What Day Trading Taught This Plumber About Pricing w/ Edward Lovell

One of the biggest things in our trade is displaying really good work. No one invites people around to come and look at my fancy pipework because it's not a priority to the customer. It's the experience that's a priority to the customer. You leave and then you go, 'I'll give you a quote back in, you know, in 2 weeks' time,' and then the quote doesn't turn up. They're not thinking, 'Oh, I wonder if he's really, really busy and he's under pressure.' They're thinking, 'He doesn't care about me.' And if they don't think you're interested, why are they going to want to employ you? You've got your van, signwriting, very, very similar to the next plumber. Your uniform, very, very similar. All you guys, you all sort of blend together. So how am I gonna differentiate between any of them? Well, the only thing that they've got is price.

Could you give us an example, like a service that you offer and how you kind of position it?

Sort of giving away the keys to the crypt, innit, a little bit. So I'm not gonna give the exact offer, if that's okay, but I will say how I frame it.

This is the Gas Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Tullik Priest, and today I'm joined by Edward Lovell. A heating and plumbing company owner, and we'll be discussing how to transition from self-employed to business owner and also covering the psychology behind pricing. Welcome to the show, Edward.

Hi, Tarek, and thank you very much for having me on.

How is day trading— because you did day trading— so how did that kind of change how you view, you know, what you do as a gas engineer?

There's various things it sort of provided you with. I think, um, I think one of the, one of the most profound things I came away from it was seeing the recurring patterns in how everything works. So how relationships work, how business works, how trading works, how anything that with a commonality is people and understanding that those, because people are involved, that there is essentially like a common theme. So when it comes to trading, one of the things that again was quite profound was you've got the market itself and that market is, and the rules for that are fundamentally the same as any market. So whether you're trading, selling groceries or doing plumbing and heating, the rules for the market are the same. But one of the rules is supply and demand. And what one of the big drivers is, is supply and demand, is how people perceive value. And there's one thing that I was— I wouldn't say I was necessarily blind to it originally, but it wasn't something that was massively on my radar prior to trading. Like, you sort of see plumbing from the perspective of an engineer and going, well, this is about me doing a job and then providing the service, and then the whole thing's over. Whereas it, it's more than that. It's, it's more about providing, providing a solution that somebody needs. You're fixing somebody's problem on more of a visceral level.

So that need would be like, let's say, in the wintertime, it'd be warm. Summertime.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, it's, um, so it's, it's really primal to, to want to be, want to be warm. So during the winter months. So if you were to go back 100 years, 200 years, to a degree even present day, there's cold is a killer. So it's really, really primal to want to be warm. And understanding human drivers, what drives human behavior, so moving away from risk or moving towards abundance, that comes from trading. Because people love to understand that because it helps them, they think, try and predict the market. You can never predict the market. But because it is the amalgamation of human psychology, understanding why people do things is really vital. And our job is crucial. It's crucial to understand where the customer's pain is. So you've got it with boilers in the winter. It's really obvious. And I think all engineers know that, that you're gonna get busy in winter. It's not so much the fact that it's mechanical in the sense that the boilers are breaking in winter 'cause people are using them. There is that element to things, but people need to get it fixed. Like if that boiler breaks on the heating side in the middle of summer, customers less inclined to sort of get it fixed as quickly. The pressure's not there and it's not. You see the same thing in other parts of our industry. So take SaniFlows for example, so, or blocked toilets and such. If the amenities aren't functioning properly, the need to get it fixed is quite intense. So you've got a level of pain associated with the toilet not working properly. You then change your industry and you look at, say, nursing homes as an example. So that's maximum pain because they have to have that working. There's absolutely no middle ground. And that shift in perspective and me seeing it differently, seeing it from a person's point of view, not from a what can I fix, but from a psychological standpoint, what do people need, what do people want? It completely changed how I wanted to A, offer what we were doing, and B, what direction the business needed to go in.

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So, so this, this is all around the psychology of, of pricing, essentially how you position it, how you explain it, how you talk about it, and the actual price as well. So do you charge by the day, or, or how do you charge your time?

I used to, I used to charge per day, and I used to charge by the hour depending on what we're doing, and I stopped doing that because it was— it makes it really easy for the customer to sort of commoditize what you're doing. It's really easy to compare your rate to somebody else's, and they stop looking at what, what you do in the marketplace. When you got supply and demand, you've got— so we are supplying a service to the market and the customer has a demand. So taking aside time of year and what it is, but demand is, is whatever the customer says it is. So your offer and, and what you're presenting to them and how you present that, you can essentially shift how demand is perceived. So if you're just going to go, for example, you got your van, signwriting, very, very similar to the next plumber, your hourly rate very, very similar to the next plumber. Your uniform, very, very similar. What then happens, all you guys, you, you sort of blend together. And from the customer's point of view, from a demand standpoint, they're going, well, I've got lots of supply, all looks the same, so how am I going to differentiate between any of them? Well, the only thing that they've got is price, so they can't really judge whether or not, like, honestly, outside of recommendation, whether or not you're much better than the other person. So they start looking at your prices and going, well, hang on a second, So-and-so's cheaper than you are. I don't really want to pay that. I'm gonna go and pay them instead. Whereas if you change, again, this goes back to the psychology standpoint. If you change what you're doing for them, what you're essentially doing, you're offering something different in comparison to the rest of the market. So it makes it really difficult for the customer to commoditize you. So therefore you could just work on price. And that's essentially the goal for 2026 is to refine the offer in such a way that I can see that the market I'm working in accepts it. Because I've got an idea, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work. Yeah, you've got a little bit of—

well, you need to test it out. Could you give us an example, like, like a service that you offer and how you kind of position it?

Um, sort of giving away the keys to the crypt, isn't it, a little bit? So yeah, um, I'm not going to give the exact offer, if that's okay, um, but I will say how I frame it. So I, I started off— this is like, like reading books, going on all this information, it was all on YouTube, and there's some really great resources for it. I haven't come up with any of these ideas myself. I've read a book and I've learned them elsewhere. So with creating, with creating an offer for the customer, you've got what— and this is from my point of view, how I was thinking previously. And again, this is the perspective shift. I was looking in going, well, I can fix boilers and I can, I can fix leaks, and these are all great things to do. And I know a little bit about working in dental practices and nursing homes, so on and so forth. So let's go and do that. But fundamentally, that's how the majority of other people are thinking as well. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Guys doing great jobs and they've got businesses working really, really well. But I sort of understood that if the survival rate of businesses at say 4 to 5 years is dropping off precipitously, it tells you that there's something that isn't being done because that's a lagging indicator. So I thought, well, perhaps this has got something to do with the market that I'm working inside of. And then again, through reading, etc., it became clear that by restructuring what we were going to offer, we could then in theory to a degree have a bit less competition. So to do that, it It was understanding that I'm not fixing problems for my business, I'm fixing problems for my customer. And what are their problems? And like, well, you'll sit there and you'll go, oh, you know, I think their main problem is they need a really good, a really good plumber, does really good, really good installations whose pipes are really straight and all polished. And when you actually do your research on this, and you can do this really easily, like just go onto Google, type in things hate about plumbers or customers hate about plumbers or main problems with plumbers, a different iteration of that. And then Google it. And then whatever forum you come across, like a Reddit or ScrewFit, it doesn't matter what it is, take the link, chuck it in ChatGPT, and ask it to pull out the, the main recurring problems in that forum. And I challenge you to do that with 100, 200 forums. I, I did, I did this exercise myself, and what you'll find is that the problems that come up aren't the problems that you think that you need to fix. They are obvious problems, they are really obvious problems. Most of it is to do with your timekeeping and to do with your communication. Communication around quotations is, is massive. Like, one of the biggest complaints was not getting quotes back. So the, the offer that, that, that we're building is based around fixing those problems. And it seems a bit abstract initially, but improving your communication, making it more fluid, having automation, using AI to your advantage, doing the same thing with your quotations, having different processes for touching base with the customer— these are all the things that start building confidence and trust in what you're doing, because they're all touch points for the customer. It makes them feel that they're important, because they are, and it makes them feel like they're getting value for what they're doing, because you actually— you care, you're professional, and you— everything you are signaling is signaling that. Cuz one of the biggest things in our trade is displaying really good work. And I— and don't get me wrong, I think a lot of it's missing, and there are some absolutely incredible guys on there. Don't you just go on, on Instagram? Some of the guys are so talented. But from a customer's point of view, objectively, if you were to show them 5 or 6 different jobs side by side, unless they were blindingly horrific, they probably couldn't tell you which one was right or which one was wrong or which one was better than the other. Not fundamentally. Like if you were to do enough data collection on it, because it's not that important to them on the grand scale of things. The communication, the feeling of safety, having the right person in their house, that's so much more important. All of the things that give them security, all the things that remove the uncertainty of like you're not turning up or you're doing a really bad job. It's all those things that are actually crucial to them. Like a little analogy for it is like if someone has an extension built, they have a brand new kitchen or a bathroom or whatever, and they invite their friends around, what they'll do, they'll come and go, oh, come look at my fancy kitchen and we've got all these different things and so on and so forth. And then they'll go, oh, look at my boiler. And then they'll open the door, look at the boiler and close the door. And nobody ever look at it again, and they won't. No one invites people around to come and look at my fancy pipework. It just, it doesn't happen because it's not the priority to the customer, and it's not. It's the experience as a priority to the customer.

So in summary, you would— it's all about getting into the customer's world, and it's how they experience your service, looking after them, putting them first, but with the underlying assumption that yes, you're doing a good job, it's going to work, etc.

Yeah, I— that there are certain things that, that have to be true no matter what. No matter what. Like, you know, like, it's doing it— being clean and tidy, doing a good job. You're supposed to do that. That's not, that's not a selling point. You're supposed to do that. That's part of what you do.

Yeah. Now I can definitely see how this would be, you know, like, from a customer's point of view. If I have to chase for a quote, people hate it. It's just not a good use of my time.

No, it's— if you think of it from like a more of a tribal basis, what does, what does it signal when you, you go out to a job and let's say you turn up to the job and you don't put shoe covers in before you go in the house, and you go in the house and then you seem interested but you're not really taking any notes down, and then you leave and then you go, oh, I'll give you a quote back in, you know, in, in 2 weeks' time, and then the quote doesn't turn up? What does it signal to the customer? It's not— they're not thinking, oh, I wonder if he's really, really busy and he's under pressure. They're thinking He doesn't care about me. They might not be actively using those words in their head, but that's what you're signaling to them. You're signaling, I don't care, I'm not interested. And if they don't think you're interested, why are they going to want to employ you? And you've already fallen over at the first hurdle. You might be really good at what you do, but you haven't managed to get into the house. I think this is one of the things that feeds into these failure rates. So because when you first go self-employed, the first sort of 12, 24 months, maybe even 36 months, You're very much rolling off the back of your recommendations, people who know you. And then if you're going to try and expand the business, you're going to have to take on new customers, people who don't know you, people who are cold to you. So you're going to have to— you're not going to get away with certain things because there isn't somebody in your corner, somebody's friend, like Sharon's recommended you or something along those lines. They're not in your corner helping you saying, oh no, he's really, really good. Bear with him. Sometimes he's a little bit slow with his quotes. You don't get that because the customer doesn't really know you from Adam and they're comparing you to other people they don't really know from Adam. And at some point in time, you're going to have to enter that world. If you want to expand, you're going to have to. You're going to happen 100%. You're going to exhaust your warm, your warm leads. There's no two ways about it. And that's when things start to come unstuck. Like you don't have your systems in place for your quoting and your sales and your operations. You don't have these touchpoints in place. That's when you start getting punished for it. Absolutely punished because you haven't spent time building the system properly.

And these things need to be automated or as less friction for you as possible.

Yeah, especially you've got a lot of them, you know, is we're sort of moving into a world with, with AI. Like you could use AI and you can couple it with software platforms like Zapier. It's an automation platform. Not everyone know about it or MAN or something along those lines. And you can integrate that with all different sorts of software just to transfer information, send automated messages, have a chatbot, and it's like £30 a month to use it, but it gives you so much leverage in comparison. Like your software, prime example, it gives you so much leverage against your competition because you're collecting the information, you've got the touch points. Like for example, the, um, automated annual emails for servicing Gas Safe Engineer software. It's small, but it, it it takes something off your plate. You don't have to think about it anymore. It's great having a data collection with your software as well when it comes to the boilers, GC numbers, etc., and the addresses. It takes all of this off your plate. You don't have to think about it anymore, and it allows you to focus on what you do best, and that's either doing your job or running your business.

I think one of the key points for any role is those open loops. Like, if you have to— I must remember this— that is calling out for you know, a different way to do it, because our brains are not built that way.

No, that's true. That's true. Yeah, we're, um, we can only store 5, 5 tasks or pieces of information currently, generally. Some people can do more. So in that current moment, you can remember 5 things, and as something new enters, enters your mind, one of those things drops off. So if, if you're in a position, especially when you're stressed, that actually gets a lot worse. You find yourself in a position that if you're relying on your memory for everything, you will forget when you get busy or stressed. You'll forget so many things. I know it from experience, you know, and again, the software, if you've got all the automation set up properly, they either do the job for you or they capture the information. So when you come back and touch base later on, it goes, oh, I forgot about that. And it saved my bacon more than once.

I think the other danger with the open loops is that if you have you're trying to remember all of these things, it steals from your current focus.

Yeah.

So you'll be slower and, um, you know, it's just not along— it's not the way forward.

No, I completely agree. So the fundamental problem you're fixing is, is getting engineers to transition from thinking like somebody who's self-employed to think like a business owner. As soon as you make that transition, like, from my point of view, that transition occurred and then it made perfect sense, perfect sense to get software. And then when I was searching for software, I came across you guys. I had a conversation with Alexa. She was great, absolutely fantastic. And it made perfect sense. You were a great fit, absolutely great fit. And the price range you're working inside of, you'd have to be psychotic to say no. It's such good value for money. I think it is anyway. And I, I've used the competition, and I have, and some of them are very good, but they try to do too much, in my personal opinion. They try to get do a little bit of sales, a little bit of this. What you guys do, you do what you do and you do it well. I really enjoy using the software and it's been really, really useful. Really useful. Thank you.

I'm glad it's been useful. That is where the major, you know, where they, where people just really struggle. It's where we struggled. And if we can avoid, help other people avoid, you know, the same, you know, very slow learning curve that we went through. Yeah, yeah, no, because we feel that we've had business coaches, you know, for 12 years or so. It's various ones, some are very good, some are mixed, let's say.

Yeah, that's fair, that's a fair assessment.

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I like the fact that you sort of shared part of your journey as well. That was really nice. I like that. Makes you seem human.

Thanks. Seem human. I like that choice of words.

I'm only playing.

That's it. It is like you do definitely, like whatever you do, like you say with the, the trading, it changes how you view things. And then, you know, running a business, it changes how you see— you really appreciate, like, like when you look at any business, it's a reflection of that person's leadership, their beliefs. So you can, you tell where their focus is, you know, where they're strong, whatever business you look at. Yeah, I find other businesses very fascinating.

Yeah, it's, it's— yeah, when you, when you start getting involved in, in that world, it's very interesting. Very— like, there's things that were lost on me, like, um, business vision, because it sounds like really corporate. What's your, what's your vision and what's your culture? And it wasn't until I spent a bit of time with the coach and he was— he, he gave me some books to read. There's one by a chap called Simon Sinek, Start With Why. And I read that, and it starts to dawn on you, like, the, the belief is so important because you're driven by your beliefs. So how you see the world, and you see it with religion, don't you? Like, people are driven by, by their religious beliefs. And in business, it's very much the same sort of thing. You're driven by the direction you're going in, what you're trying to achieve, and you're driven by your, your values and, and the culture within the business, and if people don't buy into it and your employees don't believe you, it makes it really difficult to drive that business forward. Like, really difficult.

I think the kind of the thing about, um, the beliefs and the vision is that some of it is a bit like a chair. You've got varying legs, and these— one of the challenges as a business is that you need to grow all the legs at the same time. So, um, but what I mean by that is that if you try to Like when you transition from like being self-employed to self-employed, you need to actually go and try some of the stuff. And then like if you tried to build a vision before you actually made that transition, you wouldn't have the commitment and the true belief behind it. It's only until you've experienced some of the pain first, then you actually, okay. And then if you don't actually believe the vision properly, there's just no need to have it. Because it's not going to add any value whatsoever.

That's true. It's very— to be fair, that's very true. It's very, very true.

But you need— unfortunately, you just need to go through some of the stuff. There doesn't seem to be like a real shortcut to it.

There's no shortcut in life. There's, there's no such thing as a cookie-cutter approach to anything in life. So whether it's— you see this in trading a lot. It's always somebody trying to sell you sell you the dream. There's always, oh, just do this and you'll make this amount of money. And when I came back to looking for coaching and such, it was the same thing. There's always somebody trying to sell you a little bit of a dream. And one thing I, I learned a long time ago was if no one's selling you the hard truth that this is going to be difficult and you are going to have to, you know, there's gonna be blood, sweat, and tears on, on some level, and you're gonna have to give a little bit of yourself to make this work, And quite rarely, like you said, you won't know until you've gone and experienced it and then look back and reflected on, on those experiences. And then you adjust, you course correct. If anyone's selling you anything other than the truth, then I would probably avoid that coach, mentor, advertiser, marketing like the plague, because it is, it's, it's difficult, but it's so rewarding when it, when it starts working. Is really rewarding. Yeah, it's a great process.

I would say for coaches, I would— I have a slightly different view for coaches. If you're looking for coaches, I think it's okay if you— there's a kind of a concept or a thought about chocolate broccoli. So people will sell you the chocolate, but what you really need is the broccoli. Yeah. So you have the chocolate broccoli. But, um, if you were to look for a coach, my view would be look for somebody who's actually done it before. They must have done it, they must have got to a higher level than where you want to get to.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm with you most of the way. There's— you got the thing called outcome bias, so it's easy to, um, to think because somebody else has achieved something that because they've achieved that, they then have the ability to get you there. I think like a lot of people who are successful have a lot of really valuable insights, and so there is an element of truth to it, but I think there's there's a bit more. They, they need to be good at getting people there. So yes, I agree with you, they need to have achieved something, it's vitally important, but they also need to, need to be able to show that they've got other people there as well. Because coaching and then doing something yourself are two very different things, because the journey that you've walked, your lived experience, is very difficult to transition that into somebody else. Really, really difficult. But then getting them to walk the path and understanding— like, your analogy with the chair is a really good one. You know, the chair needs to be balanced, and you know, you only do that by building, making sure that each leg is, is level. And that's one of the things that the coach got at the moment is one of the reasons I selected him, because of his approach. It's, it was a— it's a bit more systematic, but not from a 'if you do this, this is the outcome.' is going, this is sort of the structure of business, these are the different aspects of that business, these are things that you need to work on, but you need to work on it. I help you get there, but you need to work on it, and we'll walk you through that. And it very quickly became clear to me that this relationship had a lifespan, and he, and he was completely okay with that. I think if you— if the coach— you've got the coach and he's, he's for the transition of the business, they're there for too long they're probably not doing their job properly. Yeah, I don't— yeah, I don't want to coach for like 10 years, 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah, I don't want that.

I— yeah, I definitely take that insight about somebody that's actually coached somebody else to be there, um, because that's fundamentally the job, isn't it? It is true. The only time I would say the only exception to that, um, if there's a limit to the— I think all coaches have a limit, but if the coach is growing faster than you are, that limit can be longer. But if, if they're not really growing, I would say the time, the time span would be 6 to 18 months at the most.

Yeah.

Have you, um, is that something that you've experienced yourself? Because I think you've used coaches.

Yeah, we've had coaches actually, I don't know, it's actually 15 years we've had various coaches. Some have been exceptional and others have not a good fit. Um, that was fair enough.

Yeah, but I get that.

But, but you need to call it quite early on.

Yeah, that's true.

Um, but the problem is when you first start being coached, you don't know what good looks like.

That's very true, to be fair. Yeah, so it's not until you sort of walk down the path a little bit, you've got, um, you've got some frame of reference, haven't you? You've gone, you know, you know where you were and you know where you are now. If it isn't where you thought you were going to be, you sort of look back and go, I wonder why that is? And you start asking questions of yourself and of your coach and trying to what's happened. For me, so far, it's been more— I think everyone's journey is a little bit different, and what they need from it is different. I mean, we could have this conversation in 12 months' time, and it could be very, very different. And I'm completely open to, to that actually happening, you know, that the fact that things will be different. Um, but as it stands at the moment, it was understanding that I knew I had a skills deficiency, and I had to plug that gap. And it was finding— so You've got 3 ways of doing anything. You can pay somebody to do it for you, and that's like really expensive. You can go and buy books and courses and you can do it yourself. That's really quite effective, but it takes a long time because you've got to make a lot of mistakes. So I sort of opted with the coaching to go in the middle and find somebody to do it with me and sort of provide some sort of structure to work inside of. Like understanding that, like they don't teach me about finance, but they do teach me about the the structure of the business and those different roles. And they go, you need to— so one of the first things they did was structure out the organizational chart for your business. Now, yes, you're doing all the roles yourself, but structure out now, and then that needs to be structured in such a way that it would fit in sort of 3 years' time. The idea is that you're then working that organizational chart and you're looking, so where can we replace even in part one of those roles inside of the business? And inside of that role, what are the responsibilities that a person needs to do? So I think one of the first things people tend to do is hire a bookkeeper because it's not always a plumber's strong area, to be fair, when it comes to like invoicing and such. I think when we discussed 16% of invoices being paid sort of straight away, again, it sort of highlights, one, is that because customers don't pay on time or is that because the systems that the plumbers are employing aren't delivering what they needed to sort of deliver, if you see where I'm coming from. By sorting out the chart, I was able to understand like, cool, that's a role, I— that's not where my strengths are. I know that's probably going to be the first focus for me, to swap that time that I spend out for somebody else.

I think it's like, for me, a good business coach asks questions, because it— like, one of the challenges, like, if you first get coaching is that you're thinking, okay, I want to double my revenue, or whatever it is, But that is a very lagging metric. Very true. And it will take time for, you know, when I mean lagging, it's, you know, you have to do lots of other actions before it shows an impact. But if they ask you questions like and provide like a different way of viewing things, you know, like, for example, like just asking, why do you charge that amount? Have you checked out, you know, what the local demographics is like? What's the average income? How many households are within a certain radius? Like, how far do you want to drive? Let's look at your numbers. Is which postcode, is, you know, the average sale higher? I hesitate to say simple questions, but just things that kind of make you think, ah, maybe if I just focused, if you live somewhere dense, densely populated, maybe you just offer gas certificates. You know, that works very, very well for, you know, high densities. Obviously, if you're in Wales, you know, that's not going to work.

No.

That's the sign of a really good coach. And like, if they've been down this path before, they will have more of those kind of insights, and they'll also have a network that you can tap into.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's, um, I think that's a valid point. It's one of the things that's been a great benefit to me over my career is, is the ability to ask the right questions at the right time and be more analytical as to what's going on around you. I mean, sometimes it's an old saying, you don't know what you don't know, and sometimes you need some exposure to different elements of the business. And I think some people get that because they run into a problem, like something to do— for example, the terms, their conditions, and their quote are really bad, and they're exposed to quite a nasty customer who doesn't want to pay them. So they're then exposed to that part of the business, they are then forced to ask the question as opposed to asking the question in advance. So I've learned both ways, don't get me wrong. I don't think I'm the only person there either. But I think is if you've got the ability to ask quite probing questions of yourself and of the whatever you're doing, is it's got a great utility and it does help you grow. I think once you start doing that as well, once you form that process, like, like any system where you do ask questions of what's in front of you and it becomes a habit, one of the things as a business owner is one of the strengths I think you really need to have, because if you stop asking questions and you stop being inquisitive, I think you, you run the risk of stagnating and staying in one place, or at least missing something.

Yeah, I think it's not possible to stagnate. You're either growing or dying.

It's true.

And I think sort of going back to the— where we started with the vision, the way that I see a vision is, um, as a filter. So you can say, here's my vision, this is where I want to get to, And then if you firmly believe that and that's actually what you want, you've worked on it and you're committed to it, then when stuff comes in, you can say, does this get me closer or further away to my vision? And once you have that focus, that's when the company will actually grow.

Having direction— where are you going? You know, is— I think so many people, when they transition from being self-employed to being and sorry, the transition from being employed to being self-employed, i.e., a business owner. It can be through— I think people want freedom and bits and bobs. It could be because they want more money, but it's quite abstract. Like, how much time do you want? How much money do you want? You know, how much fishing do you want? Do you really want to go and do? Because you're not going to be able to just go and do fishing 24/7. That's not how life works. I think having a clear goal in the future as to what you're trying to build And I think that's very unique to, to the individual. It doesn't have to be the big business. It can just be— it could be you and maybe another. It doesn't matter, but it becomes like your North Star. It's that point where you're always moving, like you quite rightly say, you're always moving towards it. And when, when things get a bit tough or you, you find yourself losing your way, and it could be because you hit a bit of a downturn or something's happened in your life, having that vision, that goal, that target, I think is really useful. Because it's something that you can use to, again, orientate yourself towards that because you are struggling. It's something that's offered me quite a bit of benefit making a transition from the project management, going self-employed again, because it's sort of 43 years old, it's a bit daunting, you know. It's the awareness that you're running out of time and that you can't afford to waste any.

And I would say for the vision, the vision doesn't have to be like when you first transition You can have like a vision ladder. So a vision ladder would be like the first step. Let's say you're employed at the moment and you're going self-employed. The first vision could be get enough money to feed the family. That's the first step. And then, but have an exact amount, work out the tax, how much tax you're going to pay, etc. And then work it down to how many jobs I need to do, something measurable on a day-to-day, and then track progress towards it. And then the step 2 could be I want this amount of time off or whatever it is. But just, just be aware that, you know, have— you could have 3 or 4 steps and then you can work through this ladder so that at each stage, you know, you know which stage you're in and you know exactly what you need to do. And you— that like in the beginning, you might know that you might have to do a lot of activity. You might have to do bathrooms, anything.

Yeah, that's very true. You do a lot.

Just be conscious of like where you are in your business. And then when you get to step 2, maybe just phase out the bathrooms. Then start looking at your demographics. This, it just provides like a lot of clarity, and it provides you like, you know, if you're like a headless chicken at right at the first stage, you know that this is only a short period.

Because you see what it does though, it maintains perspective. You understand what the objective is and what you're trying to do. It always gives you that, it always gives you that direction. Yeah, I think a lot of engineers don't have that.

Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, Edward. That was very, very helpful. And yeah, thank you for your time.

That's great. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it. Thank you.