Episode 33 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
January, February, pipeline starts now. Filling that starts today. Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den, good to have you back Dan. How’s things?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good to be back, Rob. Thank you. Things are going very well. Happy to be back in the Den and looking forward to this episode, which is a nice setup for us to do every year.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I know it’s a bit of a scary thing that we’re talking about it already where this episode is coming to us in the early parts of October, but we’re going to be talking about Christmas in New Year’s already. It’s pretty scary, isn’t it?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It is. It comes around quick. It goes quick. We’ll talk about that more. But yeah, definitely. It’s definitely racing towards a set of rated of knots at the moment.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And the reason why this is so important is because if you talk to any trades business owner and they often dread the end of the year, they feel absolutely busted and when they do come back in the new year, they feel fresh from a break. But quarter one is often the hardest quarter from a business cashflow point of view, primarily because they haven’t done enough work in the last quarter or quarter four of the year leading into Christmas, and they just haven’t set themselves up for a really strong year. And so today we’re going to be really unpacking that and talking about how we can finish strong and start strong, aren’t we?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, there’s such an opportunity at this part of the year. If you do it well, you can really make some huge gains and if you do it well, you can really put yourself in for obviously a great start to next year, but if you don’t, the consequences are so much far more reaching. So yeah, excited to talk about that. And before we start, I think this year let’s just start with a challenge and just stop and consider for a minute how you felt at the end of last year. That’s probably a good place for people to start listening and thinking about this topic as we go through it. And just think for a moment, what if you could avoid falling into the same trap and instead of the rush, the craziness, whatever it was for you, create a plan for your Christmas break, one that leaves you feeling refreshed, excited, confident, and ready to take on 2025. And that’s really where we want to get to today. Let’s talk about how to end this year differently and start the new year with momentum on your side.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
In today’s episode, we’re going to be giving you the three steps. It’ll make 2025 your best year yet and finish 2024, the strongest you’ve ever done. As you said before, Dan, I think if you get this right, it really enables you to finish strong and not just fall in a heap at the end of the year, but it really helps you finish and start as your means to continue going forward. Doesn’t it really, the way that you finish this year sets the tone for the start of the year, doesn’t it?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It does, and I think people miss that gap in the middle and they think it’s either I’m doing one thing or the other. I’m either at work busting my ass for the end of the year and I’m absolutely stuffed or I’m on break and I’m having time with my family, therefore I’m not going to think about anything. I’m just going to think about that. So really I think this end part of the year is so important in blending it the right way to transition through these periods and come back to where you need to be.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
And we’re going to talk it a bit more further down the episode, but people just have this funny relationship with Christmas and I’m keen to hear what yours is, but so many business owners just see it as a finish line, not a moment in time. And when you talk to any tradie, they fucking hate this end of the year, this part of the year. They just hate it because the work demands the expectations. Everyone just wants everything done by the end of the year. It’s got to be done by Christmas kind of thing, and people put off stuff that they could have got done in February, March, April, and May waiting and they want to get it done by Christmas. So it’s just that crazy time and instead of people enjoying the festive period with their family and friends and just enjoying the Christmas break, most tradies just they fall in the heat right at Christmas time. They’re busted.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, it’s terrible to watch, but it’s totally, you can see it coming a mile off when you’re coaching like we do with so many tradies. It’s so common and so consistent.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I know we weren’t planning on speaking about it today, but it’s also a bit of a symptom of guys haven’t managed themselves well in their energy well throughout the year as well, isn’t it?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It is the fact that you want to be hitting the line strong. If you were doing that reflective question that I asked before about how did you finish last year and you were busted, you were absolutely strung out, couldn’t do another thing and would just fall over the line in a heap, then that’s probably a big indication that some things around habits and consistency and monitoring and looking after yourself and your self-care habits is probably something you need to dive into.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
For sure. How do you feel about Christmas?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Oh, I was going to ask you that same question. I can’t wait to hear yours, but you obviously want to hear mine. I am not. Let’s take it in the context of my family. I’m definitely not the Christmas fairy and sort of the one that’s going around with Christmas decorations and all that sort of stuff, so I’m probably low key with it. I’m certainly not doing the shopping in November, October, whatever it is. Lunch is going to be lunch, and to me it’s still a lunch. It’s not the big huge special, almost like wedding proportions of planning that goes into it that my wife does, but they love it. I love to watch them do it and yeah, I’m not a Christmas guy. I’m not out there hanging up lights on the roof like Clark Griswold or anything like that. Although we’ve got our first set of lights that were already purchased, by the way. They are in transit at the moment, so it’s going to be interesting. But yeah, definitely not a huge Christmas guy. Enjoy the break, love spending time with family. But yeah, it’s not a huge part of my year. You?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I’ve been renowned to Jacq. She calls me the Grinch. I am a bit of a Christmas Grinch. I do like the time of the year and pre-kids Christmas is just another day. To me it was just a whatever event. But yeah, we got a 1-year-old, a three-year-old and a 5-year-old, and Doug, can’t forget, Doug and Jacqui, my wife, she loves Christmas. It is her favourite time of the year. There’s already Christmas presents starting to roll in the door now. We get our family photos with our matching outfits and the Christmas trees, the big event where we decorate it and put decorations around the house, and it is absolutely her favourite time of the year. She loves Christmas. The amount of effort she puts into it, I love it that she loves it, but since having kids, I’m turning the corner and I’m enjoying it, embracing the festive period so much more.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh yeah, and you’ll have a great time too as the girls get a little bit older and it starts to mean a bit more and more special. You get to do more things. It’s a great time when the kids are young. My kids are grown up, so it’s a lot different. It’s a lot more relaxed and it’s not the 3:00 AM to see what Santa has put under the tree anymore. It’s probably more like, well, my daughter’s pretty good at it still. She’ll do 5:00 AM and just run around a maniac just for the sake of it. But yeah, it does change, but there are wonderful times and some special memories for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
We’re probably both those dads that are like, oh, that’s what we got our kids.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, it is. If you ever get that quiz, what did you get? Do You don’t even know what this present is before they’ve unwrapped it. It’s like, yeah, it’s really cool. That sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Very good. All right, let’s get into it hey.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, let’s crack on. Alright, let’s go. Topic one. The first thing I wanted to discuss here and open it up the conversation with is this time of Christmas is something that everyone seems to get whacked with every year. It’s almost a surprise. They sort of half expect it, but it’s still a surprise at how busy it might’ve been or how crazy it was this year. So much crazier than last year. We hear all this every time Christmas rolls around with clients. I think the trick is not to expect stuff but really learn to what we call harness the power of anticipation. So I know that Tony Robbins talks about anticipation being the ultimate power and it is because it allows you to make such better decisions when you can anticipate with confidence what’s coming up. And I think this is the part of Christmas for me in business and trying to get guys set up for Christmas is that you’ve got this wonderful period where pretty much everyone’s doing what’s expected, they’re going to go on a break. The time in Australia is set for when the Christmas break is acceptable and allowed. There’s all of those sort of things and if you can learn to anticipate and plan some of your key actions and milestones around that, you’re not going to disrupt people. You’ve got the ability to set it with some confidence, and if you do that, you get to dominate the Christmas period instead of that Christmas period dominating you and your business.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, Christmas is, we know it’s coming and this episode’s landing at the start of October, and the reason why we’re dropping this now is to help you anticipate and give you that little jab now to be able to go, Hey, it is coming. Don’t wait for December to start planning for Christmas. And that’s the key around this, and I always like to, and it probably is the Grinch in me coming out when I say, just remember that the Christmas is not the end of time. It’s a moment in time and I think the biggest mistake that so many people, not just business owners make, is that everything just points towards Christmas and then they forget that on the 26th, which is Boxing Day, the world still goes on and so many people look to Christmas, it’s the end of time and they can’t see beyond that. And so with this topic that we’re talking around today, it’s not only just planning your run up into Christmas, but it’s making sure that you plan your run from Christmas onwards to ensure that you have a great start of the year and not a shit one so many trades business have because they just haven’t planned well beyond that moment in time. Have they?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah. It becomes this real deadline and there’s no real rhyme or reason to it other than everyone sort of tends to get caught up with everyone else and I think maybe just talk a bit about what we see with clients falling into the expectations of customers and suppliers and their deadlines and their chaos because they’re not planned out.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I think that the reason why it’s a deadline is because Christmas is so close to New Year’s, and I think because they are so close together, the Christmas period is where people do get friends and family and the whole industry does shut down in the trade space predominantly, but I think in society in general, everyone’s working towards that Christmas period where they’re getting their friends and family over for lunches and dinners and they’re buying presents. It’s a big day of the year, so everyone’s almost working towards that day, but it also coincides with the end of the year where everyone’s trying to round out things by the year and then they’re starting fresh in the new year. So I think it’s that Christmas and New Year’s line up nicely together, but for so many business owners in the trade space that creates demand. People want things done that they’ve been sitting on for months and months and months. All of a sudden it becomes a priority in your prospect’s mind or your customer’s mind that all of a sudden, all of a sudden it’s urgent for them and they create that urgency for you as a service provider.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah. Do you reckon that then the antidote to that and why this is under the topic of anticipation is we know that that demand’s coming. Is it about then working back and this is why this is October when this drops, then the idea of setting realistic expectations becomes a real thing, but you need runway and time to set realistic expectations, so I think that’s a real key to this, being able to anticipate and go, well, what expectations am I willing to sign myself up to and how do I communicate to those to my customers and suppliers, et cetera?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, correct. It’s internal planning and within the business it’s the ability to be able to look at, well, what’s our pipeline look like for October, November and December? When are we having our shutdown period as a business? When are we shutting down? Are we having a complete shutdown? Are we having a skeleton crew? I’m a big believer of having skeleton clue crew, so you keep money ticking in the door. Then it’s your ability to be able to plan for that, and you start selling into the end of the year and knowing what your limits are in terms of revenue and resourcing, and then it’s your ability to look beyond Christmas and start selling into the new year, which we’ll talk a bit about later, which is filling your January, February pipeline, but it’s about really understanding how we can maximise the end of the year and know our limits and then what have we got to start doing to look the end of the year beyond the crazy festing period to think about the start of the new year. I think that’s the secret.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, it’s almost like there’s two options. You can either react to what’s going to happen as it happens and all plans go out the window. It’s like we can’t plan anything because it’s the end of the year. It’s crazy. Or we start to set realistic expectations. Have those plans around some of those things you mentioned and hit the end of the year in a as well organised sort of fashion as we can, knowing that this is what we’ve signed up for and we’ve anticipated this and planned and we’ll execute to our best abilities coming into that period.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, correct. And it comes down to looking at everything within the business around schedule cashflow resourcing. If you know that December is going to be busy, start thinking around resourcing now around subbies if you need to. You don’t get to December and go, oh shit, we need to be ordering these materials. We need extra a subbie if we need to. We need this, we need that. It’s way too late. And so now is the time in October to be able to sit down as the owner or sit down as with your management team if you’ve got one, the operational team to be able to go, right, what’s coming between now and the end of the year? What’s a priority? What’s not a priority operationally? What are our demands that we know we’ve already got? What space and capacity do we have and how can we prepare for the end of the year rush now? And if you can get that right, it sets you, as you said, it’s a proactive approach rather than getting to November, December and then going, oh shit, Christmas is here. It’s too late now. I’m reacting to the demands of our customers.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And I’d add to that, those plans then can even extend into what does our first week back look like? What does that look like now? And start to put that in there rather than just, Hey, we’re going to go like crazy. All plans are out the window and let’s pick up the pieces when we get back and we’ll deal with it then That’s probably the worst thing you can do. But I think with that power of anticipation and starting to set those expectations and some of the stuff you’ve outlined, there’s a really good place to start. What about our next thing for this and why it’s so important or the next topic we want to discuss is cashflow management and maybe just set the scene for that in terms of what we mean by cashflow management and even if you can sprinkle in what it is that we’ve seen other clients do and the experience we see in coaching.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Cashflow over the December, January period is often one of the hardest periods for any trades business. It’s a little bit different in other industries around retail and hospitality and everything because their busiest period where they’re maximising profits through those periods. In the trade sector, it’s actually, it’s the opposite because there’s a natural shutdown period when the industry does close. And so when you think about the end of the year, the Decembers say it’s a four week month, you always lose a week in there and then in January you often lose another week or two depending on how much the business does hard close. So over a two month period instead of being operational for eight weeks, generally most businesses are only operational for six weeks. And traditionally what that means is that most trades and construction businesses run at a loss during those periods because there’s less revenue coming in because of the shutdown period and everyone is being paid annual leave throughout that period. So purely from a pure profitability point of view, most businesses break even at best, most lose, which then has a huge impact on the free flow and cash that comes out of that, which then further compounds at the start of the year.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I know at pava reviewing client files and looking at results, we always, whenever we’re anticipating what the sales numbers look like, we’ll always what I call shade, the revenue figures coming into December, January, depending on the nature of that business, and that can be shaded up to we’ll go down to about 30% of average monthly revenue in January because we just know that the activity is not there in the industry depending on what industry they’re in, but you’ve got to be really sensitive to that. That can leave a big hole in your revenue and your top line, your gross profit over the course of a year when you look back on it.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Pre Pravar, a lot of clients have very hard shuts where they completely shut down the whole business. I know at Pravar we are big advocates of running skeleton crews and the reason for that is you keep money trickling through and it means you’re just not having everyone on annual leave. You’ve got people who want to work and because they want to take leave differently throughout the year. You might have someone who wants to take leave in January because they want to go to the snow over in Japan. You might have someone who wants to have a European summer or go on a camping trip somewhere at with certain time of the year with their family in the shoulder season because that suits them better because they’re not going away at expensive times. And so I know with our clients we’re big advocates of not having hard closes and that just minimises the losses and since clients have been doing that well over the last couple of years, clients have come through that period, I don’t want to say unscathed, but less scs around from a pure profitability and cashflow point of view.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And I think this comes back, think about playing that out then if you are going to do that and you’re going to have some staff on and things like that, you can then set that expectation with other people to go, Hey, we’ve got guys available. We are still doing work, so come back to our point from before. Let everyone else know what’s happening around you and you would be surprised at how much you can pick up or the different reactions you’re going to get to people who are operating in chaos mode thinking that the world’s going to end come 19th of December or whatever it is going to be this year. So I think it’s a really good point you raise.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
The other reason for cashflow problems is it’s naturally the time of the year because what’s really important around this period is especially coming into December, it’s about getting your invoicing and your data management under control really well, where as soon as the work’s done, you’ve got to close out that job, get the invoice out the door, and invoicing in December is the most important thing. You have to be on top of daily and weekly because if you delay, the chances of getting paid get delayed. So you round out a job, get it to a milestone, get the invoice out the door and you push, push, push, push, push to get money in the bank before Christmas because if you don’t, what’s going to happen is your customers will shut down over that period and then they’ll spend the first few days or the first week coming back into January and you’ve missed your window of opportunity for payment. So invoicing and debtor management around that period is super important.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It is. I know you talk about it, but you think about it reductions in billable time, annual leave for the team, no cashflow coming in. I think BAS is due in February and you talk about this sort of being a perfect storm that’s sort of all of this now coming into a head over the next few months is just another reason why you can’t tend to treat it as though it’s the end of time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
It is the perfect storm. And also to add on top of that, if you have anticipated, well, you’ve had to buy materials, it’s been a busy period leading into Christmas, so you’ve bought a lot of materials and then if you know you’re trading through Christmas, sometimes a lot of suppliers shut down, so you’re buying materials to get work done through Christmas and into January. So in that period you’re sometimes prepaying for things and it is that whole perfect storm like you were talking about. So cash management and cashflow forecasting through that period is super important to ensure the invoicing gets done and you pull the money in so you’re not acting like a bank, you’re acting like a proper business and then you’ve got the money to trade through quarter four and quarter one and hit the BAS on time. Otherwise you’re going to be spending ATO money to be able to just keep propping along. And so you’ve got to make sure that these two quarters are well considered from a planning point of view, from a pipeline operational and cashflow management side of things to keep it working.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, I think Rob, maybe just go into a bit more detail then in terms of those knock ons and we’ve highlighted what they need to do to avoid, but just paint the picture and if you’re listening, you might want to sit down as we go through this, but paint that picture of what it looks like if cashflow management isn’t done well, what does that mean really in real terms? Because more than just a couple of weeks before someone gets back on a customer side to pay their bill or whatever it is, isn’t it?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It is. The knock on effect is it’s actually scary how long it can linger if you don’t plan December. Well, despite being really busy operationally, if you don’t have enough billable time in December and January, you run at losses, you can run at losses and then if you don’t get your invoicing and debtor management correct, that flows through and we’ve seen it with some clients where things haven’t landed the right way and they’ve still been feeling the pinch in April and May and a little bit longer. So sometimes the flow on effect takes it into quarter two of the new year just to recover from Christmas, which is crazy because if you don’t get the Christmas period to end strong and start really even stronger, it can destroy the first three to six months of the new calendar year and you’re spending the first three to six months playing catch up from what was a very small window, which is the festive period around that time.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
That’s right. It’s a huge cost of pay in terms of your cashflow. Let’s sort of round this one out then. I know there’s a couple of key things in there. Just summarise for me then, what are the ways to manage effectively that cashflow through the period for you? There was a couple you mentioned like jobs completed, just go back through those as a summary for people listening.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Number one is jobs completed, like get it done and lock it down, invoices out the door, including variations, money banked, you’ve got to get money in the door. Chase hard on your debtors leading into Christmas because you want to be a business, not a bank. You don’t want to be getting paid in the new year for something that got done before Christmas if you could. And then making sure that you have your cash bucket set up well, which is your banking structure to ensure you’re allocating BAS money in anticipation of your BAS coming in February so that you separate your BAS and your working capital to make sure that you can fund everything well through that period and be able to hit the base on time.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Great. I agree with all of those. Absolutely. Top priority is something to be on top of as we get into this last quarter through October, November, December. Let’s switch gears a little bit. Let’s go into now January, February, and I want to talk about filling your pipeline. I think this is one of the most important things that if people get right, this can have the biggest impact on your year in 2025 and you’re going to be doing it through October to December and that is really filling your January February pipeline.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, this is a huge one and we did a whole series around this around episode 17, 18 and 19 around sales and pipeline management and filling your pipeline. So if you haven’t listened to those episodes, make sure you go back and listen to them around the tactical side of things around how to fill your pipeline and being sales focused and where to put your energy and efforts and follow ups and everything. So that was a cracker of a series we did in that series. We did speak around gestation period and the gestation period is from when a lead comes in the door to a quote going out the door to when a job starts, and we’ve also spoken on the podcast around the whole win work do work cycle as well. So we’ve spoken a lot about these concepts in the podcast, but these are super relevant at this type of year because where business owners go wrong leading into Christmas is they get so caught operationally and they’re so focused on that deadline of the year that they don’t look beyond it from a sales point of view. And as a business owner, when you do get busy operationally, sales is the last thing you often think about and so it’s your ability to compartmentalise your time in the week despite how busy you are operationally. It’s your ability to keep your foot on the sales pedal to ensure you’re filling your pipeline for January and February because if you think about pipeline in December, it’s too late, you’ve missed your chance. You’ve got to be thinking around that in October, November and December to be selling into Christmas and beyond so you can ensure that you’ve got a really strong pipeline to come back to in the new year.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot and those episodes, 17 to 19, there’s things about sales cycles foot in the door if you’re looking for new opportunities or following up and low hanging fruit in terms of well, how do I bring in these sales and opportunities to fill that pipeline, especially through that January, February period. I think from that then the other thing I’d talk to as well is probably commitment on start dates. Is that sort of part of this too?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think so. It’s about you knowing your availability and you locking in and getting commitment on start dates of jobs leading into Christmas, but then it’s your ability to be able to know when you are full, don’t over promise and look to push jobs into the new year and get commitments from start dates there and get deposits paid and wherever you can. So you either get purchase orders commitments, start dates in writing and deposits paid wherever you can to be able to start locking that work in because you don’t want to go off a handshake or a verbal, you want to make sure it’s locked and loaded so you’ve got certainty of work to come back to as soon as the new year rolls around.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And I think in addition to that, yes, get that confirmation on customer side, but then don’t drop the ball and not operationally look after it by not pre-scheduling the work, get the schedules locked in, know who’s going to be doing those things. Again, you anticipate it, lock it in, be ready for it so that there’s none of this sort of, geez, I forgot to do that bit, or that’s now smacking us in the face and we’re on the back foot because everyone’s gone on holidays and we didn’t think about our operational requirements going through the period as well.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
How do you think we can use the Christmas period leading into the Christmas period as a way of driving sales and doing business development activity? How can we use that as a bit of a focus do you think?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I think one of the easiest things is it’s a friendly time. If you’re using Christmas as a bit of a Trojan horse to get in the door and have a conversation with existing customers, new customers, whoever it is, that message of Christmas is one thing, but having a real conversation around it, whether it’s a catch up, whether it’s doing BD work, face to face, a phone call to say, Hey, thanks for the great year a hamper. There’s probably so many things we could go on, but I think for me, especially if you’re sort of shy around your sales and your BD work and I haven’t spoken to this guy for a while, we did that work back then it was really good. How do I just approach him? I feel like I’m being pushy this Christmas period’s a great way to leave the pushiness out, have the conversation in a friendly way and just see what’s possible.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, we’ve seen it with clients where they’ve done the hampers and they’ve ordered large amounts of hampers and they’ve gone around to the key people. For example, they do work with strata managers and they go around and hand out hampers to those strata managers and it’s their ability to be able to say, Hey, Merry Christmas. Thanks very much for an awesome year. By the way, any work orders or any jobs that you’ve got coming up. Same thing with builders. It’s your ability to sit down with your builders and go, Hey, thanks so much for an awesome year. Really love doing work with you. Really appreciate it. Hey, what have you got in store for next year? And you use, you’re kind of doing business development, account management, thank you, gifts kind of all in the same kind of conversation and you using, as you said, you’re using as a bit of an excuse.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
It is if you rock up into someone’s office and you sort of even unannounced and you’re like, Hey, is so-and-so here and you’re holding a hamper in your hand, you’re hardly going to get turned away from the door. They may not be here, but at the same time it’s going to count for something and I know I was thinking the same thing with strata. I think you’re thinking the same person and me with Frank, he did this and he was able to go in and meet the real key stakeholders in those businesses by just going in with something in hand and not just dump it on the doorstep with a nice card saying, Hey, thanks for your work. Look forward to 2025, but actually going, I just wanted to drop this off in person and say thanks because it really meant a lot to us what we did and we’re really looking forward to building on that to next year. It’s simple. It takes a bit of time, but geez, it pays off so many times having those conversations at this time of year.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, my favourite is doing things like a box of mangoes or a box of cherries or something that’s really seasonal, something that’s different costs you a hundred bucks for a box of cherries, but if you can turn that a hundred dollars and a half an hour chat into a few jobs and it well and truly pays for itself. And so I think the key message here is that January, February pipeline starts now filling that starts today and it’s your ability to put in the effort and carve out time to be thinking around what’s coming up, who are the key people that I want to thank? Who are our key customers? What can I do from a business development point of view? What can I do for an account management point of view for our existing relationships? How do we thank them for the year that’s been, thank them for their business and just ask the question, what are you doing next year? Where are you going and what’s coming up that we can price? And it’s just such an easy foot in the door to start getting on the front foot to start filling the year.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Definitely. Absolutely. I want to add two more warnings before we wrap up on this topic, and one is that you mentioned win work, do work cycles and things. We’ve talked about a lot on the podcast, but if you come back in January with not a lot on your books, then you’re going to rather than hit the ground running, you’re going to be scrambling for work. You’re going to be scrambling to get guys busy. So the warning is you ignore this, you go full into the doing mode delivering on jobs before the end of the year, then you really run that risk of falling into that trap. I think this is the starting point of the birthplace of win work do work on a cyclical calendar sort of basis.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Basis. Yeah, for sure. I would agree. The other warning is that don’t get complacent coming into the new year. You feel like you ended the year strong going, yeah, we did it. We filled our January and February, we are in, alright, let’s have a big celebration, which you’ve got to, but you definitely don’t want to be coming back complacent going, oh, she’s sweet, we’ve got a full pipeline, it’s going to be amazing. We’ve got to have the best start of the year. And you come back and you just kind of meander through a big dog going, yep, this is a cracker. And then you come back, it’s like whack pipeline gets pushed and you just haven’t hit the ground hard enough from a sales point of view because remember the work you do in January is setting you up for April, may, and June. And so it’s so important that you’ve got to remember that gestation period and the work you’re doing today sets you up for your future. So it’s a real balancing act where you definitely don’t want to get complacent you.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Oh, it’s one of the saddest things in coaching when we get to that period and guys are like, what happened to your pipeline? And they’re like, well, I did nothing in January, February on it. I just rested on my laurels. And you’re like, why did you do that? You had the opportunity to really smash out this first quarter, which is rare in the general market. You had that opportunity and you blew it. So please don’t do that. If you’re listening, really look after that time and don’t come back complacent. I think before we do key takeaways, Rob, let’s just summarise those three strategies again. All right, so I’ll just do that quickly and then key takeaways, but I think the three things we said to really make this next year starts now hit home is start to anticipate and set realistic expectations. Like really go through and plan your way through this. All right? Think it through, communicate clearly and do all those things to share what your expectations are and how you’re going to run this period. Cashflow management, obviously we spoke about, so managing your cashflow and managing your pipeline. I think those three things are probably they’re the three biggest we’ve seen in coaching that make the difference and having the discipline to really hook into those and follow through.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, I would agree and like we’ve alluded to a lot in this episode is that this is the difference between making profit or breaking. Even if you get this right, it sets you up for a really strong year, get it wrong. And it can be the difference between making a little bit or not a lot at all, and purely because you spend so much of your year recovering from the Christmas break, that’s all it is.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
It’s a big price to pay for a couple of weeks, isn’t it? Absolutely. Alright, I think that was good key takeaways. Let’s round that out now and bring home our key takeaways. What have you got for us today?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Well, coming from a true Christmas Grinch that
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Now back to where we were, go
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Coming from a true Christmas that I am is that Christmas is a moment in time, not a deadline. And it’s so important to remember that just remembering it is one day of the year and whilst you do want to spend that great time with your family and friends and enjoy the festive period, just don’t let it sidetrack you from focusing on setting yourself up for a really strong year. It’s just don’t let it derail you too much.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, definitely. Good reminder. I think for me, having that pipeline to come back to, and you just said it then it is the difference. It’s the key difference between starting the year strong or spending the first half of the year and sometimes even more just chasing your ass, clawing back losses, and that’s a terrible position to be in.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
The last one for me, and we’ll round it out here, is that you run a business, not a bank, and money is better in your account than your customers. So manage your invoicing and your debtor management super tight over this period and that’s the key to trading through this crazy period.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
I like it. Very good. What do you think you’re looking forward to Christmas?
Speaker 1 (36:31):
I actually am. I do love it. It is a beautiful time in Melbourne. The weather is amazing, the days are long, the sun is out and I actually, I do like the time, it’s great to spend it with family and we often don’t go away much over the Christmas period because we try and go away throughout the year. But yeah, I do love the time.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Jacqui, be proud, won’t she?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh, she’ll be very proud. I’m sure she’ll be laughing at the whole suggestion, but that’s great.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Alright, let’s wrap it up there. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and if this has really resonated with you, please make sure that you share it with one of your mates in the industry because there is so many trades. Business owners struggle through this period, physically, emotionally, stress wise, financially. So many trades guys get to the end of the year and fall in a heap and they don’t get to spend that quality time with their family and then they spend the first start of the year struggling to get into out of first gear. So if you’ve enjoyed this and this has resonated with you, please share this with one of your mates because let’s all work together to make some really great change in the industry to be able to have thriving businesses across the board. So that’d mean the world to us and I’m sure it’d mean the world to one of your mates as well.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yep, agreed.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
That’ll do us for another episode. Looking forward to coming back to you next week with another great episode in The Trade Den. Thanks Dan.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
We’ll see you soon.