's trying to reach, and what it needs to look like to get there. From that point we take it and run. We do the thinking, the research, the design work, and we come back with something they can respond to. We don't need them to become experts in branding. We just need them to be good at what they do, which they already are.
The reaction when trades clients see the finished work is usually the same. Better than they ever imagined. Not because we've transformed the business, but because for the first time the outside finally matches the inside. The quality that was always there is now visible to anyone who finds them online, gets a quote from them, or pulls up behind one of their vehicles on the road.
Gubbs Motors now has a website that reflects over a hundred years of history in the Warkworth region. The image filenames, the copy, the structure, all of it built around the way their actual customers search for heavy diesel servicing and mechanical repairs in the area. A business that old deserves a web presence that works as hard as they do.
If you're a trades business that has been putting this off because it feels complicated or time consuming, it really doesn't have to be. The conversation is straightforward. Everything after that is our job.
