What's Really Holding Your Trades Business Back? w/ Alison Warner

It's, you know, I say to people it's through no fault of their own because they haven't been trained in how to run a business, and that's a completely different skill set to learning how to be a builder or a plumber or an electrician.

It's quite interesting, there's an expectation there, you know, if you can fix a boiler, you must be able to run a business, but it's kind of, it's sort of, sometimes it comes across as kind of like a, you don't know what you don't know.

Exactly. I want the business to run without me. I want to be able to just step away and it run without me.

What's your thinking about that? Does that ever happen? Like an honest answer.

I think it can, but it's rare. In terms of the only way I think that would be able to happen.

This is the Field Rocket Podcast. I'm your host, Taliq Priest, and today I'm joined by Alison Warner, business coach and founder of Evolve and Grow Coaching. Alison works directly with the trades, helping them go from feeling stuck to running businesses that actually work. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Taluk.

Tradespeople we speak to are great at the actual work, but can struggle finding time to deal with the business side of following up paperwork and general admin. Today's episode, we're taking a closer look at what's holding a lot of trade businesses back and how small tweaks can free up time, cash, and headspace. In a sentence or two, why should people care about this conversation?

I guess it depends on the business owner that's listening. If they're wanting to grow and they're feeling quite frustrated, they feel that the business is having a negative impact on their wider life, they feel that they're always robbing Peter to pay Paul, and they're always stressed about their business and frustrated, then those are the people that, yeah, I'd hope to be helping today and giving some insights and maybe some helpful tips to.

Is it a very kind of common thing that when your clients come to you, Are they the kind of the predominant kind of challenges that they have?

Yeah, very much. I would say most of the people that get in touch, first and foremost, are looking for help. They're willing to listen, so they're not defensive. But secondly, they— I mean, in a nutshell, they've learnt their trade, they're good at their trade. Because of that, they've got recommended, they've attracted lots of business, and then they start employing people, and then by default they then have a business, but they're still trying to learn how to run a business while still being on the tools, and it's very difficult to do both. So it's, you know, I say to people it's through no fault of their own because they haven't been trained in how to run a business, and that's a completely different skill set to learning how to be a builder or a plumber or an electrician. It's a bit like me going to fit a boiler or wire a house, you know, I wouldn't know where to start. But I do know how to.

You kind of have that transition of like on-the-trades kind of skills, and then as you grow, you need to build out those kind of business skills.

Yeah, yeah, two completely different roles. So how can you expect somebody to understand how to read a profit and loss account, how to hire people correctly, how to organize themselves? You know, it's completely different and they haven't been taught. So that's really where I come in.

It's quite interesting, there's an expectation there, you know, if you can fix a boiler, you must be able to run a business, but It's kind of, it's sort of, sometimes it comes across as kind of like a, you don't know what you don't know.

Exactly. Exactly that. You don't know what you don't know. And it's not just unique to the trades industries, you know, you could also argue that it's any industry where somebody's learnt their vocation, but they haven't learnt, haven't been taught how to run a business. And if you want to grow a business, to employ people, it doesn't really matter what the product or service is that you're selling. It becomes about how effectively you can manage people and understand your numbers. Those are the two different, I think, really important skills to have. At the end of the day, you know, all business is the same. You've got a customer to serve, you've got money to make, you've got people to manage. It's the same thing, which is fine if you want to stay on the tools and just keep your business small, it's fine. But if you want to grow, then yeah, there's different skills to be learned, definitely.

Yeah, I would even say that for somebody who wants to be a sole trader or wants to stay a sole trader, you know, there are really important skills like pricing. Yes, incredibly important, knowing your numbers.

Absolutely.

Um, you know, you know, basic, uh, basic marketing. Um, you know, these are things that, you know, just makes the— it kind of changes the business from survival into actually, you know, reaching whatever your, your goals are, whether it's, you know, profitable.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I see a lot of tradespeople who are tremendously stressed. Often they've had mental health issues, breakdowns. It's, it's sad because it, it doesn't have to be that way. Often there's just some simple things that can make a huge difference.

Where do you, um, where do you start? Like, so if a client comes, what do they kind of— yeah, how do you actually move forward from there?

So the first thing we do is ask them to complete a business growth scorecard, and that measures the business in 4 different areas: their sales and marketing, their customer service, their team, and the finance and systems. So those are kind of the 4 basic pillars of any business, really. So that gives me a good understanding of what's working in the business and what's not, and what, in my words, are out of balance. If you think of those 4 things, they all have to be in balance for a business to grow sustainably. So that's where we start. Often it's the business has got to a certain level and it's struggling to get over the next hurdle, and that generally will be because they know what they need to do sometimes, but they don't know in which order. I hear that quite a bit. I don't know what to do first. Do I go and do some more marketing? Do I need to recruit somebody? Do I recruit somebody to help in the office or help me on the tools? There's this kind of real confusion around what the next step should be. So that's That's kind of where we start with the scorecard and also looking at the numbers. That's really, really important because that tells me, are they quoting correctly? Are their overheads about the right amount? You know, what's actually going on behind the scenes? And often I can pick something up from the numbers straight away that shows me the next step that needs to be taken.

It's quite interesting because you're growing a business, you need to know generally, if you haven't done before, haven't run a business and sold before, you need to know what to do, And you actually need to get the right order as well. And it needs to be suitable for the stage that you're in.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's quite a challenging kind of thing, like, especially if you come from like a tools, just, you know, massively, massively.

Yeah. If you've left school and you've learned your trade, then, you know, I work with some really bright people. They have an understanding of what they think, but sometimes it's just confidence as well. It's just somebody from the outside to kind of say, yes, you're right. That is what you need to do. Next, you know, it can be a really lonely place running a business, any sort of business, can't it? If you haven't got a boss in place and you haven't got anybody to use as a sounding board, and often what people do is obviously they go home and they talk to their wife or partner, friends, or maybe not, and then those people, you know, have the best of intentions and give their two pennies worth, but it might not actually be the right advice.

Well, it's tricky if you haven't done it before, it's very difficult to give, you know, advice on something you've never done, or you're not involved.

Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what, what kind of, um, what's the most kind of common sort of things that are kind of holding back? Like, if you're at the sole trader kind of stage and they wanted to kind of move up, what kind of things normally get in the way?

It can be a number of things, but generally, in my experience, you can get your business to around £100,000 worth of turnover maximum without then getting some kind of help.

Okay, and that could be like admin or—

Exactly, or another trade. That's right, yeah. So a common thing I think probably is trying to do everything yourself. Even, you know, some people are really industrious and they'll go as far as trying to teach themselves, for example, social media. They'll have a little dabble in trying to do different things themselves, and that's great, but You know, at the end of the day, I don't do my own social media, and I've got no aspirations to train myself in how, and these things are changing and moving so quickly anyway. You know, the idea is surround yourself with experts who are great at doing what they do, which frees you up to do what you do best, whatever that might be. But obviously you can't— at a sole trader stage, you can't go out and just recruit a whole team of experts, so it's baby steps.

You are kind of limited by the resources and stuff.

Well, it's all chicken and egg, isn't it? So it's, you know, do you do the marketing first, do you do the recruitment first? And the answer is you do them in tandem. So you make sure you've got that steady stream of leads coming through, and at the same time you're looking for good people. And that's the hard bit, isn't it? It's getting the good people and knowing when you've got—

You say it's the good people, but it's a mixture of your own skills and leadership your own structure. And there is a kind of a quote from Brad Sugars, which is your brother's father, he was kind of saying, "You get the staff you deserve." And there's kind of a few elements to it. So, like the way that you hire, but it's also the way that you interact and lead. And it's quite a learning curve.

And that last bit were all was learning, you know, leadership. Is there's no— it's not like you've got a numbers problem, so we'll learn this technique of pricing, for example, or go and get this tool. You know, where people are concerned, it's so subjective, isn't it? And what might work with one person won't work with the other. And so I think we're always continually learning to be better leaders. You know, you can never say that job's done.

No. No, definitely not. So you've got the— so for the sole trader, um, single person, your, your limit is around about £100,000. Um, what's the kind of the next stage, or what's the next kind of step or ceiling? I don't know what you want to call it.

I tend to say it's, it's around £300,000 to £400,000. So at that point, the business owner is likely to be able to step completely off the tools and have a, a team. So we tend to work on a ratio of £100,000 per person on the ground, as it were, directly.

Okay, but per engineer, how do you kind of factor in like admin, like if you had somebody answering the calls?

Sure. So it's, it's knowing your— the percent. This is where the numbers come in and it's so important. So it's knowing what your gross profit is.

Yeah.

So without trying to teach anyone how to suck eggs, gross profit is your net sales minus your subcontractor labour or any labour that's direct on the job, actually, materials, and that leaves you with your gross profit. That should be a minimum of 30%. Your overheads, which is where your admin comes in, should be anything between 10% and maximum 20%, which then leaves you whatever that is, 10% and 20% net profit. And in a limited company, that should be enough to pay yourself and keep some back as what we call working capital. So, and ultimately, in terms of a target aim towards whatever it costs to run your business each month without making a sale, i.e., your overheads. 3 times that figure should be in a separate bank account, working capital bank account, and then that gives you the cushion for rainy days. So it's all ratios. It's knowing what is my gross profit percentage running at, what are my overheads as a percentage of sales, what's my net profit running at. Because people— what I find in this industry, people wrap themselves up in knots trying to work out how to price their jobs to include overheads. And we say, not forget, but put that to one side for the moment. Just know your material costs to you, your labour costs to you, and that, those, that cost shouldn't exceed 70% of the sale price.

Okay, so you're just working on that ratio, and then that, that gives you enough. Is it, is that just to simplify things?

Exactly. Because I find people wrapping themselves up in knots going, oh, how much do I need to charge to take care of my vans and my admin, my rent, you know, all of these things. And it's just confusing it.

Okay. So I'm guessing after like a couple of months of using that kind of ratio, you'll work out whether it's on track or what.

Absolutely. So all my private clients, I do management accounts for them every month, and that's what I'm looking for in the P&L. I'm looking for that gross profit to be increasing. To around 30%. Sometimes people can achieve more, but that's what I'm monitoring very closely as the months go by. And generally it will take— it depends on the trade because obviously a building company, it will take a lot longer for that to kick in because if they're already on a project that's taking 9 months, well, that's been costed already, you know, that ship sailed. So it's the new ones coming through and they might not start for a few months. —so it takes a lot longer to turn a building company around. But say a plumbing company, or an electric—the shorter the time of your projects, effectively, you can see that benefit kick in quite quickly, probably within 3 months. And then another 3 months, that business owner should start to feel the difference in terms of their bank account.

Okay, so there's a bit of a lag between—

There's a bit of a lag, yeah. Obviously there's cash flow as well, so a lot of people complain to me as well about So, "Oh, my cash flow's bad." I say, "What do you mean by cash flow?" And people can term a lot of things as being cash flow, but cash flow in my terms really is the speed at which people are paying you and whether or not you're financing jobs. So you're paying out before getting the money. So truly it's the movement in and out of your bank account. But if people, say if they look at their profit and loss and they see the profit and they go, and I hear this quite a bit, "Well, how come that's not in my bank account?" Well, we need to look at your overdue invoices. Are people paying you on time and are you collecting collecting that money as quickly as what you could be. So for example, a plumber, ideally for jobs under £500, you want to be collecting that money as soon as you've completed that job. So either your engineers having handheld payment terminals, or you've got somebody in the office that calls them straight away as soon as the job's complete and takes payment over the phone. You want that money in the bank account as quickly as possible.

Yeah, because those add up.

They certainly do, because you might say, well, it's only a £200 job, yeah, but if you've had like several £200 jobs, then it all adds up.

What are the kind of the most successful companies that you've kind of worked with? What do you kind of see that they do?

So, it depends what you class as success. In terms of financially—

Should we talk about the different types of success? Because I'm guessing this is what you talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that initial meeting that you have. Absolutely.

So, yeah, I think As humans, we naturally equate success with making more money. And that's something actually I check for right at the beginning. What do you want and why do you want it? Because if it's just to make more money, that won't be enough. You've got to have some kind of purpose to why you're doing what you're doing. But well, one type of success I can think of, and I still work with him, is a garage owner. And he was particularly, this is 10 years ago, particularly down on himself. He felt he couldn't charge enough for his services. He just felt it was impossible. He just was really, really down and was impacting all areas of his life. Christmas was a real—

So was it kind of like a self-worth kind of challenge?

Yeah, probably, probably actually. Yeah, yeah. I think it just really, things had really got on top of him and he had no one to talk to about the business and Christmas was really stressful because that was when they paid the end of year bonuses and they were always struggling to, I think they were only open for 2 weeks as well with it being December, so it was always a struggle to pay the staff, and it's just, um, really, really, you know, he was really down on himself. In a nutshell, he wasn't charging enough, which was definitely linked to self-worth, I would imagine. And that's possibly harder because you don't know how quickly you can help somebody change their mindset about things, because he had some quite strong beliefs around, I can't charge that. But he trusted me and he, he did.

It's a challenge, you know, like putting up prices is tricky. Yeah, it is. You have the self-worth, you have What happens if I lose you? All the fears around what happens if I lose all our customers, what am I going to do?

Absolutely. So actually thinking about, and this is 10 years ago, the first thing we did was a survey of his competitors to find out what they were charging, because that in that industry it's quite easy to do. You can ring a garage and ask, what's your hourly rate? How much do you charge for XYZ? One of the things he wasn't doing as well was charging for collection and delivery of vehicles. So he was doing that for free and he found out his competitors weren't and his competitors were charging more than him. So that gave him the confidence to take that step. Yeah, he was somebody— some people need hard evidence to make decisions. Other people are quite happy to make them on their gut or to, you know, you can get them excited about something and they'll move forward. But other people, and he was definitely one of them, he needed the hard evidence, the facts. So that gave him the confidence. And then of course, once somebody's taken that first step and they can see it works, then it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier. But I mean, yeah, and I remember there was one moment, I talk about this in the book actually, where it was probably about 2, 3 years later, and he and his business partner were able to buy, it was one of their dreams to buy a boat.

Okay, so this is one of the motivations, was it?

Yeah, absolutely. He'd always wanted to have a boat, never thought it would be possible, and he got his boat. And yeah, that was 'That was a nice moment.' So that was success for him. Other people, yeah, they've dreamed of having bigger businesses and I've helped them achieve that as well. And that's, you know, I am a numbers person, but it's what the money can do, isn't it? And it's the purpose and the challenge.

I think for the bigger business, I think you need to be a little bit careful about what you actually want because the bigger business one, you need a love of learning and you need to be interested in business, you know, if you were— because there is an expectation, some, that, you know, could be an expectation that, you know, you have a bigger business, you're more successful, etc. But I think about these motivations, like some people that we speak to, you know, they want the freedom, that they want to be their own boss, or if they're caring for somebody like an elderly parent or something, or they have young children, sure, you know, the goals are around that time quality of life. Yeah, yeah. But I'm just cautious, slightly cautious about like the bigger business one, is because that might be the true goal, but it might also be, you know, external kind of influences for it.

Yeah, and it could be ego. One of the things that I hear frequently is, I want the business to run without me. I want to be able to just step away and it run without me.

What's your thinking about this? Does that ever happen? Like an honest answer.

I think it can, but it's rare. In terms of the only way I think that would be able to happen is if you got a really good MD or operations manager to come in and run it for you, and they, they themselves, that's what they want. So if you think about it, if you're good enough to do that, well, why would you not do it yourself? This is for the MD that you've brought in. But if you're rewarding them in the right way, then yeah, potentially it can work. But that whole thing of passive income and I want to step away and go and—

I think it can work, but I've, I personally, I would want to see numbers every week. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not truly passive. And then, you know, it could be like one A4 of just, but you know, I need to see the numbers and I want to. And the other thing is about an MD that could come in. It's really difficult starting from zero. And building a business. You can see why, and some people are not, you know, are unable to go up to all the different stages. But you need to have, in my view, you need to have a very mature business. You need to have all the roles documented, KPIs for each one.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. So it's— I'd be hesitant to go into business if your goal was essentially not to work.

Yeah, yeah, quite. Because it's, yeah, why are you doing it?

That's what it comes down to. Yeah, because there's a misalignment. Your goal is not to work, but you're going to have to do a lot of work to get there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So you are going to be challenged, like when it gets tough, you are going to be— if your goal is not to work, but then you're doing more work. Yeah. There's, yeah, it's just not that.

And there'd have to be a very strong leader in place to, because ultimately what's behind those numbers are people's engagement levels and motivation. And so it's fine if there's somebody in place that's fantastic to work for and is really driven and is there for them and nurturing them and a good leader. Yeah, but, um, so I wouldn't say it absolutely can't work, but yes.

Why is it so hard for business owners to see these problems, and what can they do to get around them?

I often say with something like coaching, it's, it's like the things are at the end of your nose, you can't see the end of your nose. So in the same way, in my business, I— there's certain things I wouldn't be able to see necessarily until somebody from the outside looks in and points them out, and then you go, oh God, yeah, why didn't I see that? It's so simple. So it's often the simple things that can make a massive, massive difference. How can they get around them? I think it is, it's a case of having somebody from the outside and give them that feedback. I guess also if they have got a team, asking the team, and that's something you should always be doing, asking your people 'What's going well? What could be better?' Not 'What's wrong?' or 'What's not going well?' but 'What could be better?' Those two questions, and those are great questions actually to open up any discussion if you're one-on-one with somebody or if you have got team meeting. 'What's going well? What could be better?' Because you will get so much valuable information from that. So the answers will either be in your team, ideas on how to solve those problems will be in the team, but if you did want to engage with a business coach, having somebody from the outside who's got experience of that looking in can be invaluable as well.

Yeah, just kind of a different point of view. Yeah. I think the advantage of external person is that they're not, the headspace is not all used up with, I must remember to do this or that, you know, the actual day-to-day. So you can actually work on as opposed to kind of in the business.

Yeah. And they're also, you know, the idea, I remember a mentor of mine saying to me, it's just we're all on a journey and that person's just maybe a bit further down the road than you. So they've seen those problems before and they've fixed them, you know. I think, you know, I've never run a trades business, but I've worked with trade businesses for 10 years, more. So I've seen a lot of the same patterns. It's very similar patterns at the different stages of turnover, very similar.

I think as the businesses grow, you know, the skill set that you require is, you know, as a sole trader you need the actual on the tools. And then as you grow, you know, it's just that business side that grows. And then as the businesses grow, you know, the businesses— not all are identical, but, you know, there is that huge crossover between the skills that you need.

And a lot of it comes down to people. I think that's the probably the most important and hardest bit, is if you can get people— I think Richard Branson said that, didn't he? Get people who are better than you. Don't be frightened by having people around you who are better than you at doing certain things, because if you can do that and you keep them motivated and happy and engaged and loyal to you, then everything else can really be sorted.

Yeah, well, I have an expectation that everyone is better at their jobs than I am. If I'm better at their jobs, because I do a little bit of everything, if I'm better than at their jobs than they are, it's not a good sign. No. It's because they are focused on that one role, their skills are there. That's it.

And you'll find yourself, and I see this quite a bit, continually stepping in to try and explain what it is that you want.

Well, that could be two things. It could be your own, you know, you're not setting, you're not communicating correctly, you're not setting their expectations. So you need to sort that out first. Yes. So is it a systems problem? Have you not described it correctly? Yes. And then if you've done your side correct, then you move on to, is it could possibly be a people problem, but you need to start with yourself first. Absolutely. People are not mind readers, definitely not. It sounds like a simple thing, but it's actually—

You're absolutely right. And I say, you know, the first day somebody starts with you, take them to the café, buy them breakfast, and first off, ask, what are your expectations? What if this is going to be a good outcome for you working here? 'What are you looking for? What's important to you?' And then share what your expectations are, but do it in that order. Their expectations first and then your expectations because, well, they'll feel heard and then they're more likely to listen.

You wouldn't suggest that slightly earlier in the interview process?

Yes, definitely. Yes, you can cover it there as well, but I think on the first day, yeah, I don't think you can ever say it too many times.

Okay, just a quick recap. This is what, yeah, setting expectations is really important. Really important. Absolutely. There's a misalignment there, it doesn't work very well. Exactly. The word systems can sound like an, sort of, like operations of a big corporate company. So why should trade companies, you know, have systems or put the energy into actually doing them?

I guess the short answer is I think you'll find it nigh on impossible to step back without them. So unless you, I mean, systems can mean lots of different things, can't they? It can mean technology. So software, but it can also mean systemising your business, and by that I mean documenting, in whatever shape and form, your standards, how you like tasks to be completed or how they should be completed. Checklists, ideally electronic, to sign off a job, for example. So let's say you're training somebody on how to fit a boiler. I hear this frequently actually from business owners, you know, "I've told them, I've told them how to do it, they're still not doing it right." Hmm, so you've told them, So there's, as you probably know, there's 3 different learning styles. One is demonstrating, kinesthetic, so you actually get to, to do it yourself. Um, one is auditory, so they do that a lot, but the one that they're often missing is the visual. So by having, not having the processes or the steps actually documented and then a checklist against signing them off to yes, you've done that task completely, then it's very difficult for somewhat, for some people, I'm visual, I'm a visual learner, I have to have it written down for it to actually sink in. It wouldn't really matter if you told me, you could tell me 1,000 times, it's not going to probably go in in the same way. That's just one small example. Yeah. So, yeah.

I don't know, for me personally, there needs to be a checklist. There's a reason why pilots have a checklist. Yes, exactly. There is, you know, and It's just not, your brain is not good at remembering lists. That's right, that's right. We're not built for that, designed for that.

Yeah, pilot's a good metaphor, I'm going to use that one.

But I also think that it's kind of tricky to convey the value of it. So, like, if you can do the checklist, you go say, okay team, everyone follow the checklist. But if you don't get that buy-in, that commitment to see the value, Trying to do it in a different way of saying, how do you make everyone follow the checklist? So you, but you need that buy-in, you need that commitment. Absolutely.

Like anything, like any change that you're trying to introduce, software is a great one actually, because you probably have encountered this, I'm not too sure, but we see this frequently where there's lots of different systems on the market and some of them very sophisticated, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how good that technology is if your people on the ground aren't bought in and aren't using it, then it's useless, you know, rubbish in, rubbish out. And so that, I think, is a key bit. Whenever you're introducing any kind of change to a group of people, you've got to be asking them how they feel about it. You've got to be showing what's in it for them. What are the benefits of them using this? How is it going to make a difference to them? Even if there isn't much difference to them, but there's a difference to the company, which will then indirectly benefit them. There's got to be an incentive.

So yeah, if it were— if the checklist cuts down return visits, yeah.

But asking them as well, you know, I see this frequently as well. Don't think as a business owner it's all on you to come up with the answers. You know, you've got a group of people that you can ask. So what are the benefits of us using this? What do you think they are? Somebody will speak up and say, and then you'd hope, and then they, you know, they influence the team. So this is what I mean about people. It's, there's so much, so many skills and psychology involved, aren't there, in leading a group of people? Because it's sometimes it's knowing when not to speak actually. And just asking questions can be far more powerful than what I say becoming a frustrated parrot, saying the same thing again and again and again. And it just becomes white noise.

But you, yeah, you don't need to be the hero, but you just need to, you know, your team should be the hero.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Yeah, as you say, you just need to ask better questions. Yeah. What, um, what kind of level of systems do you need, like, at different stages, like at a sole trader, and then, you know, as sort of one or, like, one or two contractors or other trades, and then at the stage where you actually have an admin person, etc.?

The first thing I would say that the absolute must is accounting software. So I get nervous when people say, oh no, the accountant does all that, and the accountant's not keen on me having accounting software. It's a bit like watching a game of football and not knowing who's winning and who's losing. If you don't know the score, you know, you don't know who's winning, who's losing. It's the same running a business. If you don't know the scores in your business, you don't know what's working and what's not. So the absolute must is accounting software, having some basic training in measuring, knowing how to run reports and understanding your— and the likelihood is you're probably going to need some help with that, whether it's the accountant providing it or a business coach. That would be you know, that would be worth getting some help with. I think once you then start having a team of people—

And so, but before moving on the accounts, you're reviewing those accounts monthly? Yes. At a minimum?

Yes, absolutely, absolutely, yes. So whatever new initiative or change you've made in your business, those figures will give you the direct feedback whether or not it's working. So I guess, yeah, having some kind of software in place, accounting software in place. The one we recommend is Xero. That's the most user-friendly in my experience. Then it depends on the personality of— we use a profiling tool to help with this— of the business owner. It can sometimes be getting somebody to help with admin. And generally what I say is do it in baby steps. So the first step is to get a freelancer, ideally, to help with the admin side, or a subcontractor, or both. So the numbers, understanding your numbers will show you how much more you need to take to pay for those costs, and then to do it on a freelance basis, you're not putting yourself under pressure to cover an overhead.

Okay, so if it doesn't work, you can just stop at any time.

Yes, exactly. So building it up from there, once you get to say a team of, I'd say probably 3, certainly 5, you'd benefit from having some software to track and manage jobs potentially earlier.

And I would say earlier. We've done quite a bit of studies about it, and it's around about a 27 to 29 to 30% increase in efficiency if they use a— like, we have two products. One is Gas Engineer Software and then Field Rocket. The time just to actually fill the certificates in have the details there from previous— Absolutely. Your history, there's some legal requirements in there it covers.

Yes, yeah, exactly.

It's, you know, I don't think you can survive without it.

Yeah, yeah, I would agree, I would agree. So yeah, having software in place to help with things like scheduling, the admin tasks. Often I find that people are trying to do it using, say, a Google Calendar. Well, that will start to fall over at some point, so that's where you need a a system beyond.

Yeah, I think that kind of works for some sole traders, but if you have like an all-in-one, everything, because you get the whole history and it just makes it kind of easier. When you're kind of running a business, you have kind of tasks that are important but not urgent. How do you kind of balance like working on the business and in the business? Like how do you actually kind of think about it? Because like a lot of tradespeople, you know, they are really short of time. Yeah, you're exhausted at the end of the day. Where do you get the energy, the time, and to actually put these systems, you know, build all of this stuff to actually make it sort of more efficient?

So it's interesting you mentioned about urgent, important, because obviously that's a matrix in itself, and that's one of the, um, tools and techniques that we use, the urgent, important matrix. So the first step, I guess, if I've got a client that's— it sounds like what you're describing is what we call firefighting. So just getting up in the morning and just dealing with You know, who's shouting the loudest. That would be a session where we'd just stop, and I tend to use mind maps quite a bit, so just get everything down on a mind map that they're doing. And another exercise we use is the £10, £100, £1,000 task exercise. So we then look at, okay, which of these tasks are a £10 value to the business, meaning that you could easily delegate them. If somebody mucks them up, it's not going to be a deal breaker. The £100 ones, maybe could be delegated but may still stay with you. The £1,000 tasks are the ones that you absolutely should be focused on, and sometimes they can include things that the business owner would love to be doing but hasn't got the time currently.

But, and some of those could be more long-term kind of things, not urgent, but they kind of get pushed further down.

Absolutely, and they never get around, you know, to doing it. So Rome wasn't built in a day, so obviously it's not that you can just sort all of those sorts of things out overnight, it's baby steps again. So it's, and often it's asking them, so what's a step that you could take to move you closer in this direction? And people will generally tell you, they'll say, oh, I think I really, and they probably already know themselves, you know, I would really, I love, I'd love to have somebody help with this. Or if I say, you know, if I could take anything off your plate tomorrow, what would you choose? They'll be able to tell me, but then it's, well, what's stopping you from doing it? 'Oh, well, I haven't got anybody.' 'What's stopping you from having anyone?' 'Oh, I don't know how to go about getting them,' or 'I don't know if I can afford them.' So that next step, and then the maths of like how much more is it actually?

Do I get more money if I actually worked on the tools and I delegated that? Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

It's the not knowing, and again, it's classic, what do I do first? But it's either I don't know how to go and find them, or can I afford them, or both. Yeah, and that's—

there's a general fare of, you know, if you haven't done them before, except—

exactly. And that's what I deal with day in, day out. It's, well, we start with the numbers because that will tell us, can you afford it, or what do you need to be turning over to afford it? Often when I look at the numbers, I can see something, I go, right, this is showing me you're not charging enough. For example, this is the methodology now to follow to quote for your jobs. We sort that out, then the money starts increasing. Right, now we can find somebody part-time to help you. So step by step. Step by step, absolutely. Nothing too drastic that's going to sink the business or scare the hell out of them. It's baby steps. Very rewarding, you know, because then they can start to see it working and, "Wow, I've now got money in my bank account. I'm not stressed about money anymore." And yeah. No, it's a good feeling. Very fulfilling, yeah.

It's definitely quite challenging running a business. It is.

But it's often simple things that can resolve it.

But they are kind of simple, but they're not, so—

Well, they're not easy. They're simple, but they're not easy, perhaps sometimes. You know, it's not easy to find good people, but it is possible.

Yeah, no, definitely possible. Other people have built businesses. Exactly.

What's the difference between them and the next person? Yeah, why not you? Why not us? Absolutely. Exactly right. Exactly.

Well, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Enjoyed it. And yeah, appreciate coming on. And it's Alison from Evolve and Grow. Coaching.

Thank you. Thank you very much.