The ‘Dirty Dozen’: 12 Critical Elements To Running A Great Tradie Business 1. Why: Without a good reason to be in business or your trade, what’s going to keep you getting out of bed? Having dreams, passion and purpose to your life makes it more fulfilling, exciting and meaningful. Try writing your own eulogy – what would you like people to be saying about you when they’re saying their last goodbyes? Let’s hope it’s more than just ‘You worked really, really hard’… 2. S.M.A.R.T Goals: We promised the show would be a cliché-­‐free-­‐zone but there are some important exceptions. If your life were a boat, having Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound goals are critical if you want to ensure you’re sailing towards something and not just doing laps of the Pacific Ocean. 3. Planning: You wouldn’t start a project withouth a plan, hopefully written. Whether it’s a house, a car restoration or a landscaping project, having a written plan makes sure the end result is at least close to what you had in mind when you started. The same holds true for your business and it makes it easier to delegate part of the work to others when you have a written blueprint for what the end product is supposed to look like. 4. Self-­‐mastery: The person who has the biggest influence on your success in your business is not your spouse (although a close second!), your customers or your staff…it’s you. Anyone who’s succeeded at anything will tell you that their own state of mind, personal habits, time management and discipline were critical to their results. The same is true for anyone in business. Making sure you’re disciplined and organised can dramatically improve your results. 5. Sales Process: Sales is more science than art and having a process helps to make sales more consistent, less confronting and overall more rewarding. A simple flowchart also means you can enlist the help of staff, virtual assistants and others to take over parts of the work to help prospects choose you as their next tradesperson. 6. Know your financials: Not looking at or understanding your financials is like flying a plane without any dials and guages. It’s one of the biggest mistakes business owners make – leaving accounting to their accountant! You should be looking at (and understanding) your basic financials at least monthly so you know where you’re going…and we’re not talking about just checking your bank balance every day! 7. Pricing & Quoting: Your prices should be set based on your business, your customers and your goals, not by simply charging what your competitors charge. You also need to know what margin you make on your products or services and whether that’s sufficient for you to achieve your goals. Quoting can be time consuming so it also makes sense to streamline this as much as possible with some sort of formula or process as well as an approach that ensures you convert the most prospects into customers that you can. 8. Test & Measure: More than just looking at your financials, you need to know what else is going on with your business. Especially important is the effectiveness of your marketing and one sure fire way to figure that out is by measuring your enquiries. That way you know whether the money you spend on advertising and marketing is getting you a return and then make changes so you’re not wasting cash on strategies that aren’t! 9. Job Management: From the time the customer makes an enquiry to the final payment for the job, it’s critical to keep track of everything that’s going on. This avoids double handling, wasted time and costly rectification of defects. Job cards, time sheets, work methods and more can save countless hours and dollars over the course of a year. 10. Building a team: One of the most challenging aspects of growing a trade based business, hiring staff strikes fear into the hearts of many a business owner! It doesn’t need to be this way and with some simple systems and knowledge, it’s possible to build a great team that can help you create a consistent income and a long lasting business. 11. Mindset and Motivation: Making sure that what’s going on ‘upstairs’ is helping and not hindering your efforts in business. Keeping a positive attitude, seeing solutions not problems and being the kind of person your customers, staff and family want to spend time (and money!) with. 12. The Simple Sh*t: all the little things that can have a big impact on your business. Examples are paying super for employees, having the necessary insurances in place, making sure you use the right business structure and so on. These simple things are often overlooked but can be some of the most critical elements to creating a true, trade based business versus a self employed ‘job’.