Do You Feel Like You’re Not Making Money If You’re Not on the Tools? 

This is a thing, isn’t it? You feel like if you’re not involved in doing a job, something’s not right, and you’re not properly contributing to your business making money.

Being on the tools is the obvious example. Lots of trades business owners (I’m choosing my words carefully) building business owners too. Lots of you feel like if you’re not on the tools, you’re not making money. 

Stretch this a little and say you might feel like you’re not making money if you’re not directly involved in a job – managing work or ordering materials, that kind of thing. Is this familiar? 

It’s clear where it comes from, isn’t it? When it was just you, that really was the only way your business made money – when you were on the tools, you were making money and when you weren’t, you weren’t.

But that changes as you grow and it’s an attitude you need to let go of. 

If you want to grow your business, you need to do the work of growing it.

You need to transition from being the person who does the work to being the person who finds the work that other people do.

You need to shift (gradually, I get it) from being on the tools to working ON your business.

You need to build the systems and structures I talk about. The systems and structures are what will give you a business that can operate and do work without you there all the time.

That’s when you have a business rather than a job, isn’t it?

Ask for the 7 Systems ebook if you want to read about them.

 I’m going to finish up by saying a couple of fun things about this feeling that when you’re not ‘on the tools’ you’re not making money.

1. You need to do the other work as I say. 

2. You’re feeling guilty when you’re not doing that work, so you need to redefine the other work as equally important (in your head). Right now I’m telling you that’s the case, but you need to feel it – you need to change how you think about work.

3. You might be concerned that your tradies feel like you’re bludging when you’re not on-site with them with your toolbelt on, they probably do. They probably think, when you’re not there with them, that you’re at home with your feet up or playing golf. 

You need to educate them. 

4. When you’re on the tools, you’re saving your business $45 an hour (or whatever you’d pay a tradesperson to do that work). There’s a place for that, but there’s also a time when it’s worth a lot more to your business for you to do other work. 

I’ll finish up by saying if you want to change your business – grow it – build systems, build a team, make better profits carry less stress, all that – you need to do that work.

So how much of your time do you spend on the tools (or running around or assisting, or managing or doing admin), and how much of your time do you spend working ON making your business better (rather than working in it)?

It’s an important and perhaps challenging question, isn’t it? You might not be spending much time on it at all. My clients use our Time Log Worksheet tool to ask themselves this question (among others). 

I’ll let you have it. It comes with instructions, and I’ll warn you, there’s work involved. If you know the answer already, and it’s that you’re spending little or no time working ON your business, that’s probably why it’s not improving as fast as you want it to.

Say ‘Time Log’ if you want the tool or ‘COACHING’ if you want to talk about how our program can help you put more time into your business.