Published on October 16th, 2017 | by Sunit Nandi
06 Things You Need To Know Before Starting Your Business as a Tradie
When you are embarking on a new adventure of starting your own trade business, you need to equip yourself well enough to take the challenges head on. Instead of trying your best top maintain your small startup, learn that which is necessary to increase your business into a successful enterprise. Building a business isn’t easy. You need to strengthen it with enough knowledge and tools to help it grow. Here are 6 things you need to know before starting a trade business.
1. Do you have a strong personal budget?
In Today’s competitive market, gone are the conventional ways of seeking business to grow your capital. You need to have a cash balance to be able to pay employees and company bills which if you don’t may most probably end in a closed company. A new tradie startup will need to abide by a low budget to survive but downsizing should always involve one’s personal facilities first so that any debt is paid off as soon as possible. Do whatever you need to do so that your own personal survival depends on as little as possible.
2. You won’t have a personal life
Starting a trade business takes courage and determination. You cannot hope to take up the challenge without being prepared to give up your personal life for the next three years or so. There are certain things you need to do for your own business which can only be done by you. One of them is asking yourself if you are ready to give up a personal life because you need to work hard to make your business a success. Unless you have a considerable amount of funds at your disposal, you can’t really afford a vast amount of human resources to smoothen your job process. Moreover, it is your baby after all and overseeing it yourself from the very beginning lays the foundation to a mindset of how others will perceive your business too.
3. You will need to work with technology
When starting a new trade, you can’t escape technology. Rather than be overwhelmed at the thought of expense, investing in a good management software will help you streamline and consolidate your business to operate without the need of hiring additional resources. Software technology in a startup improves business efficiency and helps you save money. For example, there are extremely popular management software solutions for electrical businesses that cut costs and increase productivity tenfold above the conventional style of business operation. Software technology entrenches you firmly in the driver’s seat with a 360 degree view of every sphere of operations from networking and communication to client interaction, project schedules and automated that can be operated by one click of a button. Software technology can also be integrated with regular devices such as your tab or smart phone to the point of being in control even on the go.
4. A Sales strategy
A good sales strategy is crucial to starting any trady business. Before focusing on anything else, concentrate of implementing a rock solid sales infrastructure well in place. Plan out your sale contracts, job proposals, sales scripts and all factors that will help you target the right sort of clients who need and will hire your services. With a sales plan in motion, you may not last long because the foremost advantage of a sales strategy is to put you on the right track for closing deals.
5. Do you have a good marketing plan in place?
Business strategy, Marketing plans, business infrastructure!!! Such terms may seem the elements of a corporate business but the world of the trady is changing. To be successful you need to aspire to higher levels of business acumen and if you cannot view your business from a higher perspective, you may not get very far.
What exactly is good marketing? It is the ability to make your target audience understand why your services are better than your competition. Even for a tradie, it all boils down to presenting yourself as good market value for your potential customers which is why developing a marketing plan is considered among the elements of a good business. You have to be prepared for one simple but important fact!! Business won’t come to you; you have to think up ways and means to find it.
6. Are you prepared to give it your all?
A personal touch to any business makes your customers value and appreciate you. You must be prepared to interact with customers directly through social communication and implement ways to install confidence within your client base. If you are wondering what you need to do to be a good tradie, consider the question from a customer’s perspective. What would customers look for in a good tradie? Only when you are prepared to put in that extra effort and walk that extra mile of fulfilling your business goals, will you taste the fruits of your venture.
Once you have reconciled yourself to abiding by these 6 factors that pretty much sum up what to expect when you start your contracting business, you will be taking a step in the right direction.