Feast And Famine – A Warning For Your Trades Business
Feast and Famine – A warning
A builder I work with had a quiet patch earlier this year not caused by COVID-19, either.
His business fell into a hole for about six months and it wasn’t very comfortable for him.
He’s got work starting now but he won nothing in the last part of last year and in the first part of this year. And three things happened all at once and they managed to happen without either of us noticing until we did notice.
3 Things That Happened
- The first thing was that the enquiries dried up. He was used to a regular influx of enquiries from his extensive network, from his relationships, his signage and his website.
And he didn’t notice at first because his forecast was full of good opportunities and he felt confident.
We reviewed his forecast, (it was a quote tracker) quite regularly and I think we got focused on that and seeing how much work there was to come. And we allowed ourselves not to notice that new opportunities weren’t coming in. - The second thing that happened was that he stopped marketing without telling me.
His primary marketing investment was investing in his relationships, investing in his existing network and investing in growing that network by making phone calls.
He stopped doing it and just let it slide. - And the third thing that happened is that some of the jobs in his quote tracker didn’t come off.
Some of the people who wanted to do a build decided not to.
One in particular, was a $2 million job – he’d already signed a contract.They’re not doing the build anymore. He honestly thought it was a done deal.
So you can see how easy it was for him to neglect his boring phone calls when he had deals like that. He got complacent and he slacked off and then he lost a few deals and then he had nothing.
So this is the lesson. Don’t do that.
Make a marketing machine. Make it work all the time.
You have to put it in place somehow so that it continues and it doesn’t rely on you being diligent and having to make your phone calls without any prompting from me.
Don’t allow it to start up and then die away from that activity because you will fall into a hole.
Now part of my job is to remind you and hold you accountable for your activity. But I can’t be there all the time and I shouldn’t be your coach forever, so you need to set up a system that continues if I’m not going, ‘Have you done your calls this week?’
You need to build your systems and use them and not ignore them.
So a lesson learned from my mate and a bit of a lesson for me as well – I’m a business coach. I’m only a coach, I can’t do it for you and I shouldn’t do it for you, should I?
If you want help to set up your systems and some pressure to keep them going but you can still take the responsibility for your part in following those systems, why don’t you get in touch?
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.