The Attraction Tradie: How to Build and Manage a Phenomenal Trade Business

By Edward Clark

Attraction Tradie: A trade business owner and entrepreneur who runs a modern, profitable, customer-focused business, and who consistently attracts the right clients and business opportunities.
The business environment has evolved rapidly in recent years. Changes in marketing, technology and customer service provide huge opportunities for well-prepared businesses, but most tradies are missing out because of a lack of knowledge, resistance to change and outdated attitudes.
To thrive in this wonderful industry, tradies need to start changing the way they do business. In this entertaining and informative book, Tradie Entrepreneur Ed Clark will show you how to become an Attraction Tradie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995390041

Book preview

2017

COMMON TRADIE CLANGERS

COMMON TRADIE MISTAKES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

No doubt you hear a lot about tradespeople being difficult to deal with. The complaints are usually the same: they are hard to get straight answers out of, difficult to negotiate with, they’re unreliable, and can be quite abrupt and aggressive. A lot of these can be true at times, and unfortunately it only takes a small few to ruin it for everyone. It’s quite common to be tarred with the same brush as a whole industry. But, rather than seeing this as a problem, smart tradies will see this as an opportunity to set themselves apart by providing outstanding service.

Understanding common tradie mistakes and why these are the biggest customer frustrations needs to be the starting point for providing great service. It is the first step towards understanding your customers and their objectives. This ensures that we make these mistakes less frequently, and when we do make mistakes (nobody can avoid them completely) we understand the customer’s frustration and are therefore better equipped to deal with the problem.

This is now more important than it’s ever been. We live in a time when social media is providing opportunities for two-way appraisals and feedback, which is great. It means that customers now have a lot of power and can really impact the success of any business from any industry. Social media has turned the tables on business by facilitating real-time reviews and feedback via Facebook, Google, Twitter and many other consumer portals. This means that us tradies – whether you are a sole operator or a larger, more well established business – as business owners need to be on our game every hour of every day.

AND THE SURVEY SAYS…

I’ve surveyed dozens and dozens of customers from all sorts of demographics and ages and have come up with the top five frustrations that customers experience when dealing with any trade, from plumbing to a mechanic. This has given me the ability to unpack and digest these frustrations so that we can gain clarity about what’s going on from the customer’s point of view.

So let’s have a look at the top five tradie clangers.

‘Didn’t we say 4 o’clock?’

Common tradie clanger #1: The tradie is late, or even worse is a ‘no-show’. This is the number one complaint about tradies.

Why it is a customer frustration: This mistake just reeks of arrogance, incompetence and disrespect. The customer has given us the opportunity and honour of working in their home or business, and the tradie has essentially just smacked it back in their face.

Let’s get real.

First things first: the customer didn’t have to call us and engage us – they made a choice, and there are plenty of other professionals who deliver a similar service to us. We’re not the only painter, plasterer or electrician in town. We need to understand and respect that.

Secondly, how about we value the customer’s time and understand that their day is really important to them? They don’t deserve to be stuffed around by an inconsiderate and arrogant tradesman.

Why should we tradies care? Well, there are many reasons why we should care, on both a personal and professional level. Firstly, do you deserve to be given a second chance if you’re late or a no-show? The answer is probably not. Secondly, if you’re late or don’t turn up, the customer already has doubts about you and your level of competence as a tradie in undertaking the work. Once you lose someone’s trust and belief, it’s always hard to get that trust back.

Let’s look at a simple example. You’re home on a Friday night. It’s 7.30 pm. The footy is about to start, and you have a craving for a meat-lovers pizza from Pizza Barn, your local store. You order two large pizzas and ask them to be delivered. You give them the address and ask for a delivery time. They say 20 minutes. But 8 pm comes and goes…8.30 pm…9 pm…still no pizza. What do you do? You ring and ask where your pizza is. They say, ‘Sorry mate, we’re flat out and a driver’s called in sick. We’ll be there shortly’. All with a careless tone. How are you feeling?

At 9.30, still no pizza…at 10 pm you are ravenous and call again. They say they are just around the corner…any minute now.

How do you feel at this point. Are you angry? Frustrated? Of course you are. And do you think the pizza will be hot and fresh and steamy meaty goodness? Probably not. The pizza will likely be one of the worst you’ll ever eat. And even if that pizza is piping hot and fresh out of the oven, will you call Pizza Barn next Friday night? I doubt it. There are many other pizza places you can call.

You get only one shot at making a remarkable first impression. Make sure you don’t leave a nasty taste in the mouth of your customer.

‘I’m just returning your call from June last year…’

Common tradie clanger #2: The tradie is a poor communicator. There are two parts to this one. Tradies are renowned for:

•being poor communicators both verbally and in