it's time to take charge of your plastering business..
it's time to take charge of your plastering business..
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Welcome to Trowel Talk. Plasterers coaching program and community group.
Let's get to work..
Let's get to work..
If you haven't already, you can
Subscribe to our coaching group to access training lessons.
This program is going to show you step by step how to build a solid reputation, create a powerful organic marketing strategy, specialise and systemize your business to reduce repetitive tasks and free up your time
There are five key areas that I want you to focus on inside this coaching program which include:
1. Your Business Model
2. Your sales funnel
3. Vetting & Job management
4. Setting up your payment terms
5. Customer service & social proof
So lets jump straight into it and look at these key areas starting with number 1..
Step 1:
Step 1:
Choose your business model
Choose your business model
They say men never plan to fail they simply fail to plan.
I never did like the idea of a business 'plan' so I am going to use the word Model here. I think its far better to follow a proven model than to sit for hours writing up a plan of how our business will work out I just don't think that's realistic. Now whether you are yet to go self employed or have been working for yourself for years its time to sit down and decide exactly where you want to position yourself in the market place and think about the business model that will best suit your lifestyle and income goals.
These days many Plasterers want to target local work with maximum flexibility and family friendly working hours while others want to scale and target contract work and are happy to travel. Some spreads want to specialise in external rendering while others prefer internals, So Step 1 is about getting clear on exactly what you want to do. Each niche will have a target customer and so give some thought to your most profitable jobs and the type of customer you want to attract into your business.
In this first video lesson I break down the 3 business models to help you to decide which one you want to implement in your business
Watch video now:
Note: Training lessons are accessible to members only
Step 2:
Step 2:
Building your funnel
Building your funnel
What the hell is a sales funnel you might be thinking?
The above image shows the basics of your sales funnel. Your job for now is to focus on the red section of the funnel marked 'A' (lead generation)
Its time for you to start creating and sharing content. This content is going to attract specific customers into your business.
The lead generation strategy in this coaching group is very simple and totally free. We are going to be using SEO (search engine optimisation) to drive local enquiries into your funnel.
But before we start to fill this funnel with enquiries we must make sure we can deliver the goods. This involves you producing high quality work and capturing content which you will then share online with a key focus on customer service and cleanliness. When you have a happy customer they are more likely to leave a review and the more reviews you have the stronger your social proof and SEO (we'll come onto this later)
Build your brand one job at a time
Build your brand one job at a time
If you turn out top quality work and are consistent with your level of service, as a by product of this you will build trust and credibility within your local area. When this trust is demonstrated and shared across the internet this status will be recognised by google and this is how you climb higher up the organic rankings and drive job leads into your sales funnel.
Make no mistake this will take work and is not an overnight fix. But in time, if you move through the video lessons listed below you will learn how to create a solid organic marketing campaign consisting of websites, video marketing, social media and a fully optimised google business profile account. This strategy is very powerful and means that you do not have to pay for leads or ads saving you thousands of pounds in marketing costs.
Below is a cluster of lessons that I want you to work through and implement in your own time these lessons are going to show you step by step how to set up your website, your google business profile, your social media platforms and how to get started with video marketing.
Lets do this..
Note: Training lessons are accessible to members only
Step 3:
Step 3:
Vetting & Job management
Vetting & Job management
Part 1: Vetting
Not everyone is your customer.
This was hard for me to get my head around because naturally a new business needs sales and so we should take on as many random jobs as possible. Right?
Wrong.
Maximum profit minimum working hours..
Maximum profit minimum working hours..
Inside this coaching program balance is the name of the game. I see so many busy plasterers who say they are earning well, but if you were to tot up the amount of hours they typically work on the tools and off the tools in order to keep their business afloat and divide these hours against net profit most of them would be earning below minimum wage because these hours spent quoting and costing jobs can add up
There is a common misconception amongst self employed tradespeople who often believe more jobs mean more money. But this is a trap I fell into during the early years of business. I would work to the meter and work long hours believing if I plaster more walls I'll earn more money.
This led to burn out, injury and frustration.
I am assuming you are a freelance plasterer and so you can only handle a specific number of jobs each year. For this reason we must ensure that we are targeting specific jobs that allow us to earn good profit but jobs that we also enjoy. Its very important to consider other elements too when we are taking on work, these include things like job location, job size, job time frames. But ultimately when a new lead comes in we must ask ourselves if we want to do this type of job? Do you like the client? Remember we went self employed so we could choose who we work for and choose the type of projects we enjoy right?
For these reasons vetting your enquiries is crucial and these videos will show you exactly how its done
Note: Training lessons are accessible to members only
Part 2: Job Management
At this stage of your training lets assume you have chosen your business model, made a good start on your funnel and have a vetting system in place.
In the next series of training videos we are going to explore job management.
In these videos we are going walk you through a customer relationship management tool or 'CRM' for short. Essentially a CRM is a technology used to manage interactions and customer information organising your jobs and automating a lot of your admin tasks like emails, quoting and invoicing.
In this section we are also going to look at time management, scheduling and profit tracking which is a crucial component of self employment and something we must get a full understanding of if we want to move the needle and increase our income. There is also a lesson on employing staff should you at some point decide to hire an apprentice or laborer
So lets dive into the training videos and get a grip of the job management side of things
Step 4:
Step 4:
Payment terms
Payment terms
Some people have joined this coaching program because they are sick to the back teeth of being messed around with money.
The following lesson walks you through step by step how to create and implement solid payment terms and a booking deposit system into your business to stop last minute cancellations and non payers.
Step 5:
Step 5:
Customer service & social proof
Customer service & social proof
This brings us to the 5th and final step. Customer service and social proof.
We know that customers will only buy off somebody they can trust.
The stronger your reputation is, the more you can charge.
The better you are at customer service the more 5 star reviews you will get.
The more 5 star reviews you gather on google the more likely it is that customers will buy off you.
Using video content to showcase your skills and your work ethic will set you miles apart from those who are not leveraging this powerful marketing medium.
So to finish off these 5 key steps lets explore Customer service and social proof
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