A Successful Gas Engineer's Solution to Busy & Quiet Seasons w/ Dan Voice

If you're coming out of the winter months skint, you're doing something wrong. Yeah, I think there is work out there. You've just got to be clever in what you take on. There's a lot of companies out there piggybacking us. Use the winter to build your wealth. Build your wealth through the most profitable time of year. You know, you've hit hard times because you've got no buffer. You probably won't get credit because your business isn't solid enough to get a credit card because your business isn't sustainable. So there's a lot more to it than just what you charge. You won't be profitable through the summer. From a sole trader point of view and maybe somebody employing a couple of subcontractors, you should be.

This is the Field Rugger Podcast. I'm your host, Tullik Priest, and today we're joined by Dan Voice. Dan runs Prime Fusion, his own heating and plumbing business based out of OB near Leicester. He's been in the industry for over 20 years. Welcome to the show, Dan.

Oh, thank you for having me.

More than most trade companies go through highs and lows with the amount of work coming through the year. Today's episode is going to be all about what you can do as a tradesperson to make the most of when it's quiet. So what is it, what's it actually like, seasonality in your—

um, I'm fortunate because I do have two sides. I have a swimming pool side and a, and a plumbing and heating side, so I'm quite fortunate to be able to cover both bases. But generally, I, I tend to find that you get offered more plumbing-orientated work through the summer. Get the odd boiler breakdown, hot water side, this, that, and the other. But it is massively seasonal, like it goes absolutely bonkers from the minute that gets cold. Most engineers don't— feet don't touch the ground until mid-March, April. So that's the— that's your golden 6 months.

If, if you didn't have like the other bit, the, the plumbing kind of side and the pool, what would you actually do during the—

during the summer? I would just work sort of normal hours, probably, because, you know, I'm quite renowned for being out late doing late night callouts and stuff during the winter. But it definitely slows down through the summer, and you've got to remember people are on holiday, people are saving up for their holidays and stuff. So that probably the general economy hasn't got much money during the summer because it's all doing fun stuff. So you have to allow for that. Um, but no, um, I generally don't really do an awful lot of plumbing anymore. It's all boiler work and oil work and repairs and stuff like that, and LPG work and manufacturer work.

Is there a lot of swimming pool? You kind of mentioned swimming pools.

Yeah, there's a lot of swimming pools out there because I've got a lot of— I've got 20 years worth of clients, you see, 20 years worth of—

okay, you've been collecting them.

And most of my mates that know me, if they come across a job with a pool, I'm the first person they phone when they get into a spot of bother.

Okay, well, is it because there's not many kind of people?

No, no, there isn't. And There isn't really any major qualification for swimming pools. It's, you kind of do really learn that stuff, 'cause it's high-scale, big stuff. You're dealing with bacterias, chemicals, different ways of thinking with boilers and stuff. But it's, I've just been fortunate that I've allowed, that's happened. But it obviously didn't happen on its own, did it? It had to have some guidance. It doesn't just happen. But no, during the summertime, what I would be doing is putting a little bit away over the winter to see you through the quieter times through the summer. You know, doesn't have to be an awful lot, but you should should really be cutting your teeth on it financially through the winter. And just touching on slightly from the earlier podcast, getting the revenue in, charging properly through the winter will help you massively in the summer.

Okay, so you'll actually be relaxed, you won't be just no work and stressed.

Exactly, exactly that. And to be honest with you, the summers do come and go quite quickly. You know, you're into the summer, and as long as you've— you know, and I like to think if you can keep a sort of a £10,000 buffer in the bank heading— if you're, if you're £10,000 heavy out of, out of the winter, as a, as a rule, yeah, this is for sole traders, yeah, just for sole traders, depending on where you live. It's a really good comfort place to be. Yeah. If you've got £10,000 sat in the bank, there's like I said, there's companies with a lot more, but, um, you won't feel so helpless during the summer because that is another problem where people like, as soon as you've got no money, you think you're failing. You know, and you're not necessarily failing, it's just that you've not got your numbers right and you've not perhaps charged properly through the winter. And also work levels play a big part of it. It's all very well having your numbers right, but if no one's giving you any work, yeah, it's another, another, another conversation altogether. But there's ways around that, there's lots of ways around all that. There's, there's plenty of work out there, you just got to be savvy enough to find it.

Um, would you say that's true even during the summer months?

Well, savvy enough to find it, yeah. I think there is work out there, you've just got to be clever in what you take on. There's a lot of companies out out there piggybacking us, you know, as there are in lots of industries that want to offer you some work. So take that little bit of chicken feed, that little bit of feed over the summer, but just be clear with your intentions and goals that it's just a filler. Okay, so don't be, don't be too ashamed to take a bit of the filler work. I'm not going to name any companies, but if you're out there, you know who they are. Take it, use it to get by. Next year you'll be stronger.

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It'll be every year, kind of long term.

How do you like— well, what kind of things can you build sort of long term?

The things to build long term are going to be, um, good good quality, high-value customers.

Okay, how would you define that?

That's a tricky one because you've got to be careful how you word it. Um, ones that don't whinge about the bill, you know, you put a bill in, they pay it time and time again.

So they value something other than—

there's a lot of customers out there that do. Most of my customers, they go, oh yeah, it's not all yours, we know it costed it. They know it because most of the ones I've— a lot of my customers have businesses, you know, or they've got businesses, so they get it. Some customers don't get it, and don't waste your time trying to explain it. Don't set out, oh, I've got to pay for this, pay for that, pay for that. They're not interested. They're not even interested in what you have for dinner. They're not— they don't care what you pay. They're just interested in what you— they've got to pay you, you know. So your prices, your prices, as long as they're fair and reasonable, stick to them. You can give some long-term, long-term discount. I've got a lot of my customers now that have had sort of 3 or 4 years worth of landlord tickets, and I give them 10% discount because they give me 5 in one, in one block.

Okay, so you can go from one—

so I haven't got to travel. So there's no harm in giving them 10% discount because I'm going in a block of flats, I'm going from door to door.

Yeah, that saves a huge amount of time.

So use it fair and reasonably. If they ask you to go to 5 properties and there's half an hour, hour between them all, there's no reason for discount. No. You know, so play the game. Don't play the game, that's the wrong word. Just be savvy.

Yeah, or just be real.

And treat people fairly. And then you'll keep customers coming back. And I'm not the best at timekeeping sometimes because I get tied up. I'm not going to stand here and say I am, but just try and keep people in the loop. You know, there's going to be customers that you want to get rid of. Don't be mean to them. Just tell them, saying it's not for me anymore, because they will come along. There will be ones that you'll get some that—

I think it's quite important to be upfront about it as well.

It is really, because it comes back to what you said earlier about getting the right customers for your business.

Yeah, because if you just, um, if you don't tell them up front and they keep chasing you and stuff, there's—

it's a bit like you trying to sell your software to mechanics. Pointless, you know. It's, it's—

you need—

they need to fit your way of thinking. And one thing that did stand out to me during COVID times was I bumped into a plumber at a merchant's, and he was on but on his back, he was panicking. He didn't know what to do. And I said to him, how much are you charging? He said, £25 an hour. He said, I can't go any cheaper down. I said, there's your problem. Yeah, you know, you've hit hard times because you've got no buffer, you've got no backup. You probably won't get credit because your business isn't solid enough to get a credit card or a capital on tap or a funding circle. You're not going to get anything like that because your business isn't sustainable. So funders aren't going to lend you an overdraft, they're not going to lend you credit to get by. So there's a lot more to it than just what you charge. You've— your business has to look good to people that want to help you, you know. So, and that was his fundamental thing. And I said to him, so you think lowering your prices is the problem? I said, do you not ever think that maybe customers don't use you because you're too cheap? And buy cheap, buy twice.

And it's kind of— it's a tricky— I can kind of see his point, but, you know, it requires a bit of faith to actually put it up, you know, there's some fears involved.

Yeah, but let's face it, tolerant-judge, £20 an hour ain't going to go far.

No, definitely not.

Not when you consider there's probably only about 5 hours of billable time during the day because you've got travel, merchants, yeah, phone calls, something that goes slightly off. Yeah, if you have to go pick up an extra part or— Yeah, exactly, you know. Um, but yeah, so, you know, it's just knowing your worth, I think, is the— and the customer thing is a very difficult thing because it sounds— because otherwise you You gotta be careful you don't discriminate against certain types of customer. But there will be businesses out there, like, I hate to say this, but plumbing jobs often get picked, little Mrs. Biggins' little tap, dripping tap, the local handyman usually picks that up. Whether it's right or wrong, okay, it happens. Handymen put up shelves, you know, it happens. Garden taps get done by handymen because they're deemed in some people's eyes as menial jobs.

You know, it's kind of challenging though, like if you have—

but don't worry about it, just move on.

Yeah, it's a start of a relationship as well.

It is, yeah, it is. And often, often a lot of customers will get a plumber in to do a small job. Did he turn up on time? Did he do a nice job? Did he charge me fairly? Has he sent me paperwork? Has he got some good branding?

Yeah, all the basics.

All the basics. Yeah, they don't have to be super polished, just treat customers with, you know, decency, and they'll keep coming back. And you will find that they'll get you into doing— oh yeah, and then you'll come and do another job and they go, do you service boilers? Do you think this is all by accident?

You know, building the trust up.

I, I think, I think we, we don't give customers enough credit. I think they're— some of them are a bit sharper than they let on, with some exceptions, you know. But no, I think just building up— use the winter to build your wealth. Build your wealth through the most profitable time of year.

Yeah, and I think in the summertime you need to, um, you do need, if you can, take some time off.

Look, yeah, take some time off. I get out on my motorbike twice a week. During the summertime, go away for a couple of weeks. Yeah, separate times, go away bank holidays, reset, you know, and just chill.

Because if you're working like night and day during the winter, it's—

yeah, it's nice to have a bit of a—

your family needs to see you occasionally.

Yeah, exactly that. And, and if you're coming, if you're, if you're coming out of the winter months, skin you're doing something wrong.

Okay, so that's—

if you are broke at the end of March, you're doing something wrong.

So after the end of March, after you've paid your taxes, yeah, if there's nothing left, you have made one—

you're overspending.

Yeah, you're not ready.

You're living beyond your business, what you've set up. You're living way beyond your means. And the thing is, you see people— I hear it from accountants They'll say that, oh, he's had this, he's paid for this and paid for that, and then next minute he's whinging to me about he can't pay tax bills, you know, because you spent it on a luxury holiday that you couldn't really afford, but you could afford it because it was £3,000 in the bank a month ago, so you thought you could afford it.

Yeah, it wasn't your money.

It wasn't your money. You've got to remember as a business that money in your bank isn't yours. A lot of it belongs to HMRC.

Do you think that most of the challenges come around just this cash flow accounts kind of?

Yeah, I think just not being in touch with your costs problem because people, they might do half a dozen bathrooms and a couple of boiler swaps and they see £20 grand in the bank because all the customers happen to have paid on time. What they don't realize is probably 18 of that ain't yours, you know, and that, and that's the stark reality. But not because the big number's the problem, it's because the big number isn't big enough because you didn't charge enough for the 6 jobs you just did, you know what I mean? So big numbers is one thing, but once you cut all the fat off it and then you see £1,000 left at the end of it, it's a lot. Was it all worth it? Was it all worth it?

You only need like one of those jobs to go to pay.

And another thing, don't never get into a job that you can't afford to get yourself out of. If, if someone knocks you for some money and it takes you longer than 6 months to recover, you can't afford to do that without a deposit, you know. And that's, that's another thing altogether.

But I think you should be taking deposits.

Yeah, but there's people argue, no, I don't. If I know, if a customer's a really good customer and they've been with me years, I don't take a deposit. Yeah, I think that's an exceptional, exceptional— but that's my choice, and that's because I know that customer so well. But I'd never get into it. I'd never get into a job, certainly from my past where I've had been knocked, where if someone didn't pay me for a boiler, it was gonna ruin my summer. Do you know what I mean? And it's not a diff— it's a tough mindset and everyone goes, oh, they haven't paid me. I've sent them a bill and they've taken 2 weeks to pay. A lot of customers will sit there and want to make sure everything's okay. That's all it is. Yeah, there are exceptions, some a bit like holding onto it, but very few. You've got to be a special kind of person to have £4,000 worth of work done and have no interest in paying. It's a special kind of human, that is. And then we have court systems for people like that. So don't worry about it. As long as you've done everything right, just follow it up with debt collection or court.

Yeah. And as long as it doesn't slow you down.

Exactly. But if you're— if one boiler swap on a 5-year-old business is enough to wipe you out, again, you're doing it wrong.

Is this kind of highlighting—

these things happen. Unless like yourself, you've got, you are in a unique position and I hope you don't take offence to this, Taluk, is that all your subscriptions are done monthly by direct debit. So you, you kind of eradicate that problem. We don't have that luxury, not certain business models within our industry.

You could, you could do it if you want to.

You could do it.

Yeah.

There are service plans out there. You could do that to keep cash flow going. But this is what goes back to every business is unique and it's the way you set it up from day one and you have to understand all these little things. And obviously I've been self-employed 25-odd years, so I've seen it all. I agree with some things that are said, I disagree with others, and I think a lot of people's opinions are based on other people's negativity. So somebody will change their entire business model on something they've negatively seen on you on Facebook. That's it. Now every single customer is like that now because somebody's posted it on Facebook. So now everybody's treating all their customers like that based on one comment.

I think you need to be kind of careful because, like, what you focus on, you will actually get more of.

Yeah, yeah. So you focus on, yeah, negative stuff, you'll just become negative.

Yeah, and then the customers sort of pick up.

I choose not to look for negativity.

Yeah, no, definitely.

Move forward, get off Facebook, get off Facebook, get off Instagram. Yeah, there's some of these Instagram influencers and stuff making a few quid out of supplies and stuff, but that's what they do.

But you know, any other tips for, um, sort of going through the kind of the summer? Well, I guess the main one is—

yeah, we diverse again, we go off, don't we?

The main one is gonna make sure the winter counts.

Use the winter, just use the winter to make the summer comfortable. You won't be profitable through the summer.

Okay. So you're not losing money, but you just kind of—

Yeah. I mean, big— which demographic are we looking at? We looking at sole trader now, or are we looking— because I can't really comment on multiple—

just for sole traders.

From a sole trader point of view, and maybe somebody employing a couple of subcontractors, you should be sailing through the summer fairly comfortably. You're not going to be doing big numbers. Necessarily. That's the reality of it, you know. Um, if you are, fair play, good luck to you. Or diversify, you know, get all your stuff, get all your boiler service, get all your winter servicing, like your boiler swaps you've done during the winter, get them in. Try and get— I mean, it's a bit early perhaps for some of them, but try and get a servicing campaign through the summer. Do your servicing through the summer. But the problem is with a lot of customers is they don't want their boiler serviced in summer because they don't— they think, oh, get it done nearer to winter, that's when it's going to break down. That's the mentality of a lot of customers. So you struggle to get that sort of work in the summer because they want it doing in October just before they start using it.

But they're still using it to heat their water.

Exactly. But there's lots of other— I mean, you could leave service plans, you could— there's lots of things you can do. You can advertise outside taps.

How reasonable is it to actually try to move the service dates? Like, if you did like a discount for the—

it's difficult because you're chopping 6 months off their service regime, you see, and you're costing them money because you've brought a service 6 months forward.

But, but if you did that, you offered a discount, and then you'd only have to do that once, and then next year you could do that.

You could say, yeah, okay. Um, I think with servicing, yes, if it's not too far away, because it's an hour, hour and a quarter with the paperwork and tidying your tools away and doing a nice neat proper job, doing all the checks you need to do. Realistically, yeah, you could bring it forward slightly.

Is there anything else that you could do, kind of spread the work? Because you're kind of overloaded in the winter. If there's anything— yeah, um I know that's the time when you're doing the breakdowns, etc.

Yeah, there's radiators and things like radiator upgrades. There's all that sort of system upgrade, new cylinders, you know, sorting out people's loft tanks that looking a bit ropey and look like they're about to start leaking.

Do people actually want that done in the summer, or do—

I wouldn't want to do it in the summer personally in a loft, but there we go. But it's a very difficult one because predominantly boilers don't break down in the summer.

Okay, so, so people will just keep going until it breaks down?

Yeah, or the amount of customers that will wait until October, and then it just kicks off. Yeah, they'll know it's— but I've had them before, they've known the boiler doesn't work, and then you get a phone call in November, can you service the boiler? Oh no, we need a new boiler. I'm like, couldn't you have said something in June? You know, it does happen.

I kind of see it from their point of view if they— but if it's kind of working and looking along, there's networking.

You can do network during the summer, get in with people, get in with people that have got work that they don't want to do but you do want to do.

Are you talking about like people in the same trade or like other trades?

I mean, I mean, there's bathroom fitters, there's plumbers, there's heating engineers, there's oil guys, there's oil boiler jobs. Try and stall. Like, people will be like— what you want to look for, I think, is, um, people that are thinking about having their boiler swapped but it's working. So say to them, look, I'll tell you what, if you can wait till June, or March, April, May, June, July, I'll do you 10% off if you wait till June. Then that way you're doing— you haven't got to rush around. You, you can, you can take— not take your time, but you can, you know, you're not— you can chill out. You can chill out.

You're not trying to do like a repair.

Yeah, you've not got—

while you're trying to do a boiler install.

If you— oh Dan, I'm thinking about having a new boiler, it's working at the moment. I said, yeah, let's have a look now, see what sort of numbers we're at, and then I'll do it in the summer for you. Just try and navigate your way to getting some of that less needy work pushed into the summer. Obviously it's a bit difficult with drippy taps and stuff like that, and obviously live leaks and stuff like that, they've got to be done now. But there's lots of other work like upgrades you know, solar, there's heat pump stuff that people will inevitably want to look at, or the new, new oil tanks, for instance. Unless they're— if they need to be done but they're not leaking and they're passable and they can stretch, push it to the summer. Push all— rather than trying to— there is an old age-old saying, don't set yourself on fire to please others, you know. Just, you know, yes, it needs to be done. Is it immediately necessary?

So anything, just kind of—

yeah, just say, look, you know, it's not— and offer a small discount if they wait till the summer, you know. And I know a lot of guys are load— there's a lot of guys out there that are loaded up through the summer. I could be, but I choose not to be because I have other things to do, like go away and do fun things with my lad. But that's because I've done it through the winter. But I definitely think, yeah, shifting your non-essential workload into the summer is a great idea.

And what about people that are just kind of like just going self-employed?

Do everything you can.

So before you go self-employed, you need to really make sure that you have—

you need to be on time, a bit of buffer to actually get you through the first month. Yeah, you've When you first start out, I think as a lot of lads will, just take whatever comes. And that's great because you need to get your name out there. But fundamentally, don't do stuff because if you keep changing taps day in, day out, the neighbor's gonna— she's gonna recommend you to the neighbor, and before you know it, all you're doing is changing taps. So you need to be careful you don't get stuck in a rut. So the more you do of something, the more likely you are to get recommended for it. So if you constantly fit boilers, you will constantly be recommended for for fitting new boilers. So if you keep telling people you don't do LPG or oil, no one's going to recommend you for it. So you'll only get recommended for what you continuously do. And if you do said activity well at a sensible price and everyone's happy, you will continue to get more of that work.

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Yeah, because if you overfocus because it pays the bills, you get stuck in a rut. Because then you've got all these people saying, oh, you changed the tap, you did a lovely job, and so-and-so recommended you. And before you know it, you're fixing washing machines, you know. Blocking stuff that handymen can do. And let's face it, there's a lot of stuff that should and shouldn't be in different trades and stuff. But yeah, just stick to your lane, stick in your lane. If you want to do boiler swaps, God help you, because doing boiler swaps every single day, I'm telling you now, you're going to be broken. Yeah, you need to decide, like, I'll do boiler swaps for 2 days a week, 3 days a week, do admin on another day if you're really busy so you don't have to work Saturdays and Sundays. In the office and then have Friday going out and looking at work, looking at new work for the following week and the week after.

So just kind of batch sort of like a De Vries style.

This mentality is it's got to be done out of hours after 5 o'clock. Well, that suits the customer because they're home, but your family time is also important. So also this will also highlight where you're not charging enough, because if what you're charging isn't covering you to go and look at work, then you've lost money on that day you've gone to look at work, you know, so you're working for 4 days a week for nothing. Whereas if you price properly, you average out Yeah, so it needs to cover the— yeah, it's free at the point of execution to the customer. Because although I do think that will start coming back with the amount of time wasters that I'm seeing, but time wasters will always be time wasters. But I think if you're charging properly, you know, I know there's people out there chucking boilers on the wall for a couple hundred quid a day, they won't be around for long.

No, it's just not sustainable.

No, it's not, not long term. It's all right if you're working for someone You shouldn't be doing it anyway, but you know, that's another topic. But it's, um, yeah, just build sustainability into it. Do what you want to do when you want to do it. Remember that family time is important. Remember your weekends are important. There's nothing wrong with working on a Saturday morning for a bit of overspill from the week. Nothing wrong with that. Also remember, don't overbook your diary. I do it, I do it, I'm guilty of it. So it's how I can convey it as an issue. So if you're booking out 6 jobs a day every day known jobs and you know you've got to be there. What happens when Monday's job needs a new fan that needs to be ordered, that they need to go back on Wednesday and do it? No room, is there? So then it gets shifted to Saturday morning. Customers without a boiler all week because you— or you're fitting in it at 5 o'clock. This is true. This is very— a very true statement. Now, there's an awful lot of money to be made as a plumber, but because of the way it works and you have to travel to people, you have to do the hours. It's not an office job.

There's no—

it's not an office job. You can't escape it. There is great money in it, but you've got to, you've got to work really hard, and there's no escaping the hard graft. You're not going to make thousands of pounds working 3 hours a day. It just won't happen because the logistics of moving, moving that van around and the overheads and the fact that you've got to get from job to job, put fuel in, you've got to stop for fuel, you've got to stop for lunch, you have a coffee, you've got to chat to a customer about what's wrong. Because there's so much stuff that isn't physically chargeable. It has to be caught up in the cost of the fan. It has to be caught up in the cost of the hourly rate because there's so much— if you can imagine, oh, chatting to you, put on your invoice, chatting to customer about fault, 30 minutes. You, uh, you also don't think I have to explain to you how that's going to go down?

Yeah, there's not going to be.

No. So we, we absorb it through our 80. Anywhere— I think the going rate now is somewhere between £65 and £100 an hour. I'm seeing guys regularly advertising on their own websites £99 an hour. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, when you need that, otherwise—

yeah, you do need that. And some of these guys are running WITCH and they're running all these other accreditations that require time out to verify. Gas Safe inspections, everything else is so— these lads, they don't realize how much overhead they're actually— the silent overhead. Yeah, you don't see it until some— and then they stand there and, you know, and again, I won't say the fees because you never know who watches this, but you can find it all online. And then they whinge about the fee coming out for Gas Safe. And it's like, right, you're moaning about that few hundred quid against the £150 grand turnover. It's a difficult one to quantify. But as you said earlier, there's lots of £150 quid. So it all strolls back to know your numbers because I think there's more unbillable overhead than there is billable.

Probably, yeah.

Because if you think about like a boiler repair can take anywhere from half an hour to an hour depending on what's wrong. You know, you got a good— if you've changed something gas-wise, there's a good 20 minutes of gas checks, flue gas inlet tightness test if you've broken into anything.

So, so kind of like in summary, like for the quiet season, it's all about just making the money in the winter.

Yeah, I, I think it's the only way forward, tolerant-judge-judge. I think it's the only way, cuz it's, it's your golden— it's your golden time of the year, it's your gold mine.

Yeah, that, that's fair enough, you know. Well, thank you very much for coming on to the podcast, Dan. That's been Very helpful, and we've enjoyed having you on here.

No problem.