Toolbox Talk

I read the news recently which said tradies are earning more compared to other professions. This caught my attention because if you read the news carefully, they're clearly missing some points.  I bet you wouldn't want your customers thinking you're ripping them off just because you're charging more than $90 an hour, right? So here's my thought on how you can defend yourself with how to charg...

What do you do when there's no more work to do? Are you back to cleaning the shed? Cleaning the shed isn't fun. You don't want to be cleaning this sh*t, right? It's a very stressful place to be.  Of course, what we want is to always have work to do so we can earn money to pay for our staff, our business and family's need. What happens is, we end up cleaning the shed if we don't build our mark...

Is your business too complex right now? Do your processes require too much time and energy for you and your staff to accomplish? If so, I encourage you to avoid complexity at all cost.  It's known in bigger business to be a cause of cost, and in smaller business, I think sometimes we allow it to creep in and we shouldn't. Now, I'll tell you it's not easy. It takes a bit of discipline. Let me...

Today's blog is about small trades business vs big trades business. There's a lot of difference between a small and informal trade business, and a structured and systematized one. I have read from Seth Godin's articles that the small business kind of works, and the big business kind of works, and then in between is a bit sh*t. Do you agree? Let me explain to you a bit more.

How's business going? Is there a lot going on right now? What I mean is, sometimes you have to do a lot of things. You start doing some more marketing and you get a bit busy and then, you have to go and work on your operations machine and grow people, hire people, or make it more systematic or take yourself out of it, and so on.  Everything you do has another effect and sends you over to some...

I often hear people say that they get their business through word-of-mouth marketing, but is it enough? If you're a small business, I don't blame you if that's the only thing you do. But if you're ambitious to grow bigger with your trades business, I don't think you can rely on word-of-mouth alone. Let me tell you why in this video.

My girlfriend, Michelle, who's a PhD in psychology, tried to build a website on her own. She did a good job building it. but not as great as she was in her field. Recently, she noticed that her website wasn't bringing any leads and when she tried to Google herself she was nowhere to be found. And so, my lesson for today is about websites and why doing-it-yourself is not a good idea. 

How's your day today? I've been sending emails about improving your cash flow, has it helped you a bit? I'd like to know :) Today, I'll be talking about the 4th way on how to loosen tight cash flow. Clue: it's the subject of this email. Yes, I'll share with you how to track money coming in and out your business. Plus, I've got a free download for you that you can use to help you do it.

Today's topic for Cash Flow is a bit exciting and confronting :) We will be talking about how to get paid sooner than never. And I see this crime that people commit often - it is to do work, raise their invoice, and leave it, and let it dragged out and not get paid and be owed a considerable sum of money. If that's what you do, I urge you to stop and try these better solutions instead to keep your...

It's Episode 2 of our Cash Flow Series! Last week, I shared with you that the first step to improve your cash flow is to have better margins. Have you started doing it? If not, I think you should and I believe you can. The way to get different results is to do something different. So let me continue my topic with this one - It's important to know your numbers.

I asked people joining the 'Tradies Business Toolshed' group on Facebook about what areas in their business they want to improve (if you haven't joined the group yet, click here . And I got this very common answer: CASH FLOW. So I decided that for this whole month of June, I will be talking about 'Cash Flow' because I know it is very important. It is the blood that runs the life of every business....

Last week I spoke about 'Price vs Risk' or 'Choosing Between Cheap Tradies And Expensive Tradies'. I want to emphasize that sometimes when choosing a cheap builder, the customers expose himself/herself to a lot of risks compared to the expensive ones - those who have included everything in their quote, who they can trust and rely, and all other things.  But, let me make myself clear, I am not...

Today's topic is about Price vs Cost. I know when it comes to pricing tradies can feel a bit pressured, especially when someone else comes in much cheaper than you for the same job.  So I've made this to explore one of my favorite themes - resisting price pressure, and what you can do to make sure you have enough money to sustain your business. You need to take a risk you know and it's not th...

It's been a while since I done Jon's Journey episodes for you. For those who are new here, these episodes are about my experience as someone who's bought a house and using tradespeople as a customer, being on the other side of that fence and seeing what I learned so I can share it with you and you can use it to improve your business.  But today, I cheated... I haven't used the trade but my ne...

Today, I've made a short video about what I call "The Marketing Building Blocks for a trades business" and I'm going to - explain the different types of trade business - What the building blocks are - Which type of building blocks should you use for your trades business I hope the video makes sense to you. Or have a chat with me if you have questions :)

In today's topic, I'm talking about social media. I know there's so many choices out there you can use to market on social media. There are many people trying to sell a service to do it for you, and often they're biased because they have a preference or an understanding of one platform and not so much the other. But are these platforms good for you? I'll tell you how to use social media based on h...

You might be wondering what I mean by my title. 🙂 It's a cute 😊 story but I'm making a point about inertia and taking action - are you sitting on a nail? 🤔 There's no denying that we all experience pain at some point in our lives, even in our business. Sometimes it's obvious what's causing us this pain.  And sometimes the pain is disguised. Do you know what's causing you pain in your life,...

Do you find it hard to let go (of control)? I know most tradies do. In fact, ""Control Issues"" is something most of my clients will identify with. Fair enough - you got this far by being in control but you'll scale by letting go - in a controlled fashion.   I'll show you how to: - Let go of your control issues - Delegate the work to your people - Create systems and processes If you want...

I was inspired to write something about I read in a Facebook thread of a group I joined about tradies. It's a question about Google AdWords or Pay-Per-Click advertising. Many of you have heard of this, but I'm sure that not all of you have figured out how to do it. It's okay because you are not supposed to be good at it. You'd do better by learning how to develop your skills to become a better tra...

Last week I talked about the ways your customers lie just to get a cheaper price which leaves you at your disadvantage. I wanted to explore a bit more on that. Your customers may lie if they want to win you over at a cheaper price but don't you know they do same thing if they don't give you the job anyway? Why would they do that?  I know it's probably what you're asking right now so I'm here...

Can you tell if your customers are lying just to get a discount? If you're not so sure how they do it, I'll tell you the signs. Don't fall in the trap or you'll end up losing.

I hired a plumber for some small jobs at home. The guy is nice but the experience I had from their service is not so good. And I learned some important lessons from it that I want to share with you.

Lead aggregation sites are very popular among small businesses who want to get more leads and bring in more work. But, is it really worth investing your marketing money?

You might be wondering what the customers do before they decide to hire a tradesman. Let me share with you my own experience as a customer of trades businesses. Hint: there is a process.

Most of the time we hear our customers asking for a discount for cash transactions. As a trades business owner, should you be doing it? Well, I don't think you should discount and I'm going to tell you WHY.