What Happens When A Gas Engineer Loses Everything And Starts Again w/ Wayne Bettess

Welcome to our podcast. We're helping tradespeople grow and be more successful. I'm your host, Tulloch Priest. I'm the co-founder of Gas Engineer Software. Today I'm very excited to introduce our guest, Wayne Beatties. Wayne has been a heating engineer for over 20 years, the last 12 running his own highly successful business, and the last 5 years he's been coaching other trade and construction businesses, helping them become more successful. Today Wayne is here to share his insights and the biggest challenges facing tradespeople today. Welcome to the show, Wayne. We're thrilled to have you here.

Well, yeah, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to hopefully have a good discussion today and hopefully help some people along the way.

Yeah, we're very excited. So initially you were a gas engineer and then you became a coach. Can you just kind of talk us through that journey? Because it's quite a, quite a journey.

Yeah, so, um, it started off as quite a lot of tradespeople do. I was, uh, I wasn't the best student at school, let's, let's put it that way. I, I was challenging, I think would be the word that cropped up mostly on my reports. Um, I always had a sort of like I couldn't— I didn't like the classroom environment. It just, it just didn't suit me. It didn't suit my, my persona. I was a bit too scatty in my thoughts. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't sit still. As you'll probably see, I do a lot of hand gestures. You'll see a lot of those, anyone that watches the video. Um, so yeah, my early life in school, um, wasn't the best. And, and thankfully I had this amazing teacher, and it was like the naughty section of the school. And one day she literally just come in, put some applications on my desk, and said, I've enrolled you on the plumbing course, you just need to fill out this form and you're going to start in September. I was like, yeah, all right, didn't really think much of it, just filled out the paperwork, went home, told me mum and my stepdad, um, and he said, oh, do you know what, I go to the gym with a guy, uh, that he's a gas engineer, let me ask him and see if there's an opportunity here to get you involved. And thankfully, Steve, who, uh, I— funnily enough, he literally lives 200 yards from me now, which is amazing, I get to see him every day, and I still call him my boss. So if I refer to my boss, that's who I'm referring to. He took me on, um, and I still to this day don't know how he put up with me. Mobile phones were— so this would have been 2003, 2004, somewhere, 2000, yeah, around that sort of time. So mobile phones were there, they weren't smartphones, but they were still enough of a distraction that literally every 10 seconds I'd be texting my girlfriend at the time, or my friend. And I would— I would— did like to go out for drinks back then. It was quite normal to go out at 16 and, and go to pubs. And so my, my apprenticeship, I, I still don't know how I got through it, because he must have saw something in me. I, I took a natural— like, I was good with customers. I, I had that gift of the gab that people talk about, uh, and he stuck with me, um, and thankfully I got through Got my qualifications. I think I was one of the youngest Corgi registered people at the time. It was Corgi then. Um, I think I was 18 and 4 months or something, so I, I did it very quickly. I, I was qualified very quickly. Um, and then the— I, I skipped a little bit. I, I always like to make money, so as soon as I saw when I started working with Steve that we would go out on a weekend and earn and, and come home with this big— like, card payments weren't a thing back then, it was cash, you know, cash or check. And we'd end up with this pile of cash and checks in the van. And then I'd be like, hang about, I ain't seen this sort of money before. Like, this did— this is, this is, this is exciting. So it was the money that I— and I'm not ashamed to say it— it was the money that sort of lit me up. And I'm, I'm looking and I'm thinking, God, that's more, that's more than like my stepdad might earn in a week. And we've just done it on a Saturday and Sunday, let alone like what we could do in the week. And so I, I very early realized, okay, if I can, if I can apply myself here, I can make some money. And, and I always liked money. It was just like I was one of them kids at school that would buy a pack of sweets and sell them as singles in, in the thingy to try and raise some money. It was just in my, in my blood to, to sort of make money. Um, so yeah, so that's how I got into the trade. And thankfully, uh, Steve put up with me and I did my apprenticeship. Um, sadly, it weren't his business, it was a business. And that, as you're probably aware, many businesses fold Um, they, they, they're— it's quite common in the trades industry that businesses fail. This business failed. I was, uh, 18 and a half. I had a pregnant missus at the time, and we were just going for a first mortgage on a flat, which sounds young, um, for, for, for the way the world is. And, uh, the reason that was the case is I got my mortgage just before the big credit crunch. And anyone that was around before that, sort of 2006 sort of time, you could basically print money if you just basically told the mortgage broker you wanted to borrow. As long as you could get the deposit, you could basically borrow money. So it wasn't like I had money. I didn't, I didn't have like— I didn't come from money. I grew up in a council estate in Luton, but we managed to get a mortgage. But the month the mortgage went through, I had a missus that was— that we had a baby born, sorry. And I had no job because we had just been made redundant. So it was like a bit of an eye opener. I was not just, just 19, I think, by the time the house house went through, the flat. And that sort of started me to think, okay, I've got to start doing a bit more here. I've got some responsibilities now. I've got a young family. I've got a mortgage that needs to pay. So I started doing private jobs pretty much around that sort of time, um, and then I worked for a few companies over, over the next couple of years. But I always knew that I needed to work for myself. I, I couldn't, I couldn't sit there at the end of the week and just take a small portion of that check that, that had come in. I knew that I needed to be— I was a natural leader. I just sort of naturally take charge of a room or a situation. So it just become natural that I started to sell and I started to do things, and, and the business sort of started to pick up. Um, and from the surface it looked really good. And, and I'm sure you've probably seen this in, in all different industries, but obviously naturally I talk about plumbing and heating. That on the surface I looked like I was absolutely knocking it out the park, you know. I had— I was 24 by this time. I had 10 vans, I think it was, on the road. We had a shop on the High Street, you know. I, I was off the tools, so like, you know, already at that age I knew that it wasn't the job that I liked, it was the money. So I got myself off the tools, and, uh, to put it frankly, I just messed it up. Um, you know, I, I was naive, I was, uh, immature. I, I would spend money that wasn't mine, and the dreaded cash flow trap got me. Uh, one day I woke up and I was like, we are out like 120 grand. And I was like, okay, that's fairly normal, you know, like for, for the size of the business we were at that time. Bear in mind how young I was and whatever. Um, and then I looked at what we were owed and I was like I've made a mistake here. I'm only owed 40 grand. How can I be— how can I owe out all of this and only owe this? And basically I just sort of starved myself and, and spent the money that wasn't the business's money. And we did stupid things. We did the showroom up twice in, in, in a space of a year. And lots of bad decisions, uh, that I made. And I had to fold the businesses. I had to liquidate them. I'm not ashamed to say it. I had to fold the company, um, The only silver lining there was that I did pay all the staff. I made sure that every member of staff was paid. Um, unfortunately, there were some victims along the way. A few of the merchants didn't get their money, um, which obviously isn't great, you know, and, and it's, it's not a great situation, but it was what it was. I, I was young, I was naive. I nearly lost my family, and the last thing I worried about was the merchants at the time. Um, and I spent about 2 years after. I put on a lot of weight. Um, I was, uh, I wasn't clinically depressed, as in I hadn't gone to a doctor, but looking back now, there's no question, you know. I'd put on about 4 stone. I, I couldn't get motivated. I couldn't, you know, I was just surviving. That's all I was doing every day. I was just, just making enough to survive. I was miserable. Um, and then that's what, that's what started the journey for me into coaching, which is what I do now full-time. And what I realized is, is that I'd spent 3, 4 years honing my craft, like many of the people that are going to be listening to this. And any, any industry, you know, if you've been to university or whatever, you've spent a lot of time to learn a specific craft, but I hadn't done any learning on how to run a business. And it sort of like just sort of slapped him around the face. I was like, am I stupid? Like, you know, I've become a good plumber and a heating engineer and I could do the job proficiently. I wasn't the best. I'm just still like, you know, that wasn't something I was chasing. I was good enough, you know, I made customers happy and, and that was the main thing and left systems working. But I hadn't done anything about understanding business. So I started to look around and, and the internet was— it was there, but it wasn't nothing like it is now. But there was, there was enough information out there to to try and look at, sort of look for guidance, look for mentors. And I found a few along the way, and I invested some money and, and sort of really more from a personal point of view. So it was more personal development at that point. It was more about shaking myself down, basically, sort of getting out of my own way, moving the ego to one side and accepting that I didn't know it all and that I needed to sort of become a better person. And yeah, that, that, that's then then I just went like, I fell in love. I fell in love with learning. I fell in love with, more importantly, helping people. And what I found is, is that the more I learned, the more I could offer advice. This was all on like Twitter and Facebook at the time, um, just offering for like freely. I was just like, someone would say, oh, I've got this customer that's not paid, and I would just chime in and I'd put my pennies worth in. And quite quickly, people started to message me and ask me questions, and I sort of really got a self— like, a sense of worth. It was the first time that, um, obviously I'm grateful that I found this because I know not everybody gets this, but like, I felt like I had a real purpose to what I was doing every day. When I was on the tools, I never felt that, and I never had that sort of connection that, that I was making a difference. And, and yeah, when people started coming to me and asking me I just fell naturally into it. I just, like, again, my leadership sort of just naturally— I sort of would, would take over the conversation and, and, like, try and gear people up, get, like, get them, get them motivated. Um, and I bumbled around for a few years, like, you know, as you do whenever you're doing something new. So apologies to any of my early customers, you probably didn't get the best, the best version of me, but hopefully I helped to some degree. And, uh, yeah, and it just spiraled and spiraled and spiraled um, to the point where it was like, okay, well, I've got a choice here. I, I, you know, I can't do both jobs because there's only so many hours in the day. What do I love? Um, I was like, okay, well, I love helping people, I love coaching, I love, I love doing all of that. But I was like, well, I've spent 10 years building a business. I don't want to just like, I don't want to just turn it off like, like a tap and just say that's it. So what I decided was, well, let's practice what I what I preach. Let's build a business. It's not a huge business, we turn over about half a million quid, so, you know, half decent little, little family business. And I was like, well, let's, let's just practice, show the customer, show my potential clients that you can build a business that generates you an income. Yeah, it's not going to make me a millionaire, but it pays my bills, it brings me in a lovely income, and I'm hands-off, as in all I do is pay the wages in that business. And I, I quickly found— I went for a few, I had to kiss a few frogs before I found my, uh, my Prince Charming, so to speak, who's my right-hand man. He runs the business for me and he's brilliant, and I'd be lost without him, and he knows that. Um, but we systemized the business.

We look—

we were, we were early adopters to technology. I'd been using technology for— from a business point of view from 2011, um, which was very— was quite early for a small business. And we systemized it, we processed it, we automated as much as we could, to the point where it all, it all lined up amazingly well. Not amazing, wrong term of phrase there, sorry. But COVID was just about to hit, and I was like, what do I do here? You know, like, what's going to go on? And I was like, you know what, I've put this business into a place where I believe I can step away. Let's prove it. So 4 days before the lockdown was announced in March 2020, I went online and I booked a a farmhouse in the middle of Cornwall, right? And I said to my wife, I come home and I said, pack the bags, we're going down to Cornwall. I don't know, I don't like what's happening. I don't know where, like, what's gonna happen. Is it— is everyone gonna die? I don't know. We're just getting away. We're getting into the middle of nowhere. Let's go down there and just, just see what happens. And, and we went down there and it was the best month of my life, I tell you. Like, I'd never had such a brilliant month. It ended badly, which I'll get on to in a minute, but Um, that month was amazing because I spent a whole month with my family. I proved that I didn't need to be involved in the business, and it was only a month, so it was a short test. But you ask anybody, anyone listening, I'll ask you guys, you know, could you leave your business for a month and, and still— uh, I actually earned more money in that month than, than I, than I previously had ever done. And, uh, yeah, that was really like, okay, well, I've proved it. I've proved that I, I, I, I've I can build a business that I can step away from. I, I've proved that by this point. I'd had a few success stories with some clients, um, that had chosen to, to work with me as a coach. And I was like, sod it, do you know what, I'm doing what I like, I'm doing what I want to do. And that is, I want to help as many tradesmen specifically, you know. I know there are tradeswomen, but I specialize with, with tradesmen because we do work on, on different areas, not just business. We work on sort of mentality and mindset and stuff. And, and obviously I am a man, and, and that's just my niche. That's, that's where I've picked. And, uh, yeah, I've never looked back. So we're now into like what I would class of, of in, into its fourth proper year of being like a proper business rather than just like a little side hustle or whatever people wanted to phrase it as. And, um, yeah, and I'm helping more and more people, and, and yeah, it's just, just Going really good. Sorry, I know that was a bit of a waffle. So hopefully that's given some context to who I am.

Yeah, no, it's very good. It's definitely a good journey. It's that, yeah, going from just that first realization and then knowing that you're not going to be like a really— you want to do your own things. So there's, there's quite a few different stages in there.

Yeah, I, I think it's very similar to a lot of people as well, you know, like, um, we all, we all have some knockbacks, don't we? And, and it's— there's nothing to be ashamed about that, you know, like, that's just life. There's always down points in, and that's what makes you a stronger person, that makes you who you are today, doesn't it?

I think so. I think the— it's more— well, you kind of touched on it briefly, but it's kind of that mindset. And it's, you know, there will be setbacks, especially in business, because it's— you do get feedback quite quickly and you need to listen to that feedback and you need to take it on board. And I think that the faster you can take that sort of in a less personal way, you can move forward. But it's not always easy, that's for sure.

That's a very, very good point you make there because In my early days, I took everything personal, like 100%. It was like, it was like an attack on me. And yes, you obviously, you have to care and you have to— there has to be some connection to it. But the, the quicker you can disconnect from that and, and just move on and get better, you know, that, that, that is really, really important because the longer you're attached to it, that that to that degree, it just holds you back. You have to sort of cut them strings a little bit and fly a bit.

Yeah. And kind of going a bit deeper on that, when a customer like— we're obviously a software company and we have, you know, 5,000 people use the— companies use the software and we do get feedback. We get a lot of feedback. But if somebody is going to the effort of giving you feedback, you know, definitely listen to it. You know, okay, the tone, and you know, there's some elements in there, but you know, they normally, for a lot of the time, they have some really good points. And, uh, you know, it's— if you need to take those learnings on, you know, as fast as you can.

Yeah. Oh yeah, we're never finished. We're never finished. There's always an improvement to be made, isn't there? And being in software, you, you'll know exactly, you'll know more than most that You know, every time you're probably thinking you're just getting to where you want to be, then there'll be a new technology or there'll be a change or a competitor or something will come up, won't it? That means that you have to then push further.

Well, for us, there's no— you don't have like an end goal, you know. There's no stopping. You have to— the expectation is that, um, and people are paying us money, but they're also expecting others software to get better as well. So yeah, there is that, there is a real, we have to be, we have to move quickly. So there's no choice. But just kind of going back to tradespeople. So if you have, like, if you were speaking to somebody that was say in full-time employment and they were kind of looking to go, like the route that you went was you did some jobs on the side You know, what, how would you kind of advise people, or, you know, they take those first steps?

And so if I, if I had the luxury of starting again now, um, with the world as it is now, you know, the first thing that I would try to point people towards is what is— find out why you— why are you doing it? You know, I— what is the reason that you want to go and be employed, be self-employed, run your own business? Because if you're doing it, well, for whatever reason, if it's for money, if, if it's for, for the freedom of choice, whatever it is, you need to know that why. So identifying why you're doing it early is very important. And the second thing from that is once you know why you're doing it, I would, I would point everybody towards education, okay? And I know it's probably— it's not sexy, it's not, it's not glamorous, you know, but learning about the fundamentals of business. Because I see, I see it probably more than most because of the position that I'm in, where people are good at their job, okay? And that's why they go self-employed. That's why they work on their— they go on their own because they're good at their job and they get loads of people that want their, their services. And that's, that's their reason. And yes, that's a good reason. If you're good at your job, you can maximize your potential, etc. But most people end up in something called the success trap, where because they're good at their job, they end up just being stuck in a worse job than they had before. Because this job, when you work for yourself, doesn't stop at 5 o'clock, you know. There's still invoices to do, there's still quotes to do, there's, there's still reminders to send out, there's still problems to solve. And, and, and it becomes, for a lot of people, a ball ache, basically, because they, they wanted— what they wanted was this freedom and this extra money. But in reality, because they're good at their job, the curse of that is that they just get so busy that all they do every day is spend their day putting out fires, solving these problems for these customers, and they never get to actually build the business that they initially set out to do. So education is the key there. Learning about marketing, learning about sales, learning about software, because in this day and age, if you're not using some sort of software to manage, to help manage your business, then it is crazy. I still have clients today that use paper diaries and paper certificates, which is mind-blowing that, that, that is still happening because I've been on software for the last 12, 13 years. So I can't even like imagine how they could still be operating like that. But learning about all of this is scary for a lot of people because it's something new, you know. They've learned their trade, they know how to fit that radiator, they know how to talk to that customer, but they don't know how to present a quote properly. They don't know how to make sure that their books are in order so that they're not going to get a big tax bill. They don't know how to manage the cash flow of, of a business when sometimes they might have loads of money, sometimes they might not be there. You have to manage all of this. And yes, you can learn it, you can learn it on the job, of course you can, but If you're in a position where you're employed right now, you've got no better time than using a bit of that time to, to invest in listening to some podcasts, listening to some audiobooks, reading audiobooks, paying for some programs. There's lots of different business programs out there that are— there's more corporate ones which I've been on, like that universities put on for entrepreneurs and things like that, but there's also people like me obviously that, that do it um, in a more sort of real way, if that makes sense. A more, more rough and ready and, and not so, uh, not so polished way. But there's loads— there's so much resource out there now. There's no excuse to not find— be able to find some answers to some of the problems you've got. So yeah, that, that's the two things for me, is why, why are you doing it? Because you need to be clear on that, because it's a big commitment when you take that business. It's, it's, it's— you're taking a lot of responsibility and education in not just the technical— obviously you have to keep up to date with the technical and any new regs and all that sort of stuff, I'm— that's a given, you know, you'd have to do that if you were just employed anyway. But invest your— invest some money and some time in learning the fundamentals of business, because if you've built— if you can build some good foundations around strategy, time management, and money management, the rest becomes a bit easier. You know, if you've got a good strategy in place and you've got good time management and good money management, you're 5 steps ahead of most small businesses. And it doesn't take much to get to that point.

I would kind of say, like, about the just knowing your why, it's quite a— there is going to be some really tough times ahead. When you go— like, when you're an employee, you're quite sheltered from a lot of stuff. Your employee— employer has to deal with them and all the tax returns, all the really not sexy parts of it. And there's all sorts of learnings involved. So just be, you know, my suggestion, you know, this is our second business that we've run and, you know, we have a team of 35 at the moment and we've also gone through these stages, but not, you know, we're not trades most people were software developers. But you do have the same kind of things. Like in the beginning, it does— when you go from employed to self-employed, it does get more painful. And it's all around this kind of this learning. So if you have your— if you know your why, you can kind of— you don't kind of think that, why am I doing this? Am I losing my mind? Am I crazy? So those kind of things. So I would also suggest that if you are employed at the moment, the things that I would suggest, probably more in summary I guess, is they start doing a little bit of social media, start doing a little bit of your own private jobs, posting them on, you know, join some of your local Facebook groups, try to get some of the basics. Like, you know how to do your job already, so, so that's all fine, but just start with some really basic marketing and then start looking at some software as well, just so you kind of COVID the marketing side because you can do the work, but you need to get the work. And then you also need to be able to get some of the business basics running. So just, you don't have to go crazy on it, but, you know, definitely support, you know, that learning because it's a whole new world sort of outside of the actual you know, just the actual doing the work itself.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I would, I would echo everything you've just said there. I, I call it primitive marketing. So what I get, lots of people come to me and they, they want to do all digital stuff. Yeah, they want, they want an all-singing dancing website, they want to do Google Ads, they want to do Facebook Ads, they want to— whatever. And I say to them, well, are you in the local parish magazine? Are you dropping flyers around to the, to the local villages? Are you sponsoring the, the Christmas fair at the school? Are you, you know, are you doing all of this low-hanging fruit? Because if you're not, do that first. Do the basics first, the easy stuff, the stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money, isn't— there's not a lot of risk. And, and you'll be surprised at how many people neglect that because they, they see these sexy sort of internet option of, of, oh look, you, you pay for some ads and then you get a load of work. Yeah, it doesn't quite work like that, you know. You've got, you've got to have good systems. You've got to have, um, good follow-ups, automations, and that to nurture these leads. There's so much more to it. So start off with the, the easier stuff, is in my opinion.

Yeah, I think there's kind of like a sliding scale. Like when you start as a sole trader, there's some bits of— you, you kind of, you need the marketing side, you know, the systems, all of those things, but you just need them at a basic level, um, just to kind of follow up from Facebook, Google Ads, that is just a whole, it's just a, it's a big time sink and you need to spend a lot of money to get it right and a lot of resources. So that's, that's more suitable, you know, later in your journey. So, so let's say we've got our sole trader and he's getting a little bit of work, he's doing well and he thinks about employing his friend or employing somebody to help them out. What kind of, what kind of things would you be thinking about at this stage?

So yeah, most people get to that point fairly quickly, you know, in my experience, is again because they're good at their job and, and, and they're, they're a little bit more attentive than the bigger firms because obviously they're new and they're hungry and they're, and they're excited about it all. And, and it's a minefield trying to find decent staff in any, in any industry. But I, I will— I would probably say trades is probably one of the hardest because it's the barrier to entry for somebody else to start is very small, you know. It's not like if I wanted to start a tech firm tomorrow, you know, not only do I need— I need an idea, I need all the stuff, so, you know, there's a heavy investment of, of time, money, and labor to get a tech firm off the ground. Plumbing business, you know, you've already got the skill set, you can use your car, you know, and you can throw some tools in the back of the car. It's very low entry, so that makes it harder to, to find people. But one of the big things I see is people taking on friends and family, which is fantastic. My, my business is a family business. My, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, my nephew all work for my business. So I'm not in any way saying don't take on friends and family, but there's some— in my opinion, there's some dos and don'ts. And I've learned the hard way. I've had to— I've had family members that I've had to sack. I've had family members that have quit in the past. Um, and obviously, naturally, you know, that isn't an ideal situation for your family, is it, if you've just had to sack somebody that, that you love? Like, I, I had to get rid of my brother, for example, and my dad as well. I know that sounds horrendous. Um, and maybe we'll go into that further, but it's not a great situation. But ultimately it was my fault because what I, what I failed to do was set out clear expectations. So for anybody that's at that point now or getting towards that point, when you do find somebody that you want to, to, to take on, you need to set out what the expectations are of that person and that relationship that you're going to have, because In my first business, we basically become a youth club. We had all friends that, like, you know, we'd gone to school together, played in football teams together, and it turned into like a social club basically. We had an Xbox and a big 42-inch plasma TV in the office, and got the lads would turn up with beers at the end of the day. And yes, it was fantastic, it was good fun, but when I had to be a boss and when I had to make and be the leader and make decisions I didn't have— they didn't— that relationship wasn't there because I'd just become their buddy. I just sort of— I, I didn't take that, um, that authority, and I didn't have that leadership because I never, never— I never told them what I expected. So now when we take on new people, we make it very, very clear, you know. First of all, it's a probation, you know. There's no questions asked. It's a probation period. This is testing the water from both sides. You need to be happy, we need to be happy. We set out clear expectations on what they are expected to achieve on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. We review that regularly. Um, and when, when the expectations are, are clear, when problems arise, it's quite simple to fix because it's like, okay, well, these were, these were what we agreed at the beginning, XYZ, you know, but you're not doing XYZ now, you're doing ABC. So let's get this back in line. And, and because they, they were clear and they're mapped out in a contract, and, and, um, there's, there's really no, there's really no ambiguity there because it's, it's been clear. And it comes down to that communication at the beginning. And, um, yeah, once you've— if you've got that right, and, and it just makes day-to-day problems— because there is always problems, you know, in any size business there is problems every single day. Um, and what you want to do is just be able to work through those problems as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And setting them expectations is, for me, is one of the most important parts when, when taking somebody on new and reaffirming that expectations. Because again, people slip into bad habits, everybody gets comfortable, and sometimes you have to realign. So having regular work, like, not, not social, regular work meetups, so that they're— that you're reviewing their progress, you're, you're chatting about any changes that you might be making or anything, that any feedback— getting feedback from the people on the ground is so important as well, because obviously they can see things sometimes from a different angle that maybe being the, the, the boss and the leader can't see. Um, so really communication around it all, definitely.

Yeah, you didn't quite mention it, but, um, Yeah, the word accountability came up. It was kind of, I give you— if you got the clear expectations, you know, this is what we agreed, this is what's happening at the moment, this is what you're accountable for.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, that summarizes it perfectly. Yeah, because without that, you can't moan at them for not doing stuff. You can't, you know, and they can't moan at you if you— if— because again, it's got to work both ways. Yeah, there's got to be expectations from both sides. So so I could be held accountable from them as well if I've not delivered on something that I was meant to deliver. Um, so yeah, no, that's a very good point.

And so you've got— you've kind of— because you get trades businesses, they go from the sole trader and then you get one or two people that are on the tools, but the, the owner is still on the tools as well. So that the next kind of stage, would you agree, would be to getting like a full-time admin person? Person.

If— let's put it this way— if I was going to start again tomorrow, there is no way, no way in that I would be answering that phone every day. No way. There's just— it just wouldn't even be an option. It would be like having a van. I would have to have an office person or a system in place. Like, obviously nowadays there's VAs, and so you don't have to naturally— you don't have to employ someone these days. Which is fantastic because it makes life a lot easier. Um, but yes, having the right admin support is make or break for the business because if you leave it on your shoulders— and I see it again, I'm sounding like a repeat record here, but I see it time and time again— where these guys will come to me, you know, and they're, they're turning over half a million quid, right? They're doing a lot of work and they're answering the phones, they're sending the invoices, they're reconciling, they're doing the marketing, they're, they're doing absolutely everything. And they wonder why their missus is annoyed because you're never home. The kids are getting upset because Daddy is never there. They're stressed out. They're getting unhealthy. They're eating crap and becoming fat and, and lazy because they're— because it's just a vicious cycle. And one of the easiest things you can get rid of— and it's scary, and I, I get it, you know, and I, I have to push my clients to do this. But the minute you give up that phone and give up some of them admin responsibilities, life just becomes a bit easier because you can have— you have that little bit more mental clarity, a little bit like— you know what it's like if you get a phone call when you're mid-doing something and you're not concentrating properly on that phone call, you're not pro— you're not focusing on the task you was doing. And then 5, 10 minutes goes past and then you might click back into the zone that you was in doing whatever. So you're half-assing every angle if you try to do it all. And people will rebuttal that by saying, well, I can't afford to. But in my opinion, you can't afford not to, because if you find the right person— and yes, you have to kiss a few frogs to find that right person, that's just life— then they will make you more money, whether it's physical money, as in you make more money in, in your pocket, or whether it's money in regards to time, ideas, being at home, you know, all of them. I don't, I don't necessarily have to be a tangible cash value. It can just be— it can— that the value is, is there if it's used correctly. Um, and there's never been a better time to, to, to be able to outsource some of them sort of, um— they're just as important, and I'm not trying to demean it, but we can pay someone a lot less to do it than what you're worth. So if you're a heating engineer in my area, okay, and you work for yourself, you're going to be charging anywhere between £90 and £110, yeah, roughly an hour. Okay, I can pay a full-time office person £12, £15 an hour. So if, if I have to take an hour out of my day to answer 10 phone calls, you know, 10 minutes of phone calls, 5 minutes of phone call, whatever, that's cost me up to £100 in my time. But it's more than that because it's also the mental capacity of dealing with it all. Whereas I can pay somebody 15, even 20 quid an hour to deal with that sort of work that you can train them fairly quickly. Okay, there's no— it's not like a high— there's not a high technical barrier like it is to become a software engineer or something like that, you know. It's, it's, it's, it's a very— it's a very important job and not everybody can do it. So I'm in no way demeaning the, the importance of, of the administration work in a business, but in fact it is a cost— it's not a huge cost burden. So yeah, if, if you're on the fence, if you're answering the phone calls every day while trying to work, while trying to sort out your website, while trying to sort out the leads, why, why trying to sort out your staff, then take a step back now and outsource that, whether it be through a family member. You know, my office lady is, is my sister-in-law, and it was the best decision I ever made because we had the trust, so I could hand finance stuff straight away to her because she's family. Um, obviously you'd hope you can trust your family. So, um, and you can trust other people as well, of course, but maybe there's a bit more of a nurture relationship to build up to that point. Um, but yeah, is it— that, that is one of the things you can do quite early on then? Yes. Yeah, yeah, I, I definitely would. If you're, if you're at the point where you're having to send out quotes and sort out your reconciling and stuff in the evening then I would start to look at outsourcing it, because your evenings should be for you and your family, or your social life, or whatever, like, whatever it is. They should be for you. Um, and yes, there's always times that you have to get in the, what I call, the trenches. Sometimes, you know, busy period in the winter, snowing, you know, you have to just jump in and you just have to work. And, and that's life as well. And you, you know, you'll have it in software. There'll be a certain deadline, and it's got to happen, and, and everyone's just got to jump in and deal with it. And short term, that's fine, and, you know, but you don't want to be doing that every week for a whole year. And I see many, many tradesmen and tradespeople do it for, for decades, you know. They're, you know, they're constantly busy, they're constantly working every night, they're constantly stressed, and simple solutions can fix that. And yes, you might, you might see it as a cost at first because you're paying somebody's wages to, to do that job. But if you use that time that you're now saving properly, then it's not a cost at all. It, you know, it's an investment if anything, because you're investing in the creation of extra hours for you to do what you want to do. Yeah, I mean, I'm in a good position. I chose a lot of my time I could earn a lot more money, right? And that's not me bragging, you know. I could earn a lot more money, but I choose the lifestyle. So I went for a sauna this morning, I went to the gym this morning, I'll do the school run at half 3 today, you know. I could work harder, I could earn more money if I wanted to, but I like the lifestyle. So I offset some of the money that I could earn with the time. I basically view time as money. In my head, time is money. Every hour that I have to spend is the same as me spending a load of money. So that's just a sort of silly way that I sort of compute my decisions in my head.

I think for this decision about paying for like an admin person, it's, uh, the challenge is that you're kind of comparing like a reaching into your pocket, taking money out versus a, it is it is money, like your time, etc. And you also lose a lot through that context switching, you know, like if you're working on a boiler, taking a phone call, etc., etc. But, um, it's less tangible. So I think there does need to be kind of like a mindset change that, um, yeah, as you're saying, it is definitely an investment.

We did, we did an exercise a couple of months ago, and one of my clients, we, we, we logged every 10 minutes, we logged his time 2 and a half hours a day he was losing to phone calls, Facebook, Instagram, basically dicking around on his phone, you know. And I said, 2 and a half hours a day? Like, you compound that over a week, a month, a year. I said, and you're worried about paying someone 50 quid or whatever it is? What the— like, yeah, thanks to Sai, he's now got a full-time office person and he would never ever answer the phones again, you know, like, because he Once you've— it's sort of one of the things, once you've done it, you, you, you, you, you wouldn't ever question not doing it. It's just part of it, like, it just becomes natural to— well, yeah, that's obvious, I would have someone help me on that.

I think you would, but there's— I think there's quite a few things involved here. There's the money side, but there's also an element of giving up control, um, you know, there's, there's, there's quite a lot little kind of things that you might not be conscious of, you know, as you go through this process. Because, well, we are talking about business and we're talking about growing businesses, but in reality it's, it's personal development. And, you know, you know, your business is a reflection of, you know, what stage that you personally are at.

So that control, you are, you are 100% right on that. So, and do you know what I just tell people? You've got to get out your own way. Yeah, you've got to get out of your own freaking way because, you know, yeah, we all do it. It's our baby, our business. We— our customers only want to speak to us. They are, you know, you go through the last 150, 200 reviews on my company, right? Not one of them mentioned my name. Back to that first point about disassociating, you know, a bit. Back in the day, you know, obviously every, every review was Wayne is this, Wayne is this, Wayne is that. Now I see it as a compliment when it doesn't mention my name, because that proves to me that I've got the business doing what it needs to do. And yeah, I would have got him— I would, I would have struggled at first with that control element of, you know, you're so used to— you're sort of used to the pain that you're, that you're dealing with every day that you don't really know how to, how to get rid of it. And, and like with anything, I think fast and quick and fast, you know, pull that plaster off as quickly as you can. Oh, Sorry, um, jump, jump in and, and, and see the benefits. If you try it and it doesn't work, completely different discussion, okay? Because then you've tried it and then maybe you could look at better ways next time you try it. But if you haven't tried it, if you're sitting there now listening to us talk about this and you haven't tried it but you're telling yourself it won't work for me, my business is different, blah blah blah, no, sorry, until you've tried it, I'm not, I'm not even willing to entertain that excuse.

So your advice in summary, just do it.

Just, yeah, yeah, you try it, try it. What's the worst that can happen? Most, you know, worst case scenario, you go back to answering the phones a month later, didn't you? You know, and, and it didn't work, but you know, I, I would bet a lot of money on it working out the other way.

Yeah, well, thank you very much for your time today. Um, it's been very insightful and, uh, yeah, really enjoyable. So thank you very much, Wayne. It's good.

Excellent. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.