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All The Best Things Are Useless At First

The best things are useless at first

You have to invest time and money before you get your return.

This is Lenny, my new dog. I’ve had him for a few weeks now, he’s a puppy.  He’s a chocolate labrador, and he’s very lovely, and he knows how to behave when he’s sitting with me.

He’s a bit useless. He hasn’t learned anything yet. He’s just about to learn how to wee outside. He can sit, but he’s rubbish on the lead. If you don’t have the door open for him to go outside to pee, he might have an accident.

He chews everything, chews my hand. I’m covered in scratches, my legs are covered in scratches from taking him for a swim. He tries to climb up me because he’s scared. And he still chases the cap, he hates it.

I’m confident though that if we train him, and we invest a bit of time and energy into looking after him and teaching him to walk he’ll turn into a lovely dog. He’s already a beautiful dog but he’ll turn into a great dog – a great pet.

The things you need in your trade business

That same sense is what I want to give you for the things you invest in your business and the things that you’d like for your business to acquire.

The simplest and most obvious example is an apprentice.

When you start an apprentice they don’t know anything and you’ve got to invest a lot of time and energy and effort into teaching them and training them so they become good tradespeople.

Recommended Reading: Growing Your Trade Business – Should You Hire An Apprentice Or A Tradesperson?

Even when you hire new tradespeople who are experienced, they’re going to take a bit of time to settle in. They’re going to take a bit of time to learn where everything is, how you do everything in this business, and learn your systems and your structures — the ones you’ve built so that they are functioning and a useful member of your team.

It’s important that they follow your systems and structures, and they don’t just go out there and do everything their way.

That’s how you stay a team and it can give your customers a consistent result irrespective of which tradesperson shows up to do a job. 

And the same is true with all the things that I do with my clients, all the systems and structures we put in place. Some of them take a long time. Occasionally, we get a quick win but mostly, they take a period of investment and effort before you get your return.

This is what I want you to remember because I think this is true for almost everything in business and I think we need to remind ourselves of it. 

We tend to want to make a decision, move on and start seeing the results. And the truth is you’re not going to get it.

We built a new website for Small Fish

As an example, we decided to build our new website last October. We went to see our web people and talk to them and got our quote which was quite a lot. There was a lot to do particularly, if we wanted to keep all our SEO or all these videos. We saved up a couple of months to have the money, and then we had to write all the copy and go through the process of choosing the design, writing the copy, getting some photographers to do photo and video shoots with those clients who kindly gave their time and energy for testimonials ,etc.

It was finally finished in about July. Then, we built the Big Numbers Workbook, and we started spending money on Facebook Ads and I would say we started seeing growth in the number of enquiries coming through in September and October. And now in November, we’ve seen the money coming through from the new clients that we’ve got because of this increased investment in our website. 

We spent a lot of money – upwards of $25,000. We kept spending and it took a year before I saw money in the bank.

So, you need to think in terms of that type of scale. 

Stuff takes time unless you’re lucky and you’ve already got momentum happening. Starting a new thing from scratch is going to take months (not weeks) of time and energy investment from you.

If you’re doing the right stuff, you’ll get the results but it’ll take time and you need to keep going and investing before you get your reward.

That’s what I want you to take away from today. If you want me to help, of course, I can. 

If you want help to understand the right things to be doing are, I can talk to you about that.

There are four ways you can engage with me:

1. Subscribe to these emails and get them once a week in your inbox so you never miss a video from me.

2. Join the Trades Business Toolshed Facebook Group where you can watch these videos, ask me questions or talk to your peers.

3. Attend my next Tradie Profit Webinar.

4. Book yourself a 10-minute chat with me. We’ll talk about whether coaching is right for you now and if it is, we’ll go further into the process before you have to make your mind up.

See you later.

Click here to book a money maker call with Jon.