It all starts with loosing out on the job you were sure you would get. There does not seem to be so much work out there, so you lower your prices to get the next job, otherwise you won’t have any work for the guys next month. You are now thinking that the only way to get ANY work is through a lower price.
You get the job but realise that you aren’t making any money, so you go back on the tools yourself. Despite being tired you need to do the quoting as well at night, but because you are slow getting back to a couple of prospects, you miss out on some more jobs. You have to tell your usual sub-contractors that you can’t guarantee the next job and so they drift away. There’s no money for marketing, but you are so busy on the tools, you probably can’t take on another job just now anyway.
And so the cycle goes until you start looking at who is hiring and start thinking that maybe you aren’t cut out to own a business and it would be easier to go back on wages. You lie awake at night worrying about it and you are having more fights with the wife and kids than is healthy.
The good news is that the skills needed to thrive in this new order are all learnable. That’s where I come in. I can help upskill you in areas of your business that focus on: getting more jobs, making more profit on those jobs, running better teams, improving cash flow, keeping clients happy and lots more.
Although I have been coaching business owners for about 7 years, you probably have never heard of me. If you are at risk of being sucked into the tradesmen’s death spiral I urge you to visit my website, www.tradescoach.co.nz, download my free guide on the 5 Key Strategies to a Profitable Contracting Business and then give me a call to discuss how we might apply this to your business. No hype. No pressure. Just practical ways to build a better business.