I'll just tell you how it is, straight talking, what it's like to be a spread,
running a plastering business, the ups, the downs, how can we make improvements,
how can we earn more money, but I'm not going to tell you that it's all sunshine and roses because
it isn't, is it?
What do you need to do when you start working for yourself? Like just a handful of basics
because I think most of us jump into the river with both feet, don't we, when we first go self-employed
and we don't really plan or think about what we're going to do and I'm speaking
for myself but speaking to other self-employed spreads, the story seems to be the same with
a lot of us where we get a van, we get a bunch of tools and we just jump in and we go self-employed
but our focus is on let's just get some work and we'll figure out the rest as we go.
Again, I'm speaking for myself but the more clusters that I speak to over the years and
there's 7,000 of us now on here, even more on the other platforms and it's the same narrative over
and over again, you just sort of jump into it with no real roadmap really because there isn't
really a roadmap for the self-employed plasterer or tradesman to sort of give us a few obvious
basics that we need to get locked in and I suppose the first one would be the legal stuff,
those boxes that we need to tick and sometimes we can even overlook this stuff and we start
working for ourselves and we haven't really given much thought into the actual legal side of it and
the insurance side of it and the registration side of it and the tax side of it and so I'm going to,
you know, I'm not an accountant, I'm not a financial guru or anything like that but I can give you a
helicopter view and a few tips of what you guys need to actually get done and get ticked off
before you start working in people's houses guys so I'll jump on the chat in a minute because I
can see that's pretty busy there on the community group and I've got both groups running at the
minute as well guys so forgive me if I get a little bit, if I drop the plates so to speak because
I've not streamed into multiple platforms for a long time now, I'll normally just live stream
into the coaching group but the reason that I'm streaming into Trial Talk community today
is because number one, I want to start doing more of this and yesterday I named this live session
Path to Profit and the reason that I wanted to come and do a live stream in here today is because
the topic is newly self-employed plasters and giving them some tips because I've got a bunch of them
inside the coaching group and two of them have asked me within the last 10 days, I've just gone
self-employed or I'm working for somebody else and I'm just on the cusp, I'm on the fence, I might go
self-employed but I might give it another year, I'm not sure whether to go for it yet and have you
got any tips and strategies for me for when I do go self-employed like what's the best pathway to take
so that's who this live stream is for, this morning guys it's for people that are either
just on self-employed or they're thinking about going self-employed or you might have been self-employed
for a couple years or a number of years but you might just be struggling, you know struggling with
the basics like converting leads and getting enough working, a couple of basics that we all struggle
with especially this time of year so this live stream might help you even if you've been in the
game a long time and you just maybe you want a different perspective, maybe you want to maybe
you want to change lanes in your business and tap a different product and material, cork sole for
example is is big at the minute, you know you might want to go rendering, you might want to go and get
trained up on rendering so I can point you in the right direction for the you know the specialists
that are doing this kind of stuff so by all means join the chat and get involved, I know it's early
I had a few grumbles on the group yesterday and a few direct messages, what are you doing it so
early for? Well guys the early bird catches the worm and this is by free time that I've got and
you know I normally do this in evenings but I'm sure you know the chat's busy at the minute
so I'm sure a lot of you will still be on the tools and it is a Saturday so we'll come on to that
I know we all get caught out sometimes like often a couple Saturdays this year and I'm always
preaching to the boys to stop working Saturdays but I know how hard it is and I know sometimes
jobs run over, deadlines have to be hit, targets have to be hit, the money has to be get gotten
so I fully get like some lads are going to still be working weekends sometimes they'll be working
Saturdays and Sundays, it's the nature of the beast unfortunately and my target is the four-day
work week and that's the target but I don't always hit that target and I'm one thing that makes me
a little bit different from other mentors, coaches, gurus, whatever you want to call them is I don't
bullshit you, I don't pretend that I live this amazing lifestyle and I'm a millionaire and
you know everything's perfect, I've got a six pack and all this bollocks, I'll just tell you how it is
straight talking, what it's like to be a spread, running a plastering business, the ups, the downs,
how can we make improvements, how can we earn more money but I'm not going to tell you that it's
sunshine and roses because it isn't is it, so yes we are going to still be working the other weekend
and that's just the way that it is when you're self-employed but if we have a target and a goal
of reducing those weekends down and trying to hit a four-day work week, I want to say a four-day
work week by the way, I'm talking about four days intensive on the tools and using your Friday
to focus heavily on your business and your marketing and your admin,
all the stuff that we have to get done in our businesses that we try to shoehorn in either
evenings, weekends or bank holidays, the time that we should be devoting to our families and our
hobbies and interests, our business sort of dominates into our personal lives and it can
take over your entire life and I've done chats on this many a time before and so I won't go down
that rabbit hole this morning but like I say I've got five key tips for you and some of you might
have seen a video that I bashed onto TikTok the other day and it covers these five tips in like
seven minutes but one what I want to do this morning is just peel back the layers of the onion a
little bit more and maybe explore each tip in more depth and obviously get your feedback as well for
those of you that are up early and you know you've hit the chat so like I say tip number one guys is
going to be just covering a couple basics on the legal stuff that you need to get done before you
launch and go self-employed start working in people's homes or working on site so we're going to have a
slurper coffee and we'll see if anybody's up and at it. Oh I need that caffeine this morning, late
night last night we watched Aliens Romulus with the kids last night which was quite disturbing and
freaky so I've got that on the brain this morning but how is everybody anyway? How's everyone doing?
What's everyone been on with this week? You've been inside, you've been outside, have you been doing
your admin? What you've been up to?
Good morning Darren, how you doing? How are you okay? Good morning Dan Bunts,
good morning Colin Price, good morning Alex Linnet, I'll just give a couple of shouts out
while I'm here. Lee Fiori has just jumped on, I hope you're keeping well Lee.
Good morning Mark Neeson, cookies on, good morning Cookie, we'll have a chat after this
mate, I'm going to be having a video chat with Joel Cook as soon as this ends and we've got some
ideas we want to bounce off each other and Cookie's just had a rebrand and a relaunch which is exciting.
I'll mention some of his rendering training programs a bit later on guys as well for those of you that
want to skill up on the external render. Cookie's the man to talk to. Good morning Will,
standard this one will help you out mate this morning hopefully Chris North is on, Ewan's on,
Richie Brooks is on, yep so it's busy which is great, John Jameson, good morning, good morning Rob.
Yeah cheers guys thanks for getting involved and watching, yes hi Josh mate and hi to Mark Davis,
right. When it comes to the legal side of it boys, like I say if you're about to go self-employed and
you want to be a self-employed plasterer okay let's get legal before we get carried away and the
last thing we want to be doing is getting tripped up and you know knocking over the customers 50
inch plasma and then realizing oh shit I haven't got any you know public liability insurance in
place. The last thing we want to be doing is you know loading up the van with a load of rubble bags
and then getting pulled over on a spot check and realizing I haven't got a waste carriers license in
place you know so what we don't want to smack hand and we don't want to be getting into you
know trouble in any way and look we all drop the balls don't we you know I've had times where I've
realized my insurance policies have you know run out and I've had to quickly go online and
you know renew them but those are a couple of basic things so look public liability insurance
okay get yourself registered with HMRC and these things are easy to do you know jump online
and tick a few boxes and get them set up before we get going before we start working in people's
homes. The waste carriers license isn't very expensive I will drop some links in for you
in the comment section once this live stream finishes or if anybody has got any to hands any
lads from the coaching group if you've got those links to hand by all means bash them into the
comments here for the best priced you know public liability insurance business insurance
you could think about maybe getting your tools insured and again if you do plan on carrying waste
in your vans make sure you've got your waste carriers license so just a couple of
obvious things that we need to get sorted there guys before we get going get yourself registered
and get a good accountant as well I know that a lot of the tax returns now people are doing it
themselves because it's so well it's a lot easier now with the cloud based software and there's like
tax apps and stuff we can use where we you know it sort of walks you through it on a simplistic
level and you can just tick a few boxes but my advice would be to get yourself a chartered
accountant from from day one because their job is to keep you out of trouble and keep you advised
and ultimately it's to save you money isn't it so that's their job you know they're the experts
and this is a this is a world in itself the whole tax thing you know like I say I know a few boys
that do it themselves online and they seem to get on fine but my advice let's stick to what we know
which is you know the actual plaster inside of it and of course working on your business you're
going to be busy enough doing all that the last thing you want to do is and go down that rabbit
hole of trying to work out how much tax we own and stuff like that so get yourself an accountant
so those are my three tips for the legal side of it guys and obviously you know if you are going to
be driving about in a van make sure insurance policies you know not expired into basic stuff
just make sure whatever we're doing in people's homes um we're covered we're covered legally
and I'm sure that the boys on the chat right now could probably drop in a story um or a comment of
times where you know things have gone wrong because they haven't been covered uh you know with things
like public liability insurance employers liability you know is another one and if your brand needs
self employment the chances are um you're not going to be needing employers liability but you might do
one day so you know looking into the future if you plan to scale which I know is still a very
attractive business model uh for plasterers and I'm I'm not dead against scaling in the coaching
program we focus on a different way that you can earn money and get your profits up that doesn't
involve scaling and taking on lads but by all means if that's something you want to do um you
know creating jobs for people is fantastic and positive and the economy needs it so I'm all for
creating jobs but if you're going to go and create jobs make sure you create a proper job where you're
given um you know benefits and you're being a responsible employer and it's a win win for
everybody involved and it's not you burning yourself out like a mouse on the wheel hardly earning any
profits uh and basically keeping everybody else happy paying everybody else and you know your
lasting line and suffering because that sounds a bit like a negative view view on it all but
unfortunately most of the plasterers that I've speak to that have scaled um you know they're
running around like headless chickens uh busy busy busy and their their whole focus is on getting
the working to keep the boys busy that's their entire focus I've got to get the working to keep
everybody busy um and this is the trap I fell into cookies fell into this trap before um and we do
it for freedom like you know ultimately we go self-employed and we create these businesses
because we want freedom we want to earn good money we want to you know break out of this um
you know limited mindset that maybe we maybe we've been working for somebody else and we've hit a wall
of what we can earn and we think well the only way we can earn big money is by employing people
and building a big team it's one way you can earn good money but in order to do that your
skill set your business acumen has to be like level 100 you've got to be um you've got to have
your fingers in a lot of pies if you're going to go down that route so but we'll talk about it
and we'll come on to it in fact I've got a sexy slide that I want to pull on the screen
where we're going to we're going to talk about business model because that's
that's tip number two guys for people that want to go self-employed and it this might be coming
from a little bit of a different perspective for you as well and what you're used to hearing and seeing
um I've tried to simplify it because I don't know about you but I need things um explain to me like
a couple of three year old and uh sometimes a lot of this you know when I talk to my accountant for
example every year I'm staring at him and just you know drooling because I don't know what the
fuck he's talking about after time and sometimes we need stuff broken down into um easy to understand
language and I've tried to do this on the coaching program as well so you know when you watch the
training videos you get it and you think actually I'll get this stuff now I'll get this marketing
and google stuff now because it's explained it in a way that I'm getting and I can do this we're using
my smartphone so um let's try and keep it simple is is my approach but the business models guys
I've broken down here into three categories and you let me know if any of this resonates and the
boys that have you know may been business for a number of years let me know what your thoughts
are on these models too and because people like Lee Fury he's been in the game many many years and
he has scaled and he has built a big team and he's gone up and down and left and right and
you know he's took his business in a lot of different directions he does well so you know
he might be able to give you perceptions from say like the manager's perception you know being a
manager of people and being a leader of people and things like that and the pressures and stresses
and also the positive side of it as well so we can get some balance and maybe from the chat as
well and the contrast on what I'm saying which I'm all for I'm all for you know ideas and input
the systems that I'm going to talk to you about work and they work for me and they work for the
members in the coaching group as well but this is an interactive chat guys so you know I'd love
to hear your thoughts on what I'm saying too by all means so choosing the right business model
we've got the freelancer right we've got the manager and then we've got the specialist and what do
I mean by that so we'll talk about the freelancer okay so if you're going to go self-employed the
chances are you're probably going to want to be a domestic plosterer that's the most attractive
role I think that we all go for because we've got the the flexibility there some people go
self-employed and they go straight into subion and they they remain as a subcontractor but most of
us when we think about going self-employed and working for ourselves our you know our vision is
got not the name on the side of the van and we're doing our own jobs you know we've got our own
customer base which is like I say it's it's very very appealing isn't it so let's talk about the
freelance model because the lads that have messaged me saying I'm going to go work for myself
have you got any tips you know what can I do and this is the idea that they have they want the name
on the side of the van and doing their own jobs on their own terms which again we go deep into in
the coaching group but let's unpack it a little bit now pros and cons of the freelancer you can pick
and choose your jobs you can pick and choose your jobs you've got flexible working hours
it's highly rewarding so you're taking a home that's you know on its ass up to brick or the
plaster's shot to bits and by the time you're finished you've completely transformed that
customer's home you've left the walls out glass you know it's immaculate and it looks like a home
again doesn't it you took it from a building site to a home and that's really really satisfying
and rewarding there's so many people that want to become plasters and enter the plastering game
because it's fascinating to watch you know and that's why these videos are so popular on tiktok
and youtube people just spread in plaster all day because you could watch it all day and it's you
know it's magical isn't it so well maybe not to us you know when we've got tennis elbow and the
trapeze is playing or you've been in the game 20 years it might not be magical anymore but think
back to when you were an apprentice or you know a young lad and you were watching the master craftsman
laying on and polishing up it is a bit magical so it's appealing it's you know taking a shithole
and leaving it in a pristine immaculate condition for the customer and say there you are it's ready
for you to roll paint and fit your kitchen you know it's amazing and i still get a buzz now when i've
finished plastering out a room or a home and that's the reason i've become a spreader you know that
was the appeal and it's highly skilled as well you know being able to use straight edge and
use the trial properly is very very skilled work so we do get a sense of pride in a sense of satisfaction
within our work let's just get rid of that snooze
so yeah you know it is a rewarding job isn't it working as a domestic plasterer
low running costs so i overhead to our absolute minimal aren't they as a self-employed plasterer
and i was talking to chris freddy arney on fix radio a couple of weeks back about about starting
a plastering business and he asked me would you start a plastering business again i said yeah
damn right i would because you don't need hardly any kit that's what's so exciting about it you
know within 500 quid say you can get yourself kitted out the back you've unkitted out with some
cheap equipment and you can get going and get started and that's what's so exciting it's 90
percent skill everything's um you know you're getting paid for these aren't you it's all in the hands
so if you do want to go and start a plastering business guys and you're not going to need much
in the way of equipment when you go self-employed and the lads that are ready to go self-employed
the likelihood is you've probably done what me and joll and everybody else did and which is work for
somebody else and over the weekends build up your own work so you do a bit of moonlighting
when you get paid you might buy yourself a couple of new tools and that goes on for a number of years
and so you can acquire the tools and equipment while you're working for somebody else and then
you know when the time is right you can take the leap um but plaster mixers these days you can pick
up a cheap mixer for 100 quid or less you know and um as long as you've got a good trowel don't
skimp on the trowel um look i'm not here to tell you what tools to buy and what equipment you need
to go self-employed you've probably already got everything you need in the way of tools and equipment
but of course if you haven't make sure you have got the little margin trowels make sure you have
got a ragny corner trowel make sure you have got a decent feather edge make sure you have got a reliable
mixer and a backup mixer because if that burns out halfway through a set you're going to need to
you know you're going to need to um finish that mix and you don't want to be getting the podger out
there you probably don't know what what one of them is but um listen get a backup mixer even
if it's just a cheap thing from Aldi get yourself a backup mixer or at least a backup paddle so you
can smash it into the combi and finish off that mix so a couple of obvious things like that that may
or may not help you out these might be obvious things um to some of the boys that are ready to go
self-employed but yeah just make sure you've got everything you need to do the job that you plan
to do and again hit the chat guys and tell me what your thoughts are on um what does a
plaster need in his arsenal you know for the newly self-employed lads what does the spread need in
the arsenal as a handful of basic tools that sometimes we might overlook you know so hit the
chat guys and let us know and get involved but there's low winning costs so these these are the pros
of working as a freelancer in the domestic market guys low running costs yeah
now what are the cons risk of burnout
due to a heavy workload you're doing everything on your own
now this will depend heavily on what type of jobs that you actually take on and tackle
um if you're going to be doing a big gable end with sand and cement on your own
that's going to burn you out isn't it so depending on what kind of jobs that you actually take on
will depend on the workload and how much risk there is of burnout but what I see a lot on the
community group is plasterers taking on way too much on their own trying to work to a deadline
that's unreasonable and unreachable and they literally burn themselves out from 6am through
6pm sometimes 7pm sometimes they'll bomb through all their weekends because they're getting pressure
from the customer we need to be in you know the kitchen fitters come in when's this room going
to be done um you know this is when I talk to you about um our business taking over our life this
is the kind of our appends by accident because we're piggy in the middle on these renovations
um we tend to get all the pressure to get the rooms ready for fit out you know ready for
decoration ready for the carpenter ready for the kitchen fitter ready for the bathroom fitter
and it's that pressure all the time pressure pressure and sometimes if we've got the habit of just
nodding and saying yes to everybody and we're a bit of a yes man and we don't know how to set
boundaries with people tell them listen back off you know I'm doing my best but I've also got a
young family um I need to be finished by five and I can't be working weekends sometimes that conversation
can be a little bit difficult because we might be a people pleaser and we might not want the
confrontation um but ultimately and we're going to come on to mindset a bit later but ultimately
guys the mindset you need um is you're in business and it's a bit of it's a bit cliche but there's
no friends in business you know you can be respectful you can be courteous you can be professional
but they're not your mate your customers aren't your mate you don't know them anything and this is
why it's so important to get everything in writing and your terms locked in um you know include things
like what time you're going to be starting and finishing let them know from the get go you're
not going to be doing Saturdays stuff like that so you know when that conversation comes up at least
you can refer back and say I'm if you you know if you refer back to section three in our terms
mrs smith you'll see that um you know we don't work weekends I'm sorry you know this is another
conversation but the reason that we get burned out as plasters is because we're taking too much on
our own and you know if you do decide to build a team around you that would be a really smart idea
if the size of your projects require more than one man so instead of you burning yourself out like
do you want to be Rambo do it all on your own maybe you do need labourer maybe it's time you know you
do need to think about taking on an apprentice if the size of the projects require more hands and more
manpower now having said having said that guys um I mentioned Joel Cook earlier and he's doing
render training right now he decided um to scale down and buy a machine and that's a really really
smart option because now he doesn't need men there you need you know the machine is doing the job of
the man and it's taking it's doing all the heavy lifting for him so now he's just focusing on skill
so in 2024 2025 you know maybe you don't need a team of lads maybe you need to think about investing
in some of this technology that we've got available to us and you know and inside we can spray
plaster inside as well which you know a handful of you are specialising in you know the airlift gear so
I'm not saying go and hire you know five lads go and employ staff what I'm saying is let's look at
the type of jobs that you're planning to do and if those jobs require more hands
then either get more hands or target different jobs if you don't want to hire staff then target
different jobs and this is what I do guys I specialize in projects that doesn't need staff
but I can still earn high profit I'll give you an example bay windows
insulating stripping out insulating in skimming bay windows big money I can do them on my own
in a day or two and they're not too they're not too rough on the shoulders and these are small
projects high profit projects and everyone's chimney breasts just to just to reel off a couple
for you give you some ideas chimney breasts fixing the damp on chimney breasts a little chimney breast
is different to chucking on a gable isn't it and needing needing the push so it's just food for
thought the type of jobs that you target will determine if you need a hand or not but again
the burnout thing and you know I'm passionate about it because I've been burned out I've
took on jobs that I shouldn't have took on and you know didn't get the help at the time we do get
precious about our business and we do get worried about bringing in other plaster sometimes
and we maybe we do take on a bit too much and work too many hours and again when you're using
your body to earn money which is what we do as plasters you know we're using our shoulders and
elbows to earn money they can wear out and it hurts so so have a think about it and
your business can be unsullable if you're a sole trader freelancer okay your business is unsullable
now the percentage of plasters that start a business scale it and then step out of the
business and go and sell it you never hear of them and I'm not saying there isn't any of them on
trial talk although I don't think there is any out of the seven thousand but what I'm saying is
it's a very rare entrepreneurial person a very driven motivated ambitious entrepreneurial kind
of person that is going to go and build a massive business with everything needed to do that right
and then be able to go and sell it for millions of pounds and go you know there you go Charlie
Mullens there's only one of them for a reason because this is hard work is what I'm saying so
if you've got a fantasy if you want to go self-employed right and you're thinking I'm going to be like
Charlie Mullens I'm going to go and build a massive empire and then one day I'll step out of the
business and sell it for millions of pounds the chances are that ain't going to happen unfortunately
and I'm not here to be pessimistic and be you know negative about scaling and we're anything like that
but I'm trying to give you realistic real world insights and I've been at it 20 years now and by
all means don't listen don't just listen to me listen to you know 10 other seasoned experienced
clusters that are doing content as well and get their perception but it's a very rare thing to
be able to build scale and sell a large plustering business especially if we don't even know what
our business works you know how marketing works how scaling works especially if we don't know
anything like this and we just think you know hard work will make it happen guys it's a fantasy
and it's a trap we often we all fall into so if you're going to go into business and become
self-employed do it for the right reasons and expect to be on the tools for a long time and expect
to be grafting and sweating and busting your bollocks for a long long long time decades okay because
that's what's going to be involved you're going to be covered in sweat and dust
for years and there's a very rewarding side of it but this model that I'm going to come on to the
manager model I feel it's for a select few I feel it's for a select few and that have the capabilities
and that entrepreneurial spark and that drive and who's willing to make that sacrifice you know
personal sacrifices and to be able to do to do this and sometimes I feel that the narrative gets
pushed that anybody can just go and scale a big business and sell it for millions of pounds it's
it's a bit take it with a pinch of salt when you see that because the chances are even if you do scale
you're going to have a small handful of lads and it's going to be you leading and driving them lads
from the front you lead from the front by example so it's going to be you driving and leading that
business so just have a think about that if you're going to go self-employed and working as a spread
expect to roll your sleeves up and be getting dirty year in and year out because that's what's
going to be necessary guys to make it happen and make it work so it's insoluble if you're working
as a sole trader freelancer plustra and you've got limited earnings because obviously if you're
focusing on bread and butter work and maybe you're still doing a lot of work for builders etc
and then you're going to max out of what you can earn and we worked out that a plustra might have
say 200 good days when you factor in how much it's rain this year for example probably not a good
not the best year to to use as an example but you know let's say we have 200 good days when we take
out all of our roller days our sick days our weekends etc and if you're working on a day
rate situation at 200 a day then you're going to cap out aren't you at your 40 grand or whatever it is
30 30 a grand and so depending on the type of jobs that you target and we'll come on to the
specialist models model depending on the type of jobs that you target and you're going to sort of
hit a ceiling of what you can earn if you limit yourself to a fixed day rate situation so think
about that moving into the future and obviously whatever you earn if you can keep busy of course
it's going to be more than what you would earn as an employee hopefully still but it's just food for
thought if you're going to go on a day rate situation there's only a handful of days a number of days
we can do in a year so think about that risk of injury this goes without saying and you know
all of these models have risk of injury because we're going to be on the tools ourselves and we're
in the building trade so there's risk of injury there so I'm going to have a slurp of this coffee
hit the chart maybe pop off a couple of comments that have come in and then we'll move on to the
manager and we're already 20 past eight so we'll have to keep it moving pretty quick
but if anything's resonating with you guys then hit the chat and let me know what you think and
also the guys that I want I'm going to go self-employed soon what are your concerns and worries
if you're watching now and you're thinking I do want to go self-employed but I've got this burning
question smash it into the chat and maybe I can catch it live cookie says 100% there's no friends in
business will will standard when you're at the stage of building up your work over the weekends
and then you decided now's the time I'm going to go for it how did you approach it
me personally will on sort of my approach to everything is burn your boats and
it's sink or swim sort of attitude which it works for me but it might not work for everybody
because that comes with a lot of pressure and stress as well and you're putting a demand on
yourself and if you're unfamiliar with what I mean when I say burn your boats I can't remember
burn your boats I can't remember who it was now but the story goes an army wanted to invade
this island and the leader is this army burnt the soldiers boats and says you're not going home
you either you either take the island or die because we've burned your boats there's no escape
you know there's no retreat you have to make this work so when I say burn your boats
and that's what I did when I went self-employed I just thought right because sometimes I feel we
might be waiting for all the traffic lights to go green before we actually make the journey if you
know what I mean and it's we could be sat there trying to analyze when's the best time for five
years you could be thinking oh not now you know the government's just said we're in a bit of a
recession oh not now the labor's just released this budget and businesses are going to get wobbled
a little bit I'll give it another six months and then you know you could you could spend all your
life doing that saying not now it's not the right time now so my advice to you is just do it now
you know just get started because you obviously want to do it because you know you're burning to
do it and you want to the thing is with being self-employed and being in business is you only
get better at it once you're in it so you only know how to start swimming when someone throws you
in the water you could sit there staring at the water and analyzing it all you like and
and people could say oh when you're in the water do this and kick your legs but until you're in it
you don't know how you're going to react so what I'd say is jump in get started and absorb all the
information you can from all these resources around you trial talk and we've got cookies group
so absorb as much information as you can about the type of jobs that you want to do
and don't wait for all the traffic lights to go green mate when you feel the time's right
what would be handy is to have a few months earnings in the bank but is that going to be
feasible are you going to be able to do that before you launch because not everybody can you know
people have got mouths to feed etc so the time's right once you've got a lead generation system locked
in so a stupid thing to do would just be to go self-employed with no plan of how you're going to
get work and just just think well word of mouth I'll just get word of mouth you're not just going
to get word of mouth in 2025 2024 because the competition is fierce and everybody is clumbering
for those those leads and inquiries so we need to make sure that we're visible and so this will be
covering your marketing side of things so obviously your main focus is going to be keeping consistent
flow of work coming in and the way you do that is by getting visible the strategy we use on the
coaching program is Google and we use a number of free platforms and to get visible and to get people
phoning us and sending us emails and inquiries and it's a strategy that's extremely effective if you
go on to the coaching group now which I know you will think you've just joined you'll see the results
that some of the boys are getting on the group and Dan's just posted up in the last half an hour I think
with another little win on a ceiling project that has just managed to book in but it's not BS
it's systems that work be prepared to roll your sleeves up because it does take work and it's not
a quick overnight thing not like you know checker trade where you give them the money and they give
you people's phone numbers it's something you have to build so it's a reputation building process
and my advice to you if you want to go self-employed is put all your focus and attention on building
your reputation and making that reputation as visible as you possibly can but there's a lot to
unpack on that question mate and we will come on to it more deeper inside the coaching group but yeah
if you want to do it try and get some money behind you try and get a couple months wages behind you
and think about your lead generation how am I going to generate leads consistently
those are the two boxes we need to tick because everything else is practical things so I hope
that helps buddy Joel just goes on to say there doesn't have to be enemies in business either
yeah 100% I agree with that so when we say there's no friends in business we're not saying
not saying to make enemies with these customers the idea is to keep it professional keep it
professional we don't owe anybody any favors and you know I think there's a fine line between
high level of customer service and you know being taken for a ride and being taken advantage of so
we've got to you know keep that line in sight and make sure that line doesn't get quashed really I
suppose right let's move on to the manager then so spoke about the freelancer model there
which is most of us will you know will register a self-employed we'll have a van we'll have our
tools we'll start working in people's homes or working for builders as a freelance plasterer
doing bread and butter jobs might be bonding coat hard wall sanding cement might be you know skimming
out re-skimming replacing ceilings bit of coving you know bit of this and a bit of that all the
bread and butter jobs so we'll move on now to manager now this is where you start to scale this
is where you scale and guys I'll talk about this because this was me for over a decade in the manager
call it the manager model because that's essentially the role that that you take when you take on lads
you become a manager of people because it's your job to manage the lads so that's why it's called
the manager model now in this model there is scope for growth and there is scope for more profit if
done correctly and done right so I spoke about the negative side of it earlier about how you know
most people that do try and scale their profits instead of their profits going up their profits
sort of level off and the whole focus becomes about just keeping the lads in work instead of about
instead of about their vision of what they want for their family and how much money they want
and all the things that they want it becomes too much about let's just keep the lads in work
and it's oftentimes when you're in this model you're taking on jobs that you don't necessarily
want to take on but you have to take them on because you have to keep the lads busy whereas
in the freelancer model you can cherry pick your jobs I don't like that guy getting a bad vibe off
him something not right with him and you know I'm not going to go for it or that job there is too
far away or that customer over there and he's trying to haggle me down on the price a bit too
much he can decide off I'm not going to do it so the freelance model we can pick and choose who we
work for and how we work where we work when you start scaling and taking on lads that becomes
more difficult because now you can't be as fussy and as finicky with who you work for because you've
got to keep these guys in work so we end up taking on jobs shitty jobs that probably we wouldn't take
on if we were you know freelancing so again pros and cons to it but we can take on larger projects
there so you can see here of all it pointed we can take on larger projects you can't take on a block
of flats on your own as a freelancer whereas if you had a team maybe you could you can take on
commercial projects if that's a line of work you want to go down it's it can become a saleable asset
if you scale so you know that these are the pros of scaling and like I say I'm not all all dead
against it however I think to go down this road I think you do have to be highly entrepreneurial
very business smarts and also really really well connected and your personal maybe your
personal situation if you've got a couple of babies at home for example then the mrs is gonna need
you know she's gonna need you by your side isn't she and this is the trap I fell into
I tried to scale while I had babies at home and you can't have two passions you know and and oftentimes
you'll hear lads talk about this how you know they wanted to scale but it was costing them too
much behind closed doors and all that focus and attention was on the business and building the
business and putting systems in and dealing with customers and dramas and in the background people
are getting left behind so if you do decide to scale think about that like is this the right time
to scale or you know is this something I need to do when the kids are a bit older and you know
out and up is think about it because the amount of time and devotion that you're going to have to
pour into this business in order to get it off the ground and take on a team of lads and all
that's involved you might find that it's going to require too much of you to do this and although
it can be like I say it can lure you in especially if you scroll on tiktok and you know look at all
the business coaching bullshit that goes on and people have this desire to do this thinking that
they're going to earn big money if they scale but oftentimes they end up burning out and not earning
the profits that they think they're going to earn so but look let's talk about the pros some keep I
keep talking about the downside of it you've become part of a team so the workload is shared
I spoke about how sometimes as sole traders we might take on jobs that are just too big
they're just too big for us to handle as one man or one man in the labor whereas of course if you're
in a part of a team you know you can take on anything you can take on larger projects ultimately
we need to decide like is this larger project worth even worth taking on and why am I taking it on
so we've got to be asking these questions all the time now the cons of obviously listed a few
already increased stress and higher costs increased stress higher costs and so I mentioned there about
being entrepreneurial entrepreneurial types are resilient against stress they're very resilient
against stress doesn't get to them the way it gets to most of us so people that scale big businesses
and take on big teams of lads and you know they're spinning capital and you know they might be owed in
30k 40k and they're still sleeping at night and you know the stress doesn't get to them the way it
gets to most of us so they have a high resilience to stress if you haven't got a high resilience to
stress then you're going to suffer with stress big time and because oftentimes you'll be pulled into
other people's payment terms whereas if you're freelance blaster up you can set the terms up how
you like you can say right I want 50% down when I book this job in and the day that I finish I want
the other 50% your terms your business and if they refuse say I'm not working with you then
simple as that when you start building a big team and going down the commercial rabbit hole that
becomes more difficult to put those demands in and those commands in because they're going to want
you to be pulled into their payment terms they might honor your payment terms they might not
but it's going to be more difficult for you to set up your own payment terms in a commercial
setting if you're doing large-scale commercial jobs and of course if you need to keep them lads busy
you can't be spoiled brat in the way you can as a freelancer so increase stress guys less flexibility
and taking on jobs you don't really want so I mentioned there you know sometimes we have to
just take on work just to keep people in work basically and we haven't really got the option
so that's the manager manager model guys and again if you've got any thoughts on this
or you see things from a different perspective or you want to put your opinion in then by all means
do hit the chat and let me know your thoughts on it so the specialist model guys by now you'll
probably understand what this model is kind of works like the freelancer so you've got you know a
lot of flexibility and you're working on your terms choosing who you work for where you work how you
work a lot of flexibility there the only difference from being a freelancer is it's high profit it's
high profit so if we're bashing out you know reskins for example and we go and price up a job
and say you know I want x amount for this reskin we know that there's going to be a high competition
we're going to have a lot of competition especially if you live in the city and one way you can get
around that is by differentiating yourself from becoming better just become better than your competition
cleaner more reliable better at communicating and more professional you've got more customer reviews
you know you look better etc you know your marketing's better so you can stand out in that way and you
might be able to you know win over the customer and lose the competition however in a competitive
market it's going to be more and more difficult for for bread and butter plasterer you know to put
a high price in when the customer has an easy option to just choose a lower price every time
so although we can become better and stand out because it is so competitive and again more
and more spreads are coming into the game and I'm not I'm not here to bash the new guys coming in
but it is a market that's low entry barriers easy to tap there's many skimmers out there now that they
might not have your skill set and they might just be skimmers going over plasterboard I'm not knocking
the young lads and because I understand that they can't access the training that you could access when
you were you know their age they might not be able to access the mentors and the people that
willing to teach them how to use a straight edge so I'm not knocking the young lads but what I'm
saying is um plasterers become easier to tap it's easier to tap the market so in the re-skim
in the re-skimming market I found when I was doing this years back there were a lot of people
willing to cut my price in half and you know because like I say you can pick up a van a couple
of buckets cheap paddle mixer you know go and get a trial from the range and now I'm a plasterer
and you know if we've got people like this who have built a website and from the customer's
perception might not be very educated you know they're going to think oh Joe Brog's over here
is going to do it for half the money and of course we all know that story ends but that's when it
comes back down to educating your customers so that's why it's so important to educate your
customers with your content so they can see the pitfalls what happens if we go for a cheap
plasterer that doesn't know what he's doing and what happens to the finish and you can show them
the finish delaminating and you can show them the the risks of taking on a cheap job and taking on
cheap plasterer so but what I'm saying is in a nutshell guys it's a competitive market it's going
to be harder for you to earn high profit in an extremely competitive market with low entry barriers
so that's why we can cap out on our earnings working as a freelance blusterer sometimes
the guys that have been in the game 20 years that are highly established and so I know I'm
busy seven days a week I charge 250 a day and I'm busy seven days a week you've had 20 years
of road to run on and so we're talking about guys that are just coming in to the market guys that
are just coming into the market with the specialist model and it's high profit so we're focusing on
jobs that a specialist might be thin coat render it might be finition plastering it might be internal
wall installation could be damp proofing could be modern render systems EWI if you can laser focus
and niche your business down to one skill or one niche that's in demand and you know focus all of
your attention in your marketing on this one niche then you become known for this niche people
you know your name's dropped people go yeah I know that guy he specializes in
internal wall installation oh yeah I know I know that guy he specializes in external
wall insulation etc and if you can get that sort of recognition and that authority
specializing and niching your business down in one specific skill and you get your marketing
right which is a key component of doing this implementing this strategy if you can do this
and get this right this is where you get your money up and the competition is minimal the competition
is minimal now because everybody's over here in the freelancer in the freelancer model you know
squatting around for the scraps you're over here now and you've lost a lot of the competition so
you're losing the crowd by moving over into this the specialist model flexible hours it's
highly rewarding low running costs so pretty much on par with the freelancer model but you're
specializing now specialization you work less and you earn more work less earn more so
going back to the bread and butter and plustering jobs typically be on a day rate situation
and the only way to get that day rate up is by doing more hours and more jobs however as a specialist
you can literally double your day rate and I know that's quite a bold statement you can double your
average day rate so let's say you're running 200 quid over here you can earn 400 quid over here if
you're earning 250 quid over here you can earn 500 pound a day over here or more so and without
and without having to work more hours which is more the more important thing so you live what you're
doing guys is you're leveraging your skills you're leveraging your skills instead of competing
instead of putting your skills in a competitive framework where you're competing with everybody
else you're leveraging your skills okay so you work less you earn more so you've got more freedom
maybe you want to do a three-day week but you know you need 1500 quid and you think well I can't
do a three-day week because I need 1500 quid and now you can because you can earn 500 pound a day over
here in the specialist model okay now this takes graft you know like I say it's not a magic wand
overnight fix it takes graft it's going to take you a number of years to firmly position yourself
as a specialist in the plastering market okay it's going to take a lot of work but when you do it
and you get there then you'll reap the rewards believe me now there's scope for growth now although
you don't need to take on staff right although you're not going to be taking on staff because of
the knowledge because of the amount of potent knowledge that you're going to build up in this
area here as a specialist now you can start tapping other avenues like let me give you an
example look at Joel Cook okay he's become a specialist in thin coat and modern render systems
and now moving into EWI and that's what he does on the tools to put food on the table but what he's
also doing now is training other lads um in how to do this and how to you know build your rendering
business and how to become a specialist so it's opened up more avenues and more doors by him specialising
so now he's creating other income streams and stuff like that so the scope for growth in different
ways growing your business isn't just build a big massive team and you know I have to be locked
them out on the wheel doing 60 hour work weeks the scope for growth in other ways when you go
down a specialist model you know you could be doing blog posts you could be a guest speaker on podcasts
you know you could create a youtube channel a passive income that way you could create your
own podcast there's multiple different ways um that you can earn money in this specialist model
right doesn't have to just be earning money being on the tools you can earn money in loads of different
ways um leveraging your knowledge in your skills in different ways now of course there are cons it's
an unsullable asset because you are the business so unlike a manager model um you know a few people
like I said earlier those entrepreneurial types right they might be able to build a large scale
commercial plastering business or even a domestic plastering business um and one day they might be
able to step out of that business sell it on hand personal keys and reap the rewards of that sale
not saying it's not doable um but over here in the specialist model that is that would never happen
because obviously it's just you on the tools you are the specialist okay so it's unsullable
and of course there again I've mentioned the risk of injury so I hope that information helps guys
um a little bit um talking about you know pros and cons of each
well let's come on to um the skill sets needed
working as a freelancer if you want to go self-employed you're ready to go self-employed
you're going to need people skills you're going to need good work ethic time management skills
cleanliness and sales skills well it goes without saying so oftentimes we get good on the tools and
we think well I'm good at plastering walls I'll go and work for myself and I'll be really really
busy because people keep telling me how great my work is and my work looks so great but that's
only one piece of the puzzle because when you start working for yourself you need all these other
skills guys people skills um time management skills marketing skills sales skills if we overlook this
don't matter how good you are on the tools and how nice your work looks people aren't just going to
knock your front door and give you work so you have to be able to bang the drum sell yourself
sell your business uh you've got to become your own cheerleader and if you want to scale
those skills have to be even more potent and you've got to look at upskilling yourself even more
so I'll put here leadership skills is what you'll need if you want to scale your plastering business
okay strategic thinking like with your financial thinking you've got to be very strategic
you need to be resilient so you'd have to be very resilient to stress for example things going wrong
you know managing a machine with you know the old cog stop turn and let's change this part here
is different to managing people and dealing with their dramas and stress every day you know you
become you have to become a counselor at work and dealing with your lads and dealing with the
stress that that brings their unpredictable people are unpredictable you don't even have to
going to turn up half the time so one of the one of the other challenges of being in this manager
position here is the constant search for staff all the time that can become overwhelming and stressful
in itself because you're just about build your team and then someone fucks off and leaves they might
they might have been your lead man your wingman uh you rely on and now they've left and this is what
happened to me when they leave it you know throws a spanner in the works and now you've got to find
somebody else and that can become exhausting sometimes trying to find the right people for
your business is one of the even if you've been in the game decades it can still be the hardest
challenge finding the right people for your business so you got a resilience there for
natural skills guys what skills do you need to become a specialist you need specialist skills
and knowledge in a specific niche you need advanced sales and marketing skills and you need to have a
focus guys on continuous training continuous training and developing yourself and your skills
all the time over in the freelance model the bread and butter plastering model
plasters get stuck in that model because they've learned how to skim a wall and how to use a straight
edge and then they stop learning they think well i've got my skills now and i don't need to learn
anymore now now i've done i've done my time at college and and then they get trapped because
they might buy a house get a car on one tick uh get a van on finance so the whole focus is let's
keep getting these jobs skimming out people's houses or you know doing k-rend or whatever it is
let's keep getting these jobs in because we've got to pay the bills so the focus become their focus
goes off training off learning and that's why the coaching groups here you know it's to help you
give you easy access to training and knowledge and business skills because i know how it is
when you're in that position you've got to feed the kids you know oftentimes we just haven't got
time to think about our future and think about um upskilling our business and learning new skills
and training so i just haven't got time or money money might not be there which is why this runs
80p a day because i didn't have the money for business coaching i'll be totally honest with you
um i couldn't afford business coaching when i first started and that's why i never got it
because i couldn't afford it and it's and it's unaffordable for most new plasterers um the average
cost of a business coach is like 100 an hour or something daft like that so oftentimes guys we
can't afford business coaches but it's so important that we do get business coaching otherwise we will
never be able to push forward and move the needle we'll become stuck in the freelancer mindset so
i hope that's giving you guys a good sort of overview
um of what you can do when you go self-employed working as a plasterer in the UK
and the three different models that are used to try and explain it
but the key focus is going to be finding work uh when you go self-employed guys
and getting the right mindset getting the mindset right when you work for somebody else somebody
else is always responsible um for things that go wrong they're responsible for time management
they tell you when you can go and have a lunch break etc and i'm talking about people that you
know they're on the box as an employee you know you you know when you're supposed to turn up
you know when you're going to have your lunch you know when you can switch off and clock off
and if things go wrong you run out of materials it's someone else's problem when you go self-employed
you're taking on 100 percent responsibility for absolutely everything so the book stops with you
now and sometimes that can really wobble people when they're not used to it they jump into self-employment
start taking on all this responsibility and pressure
and you know they throw the towel in because they've gone self-employed and increased their
hand skills but they haven't increased their mental mindset to be able to fit that leadership
position and being self-employed everything's on you so you've got to be you've got to wear a lot
of different hats when you go self-employed guys and it's not just a case of you know turn up
slap some plaster on and put the invoice in if you want to build a professional business
and a professional brand in your local area where you live it's going to take a mindset shift
to do that because you've got to learn these off the tools skills in your sales your marketing
your communication you need a kind of helicopter view of how each little component works in your
business there's a lot to it so that's why again that's why the coaching program's there
to help you guys to learn that in an easy to understand format that's affordable
so consider coaching and that was tip number five was consider some coaching and if it's not
trial-taught coaching consider being coached by somebody else but get some business coaching guys
because it's so vital that we learn these skills and these these points off the tools so and by
the way i've had two messages as well this week about corksol again if anybody does want to sign
up to do a training day with corksol and members of the coaching program get 30 off that's a massive
chunk that's a massive trust a couple of hundred pounds in your back pocket so listen if you want
to go and do the corksol training i'll put a link in to the coaching group below and even if you
want to stay in a coaching group like a month for a couple months it's going to pay for itself 10
fold because it's 24 quid to join for the first month and you know you're going to get a couple
hundred pounds off this training day guys so i'll put a link in there and this is just you know i
keep i keep banging the corksol drum but this is just one material that's hit the market in the
last couple of years that's changing the gain in plastering but there's many of them there's loads
of them and i mentioned about doing a talk with cookie at 9 am cookie's just rebranded pro to
pro render and he's got like training days that are going for like a couple hundred quid where you
can go and learn um Joel's strategies and his methods of how he earns money and how he you know
targets his brilliant render jobs and leads and he's given all that information away on a training
day a one-to-one training day but it is and off go and do it if you're still you know messing
around with sunday and cement like i was for years and you've got all these pre-bag renders
available at your merchants and you're thinking now i don't know how to do that i'll just stick with
sunday cement or you might be a skimmer and you've always wanted to learn rendering but you just
don't know where to start go and hit up cookie and again i'll put a link in for you but go and check
out his training days guys because would you rather learn in a college environment you know
putting a bit of render over a concrete block or would you want to learn from a seasoned renderer
that does this day in and day out renders ours is day in and day out he knows the shortcuts he knows
you know how to get over problems how to get over things that go wrong so i know who i'd rather
learn from i'd rather learn from a seasoned plasterer that relies on these skills to pay his
mortgage and to feed his family um you'll learn so much in college but there's nothing like learning
you know from a professional and this is what we always encourage trial-tort members to try and
buddy up with a plasterer when they're learning try and get behind a plaster and shadow the
plasterer or the renderer because you'll learn so much more being in the company of an experienced
plasterer that's been in this game for decades than you will in a college environment or learning
off a youtube video or something like that so listen if you want to learn rendering talk to
joel cook you'll point you in the right direction i'm sure he's got an affordable program for you
and if you can't afford the full training it'll have something there or even some free content
where you can go and check out some of his training days and stuff like that so um be sure to do that
guys definitely but yeah any final thoughts lads in the chat let me just check the comments here
joel says the prices are going up
2.99 i mean mate what's that that's a pair of trainers now isn't it 2.99 2.99 is doing it for lads
i'm only joking 2.99 so for 300 quid which is what you know that's a good day rate for a spread
isn't it 300 quid um so for a good day's pay you can go and learn a brand new skill for 2025
no brainer value for money 100% is value for money joel when you think about what you can do if you
can walk away from that training and this is what i say to lads that want to join the coaching group
if you can walk away from the training and and it's enhanced your skill set
and opened up doors and windows for you to go windows of opportunity if it does that
for like a little amount of money is it worth doing it you know you're going to walk away now
and be able to increase your day rate or when a customer inquires and says can you work can you
render our garage and now you know how to do it you know it's like well yeah of course it's worth it
so only take a couple of jobs you know to get your money back wouldn't it
i'm probably going to answer a lot of these comments want to come off the live because um
i say it's it's 9 a.m. i've promised a quick chat with joel and uh there's a lot of them
kukie says he's in manager mode trying to minimize costs as much as he can
which books and mentoring groups really helped me a lot over this year to improve how my business
works and dealing with stressful situations brilliant cheers rich nice one
i'm at nissan there's so much help available through this group and joel's group
it's great seeing people helping others instead of trying to tear them down 100
percent mate and you're a key component in that mark and it's always appreciated it's it doesn't
go unnoticed what you do for these communities mark it doesn't go unnoticed and i know we do
name drop you a lot and reference you a lot but um you know i'm not i'm not here to blow smoke up
your ass but i just want to say thank you again uh on behalf of me joel everybody because the amount
of value you pour into these community groups um you know it's unreal mate and the passion you've
got for the game is unreal so um we need more martin eason's on these groups guys so any young
martin eason's out there hungry for it uh get involved a bit more the young lads get involved
and learn off people like mark as well
rich says that he's looking to move more into the specialist role
he wants to tap the insulation it's internal and external um he's done the web his ewi training
there's an internal wall ins an internal wall insulation intensive training day not intensive
training day intensive training course um that's going to be released i was hoping to get it out
before christmas and i'm still going to try and hit that target it's not quite finished yet
um but it might mean that it gets released uh january 2025 but as soon as that's available
um i'll be splattering it all over the you know the trial talk community group and
youtube channel and coaching group and everywhere else but in a nutshell the key focus is going to
be on case studies in old properties um we're going to be unpacking the four types of damp
and um sort of running through why these old homes get damp how to resolve it because
we all know that in the damp industry there's a lot of cover ups going on um swap some sand
and cement with waterproof or over it and skim it you know but let's not put any focus on where
the actual dump's coming from and none of us like that approach and you know the damp industry
it's got a bad name hasn't it it gets a bad rap and you know the line brigade are always jumping
all over damp proofers and giving them hard time giving them a good kicking some of them deserve it
some of them are trying trying to put food on the table um but a lot of it is just to do with the
lack of education on old buildings you know and understanding how they work and you know what is
bridging you know let's look at the ground levels you know let's understand penetrating damp let's
look at the obvious stuff like leaky down pipes and gaskets gone in the windows and you know is
there enough overhang on the roof outside let's look at the obvious stuff before we start just
slapping sand and cement with waterproof or over everything um charging ridiculous money for doing
it but on these old houses guys they're sucking heat out of out of the rooms by 30 at 35 percent
on a solid wall so sand and cement it just isn't going to cut it these days we need to try
and keep the heat in and this is why corkshole is big at the minute because it's a thin option
for customers you know you don't need to take your skirting boards off you don't need to take
your windowsills off um you know you're talking like six millimeters of material straight over the top
so it has got its place inside and it's getting positive i mean ian off the coaching group
uh listen ian joined my coaching group okay we've absolutely no technical skills whatsoever
when it comes to computers websites marketing you don't know where to start and he's gone from
from being in that position to building publishing and ranking a completely free organic website
getting leads through that website for corkshole and he's just bagged his job
last week just finished his job uh corkshole project spraying internally and then skimming
made serious money on it so he's made some good money on it and he's just got a five star review
dropped in that he's shared shared into the coaching group and the customers said in this review
guys i can already feel the temperature difference i can already feel the temperature difference so
it's not bollocks and i know there's still a bit of scepticism scepticism on the whole
cork thing oh how can it do that so being so thin listen it's not going to compare to like a
72.5 mil p ir board like you know the celotex p l 4000 or the speed line or something like that
it's not going to compare to a big chunky p ir board but um you know for this space not everybody
can afford p ir and not everybody wants to lose the floor space and rip out skirting boards
window boards you know ripping built-in wardrobes out etc or moving radiators so it's an option where
plasterers can come in and not have to get involved too much with the carpentry and the ripping outside
um and they oftentimes you can go over the top so that's why these tewee systems are going to be
blowing up over the next few years so listen if you do want to increase your skill set moving into
2025 have a look at this internal wall insulation training course that i'm
i'm going to be releasing because i'm going to be covering corksol xps wood fibre insulation
and breathable systems okay and p ir what the best p ir boards to use but more importantly
where should you use internal wall insulation and where shouldn't you use it we'll cover things
like cold bridging we'll cover uh window reveals i mean a post come up yesterday on trial talk
someone was saying you know someone's insulated this cold wall they've insulated the face
but they've not insulated the reveal so am i okay just to skim the reveal um and the answer to that
is no because now you reveal a cold bridge and it's just going to attract you know damp and black
spot mold because there's no insulation there so these are the obvious things that we're going to
be covering in the i w i training program just to make sure that if you do start installing these
systems you don't get tripped up using the wrong materials for example um you don't the last thing
you want to do is charge someone 10 grand for a fit out and six months later go being back there
ripping it all out again and having to do it again um so we need to understand why these properties
get damp in the first place uh you know we we need to understand u values and r values a little bit
before we start throwing these insulation boards in so that's what it's all about but
again if you're looking to tap a new market guys for 2025 uh the ewi and the i w i markets are red
hot and they will be they will be for decades um there's almost 10 million 10 million cold houses
solid wall properties in the uk i mean joel can't do more on her own so get involved and make some
money listen i hope that's helped today and um any comments any final thoughts drop into the
comments and i'll catch up with you later i'm going to go and have a chat with cookie now
um have a good weekend everybody and i'll catch you all later