We've got a belief as spreads. We think the only way to make more profit is if
we're bringing in more people and doing more jobs and you know more and more
skimming. But that's only one way of making more profit. The other way you
make more profit is you just target better jobs that pay more.
It's fine if someone who's reliable when you want to employ, yeah 100%. There's so
much involved with holiday pay pension contributions, thought is liability
insurance, yeah exactly mate and then the investment needed and the
commitment required to take on a member of staff is a huge outlay and a big
investment and a big commitment. In terms of time as well not just money, time,
training them. So I don't want to be all negative because I know that at some point
especially if you're sticking with plastering and you're going to be doing
predominantly larger projects like for builders, if you're doing sort of loft
conversions extensions, I had one of these, then I would always say it's a
team effort. Like you need to be in that situation I think it has to be a team
effort really because number one is the time frames. A builder is going to want
you in and out and number two is it's the wear on the body. If you're
doing lofts on your own or decent sized extensions and things like that on your
own and it's going to wear you out if you're trying to push the deadline for
the builder and things. Just having a labro would get the ball rolling on it
and that would be my suggestion for anybody that is at that stage where
the phone keeps ringing and they're busy and they're happy with the quality of
the leads as well because that's important. Happy with the quality of the leads
that are coming in and your work is consistent like you consistently eight
weeks ahead, you consistently six weeks ahead. The leads are consistent then you
might want to consider and also like I mentioned if the nature of your work
involves you having to slog it every day skimming rendering things like that
then you might want to consider hiring a member of Staff Inn but I'll always
start small on the start of a labro and I would keep him as a labro until you're
confident that your business can sustain a member of Staff and you're confident
that he's going to be a good fit for your business. So rather than going you
know rather than trying to run before you can walk and hiring spreads paying
200 pound a day or 250 a day whatever it is they want. That's going to if your
business is still young then you just bring it starting to bring in leads and
find your feet they're going to gobble all your profits up big time because the
jobs will take longer than you think you get your prices whittled down where
you're now trying to price in for yourself and another spread and in a
domestic setting that can be hard you can almost price yourself out the market
which is what I found I was doing a lot so I was having my churn rate was really
high I was having to look at a lot of jobs when it was me, Matt and Reese and Curtis after
Reese left I was having to look at loads and loads of jobs and they were
unvetted but my focus was keeping them boys in work and that's a trap that I
don't want you guys to fall into if your business is young when you bring in
lads it can become about the lads and not about your business and your family
and if you're a generous person by nature you want to look after people things
like that you can feel obliged to look after them to the point where you're
at a loss you can be not not even at a loss but you might be in a situation
where you went like I was where you end up paying their pensions you end up
paying for their uniforms and a van and tools and holiday pay
you know you get your hours down so you're working between eight and three in your local area this
is where I got to and you know the lads could go home and switch off at five o'clock but I couldn't
so you know I was there chasing up leads dealing with cancellations dealing with
non-payers late payers you know the vans breaking down they'll be repairing them replacing them the
insurance on the vans and it's a lot of pressure it's a lot of pressure so I'm not like I say I
don't want it to be I'm not trying to burst the bubble and say it's not possible because it is possible
but I think if you're going to take on stuff you've got to start small very very small take on a labour
first maybe part time so even if you're busy now and you let's say you've been going two or three years
the phone keeps ringing you're busy you've got six weeks ahead and you're making some decent profit
and just because that's happening right now it doesn't mean that it's going to happen
year in and year out to the foreseeable future and we can easily hit a warn and it you know can change
overnight so that's why I suggest take on a lad part time a couple of days a week labourer
and build from there see how you get on going I would say labourer as well not apprentice initially
at first not an apprentice at first and like Mark's touched on there the reason being guys is
when you take on an apprentice through a college you have to employ them via contract and it has
to be a minimum hours worked per week you're going to be paying for them to go to college for one day
and I'm going back a couple of years now but I don't know how the rules have changed
me and Rich were talking about this over breccy I think the rules have changed a little bit and
there's a bit more funding offered down to the business owner now but when I took Curtis on
I think about 1500 quid for more trouble but that doesn't even scratch the surface in the way of
the outlay and the time investment and the costs that you have to cough up long term for an apprentice
especially when you're factoring the time lost on jobs where your baby sitting on teaching them to
do things and having to shadow the home and you can't really leave them and supervise especially
giving them that they're so young as well so the apprentice I think is more for somebody that's
had a little bit of experience with a staff member maybe a labra they've kind of clued up with what's
going to be expected the business is established they've got some really good solid leads that
are coming in now the lead gen systems locked in through using these platforms shown on the group
and everything's consistent then you might want to look into an apprentice but when you do make
sure you find the right kid because I've been through about four or five of them over the years
and they start off keen but you know unless you get someone like Colby Barr for example who
Mark Neeson works with who's got the spark and who wants to do it who's passionate and driven
then you might find that it's all one way like you're giving you know you're giving him the
opportunity there when giving him the pathway but what's that saying you can take a horse to water
if you can't make it drink it's like that kind of thing so even with the best intentions unless
you get the right kid won't work out so do you do your diligence on who it is that you're going to
bring into your business as well make sure that they're not just a mate not saying it won't work if
you bring a mate into your business but problem is we're bringing mates in that relationship of
where mates sometimes that can bleed into your graft and you have to establish early on you are
the gaffer you are the boss and the bookstops are you and you're answerable for the job your name
on the side of the van I'm not saying you have to end up being a drill sergeant and being horrible
and being bossy and things like that but you do have to establish boundaries and you do have to
be assertive with your staff you do have to let them know your expectation and that has to be done
early on early on it's no good you know letting them have a free run for six months turn up when
they want doing half a job and then you know leaving shit everywhere and you're not saying anything
every day then all of a sudden you lose your shit with them you've got to establish these sort of
ground walls early doors early on as soon as they come into your business and again these are mistakes
I've made being young and taking on the lads trying to keep it jolly trying to keep the banter up on
site keep it happy and people they see that you're a little bit soft a little bit what's the word
some people mistake kindness or weakness and they think oh you ain't gonna say anything you're gonna
do anything before you know it you know of ad lads poach materials off me and when I've
when I've gone off pricing jobs you know they've loaded their vans up with my materials that are
on site of ad lads poach customers off me where they've earned me one particular ad earned me talking
to the customer about pricing another room when I'd gone down the road he had a chat with her
and offered to do it for after price and luckily she she phoned me later and told me what he'd done
so I could tell you I could sit here now telling you all sorts of horror stories
about taking on staff but again I'm only giving you one side of the coin because of course the other
side of the coin is that you're working in a fantastic team and you're bouncing off each other
and you know you're spreading the workload out you've got a big hit on you can mix up more you
can do more you can produce more you can you can earn more but only if they're on a wage that doesn't
gobble up your profit too much and so that's what I think bringing in a part-time member of staff
initially would be the way forward to go as soon as we get into that van in the mornings our day
we're flat out aren't we we don't get time to talk about you know scrolling on tip-talk and
we have to get our heads down and earn profit and time is money and if they're not
willing to to join in with that kind of work ethic or then or the bit work shy
and it's not going to work out you can train them so much but is that old saying higher character
trained skill and I agree with that definitely and they've got to have character they've got to
have a little bit of character there and they've got to have a little bit of um conscientiousness
and a bit about them they've got to be good new customers if you're a domestic plasterer predominantly
doing domestic jobs do you bring the wrong person into your business we're in people's homes now
where we're expected to communicate politely with our customers keep their place clean be respectful
um like I said it even if they're not very good with their hands at the beginning make sure
they're a good kid because the last thing you want is things going missing off jobs which again
this has happened to me um people robbing off you could even rob off the customers I've heard some
stories on trial talk where kids have gone through customers draws and took money and took watches
and things like that so just be very very careful not trying to throw young lads under the bus to
say the same we know they're not all the same um there's some real good kids out there and I've had
some really good kids I mean Matt was only 18 when he first come with me and you know we had over 10
years of um you know great relationship and I trained him what from scratch um he'd become as good as
me on the tools I could send him out to projects on his own um I gave him access to my trade accounts
I got him a company van uniform and it was fantastic I got him a fuel card so from a business
point of view I got to a situation where I could say listen this is this week's projects I've had
my own projects so I'd go off doing domestic and I'd give him a job list and say you know you're
working on this project this week I wouldn't have to go out and inspect his work I would just leave
him to it he had access to materials fuel everything he needed um he had all the tools the van etc
and some somber months I was cleaning up doing that and it was brilliant but to build to that level
where I could get Matt actually like automated if you like where of um almost create almost
duplicated myself where you know he's going off in my van with my business and you know creating
income for the business to get to that level took me maybe six years five or six years of hard
trial and error and training Matt getting his finished correct training in the amount of
deal with customers communicating how clean he needed to be and um what I'm saying is it it can work
when you take on stuff and hire higher plasters and and you can get your business to the stage where
you sort of um expanding where you know it's not just you know on the tools you know you're charging
yourself out but you're also making money on on the lads that you've got working for you as well
so it's a positive thing but on the flip side of that on the flip side was the demand on my focus
on my time um in order to orchestrate all this like you know all these jobs going on um the
management of the vehicles the management of the suppliers the management of the jobs and all this
to orchestrate all that lot pulled me away from my family and pulled me away from um the focus
which should have been really on my my profit on my business so you end up being and Wayne could
probably relate with this not sure if Wayne's on tonight but you can end up um getting in so deep
that your whole focus just becomes about keeping the machine running if you like metaphorically
speaking and your whole focus can become just about keeping the lads in work instead of focusing on
specialization on your profit margins on like where do you want to work who do you want to work for
how much do you want to earn a year how much holidays do you want what time do you want to
be back home every night and what time can you switch off and turn your business off and going
tell me family make plans um talk about things um you want to plan with your wife or your kids
because i couldn't do any of that i was too tunnel-visioned and had too much to do so i didn't have
time to do any of that um and again that's why this group's here guys because i don't want you
guys falling into the same trap that i did if you're going to take on staff number one automate
the shit out of your business using the systems that i'm showing you in this group because if you
are going to take on staff it's even more important that you automate your business um in a way of c r m
you know get your get your book of p expenses sorted get your track make sure you're tracking
your expenses make sure that you are linked up with um some sort of accounting software because i
didn't have that when i had matt and didn't have any accounting software at all so i was doing everything
sort of uh not pen to paper but um you know on the laptop um columns and spreadsheets and you know
long-winded ways of doing it which didn't help with the whole time demand and all that so um
automate the shit out of your business first make sure you've got a solid lead generation system
before you take on staff not just because you're busy for a few months make sure you've got a solid
lead generation system so you lead to you know for the last couple of years you you leads have been
coming in consistent um make sure that you specialize before you take on staff so that's how
focused on this group isn't it we're specializing in a niche pocket of plastering um so that way
we can get our prices up once you can get your prices up then you're more um prone to take a
member of staff on because now you can afford to take a member of staff on make sure that you're
making a really good markup on on this person that you're bringing into your business don't just
think to yourself i'll make 40 quid on in my day it's not enough there's no point even 50 quid
there's no point you know you might like the guy it might be nice working in a team um it might be
nice being able to you know finish early and leave him to trial up and clean up and you can go off
focus on other things might be nice but if you're not making enough of a margin on that person no
point in being that it's completely pointless the only way we can make a good margin is by getting
our prices up high up high guys and that's by specializing you could say oh well let's try and
pay him as little as possible that's not a good strategy because you know uh pay peanuts get
monkeys don't you that's the thing um so my focus when I had the boys was I was thinking if I make
it's if I make um this job position so valuable and so ideal for him where he's got he hasn't got
worried about a van the insurance the maintenance the tax and all the repairs and all that shit
he hasn't got worried about that um he's working within 10 15 mile radius of his house and he's
working really really good hours eight till three every day that's that's perfect job I weren't paying
him amazing wages he was on 27 and a half grand a year um but he had the van on top you know I think
he took home 600 quid or but again guys we were doing like really really small sets so we'd do a
bit of prep and then we do two little mixes or he if he was on his own he'd do some prep in the morning
bite to eat then he'd do a couple of mixes it'd be done for three hour three and that was his day
every single day never work weekends so that's a model that you could use in your business if you
want to take on stuff where instead of thinking I need to bring in a self-employed person and pay them
250 or 300 whatever it is that's going to be extremely difficult for a sole trader plus
stir that you know is relying on domestic projects and things like that that's going to be hard to
pay them sort of wages out every week so the the model that would work and that worked for me would
be to bring in a very very young lad training from absolute scratch he's not going to be on very
much money and I know as the years pass you know it'd be like 15 grand 18 grand 20 grand 22 grand
25 grand you can start paying him more and more on salary and then over a period of years it'll start
paying for himself but again I wouldn't be doing anything staff wise until them two boxes of ticks
automated your business as much as you can anyway and then specializing in a niche is what I would be
looking to do guys and I'm not actually planning to to take on full-time stuff at the moment
I mean when Lily grows up a bit maybe when he's old enough where you know he doesn't really
need to play with dad anymore when I get home from work and you know my mrs don't really need as much
assistance anymore maybe I could think okay I'll go back into hiring staff again and things like that
but I've got no plans to do that right now because I've targeted jobs that don't actually require
full-time staff for me and this is the joy of Google marketing and targeted marketing guys
we've got a belief as spreads we think the only way to make more profit is if I bring in more people
and do more jobs and you know more and more skimming but that's only one way of making more profit
the other way you make more profit is you just target better jobs that pay more
and you target jobs that don't need staff members so an example of that would be
dump proofing corksal internal wall insulation even what Joel's doing Joel's now brought in
machinery so he doesn't have staff members doesn't need staff members got machinery
it does the job for him so things like the you know modern-day technology
learning how to target the right jobs using Google these are these are ways that we can earn
whole profit and not necessarily need a staff member beside you so have a think about that
just have a long think about it and ask yourself them questions