Episode 101 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What made you a bloody good sparky? It’s a different set of skillset to manage tradesmen and apprentices. And you can utilise that skill as a tradesman to managing other tradesmen and other apprentices. Hi everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group, and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey, Rob. Hey everyone. Good to be back really well. Looking forward to today’s episode on great tradies don’t necessarily make great business owners. It’s almost like an equation, isn’t it? A great tradie does not equal a great business owner, and that’s what we’re talking about today. What happens with most trades is a little bit like sports coaches almost. You see the great players that try and become sports coaches, and you see it happen time and time again. They fall short. They struggle. They’re not necessarily great coaches just because they were great players. And I think that’s at a high level, that’s what we’re talking about today. You started your trades business because you were great at what you did. You delivered quality work, your customers love you. Maybe you were sitting there doing your work and you saw how poorer tradesman the business owner was at what you were actually there to do.
(01:15):
And you thought to yourself, “Well, why am I working for someone else when I could do this better myself?”
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah. It’s a bloody rude shock then when you get into business, isn’t it, for yourself? Because the skillsets that you had as a tradesman, they just do not equate. And I’m sure you’re listening here today nodding your head going, “Yeah, I get it. ” And the sooner you realise that, the better, because when you think about what made you a great tradesman, it was like your technical skills, like technically being capable at your trade or your craft, it’s your attention to detail to be able to get the job done. It’s potentially your ability to problem solve. And it’s that thing that just being reliable and maintaining quality. So those attributes were what made you a great tradesman, but it’s just accepting the fact that what got you here is not what’s going to make you great in business. And the moment you realise that and really start to see that they don’t equate, the sooner that you realise that something has to shift.
(02:15):
And that for you is that you’ve almost got to somewhat unlearn those trade skills and completely learn a completely different set of skills, which is business. And there’s a whole gamut of things you’ve got to learn in running a great business.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah. And I think we get it. I mean, the idea that you’ll be giving up something that’s been of value, your identity of who you are and what you love to say, I’m good at. What do you do? I’m a tradie. I’m really good at it. I’m the best one. There is. There’s an attachment to that and it’s hard to let that go. But unless you develop, unless you understand what it takes to be a great business owner, then making that shift, like you said at the top, you’re never going to get to be able to make the profit you want. The freedom, the lifestyle that you want to have just doesn’t come as a result of being a great tradie and just sticking with this for a while. There’s a real transition that needs to happen and those skills are really important.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah. When you think about being what it is to be a great business owner, you’ve got to develop the mindset, the strategy, and the skillset to have good financial management skills, which is like knowing your numbers and managing cash flow and pricing well. So there’s the financial element to it. There’s the leadership element to it, which is building and retaining and recruiting and driving culture with intuitive business. There’s that whole leadership side of business that you’ve got to be able to develop. There’s the sales and the marketing side of things, the generation of leads and the conversion of those leads and the ability to win the right job at the right time for the right price. That’s a completely different skillset in its own. It’s the whole systems and processes element to it. There’s a whole different set of business systems compared to a job type of system.
(04:00):
Then there’s just the strategic thinking of what it takes to run a business and your ability to plan and think long term and execute on things that matter. All these things that I just spoke around then, they have nothing to do with the trade. And sure, there’s doing the jobs which make the business turnover, but all these things are a completely new trade that you’ve got to be able to develop the skillset you’ve got to be able to develop, which is the trade that is business. And the sooner you realise that just because you’re good at being a Sparky or a plumber, it does not guarantee you that you’re going to be great in running an electrical business or a plumbing business or a carpentry business. They’re completely different and the sooner you accept that, the better.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah. We see this. It’s a business management sort of concept that they talk around this idea of being promoted to your level of incompetence. And what that means is, and you see this happening in larger organisations all the time. It’s like, how did that person end up in … They’re the worst manager I’ve ever seen, but often those managers were great at their jobs day after day. They could be relied on, promote them into management, give them a new task, a new challenge, everything falls apart. And I think making that step from trading to being in business, there’s no real licence that you have to have to start a business these days. Anyone can start one. It’s not hard. It can be done in an hour. We could be in business. But you being an elite tradesman, unless you go into that mindset and committing to learning the new rules, the new tools that you need to have, you’re destined to stay stuck and you’re in for a world of pain if you can’t make that shift.
(05:37):
So I think this idea that we’re getting to is that the greatest strength that you’ve got can become your greatest weakness. And it’s a hard pill for guys to swallow.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It is. And if we can zoom out for a moment, it’s like someone who’s bloody good at being a barista and making great coffee, they’re generally very good as a barista, but they suck at running a cafe or someone might be an excellent PT. It’s not going to mean they’re going to be great at being a studio manager or someone who can be a great chef. The best chefs often are often the worst business owners. And so that’s what you mean there. When you think outside of the trade space, it just makes sense that that makes sense in other industries, but you’re so right when you say that, that your greatest strength as a tradesman is your greatest weakness as a business owner. And yes, you’ve kind of got to know the trade and the craft to understand, to be able to run a business in that sector.
(06:36):
But in saying that, we’ve come across clients who some in particular didn’t come from the trade. They’d come from other sectors that bought that business and they do a bloody good job at running it. And that’s because they’re not getting sucked back into being on the tools because they can’t, because they’re not qualified in that trade or that space.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah. And I think let’s focus on that side of being the best on the tools for a minute and just explore that. I mean, the idea that I am the best on the tools, the strengths of that, yeah, sure, you understand things. You can quote stuff. You’ve got an intimate understanding of what it would be take to get a job done, all that sort of thing. But when you’re the best on the tools, there’s some downsides that come with that as well.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, there is. You become a bit of the bottleneck because you’re the most experienced, you’ve got the most skill sets, you’ve got the tickets to be able to run the job. And all of a sudden, everything has to come through you and you’re the best on site. And so you can sometimes get stuck there, can’t you? Because you develop that mindset that no one is good as me as it saves me time and energy, money if I just do it myself.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah. And if that’s the case and you’re defending that, that plays into business ownership when you go to hire people. You’ll never hire anyone better than you because you don’t want to give up that mantle and that bottleneck stays the same. Same thing setting standards for a team that you’re now managing. You set a standard and it’s almost that impossibly high standard. You’re an elite tradesman, an elite craftsman. You come in with your team and you say that no one can do it as good as me, and you start quoting that way, that translates in business ownership that will hurt you. That’ll bite you in the ass every time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And you avoid delegation, like you avoid handing things over and relinquishing control and empowering people around you. You don’t do that because you hold on so tight. And I know that we’ll do an episode at another time. It’s going to be a whole nother episode around the different stages that a business owner at different stages and phases a business owner has to go through. But this is the number one reason why most tradies get stuck at either a one man band and stuck between that zero to 300K turnover mark, or they get trapped at the million dollar mark and they can’t grow beyond that is because these are natural sticking points for a trades business owner. And the more you push towards a million dollars, that’s generally that tipping point where you’ve got to make that choice is, do I want to stay here and run that tool belt business and be that guy where I’m still on the tools and it’s small and manageable?
(09:03):
Or do I genuinely want to run a trades business here? And that’s a decision point for you. You got to make that choice, but you can’t go on to run an owner operate a business or a true, genuine lifestyle trades business, that three to $5 million plus mark. You can’t do that whilst you’re still holding onto the mindset that you’re the best tradesman out there and that your identity is a tradesman. You’ll just never get beyond it because your business will never outgrow your level of thinking and the identity that you hold onto in that space.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, absolutely. I was talking, it was a friend of mine and he’s not a client at the moment, but I was talking to him about this same thing. He’s a Sparky and he’s like, “I’m doing some of this stuff and I’m enjoying it, but I’m sort of a bit lost. I don’t know what the next step looks like. How do I get better at what we do to make the business grow?” And I had this exact conversation. It was around the identity shift, what he’s got to stop seeing himself as and what he’s got to start becoming. And the idea of, “Do you want to see yourself? Do you see yourself still as a tradie?” “Yeah, absolutely I do. “”Great.” I said, “How do you view yourself as a business owner?” And there was silence and I was like, “That’s the identity shift we’re talking about.
(10:13):
Unless you fill that gap, unless you make that identity shift, then you’re always going to be stuck at, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but stuck being just a tradie. And if you’re frustrated about the progress or the life you’ve got or your inability to make profit, that identity shift has to happen. So what do you think people have to stop seeing themselves as or that sort of mentality that is holding them back?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah. It’s almost like they’ve got to stop seeing themselves as the best carpenter or the spark who never cuts corners or the plumber that everyone calls. They’ve got to stop seeing them as the man, the problem solver, the Mr. Fix it, the guy who can get in there with their hands and get stuff done, and they’ve got to start seeing themselves as that business owner who runs a carpentry business, who hires great carpenters, or they see themselves as the Sparky, the business owner who runs an electrical business, who develops great systems and processes for the team to be able to operate, or I’m a business owner who runs a plumbing business and we’ve got a reliable team that turns up on time and keeps our projects on budget and we deliver every time we’re always ready. So there’s a slight distinction, but it’s a huge difference, but it all starts with the conversation you have in your head, the way that you show up as an individual, like the way that you dress, the way that you look, what’s sitting in the truck that you drive or all your tools or no tools, and the way that you just genuinely show up as a person and the conversations that you have.
(11:58):
And the more that you start to shift the conversations and who you see back in the mirror and that identity changing, that’s when your business will also start to evolve to catch up with the identity that’s also changing.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah. And I think it also comes in there even just as simple as how you look at things strategically. When you’re doing it as a tradie, it’s this job, that’s all that exists. It’s this day, it’s this hour, it’s until lunchtime, it’s that thing I’m working on right now, this phase, this technical bit, and you get right on micromanaging into that space. Strategic thinking as a business owner means that you’re taking a broader picture. You’re thinking in terms of quarters and years and strategically about how are we going to deliver this over six months and where do I want to be? And it’s for jobs that you’re not even aware of right now. So even start seeing yourself or the times that you look at will change.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Correct. And I think about my journey in Pravar. I know that I’ve been doing this 15 years now. The first five years for me was just mastering my craft. I just was a really, really good … Became a really, really good coach. And that was just cutting my teeth and developing and honing my skills of coaching one-on-one and doing that. And then it was about five years into the journey. It was like, great, now I’m going to start hiring coaches. And I went down that path. And as I started winding down my coaching, I started managing coaches. I was still coaching during that time. So that was my next genuine five or six or seven year block where I was that good manager. And it’s really only been the last couple of years that I’ve gone from managing coaches to leading a coaching business. Obviously you’ve stepped into the head of coaching and operations and you’re managing and managing the team and leading operations, but it’s enabled me to take a step forward to lead the coaching business.
(13:48):
So when I think about my own journey, it’s been from the doer to the manager to the leader, but it just hasn’t happened overnight. But what made me a great one-on-one coach didn’t make me a great manager of a coaching business and a manager of good coaches, but a good manager of coaches didn’t make me and doesn’t make me a great leader of a coaching organisation. So there are three completely different mindsets, skillsets, and a set of strategies that you’ve got to develop over a period of time. But as you take the step and transition from one to another, you’ve got to accept that you almost get to the top of your game in one. And when you take that step, you go into the bottom of the rung in the next, and you’ve got to accept that you’re going to suck at that next phase and have that level of being an apprentice as you take that step forward.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah. And it doesn’t mean I think you lose necessarily your craft. It’s what you do with it. I mean, if you did that and you had that attitude, Rob, in the example you gave, or as you listened to this and you go, “Well, does that mean all my 20 years of experience, I’ve done this my whole life, does that now count for nothing?” And I don’t think it does. I think the mentality that you’ve got is this becomes part of your expertise now to share that, to pass it on, like you said, to teach and lead, that word lead that you use and manage. It does translate, but only to a certain extent, but it doesn’t mean you lose it all together and it doesn’t mean you walk away from it. I mean, you don’t think of yourself as not a coach. You still, that’s in you and it doesn’t disappear just because you’re a business owner.
(15:20):
We’re not saying that it has to be black and white. You never think of yourself in those things again.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, correct. And so when we put this back into the trade sector is what made you a bloody good sparky, it’s a different set of skillset to manage tradesmen and apprentices. And you can utilise that skill as a tradesman to managing other tradesmen and other apprentices. And then as you then build an operational team around you, when you start leading electrical business and lead the people there, as you say, they’re just building blocks that you get to build on over a period of time. And that’s why this journey takes time. It’s a transition through these phases, but you’ve got to accept that every time you make these steps, you’re stepping into the unknown, you’re going to feel like you’re not great at things. There’s always something new to learn and skills to develop. But if you can keep that mind open and that willingness and want to hone your craft and learn new skills and new sets of strategies, that’s what’s going to keep pushing you and your business forward because you’re not going to be stuck where you are because you’ve stalled in your own growth and you’ve limited your own mindset in terms of where you’re at.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah. And I think letting go of the skill and the craft you’ve got is being an advantage because it is. When you’re coming through the ranks and you’re not actually running the business, it’s an advantage for you to be the best. But that advantage, like we said, your strength becomes a weakness, but that advantage needs to be translated into a personal advantage into leverage to build a team full of great tradesmen as opposed to you just being the best tradesman.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Definitely. And I think this is a journey that you’ve got to go on, but you’ve just got to accept that being great tradesmen does not make you a trades business. And that means there’s going to be holes in your capability, there’s going to be holes in your expertise, but it means you’ve got to plug them. And that means listening to podcasts like this, it means reading books or listening to audio books or attending events or better yet, getting coached through this phase of that journey. And that’s what we do really well at Pravar here is we take clients who are up out of the ground. They’ve proven themselves in the marketplace. They’ve got to that million dollar mark, they’ve proven their capability and their skillset and they can run some level of business around them, but they want to grow, go on and build a genuine, true lifestyle business, but they recognise that there’s a skill and a strategy gap there.
(17:54):
And that’s where coaching does come into play. So if you’re in that position where you’re recognising there are gaps in your skillset and strategy and you are looking to be able to take your business and life to the next level, then jump across to strategysession.com.au, fill out the application form, book in discovery call and a time that suits both of us. And let’s have a good conversation around where you’re at and where you’re trying to go, and let’s see if we can help you plug some of those holes and help you take your business and life to the next level. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode on The Trade Den. Looking forward to coming back to you next week with another great episode. Until then, take care.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
See you soon.