Why This Engineer Only Does 5 Boiler Installs a Year w/ Dan Voice

I think the first fear is, where's the work coming from? Because you've been fed work by an employer for many, I don't know, 5 years maybe, and then you've got to go out on your own and find that work on your own. And that's the most scariest thing. To start off with, you need to just sort of decide what you want from it, whether it's wealth, whether it's comfort, because it's not going to be comfortable when you first start up. What employed guys don't realize when they're setting up their pricing model is that most of the stuff that they don't know about, they don't see or know how much it cost. So they think they're earning £18 an hour or £20 an hour, whatever it might be, but that's just to put in their pocket all those other little things— the holidays, the pensions, everything else you've got.

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

Hi, thanks for having me.

Today our conversation is going to be centered around the idea of building a long-term career in heating and plumbing. Lots of engineers have the ambition to start their own business, but you often only get one or two chances to get it right. So how can you make it count? And how do you know if it's really the right path for you?

Well, you've got to decide what you want from it initially, because that leap into self-employment can be— sends a lot of fear into a lot of people. I think the first fear is is where's the work coming from? Because you've been fed work by an employer for any, I don't know, 5 years maybe. Most people, common sort of number I seem to see. And then you've got to go out on your own and find that work on your own. And that's the most scariest thing. Now, I'm not gonna promote you finding work and building a business while you're still employed because I think that is fundamentally wrong. But people do do it. But I think to start off with, you need to just sort of decide what you want from it, whether it's wealth, whether it's comfort, because it's not going to be comfortable when you first start up.

It might be flexibility as well.

Yeah, I mean, for me, I just absolutely adore the flexibility, the freedom that self-employment gives. Yes, it's been tough, but I got there in the end. I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. But for me, you've got to— if you leave to go to be self-employed because you think it's some sort of gold mine. It's not. It can be, but it's not going to be a gold mine from the moment you start up. You're going to have a long process of figuring out your prices and fundamentally be caring more about what other people are doing than what you're actually doing and get nowhere. Because the problem is with social media is that it tends to be, if someone comes up with a question, there just seems to be 50 comments of negativity. Well, that's a snapshot of that person's feelings of that moment in time, and if they're going through a poor time with their self-employment journey because they've mismanaged it or taken the wrong approach or it's just not right for them and they don't have, possess the skills to run the business, of course they're gonna be negative towards you, and you're sat there trying to get a positive take on going self-employed, but yet you're reading all the comments that are completely negative because they are essentially failing.

Yeah, well, I think the other thing is like when you're an employee, your employer does a lot of things that you're not actually aware of.

Yeah, 100%.

And you only really tend to find this out once you actually go self-employed. And these kind of, these things that come up, these are things that don't make you money. Yeah, like setting up your bank account.

Yeah, finding liability insurance, getting your van insurance. Yeah, you're quite right. There's, there's, this is what employed guys don't realize when they're setting up their pricing model, is that most of stuff that they don't know about, they don't see or know how much it costs. So they think they're earning £18 an hour or £20 an hour, whatever it might be, but that's just to put in their pocket. The cost of sending you out in a van is probably triple that, you know. Um, and all those other little things, the holidays, the pensions, everything else. You've got to sit— you need to— if you're thinking of going it alone, you need to sit— you need to— it needs to be a 2-year plan. Before you step out. You need to have all everything in order, all your ducks in a row, get everything sorted, find out what you want to do, what sort of work, what sort of clients you want, because not all clients are suitable for one-man bands, because they're just not.

And can you give an example of that?

I'll give you an example, um, and I suffer with this problem, is because I predominantly do repair and servicing, sometimes you can get tied up on a job runs over, or you've got to go back to the merchants to get another part, or, um, traffic or whatever. So My demographic for customers are generally older retired people, so they're usually in all day.

So you have a bit more flexibility.

I'm not really set up for time-defiant appointments.

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When I've got loads of older generations, so like retired old ladies that, you know, are home on their own, and, "Yeah, Dan, no problem, come whenever you can," you know, whereas if someone's taken a day off work and you get— you're gonna really upset them. So you need to decide which customer type you want. Do you, you know, but there's kind of control about like where you live. Yes.

Like if you live, yeah, Central London or, um, you know, in the middle of Wales.

Yeah, you just, you've just got to choose. And also you've got to understand what you're good at. You know, if you're good at repair like I am, I just do repair. I do the occasional install, but I'm not particularly thrilled about it. But, you know, so I've got a lot of customers that, um, and most of my customers actually are pretty good at getting by till I can get there. So if they've got a drippy tap, they'll let me know and I'll say I'll get there I can, you know. Or if they've got— the heating goes down, it's not absolute blind panic. They'll get by, they'll switch the immersion on, or they'll put a little heater on. And if I can't get there for a couple of days, they're the sort of customers you want. You want laid-back customers.

Okay, one, you know, just to kind of go, go back, like, uh, so you're talking about you do servicing, you could do installations. Is, um, is there like a limited time frame that you can only do installs for?

Yeah, what, when you say time frame, what do you mean? What, as in during the day?

Yeah, I mean, not— well, there's a couple of things. Like, you've got install takes a long time.

Yeah, when you're looking at— it's moved 2 days, 2 days minimum for a boiler install. There are lads out there do it quicker, but, um, you know, you've got a day to change the boiler and a day to flush it.

But the thing is, 2 days, you've got that, but then you've also got like how many years can you do installs until—

oh, I see what you mean. I see what you mean. I see what you mean.

I'm still thinking about like like if you're choosing like which route to go for and what kind of people that you're going to be—

yeah, well, yes, I mean, installs, if you, if you're an employer and you've got installers on your, on your books, please take it from me, give them a break occasionally because that is the fastest way to lose employees. Is it? Honestly, install work is hard graft. It's tough, up and down the stairs, up and down into lofts, in and out a lot airing cupboards on your knees. I don't think realistically you're going to be efficient past 50 if you've been in it all the time. So you need to start looking at tailing back and doing your servicing work. You know, if I— if I— I'm not in a position to employ anyone, but if I was to employ someone, I— if I would not have just one installer, because if you give them installs 5 days a week all through the year, they're going to be broken. You're going to break them. Physically to a point where they probably look elsewhere because they want a bit more diversity. If they're happy doing it, that's fine, but they need a— they probably need a day changing toilet flushes and changing taps just for a little bit of a break. And I think a lot of employers just keep loading, loading, loading, loading, loading, and then wonder why lads disappear off on their own. Because when they go off on their own, they can take that step back, they can decide what they want to do, and they're not being beasted by an employer to pump out 5 boiler installs a week, or in some cases more sometimes.

So, so you've got that kind of— like, got the, the human side. What about like from the business side? Because you've kind of got the, the income is a bit more—

would you describe it more choppy? Yeah, no, with the install work, because there's a lot more margin in that overall job, in that overall thing, there's a bit more. So you, you gain a buffer much quicker. Yeah, if you're efficient, I believe if you're efficient at repair, you can get similar day rate. I mean, I'm not going to talk big money because I know where we are with it, it's four figures and probably not quite so much four figures for repair. But trust me, repairing is so much easier. It's, it's just, there isn't— if you do it properly and you price properly and you're good at fixing, you should be able to get a similar sort of revenue daily from an install as repair, but you won't be so broken And, and the risk is also low. Yeah, yeah. And you've got, you've got the risk of stuff going wrong. And dirty systems nowadays is one of the biggest things I see. Quick installs, dirty systems. I do a lot of manufacturer work, so warranty work, so I get to see what goes, really goes on behind the scenes. There's a lot of very forgiving manufacturers out there, I will say that. But from a monetary perspective, back to your monetary point, is yes, installs will predominantly bring you more revenue, but you've got to work probably 3 times harder for it. You've got to be on site 7, 8, 9 o'clock. You're there till 4, 5 o'clock. These lads are, you know, you'll see it in the comments, what are you talking about, I can do 2 in a day. No, you're not doing 2 in a day properly.

So you need to just kind of like, yeah, is it worth the extra?

I don't think it is from my perspective, from my personal opinion. I don't think building a one-man band building an installation business, it's gonna— he's gonna get fed up very, very quickly. He's going to be worn out very, very quickly. You need to maybe do— I mean, I do do boilers, probably 4 or 5 a year maybe. I don't promote them, I generally do them for people I know. So I tell them how much it's going to be, they say, yeah, when can you do it? You know, I didn't do a formal email quote, I don't mess about with chasing it. And if I get any inkling that it's a new customer that's getting 5 or 6 quotes, I won't even bother going because it becomes a price focus escapade. I could be, I could be out servicing boilers rather than wasting 2 hours telling them that I'm going to be more expensive than the last guy, you know. So, and that's not a negative, it's just my business model works for me.

So when you're thinking about going self-employed, you need to think about, you know, who you're going to serve, you know, what kind of services you want from it. Yeah. Oh, sorry, what, what you want. So like financially, time, you know, you know, the independence, what you value.

Yeah, I mean, just, I mean, just, you know, not without trying to be too big-headed here, but I, I, my business is predominantly repair. I get away, I've got a new van, I've got a motorbike which you've seen this morning. I get away to Europe on it occasionally. I go away with the kids. I have a few lads' breaks every year to Benidorm. I do all right. Am I, you know, it suits me. I'm happy, and that is all that really matters. And if you do everything properly and you're good at what you do and you look after your customers and you treat everybody fair and reasonably, you'll have a long, long career. When you get— when greed sets in, that's the slope that you need to avoid. You need to identify it, you know, and just not do it, because greed is a big killer of a lot of businesses.

So you're talking about more like more short-term—

yeah, so if you suddenly start trying to promote like doing £5,000 combi swaps, yeah, it'd be nice if you could get them, and some people probably do if they're into good— if especially if they're combi conversions with relocations and plume kits and or roof terminals. Maybe the pricing needs to be sort of £4,000 to £5,000, but a basic off-the-wall Combion. And don't be scared to hold your prices high, because what you will eventually end up with is, um, high-end clients that respect it, because they are out there. Yeah, the chicken feed stuff is— there'll always be chicken feed, low— there'll always be somebody that wants a cheap job, because if you've only got a £2,000 budget, you're going to hunt for a £2,000 boiler.

But you also got to be mindful about where you live.

Yes, exactly. Yes, but the thing is, yeah, that is a limiting factor. I don't want to name cities or anything because it's not right, but I know there are areas that can't justify it. But so what does— so that means you've got to work for free, does it? You know, you can't do that.

I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking more that if you're thinking about like your goal is to service only this kind of segment, and you, you live in a— like, if you, if you live in an area that doesn't have those kind of customers, no, then, then you adapt. Because you're geographically locked.

Yeah, exactly.

You can only drive.

So you've got like a 20-mile radius. You've got— but what you do is you, you adapt and overcome, and you, and you set your business model up to suit your surroundings. If you've got us— if you live in an area where wages are low, then you've got, you've got to lean off your business. You, you've got to decide that, can I make money as a, as a gas engineer? If I can't, I've look at something else. Because I tell you now, I'm telling you now, there's a lot of other industries earning a lot more money than gas engineers. It's not this golden— over the years it's been treated as this golden gold mine, and it's not anymore. There's milkmen earning more money.

So, so this is part of this, you know what I mean? This is—

that's no geography to— not putting down milkmen, but there are other— there's web developers, there's, um, all sorts of other industries that are earning a lot more money than gas engineers. But that's because they like to do that. And this is what you said about earlier, you got to decide what you want to do and what you enjoy doing. If you enjoy servicing boilers or changing taps or fitting bathrooms, then build your model around it, you know, and don't worry about what other people are. And if you're happy and you're earning enough money, that's all that matters. What everybody— you can't— there's that circle of control, isn't there, you know? And you want to focus on the things that you can control and influence. You can't influence the bloke up the road charging half as much as you. You can't do anything about that. So why worry about it? Why go on social media and say, oh, it's a race to the bottom? Concentrate on yourself, pick yourself up, sell yourself, sell your value, and you'll be fine. Okay, I understand there's limitations because, as you said earlier, depends on your demographic, where you live. But all you have to do is that if everybody else is able to do it to a reasonable standard, then there's no reason why you shouldn't. But if you're trying to do it and think you're going to be Mr. Millionaire overnight and ride around in a Bentley and this, that, and the other, then maybe you haven't really got a business head on because you live to your means.

But if you look at the, like, the statistics, there's what, I think it's around about 140,000.

Yeah, it's about 160,000. Between that, I mean, it's something like that.

And then there's a good chunk of those, uh, your British Gas, etc.

Yeah, there's tens of thousands. It's tied up in corporate, massive corporations.

Yeah. And then if you look at the rest, there's There's only like a small number of—

I think if you said 50/50, so I said, so if you put just a round figure on it and said there were 60,000 self-employed engineers out there, I don't think you'd be too far off. So if, when you think about it, when you think about the amount of roofs there are, 'cause if you think about that, you've gotta think about the ratio is against how many houses there are out there. 'Cause there's only one boiler in each house. Some might have two if they're bigger houses, but so 60,000 engineers versus what's the population of the UK now?

I don't know.

Exactly, it's a very small ratio. So there's more houses with boilers in than there is engineers capable of covering it. So effectively, only 60,000 boilers a day can be swapped. Yeah, if you don't know what I mean, excluding corporate. Yeah, you know, British Gas stuff. So I think it just depends solely on what you want, and you have to adapt, overcome, and build your business to your surroundings.

Yeah, I think the other thing is that when you look at, say, the 60,000, how many are self-employed? Like, if your goal is to build a Pimlico plumber, yeah, there's not that many people that have made it.

No.

Um, so if you, if you want to look down, that goes back to your area. That's London. That's why that succeeds. That would probably wouldn't succeed in a village with 10,000 people living in it.

No, the, the numbers are not going to add up. But just kind of, it is just like a check before you actually start this 2 years of planning, etc. Really sit down, what, what kind of company you want to build, what kind of lifestyle that you want to do, and actually look around at statistics and find out, is it actually possible?

Yeah.

What are the chances of actually getting there? Yeah.

Um, look at other people's companies' houses. Go on, go on Local Engineers' companies' houses. You'll get some reasonable information off there to see how they're doing. Yeah.

And, um, just to check to make sure you're heading in the right direction, you know, you can go— the idea is that you don't want to find the stuff out No, you don't want to—

you don't want to go— you don't want to go self-employed on Monday morning without something to hit the ground running with, you know. I'm not saying you should go out and start advertising before you've gone self-employed because that's a bit naughty. And you also think about when you do— can— one big thing I want to get out there, Tariq, is when you're thinking about going self-employed, think about what you're doing to your ex-employer, right? Because if it fails and you've turned them over on the way out, you've got no backup.

Well, especially if you're in a small village.

Just remember one thing: treat people how you want to be treated in return. If you try and go around and poach all of the customers from your ex-employer, good luck when you fail, because they'll tell everybody and you will be left out cold. You, you just don't do it. It's not worth it. You will probably end up with some of the customers finding out you've gone self-employed, because if you're daft enough to put a picture of yourself on some of your advertising they might realise it's you. Not saying you should do that, but it happens. But just be careful on your way out, guys, because, you know, no one wants to be— just think how you'd feel if you'd got a load of people working for you and they all turned on you and did that. It's not nice.

Yeah, because I think the high-risk period is that first year. You've got a bit of a honeymoon to start with, but then when the 1st April or whenever your tax date comes around, if you haven't been putting money aside for that tax, Yeah, that's the point when you actually work out that you've got— the money in the bank is not really—

yeah, well, there's some very good ways around this I've found, and I found these out recently actually, is dividing up— if you start dividing up— I think we discussed this last time I was here— if you start dividing all your costs up into weekly payments and you start putting money away every week, and then if that's short by the end of the month, you've got to top it up, it's keeping you in touch with all your overheads. Yeah, you know, because if you think, well, I've got to put £400 of tyres on the van, I'd like to have an MOT, and you just keep that— you just keep— have one account for like your, your overheads, if you like, and then you just keep topping that up every week. It keeps you in touch with your local costs, your everyday costs. And then there are, there are lots of bank accounts out there now, which I'm even looking at now, that you can actually set them up to do honeypots, where every time some money goes in, it separates off um, the VAT, the tax. So if you have a £10,000 payment going, you can say, right, put 10% of that in that pot for tax, that 10% in for VAT, and it does work out about 10-12% once you take your, your outgoing, your incoming VAT off. It works out around 10 or 12% you pay to the tax, to the VAT man, um, after all your adjustments. So if you set this up at the beginning, yeah, if you set this up at the beginning, always set up as you mean to go on. So don't try and don't start off on £20 an hour, because I'm telling you now, if you start up on £20 an hour, you're going to fail, because there's no business in this current climate that can survive on— a mobile business cannot survive on £20 an hour.

But plus you'll be attracting customers, you're attracting the wrong clients that will—

they'll just get elsewhere when the going gets tough, you know, or you can't get there. But, um, yeah, so it's just not sustainable. No, um, setting out your— and understanding your weekly outgoings through the weekly thing is a great way because if you keep putting— like I said to you, I put £110 a week into for my motorbike fund, right? So if my motorbike fund goes up or my monthly payment goes up on my motorbike, I would, I would have to alter that weekly thing. So if you stay in touch with your overheads on a weekly stroke monthly basis, it's much easier to recost them into a job or cost them into a job or cost them into your average week. Yeah, and you said about to like the tyres So there's 400 quid every 10,000 miles.

So you would need to look at, um, how— when the last time you actually paid for it, work out the time difference, divide it up, and then you put that in two parts.

So it might— for weekly payment, it might only be 10, 15 quid, but those 10s and 15 quids, they will add up, add up very quickly. Yeah, because if you're only charging 20 quid an hour—

yes, and there's a lot of driving involved—

before you know it, all you've done is work for your overheads. You've just worked the whole week for your overheads. And you've got to remember, guys, as well, that self-employment isn't— isn't—

is—

is you work on a lot of averages. There's no— there's no— there's lads out there go, I'm earning £1,000 a day. Yeah, you did one day of the month. Yeah, that's not averaging. You know, one day you might do £400. You always think, oh great, if someone's give me £400, right? That's one day in a month, right? What about the days where you don't go to work because you've decided to sit in the garden in the sunshine?

Oh, you were sick.

Oh, you're sick, or you're off on holiday for 2 weeks. So remember, everything averages out over that 220 to 240 working days of the year. Just because you earned £4,000 one weekend doing a bathroom doesn't mean you're on £4,000 a week every week. You've got to be realistic.

Averages are just—

yeah, averages out. And if you haven't got it sussed by week, by year 2, 3 at the latest, yeah, go back and work for someone. Don't waste your time.

Simpler.

Yeah, simpler, easier. If you haven't figured out your finances and you're not covering all your— you're not paying your VAT bill on by direct debit by and if you're VAT registered, which you won't be for the first couple of years, not unless you're a superstar. Just average it out. Make sure you're paying everything on time. If you're getting scared because you— if you feel like you're being buried and you get to the end of the month— and I've been there, Tola, I've been sat on the end of the bed in tears thinking we may have made the rent by £100, because when we moved to Leicester, I upsticks and everything we had— so I came from a lazy life where we were— when my other half was working, I came from a very lazy life. And suddenly I had to man up. So I had to put everything I'd learned the 10 years previous into making it work. And I've made it work because I just keep pushing, you know. And I figured the numbers. Yeah, you went to— you went from Brackley to Leicestershire overnight. No customers in Leicester. I literally changed my phone number, which was the worst thing I did, because I was initially in swimming pool heating.

Okay.

And, and that sort of arena. So a lot big plumbing stuff. And I had, you know, I'd obviously got experience in everything, and pipes are pipes at the end of the day, to some degree, you know. It either leaks or it doesn't, you know. And I just— water involves gas involved. But I just thought, do you know what, it's easy to give up. It's a lot easier to give up than it is to have one last push. It doesn't matter how many one last pushes you have, as long as your family life's not affected and you're paying your bills. And one big tip I will say is It's really helpful if you've got a supportive partner who's got a salary because they can help support your goals.

Are you talking about like just that initial period or—

Initial period, I think it'd be, you know, you need to have your wife, girlfriend, whatever, yeah, on board. Be clear in what you're going to do. Be realistic because honestly the first few months, I mean, there are some guys out there that hit the ground running and fly, you know, and they're entrepreneurial. But just because you're not entrepreneurial, you don't think straight and you don't think right and you don't think right initially, Don't let that be a stumbling block. Oh, I can't do it. Everyone can do it. You just got a bit of ambition.

Well, I think if you— you just need to be consistent.

Yeah, exactly that.

Every day.

Be realistic. Don't try and earn £1,000 a week straight out the back profit. You know, if you're going into self-employment with a £10,000 mortgage, you're going to be in trouble, right? You've got to be realistic. If you— if leaving your current employment job and you've got absolutely zero backup cash, that is a hard place to be. And if you're older, if you're an older generation, then it's going to be a lot tougher and it's a lot more complicated. And I think this podcast can get over— but the, the ideal time for self-employment is living at home. All you lads living at home, get on it. Speak to your parents. Do what my dad did. My dad said to me, as long as you're out, yeah, trying, I don't want housekeeping. You know, if I can see you moving forward, you're not out on the lash every weekend wasting it. And I just pushed and pushed and pushed and I got there. And I started, I was 21 when I started. I'm 44 now. I've had ups and downs. I've had some big crashes, you know, but I just kept going. There's a lot of the crashes weren't all my fault, but you've just got to keep going. But if you're at home living at home, that's— you're hot and ready to go, you know. You've got all that energy. Good place. It's a good place to be because you're living at home. You can, you can— you miss a day's work, you haven't got to worry about paying the rent. Let your mum and dad carry you. And I'm— most parents, unless there's something wrong with them, will support their kids.

Yeah, just to get started, as long as there's a— yeah, that is a road to something.

But on the other hand to that, at 21, you're not going to have the experience experience to be out self-employed. So you've either got a— my best advice to anyone going out self-employed is remember, while you're employed, you've got a backup phone call you can ring in, you've got other engineers you can talk to. Yes, you've got that when you go self-employed, but if you're— you have to be honest yourself— you're one of these people that needs to turn to social media every time things get a bit difficult, or you've got to turn to someone else, or the manufacturer— if you're having to lean on somebody to get you through the day every single day, you're not ready for self-employment.

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Yeah, you need to get yourself well, well clued up on the sort of things you want to do. So if you want to— boiler repair is actually not that difficult once you understand the process and understand what's going on. They're all the same, they've all got the same components, and they're just made by different people. Well, they all work in the same logic. They create a demand, they try and fire. If the fan don't run, is it the board that's at fault or is it the fan at fault? You do your tests, you figure it out. It is often in the early days some of the newer stuff now is known as witchcraft, but it's not. It's just understanding it. But if you're having— if every time you go to a job and you're ringing up the manufacturer or ringing up your mate in front of the client, that client's probably not going to call you back.

Yeah, it's a bit slow.

Yeah, it's a bit slow. You're going to end up part slinging, slinging parts at it, which then makes you uneconomical to repair. So if you want a long, long career in repair, you need to be there aren't many boilers that break down that need half a dozen parts. And if they do, you're probably better off changing the boiler, you know.

Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, really appreciate it, Dan.

No problem at all, Tyler, anytime.

Yeah, um, and very insightful. Thank you.