Matt Chilingirian
I've lived the admin chaos from both sides of the counter: as the owner whose business ran out of his head, and as the bloke on the tools watching the owner drown in it. XLCR is me fixing that for other people, on site, with the crew.
I run my own affairs on exactly the kind of register-and-guard system I sell. That's the demo.
Every job on this list taught me something I now install for clients.
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2002 to 2007 · Sydney
Apprentice, then qualified lithographic offset printer
Direct Impressions. Certificate III in Printing Machining and Graphic Arts. Ran the shop when the director was away, in my twenties, which is where I first learnt that a business is a set of jobs that have to flow, not a pile of tasks.
What it left me with: respect for process, deadlines that can't move, and getting it right the first time because the paper's already paid for.
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2007 to 2009, then on contract
Installations Manager, Exercise Australia; then TechFit
Fitted out the equipment in 16 Anytime Fitness gyms around the country, plus clubs for Orangetheory, Snap, Jetts, Crunch, BodyShape and independents. Ran four installation crews and their vans. When Exercise Australia went under in the GFC, the operations manager started TechFit and I worked with him between jobs.
What it left me with: scheduling crews across states, delivering to a hard opening date, and the hundred small handovers that make or break a fit-out.
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2009 to 2012 · Sydney's Northern Beaches
Travel Consultant to Store Manager, Flight Centre Group
Started on the floor at Flight Centre Warringah Mall, Assistant Manager at Warriewood, then Manager of Escape Travel Warringah Mall: a team of eight, about 60 holidays a month, and one of the group's top-selling consultants.
What it left me with: running a retail shopfront with staff, targets, rosters and a booking system. It's the same shape as a salon, a clinic or a studio.
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2013 to 2020 · Mackay, Queensland
Built Anytime Fitness Mackay from the ground up, and owned it outright
Found the site, handled the lease, council and DA approvals, then ran the build myself: builders, chippies, sparkies, concreters and every other trade, with my own hands on the tools to keep costs down. Brought a brand to a town that had never heard of it and ran the club for seven years. Part-owned the Mount Isa and Kalgoorlie clubs along the way.
What it left me with: what it costs when a variation isn't written down, what a trade does when nobody's coordinating, and how an owner ends up as the message relay for everything.
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2014 to 2026 · Queensland coal mines
Twelve years operating the biggest machines in the country
Started in drill and blast, then Hail Creek, Peak Downs, South Walker Creek, Foxleigh, Daunia and Meandu. Excavators from 350 to 550 tonnes, dozers, dump trucks, autonomous-haulage sites. Multi-skilled, permanent and contract.
What it left me with: systems that are followed because people's lives depend on them. Pre-starts, take-fives, procedures, handovers. That discipline is what I bring to a contractor's paperwork.
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2021 to 2026
Mine Emergency Response Team: fire and rescue
Emergency Response Team member at Foxleigh and Meandu. Certificate III in Emergency Response and Rescue. Advanced resuscitation, oxygen therapy and pain management, kept current.
What it left me with: calm when it's going wrong, and the habit of rehearsing the plan before you need it.
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2020 to now
Finance broking, and XLCR
Ran a finance broking business, with all the compliance, documentation and client-file discipline that comes with it. XLCR Pty Ltd was registered in 2021 and is now where all of the above gets put to work for other small businesses.
On site. With the crew.
Discovery is silent: day one I work or shadow and watch how the work actually flows. I audit from what I've seen, not what I've been told. I fix three things, not thirty. I build in the tools you already run, and I make sure the foreman can use it from a phone, or it won't last a fortnight.
Then I measure: owner hours on admin, days from job close to invoice, days to get paid, "where is X?" calls. Before and after. That's how you know it worked.
- XLCR Pty Ltd, ACN 647 794 492, registered 2021
- Based in Sydney. Travels for the right job
- Fixed price, quoted after a discovery call. No lock-in on a first engagement
- No client's material is ever used to sell to another. One client, one file
- Not a WHS consultant, lawyer or accountant. Where you need one, I say so and tell you what to ask them
Twenty minutes on the phone, or a day on your site.
Tell me the sentence you keep saying about your business. That's the thing we fix first.