I see a lot of self-employed tradespeople and Plastures getting exploited a lot.
And I think that's because we're so time poor and we haven't got time to source all the information that we need to make correct decisions in the moment.
So often we're making bad financial choices that lead to us spending money that we don't need to be spending.
Or we can become exploited by customers, for example, trying to lower your price down.
Or just add a price from the plaster around the corner and he can do it for this much.
Can you do it for this much?
It's a form of exploitation.
You wouldn't go into a restaurant and question the prices of their meals.
You'd just go somewhere else if you didn't like the prices.
But for some reason, us trades lads, we think that it's OK to be mugged off and for customers to dictate to us how much they're willing to pay for our skills and services.
It's one way that we can become exploited.
We can also become exploited by our accountants, for example.
I did a blog post recently called Sole Trader Lies.
It's based around the idea that most self-employed Plastures and tradespeople for that matter that decide to go down the home improvements market, the domestic market,
typically their annual jobs will be made up of, say, 60 or 70 projects over the year.
So each little project makes up a small percentage of their annual income.
And for that reason, the eggs are spread quite wide and there's not a lot of financial risk at all.
But when we go self-employed and we talk to our accountants, they often say to us, you must go limited.
You must set your business up as limited liability.
And I questioned my accountant when he said this.
I said, why?
And he said, it was to protect your house.
If you can't pay your bills, you can't pay your debt.
And I said, what bills?
I don't have any debt.
I don't have any business loans.
And I explained to him that I take booking deposits on each project and then I take a final payment, which is due on receipts.
So my cash flow is coming in weekly.
It's coming in every other day.
And I don't use a line of credit.
So there's no need for me really to go limited.
And once we had this conversation, he agreed and said, you know what, Stu, there's actually no point, like you said, and you're going limited because there's no risks.
And I said, hold on, am I going to earn more profit if I go limited?
He said no.
So what actual benefit are we getting, guys?
And again, I'm talking to the sole trader plasterers here, the one or two man setups.
You might be working with a labourer or an apprentice or another plasterer.
And you're predominantly doing domestic projects.
You're not doing large scale commercial projects.
You're not supplying a lot of labour and materials up front and waiting 60 days for payment.
You're doing small scale domestic home improvement projects where you're in control of the cash flow.
By the way, if you're not in control of your cash flow and you don't know how to take booking deposits, that's something that I can help you with in the coaching program, which we'll come on to later.
But another way that we can get exploited, guys, not just by customers, not just by our accountants, but we can also get exploited by business coaches.
We can also get exploited by business coaches who often tell us when we're struggling, we're overwhelmed, we're stressed, we haven't got enough time, we're burned out.
Sometimes we'll approach a business coach and we'll say, listen, I'm struggling.
And they've always got a solution.
They've always got an answer to our struggles.
Usually the answer is you need to get off the tools, you need to employ lads.
You're playing too small.
You need to blow up a big, huge business.
You need to be turning over a million pounds a year.
Otherwise, there's no point in being in business.
Guys, this advice is such BS.
Listen, the average earned income in the UK is about 30 grand or maybe 34 grand a K.
If you're a sole trader earning that sort of money and you want to double that, let's say you want to earn £60,000 a year, which is in the UK, that's a f***ing high income.
Guys, we can do that as sole traders.
We can easily do that as sole traders.
We don't need to be employing staff, creating a limited company, getting off the tools.
We don't want to be off the tools.
We're plasterers, we're tradespeople, we're craftsmen.
We hated sitting down at school, sitting behind a desk.
We were bored shitless.
We want to be busy creating.
We're artists.
We want to be on the tools.
We don't want to be off the tools.
So there's this big thing going on at the minute.
Get off the tools.
You need to be off the tools.
And it's almost like shaming us into getting off the tools.
You know, be a real businessman.
Guys, not all tradespeople are comfortable swinging a briefcase.
We like swinging a hammer.
We like being on the tools, creating shit.
And again, we can earn fantastic money by doing that as sole traders.
So that's what that blog post was all about.
Are you being exploited as a tradesperson?
Are you paying money you don't need to be paying?
Are you paying for VAs and PAs that you don't need?
£200 a month.
Are you paying for a website hosting?
£200 a month.
Are you paying for a limited liability accountancy fees?
Between £150 and £200 a month.
Are you paying for expensive CRM systems that you're not using?
And the list goes on.
The list goes on, guys.
Are you paying for social media management?
Another £100 a month.
Guys, when we tot all this up, we're talking over £1,000 a month before we even turn the
ignition on our vans.
And again, we're small teams, aren't we?
We're either one or two man setups.
We're doing domestic projects.
We don't need all this shit.
So, guys, if we want to keep money in our wallet, it's about playing a strong defence.
Okay?
Strong defence.
So, it's about what we can hold on to and ask ourselves, do we need to be spending this
money?
Do we need to be spending this money?
Can I do it?
Is there another option?
Is there a free way we can do it?
These are the questions that I asked myself last year, the beginning of last year, just
before I launched the Trial Talk Coaching Mentoring Group, because I went down all these different
avenues.
You know, I considered going limited.
I had business coaching.
I spent money on websites.
I spent money on Google Ads and Facebook Boosts.
I've been a member of Rated People in the FMB, although I haven't been with Trick or Trade,
thank God.
But I've been with most of them.
I've spent so much money on shit that I didn't need to be spending money on.
Thousands.
And we're always searching for more money, like, let's get bigger jobs in.
Let's get bigger jobs in.
More jobs.
But we don't consider the money that's pouring out the bottom of the bucket, that money that
could be going to our families or staying in our own wallets.
And we tend to just copy what everyone else is doing.
And when our accountants say go limited, well, you know, we do it because we feel that we're
protecting our families by doing that and making that decision.
You know, you need to go limited because you'll have the prestige.
Then you'll attract bigger jobs.
We don't want bigger jobs.
We want small, high-profit jobs.
Is this you?
Are you a sole trader?
Are you a tradesperson?
Are you a plasterer that works either on your own or with an apprentice or with a labourer?
Have you been convinced to go limited?
And do you pay between 100 and 200 a month for a limited company that really you don't need?
You can run a plastering business with zero debt, using job booking deposits as working
capital to pay for materials, labour, fuel, and all of your overheads that you need.
You do not need a line of credit and you don't need to go limited in most cases.
If you plan to blow up a big business with, you know, a fleet of vans, a team of lads, and
you want to target commercial projects, you'll likely be pulled into other people's payment
terms and you're going to have a huge outlay.
That's a good, smart decision then to go limited, but not for the domestic plasterer who's not
planning to scale.
Now, just because you made a decision that you don't want to scale, that doesn't mean
that you can't scale up your income and your profit.
And this is something that we go deep into on the Trial Talk coaching and mentoring group.
Saving the money.
Saving your money and keeping that money in your pocket.
A pound saved is a pound earned, they say.
If this resonates with you and you're interested in some of the stuff that I've just spoke about
on this video today, hit the link below.
I run a coaching program dedicated to tradespeople and plasterers.
It's 80 pence a day.
There's nothing out there like this.
We can teach you how to build a free website from scratch.
Okay.
We're going to teach you how a CRM system works.
We're going to teach you how to vet your customers.
How to produce booking deposit templates.
So you'll have solid payment terms in your business.
We'll show you how Google works across multiple platforms in multiple areas.
Not just we'll get you into the three pack.
Okay.
We'll go deep into Google.
We'll look at YouTube, Facebook business, Google business profile and Google sites.
To show you how you can properly rank organically across the internet without paying a penny to
trade association sites.
If this sounds interesting, hit the link below and join us inside the coaching mentoring group.
We're live every Thursday in there to help you with your business.
Just to end this video, are you playing a strong defense in your business and are you keeping
that money in your wallet or is it all being lost in the bottom of the bucket across multiple
different monthly subscriptions, checker trade, accountancy fees, paying for marketing, ads
and campaigns.
You don't need to be doing this.
Click the link below.
Check out the coaching group.
I've got multiple reviews on my community group trial talk where you can go in and actually
see what lads are saying about this group.
It's not BS.
It's the real deal.
It's something I've trialed for the last 10 years in my own blastering business and everything
that I teach in there works like clockwork and it will work for you as well.
Click the link and I hope to speak to you soon.