Lessons learnt that you never forget, an interview with Electrical Contractor Scott Holt - Part 1

Transcript

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Electricians like us, who are properly trained and licensed, who are not willing to cheat and take shortcuts, and who are wanting to own a successful electrical business. Let's go, so hi guys, James Rest here from Marketing Secrets for Electricians. Today, I'm here with Scott from the UK. Hey Scott, how are you going? I'm good, mate.

Thank you. How are you? First off, I want to get a bit about you. You're an electrical business owner from the UK. Can you share a bit more about your business, how long you've been in it, that type of stuff?

I'm from Blackburn, near Manchester. I've been in business working for myself for about six years now. My current company, we're two years into building that. I started off as a self-employed electrician, just jobbing about picking up bits of jobs here and there. Didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I just know that I wanted to work for myself. I had young kids, and I thought the best thing is to manage my own time around, family time sort of things. If I wanted to have a day off for the kids' birthdays, I could do that. You can schedule that time in. That's the main reason why I wanted to do it.

As I said, I didn't really know much about it when I started. I jumped into it to see where it went. As we'll probably find out during this chat, it wasn't the wisest move doing it, that sort of way. Cool. Your wife, the reason you got into business was to be your own boss or for your kids?

Yeah, it was a bit of both of you there. I felt like I had more to offer than just being on the tools. I had ideas and ways of doing things that didn't quite match the companies I was at. I wouldn't say that I ever caused trouble or anything. I just felt like I worked really hard and was unappreciated for it.

I thought I could probably get more out of it by dealing with the customers myself. Like I said, obviously, I have young kids. Like I said, a lot of the time was trying to plan it around being there for them. I didn't want to be one of those dads that missed birthdays, missed sports days, things like that. That was a big driver for me, really.

Yeah, that's an important partner, especially with the Sparky or electric and trade. It's kind of you can work a lot of hours. It's like lots, lots there. And if you're not the boss, it's more do more than saying that in your own business. You can also work a lot of hours.

So you find that challenging to juggle, like making that time for the kids or what you want. Yeah, I thought not so much now because, again, along the way, I've learned it. But when I first started out, it's almost comical. I started out to be there for my kids. And certainly in the first two years, I was anything, but I was I was running around trying to do bits of invoicing.

And you don't you know what it gets. You're just trying to do every single where every single hat. You're the marketer, you're the admin, you're the electrician. It's so much to take on when you first start. It's all you, just you.

Yeah, exactly. It's really, really hard to do. So it's like I said, I think for the first two years, I wasn't I wasn't there for my kids at all. It's it wasn't good. So that leads me to this point where we got more control.

Yeah, well, I'm a big, I'm a big, big fan of self improvement. So as I mentioned, then I started off the first couple of years just jobbing about trying to pick up bits of work here and there. And like I said, I wasn't there for my kids. And it all fell apart. Very quickly, I ended up taking too much on and suffering from stress and, you know, bits of anxiety and things like that.

I'll share a bit later on the worst part of it and what caused it. But yeah, by trying to do too much, I were doing 12 hour days on the tools coming back, then doing two or three hours invoicing with the kids saying, Oh, close to bed. And we're getting too late. So then I didn't see them at all. And after, like I said, I had a bit of a I wouldn't say a nervous breakdown, but it got to the point where I couldn't work for two or three weeks because it was too much to take on.

It was harsh, really harsh. And I know it's a big thing at the minute, you know, talking about mental health, but when that happened to me, it wasn't as as open as what people are now. So I felt a bit stuck. So once I'd worked through that sort of thing, like I said, I decided to go on a journey of self improvement. I started reading more books because I thought to myself, there's got to be a better life.

than what I'm living. And you see, I say, successful business owners and stuff. And I started questioning to myself, I thought, what are they doing that I'm not doing? Do you understand what I mean? So that's what led me down like a sort of self discovery where your model success.

The only thing that's different is you doing something different. You've ever already done it. You don't have to put it out yourself. I just thought to myself, if other people can do it, there's nothing, there's no reason why I can't do it. And it led me to read.

I've actually made a little note here to mention it. It led me to read a book called No Excuses by an author called Brian Tracy. And basically what it teaches exactly that don't blame the world for your situation. You've got to take control of it and own it. And you are in charge of your own, you know, your own destiny.

You have to decide what you want to do and how you're going to achieve it. So that was a big, big, big motivator for me in changing how I run my business and getting to where I am today. Really. I started down the path. Just on that, it's like, you know, you're taking responsibility so you can then it's like if it's always the world's fault, someone else's fault, you're not you're not taking the responsibility.

So you can't change it. Whereas you're like, I've got control. I make the choice of the different same thing like you're in the same boat. But you're just different perspective and you can take a different action and actually do something about it and get yourself out of there. I'll be like, ah, the world's shit.

I might as well do nothing. Well, yeah, exactly that. I mean, that's that's that's the biggest lesson that I learned along the way. And there was a saying that I heard and it still sticks with it now. And it was if you do as you've always done, you will get what you've always got.

And that resonates with me so much. And I just think, yeah, if I'm not happy with something, change it. And it's it's like I said, I mean, for business running wise, I knew that I was poor on my numbers and understanding profit and loss accounts inside of things. So even now, a lot of my time and effort is spent into understanding it and trying to improve on it so that I never get into a situation where I'm, you know, overwhelmed. Yeah, and that's, I guess that's the thing is, because when you're on the tools, you don't have to worry about you just like do your job, go home.

When you start your business, you're like, okay, I'm earning on whatever 100 bucks an hour, but then like, you got a lot of expenses and all this and all this and then taxes. And at the end of the day, are you really earning 100 bucks now? Yeah, exactly. And that that all ties into really what happened to me where I took it all on and I was charging, I just guessed that what I should be charged. I thought all this sounds about right.

It was way way too low. And a lot of, I'd say unscrupulous builders and things like that saw me coming a mile off and took advantage. And like I said, I lost so much money, it was, it was frightening. But in that saying that you learned a lesson in a bad way, maybe, but you still learned a lesson. Well, yeah, exactly that.

I mean, so I mean, even even now, I try to push anything that I've learned along the way, my mistakes, you know, to, to help people. This is why obviously why I wanted to have a chat with you today as well, because if we can try and get this out to other people, and even if it sparks them to think, yeah, I can maybe change myself, then at least we've done something there. For sure. That's, that's a, that's a reason why I do this to try and help electricians come together, share information and together we grow and learn from each other. You may be good at one thing, but in other words, electricians got something else they want to share.

And collectively, you could come up with a better system or a better idea, a better business. So that's one of the main reasons. That's cool. So what is your goal? Like, where do you want to say five years time, one year, so whatever it is, what's kind of your, what's your vision?

What's your goal for your, your business? Yeah, well, I mean, I'm, I've started doing like a five year, I don't know if you've heard of it before, but you know, like a five year future journal entry. And it's something again, that I've discovered along the way that some people do. And you write an entry and imagine what your life is like, and you've achieved everything you want to do. So I mean, we did, I did another one at the beginning of the year.

Personal goals. I'd like to, to own property. Along the side of having my electrical business, I'd like maybe a holiday home we can go to with the family. So, you know, something along those lines for the business, I want to, my goal is to have maybe like 10 staff, you know, doing it. And I want it to be a more automated business.

So I don't have to sit there and do the nitty gritty and be in the business every single day. I'd love for it to become its own entity and not look after itself because I love, I love working in the business, I'd like for it to not need me every single day, putting out fires everywhere. You could basically take a week off and it runs and it makes money. Exactly. Yeah.

And I don't know, cause even when I take holiday now, I'll say, I'll say to my guys, like ring me if you need me and there will still will ring me every day. Cause there will always be a bit of something that they need me for it. So it would be nice, like I say, within the next five years for that not to happen. And that's, that is, that is the aim to, to, to maybe get one of the guys that I've got at the minute up to where I am, let him run the business and me take a bit of a, a bit of a step back and see how he gets on me. That's, that's what I want.

And then you can work on the business more. So then that's, that's the, uh, I know a main reason I got into business because I was like, I enjoy the tools, but I enjoy being creative and working on the thing. But then when I went in the business, kind of like you, I was like, just, I got surrounded by all the other stuff. And in that stress and that you can't be creative. You can't work in the business because you're just like, I got to do this stuff now.

Now. Now it's important. What's more important is taking the time to work on it. So the business and the structure you build actually sets that foundation. So you can get off the tools and you can guys that will do the job and, you know, charge the right amount and actually know what to do.

So I don't have to call you up every five minutes going, Hey, what do I do? Yeah, that's, that's exactly exactly where we're at. Um, it's, it's easy to, um, to fall into that trap. And I find for myself, I schedule a lot and scheduling is massive. And again, I suppose like this call today because, um, we didn't schedule that.

I mean, obviously the people listening won't realize that it's taken there a bit of a bit of time to try and get me, uh, get me on this call because a bit again, it's, it's proof in the pudding. I didn't, I didn't schedule it in. And as soon as I scheduled it in, here we are, we sat and done. If you booked the time, even if you say to yourself, I'm going to spend an hour this week at nine o'clock to learn whatever it is you need. Like, like I said, finances, spending our learning finances.

It's booked in stick to it. Um, that helps me massively in the way that I think if you scheduled it, it happens. If I don't schedule it, you will never find time to do it. Yeah, that's exactly it. Or some customer or ring up with something trivial and you find yourself driving to the house food for something that wasn't worth the time going.

So yeah, scheduling is massive. Yeah, definitely. That's, and that's a big part. Do you have any, like, you have any issues like Google calendar? I was with Microsoft, um, for a while and use Google calendar on the side, but I've moved everything over from Microsoft now to we use a G suite in the business because Google calendars just create even simple things like just changing the colors of each type of task.

I can just take a quick glance and once it's booked in, it stops people getting disappointed then because I'm guilty of saying yes to everyone. And I'm like, oh, can you do this time? I'd be like, yeah, yeah, no worries. And then when I actually look, someone's already got the slot. So now if I, if I judge my day by my calendar, even picking the kids up from school and book it in a lot, I know that they get picked up at three o'clock.

Of course I know that, but if it's booked in, I can see it. And of course the rest of us say, Oh, sorry, I can't do that day. It's going to be something else. So it's massively beneficial. I've been a, I've been a calendar Google calendar.

Yeah, for sure. Just curious idea. Do you allow your customers to book you in automatically? No. I do know people that do it.

There's a service called booksie. I don't know if you know that. It'll probably be similar to other ones. But yeah, I think if we had something like that, I don't think for me personally, I could make that work. I like to sit and schedule with, I've got a long office staff and we do scheduling on a Thursday.

I like to schedule for the week ahead. I always leave either half a day or a day blank for overruns and emergencies and things like that. Yeah. I don't think if customers booked me, I could make that work because it'd be, it'd be too hectic. I've never, I haven't tried it yet.

Um, or I didn't try it when I was running. I thought of doing it and from the side, I think of it and now I would try and do it, but for simple jobs, you know what I mean? Like just not like, I don't know, big, big jobs, but just like a smoke alarm check or something like just a simple job where that you know, it's only going to take this amount of time versus, and then they can self-service kind of maybe, you know, with other businesses, self-service is a big thing. And in the electrical industry, I don't think we've actually taken that on board yet or found a good way to implement it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I was just going to say it'd be interesting to see if someone could implement it because it's same as what you've just said. We all know, um, sometimes you go to do an extra PowerPoint and it's, it's either really simple or it's an absolute nightmare and you're there for four hours. Cause you've got to take up all the carpet and the floorboards and you've got ornate fancy bars, these on things. And you've got to be careful where there's always something that just makes it extra hard work.

Yeah, for sure. That's that. And you never know until you actually go to the job as well. That's the problem. Yeah, very true.

Cool. So now what, what issues like running your business, what issues have you been running into? What's your like, you have a worst moment, that type of thing? Yeah. Well, I, I thought we'd come to this question and the worst moment does stem from again, what I was saying initially, not properly understanding my pricing and being a bit naive.

So, um, there was a particular job that had worked on and I had a gentleman's agreement with the builder. Um, I priced it. I think it was about, I think a price at about 10,000 pounds, something like that. He knocked me down to six, which in itself is ridiculous that even said, yeah, because I was younger thought I need this job and it was a really good job and would have looked good in my job portfolio. Uh, like I said, very naive, agreed to do it for six and lo and behold, the job ended up coming in about 10.

Uh, when trying to discuss it with the builder, yeah, yeah, don't worry, I'll pay, I'll pay her and he never paid the money. So I ended up losing an absolute fortune, um, on it. And again, because of the way that I ran my business back then, um, I didn't have any spare cash to back me up or anything like that. And I'm not ashamed to admit it because it was a learning curve, but it ended up buckling my business and I had to, I had to close my doors. I ended up, uh, having to pay the debt off myself.

Um, cause I couldn't pay my wholesale, the bill and things like that. And that was around the time that I said, I obviously hit rock bottom and ended up with like, you know, depression. But I mean, I look at it with a positive view because if I hadn't gone through that, I wouldn't be where I am today and I wouldn't have known what I've done when you're kind of small, you know, like you make a mistake. That's like, that's a bigger mistake than if it's just kind of you learning. Um, so in that sense, it was, you know, a blessing in disguise to have that.

Yeah, that it happened early on. It was, it was very early on, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a learning thing. I mean, even from the back of me and you chatting, I don't know if any of your listeners want to reach out and ask for any tips and stuff like that. I'm more than happy to speak to people because if I can avoid anyone going through that, I will do it. I will do all day because it was, it was horrific, but it was all naive.

And like I said, this is why I love doing self-improvement and trying to learn as much as I can about everything that I'm not sure on. It's, there's no shame in asking, I don't think. No, you better, you're better off to ask if you're not sure and not making mistakes and like make a mistake and like, you know, cost, cost you a year of your time. How many hours do you have to work to recover, to put effort in to get over that? I mean, sometimes, sometimes there's lessons you learn and never forget, you know, and the only way you never forget.

And you'd have to go through. So yeah, that's, that's cool. So with that, how long did you reckon it took you to recover from mistakes? your question answered there and we work together to help you build an electrical sales funnel for your business that produces leads and sales on autopilot. That's the goal.

Come join in and let's make it happen.