Small business marketing must-do’s — Guest starring Tim Reid, host of Australia’s top marketing podcast and author of ‘The Boomerang Effect’

Tim
Yeah, for about 25 years, guys, I worked in corporate, I worked in advertising, uh, I was doing, you know, advertising for large multinational brands, and then I was the marketing manager at Flight Center for a time. But in all that time in corporate marketing, anytime I happened to meet a small business owner. They were very interested in what I had to do. They asked for marketing ideas. You know, they asked whether they had done the right thing and I’d love chatting with them. They were so motivated and what I loved about it was not only would I chat with them and give them ideas, but they’d actually implement those ideas and then let me know afterwards whether or not those ideas worked. And that’s very different from corporate. Because corporate was all about meetings. That’s what my experience was. It was just a meeting fest. And I’m a bit of an action guy, so I just love the fact that small business owners, they’ve got skin in the game. They’re willing to take action. They’re generally motivated. And the other thing I did, Andy, was I always was wondering, why am I so curious about small business owners? I had a look at my family tree and my family tree for three generations. Four actually have no employers. They’re all employees. 

Andy
Wow. 

Tim
And I’m like, okay, this is, this is why there’s a fascination in this group of people called business owners that I, that I have and wanna know more about. And that brings me to today. 

Andy
Yeah, mate. There’s no doubt about it. Um, obviously as everyone knows where small business owners, Ange and I are plumbing business, and we know that marketing is the fundamental thing that all business owners want to do and need to do, and there’s an element of word of mouth, but there’s so many other avenues out there of how you can get your phone ringing. And I know, mate, as we said, you’ve worked with so many small businesses, but what sort of amazing standout marketing ideas have you come across over the years? 

Tim
How long have we got? 

Andy
Yeah. Yeah. 

Tim
Let me just say upfront. That it’s all about mindset. Yeah. We’ll talk, I’ll share some marketing ideas with your tradie listening audience today, but it is all about mindset. So what I want anyone listening to this episode to do is treat marketing as a hobby. Okay, because I’ve interviewed 549 successful business owners on the Small business, Big Marketing podcast. And there’s a number of things that link them. But one of them, and they don’t use the word hobby, but I hear it in their voices. They treat marketing as a hobby. And when something’s a hobby, they will find time for it. They’ll find the resources for it, they’ll schedule it in their diary, and they’ll actually look forward to doing it. And so my dream and my wish for any small business owner listening, whether you’re a tradie or whatever you do, Is to make marketing a hobby because then your mindset shifts from going, this is a pain in the ass. This is an expense to actually, no, this is fun and it’s an investment in my business. So I just wanna say that upfront. I have come across so many incredible business owners in my podcast and, and just speaking at conferences, et cetera. But a couple of ideas that come to mind that I think are worth sharing with tradies. One of my most popular interviews was with a tradie. Like 549 episodes. It was with a fellow by the name of Josh Nichols who owns Platinum Electricians, which is a big electrical franchise nationally. And Josh shared his 21 step customer manifesto, right? And people love it. People love steps, they love, you know, lists. But Josh did something very clever. He recognized that people get very annoyed with tradies in his case, sparkies. They’re late. They sometimes don’t arrive. They’re hopeless with invoicing. They’re hopeless with follow up. They’re hopeless with customer service. . I’m getting myself into trouble here cause I know I’m speaking, but hey, you know, this is the reality.

Andy
Exactly.

Tim
And Josh’s 21 step customer manifesto of which he shared about 10 of the steps, was simply a little manifesto that every single one of his sparkies needed to follow when they went on site into a home or an office. Simple things like arrive five minutes early, not 10 minutes late. Don’t park in the driveway. If it’s home, park out in the street, don’t walk across the garden. Use the paths. This is just like, this is like simple stuff and individually they’re not that interesting. But if you add them all up, my sort of view on it is like one and one equals 11. So, you know, beautiful little things like if you’re in someone’s home or office and you notice a light globe’s out, replace it, and then at the end of the job just say, Hey listen, I fixed the light globe in the study. No. No charge. Yeah, just simple things like that. So I think every business should have a customer manifesto, and that’s as simple as saying, okay, from the moment we enter a client’s premises to the moment we finish, what are all those magical little touch points? What are those moments of truth that we can engineer? So that makes the customer go, wow, that’s what you want. Right? So number one, there’s an idea. The other one that I really like, and Josh actually applied this, but only recently I interviewed Jeff Bezos. Shadow. So Jeff Bezos. 

Ange
Wow. 

Tim
Richard Bloke in the world owns Amazon. I interviewed his shadow, his right hand man, this guy called Colin Breyer. Colin’s just written a book called Working Backwards, which is the philosophy, Amazon news, to come up with ideas. Any ideas you have on Amazon. If you work for Amazon, you have to apply the Working Backwards philosophy, and it’s really simple. Start with a customer first. Really. Find it up, and then there’s a series of questions which you then have to answer that lead to a one page press release. So when you have an idea for your business, you answer these 10 questions. They’re in the show notes. I can share the link with you after we’ve done this chat and you can share them with your listeners a hundred percent. These 10 questions lead to a press release that you write. As if the product or service or offer exists, right? And it’s just so incredibly simple. That’s how the Amazon Kindle was created through this working backwards process. So, you know, guys, I could keep going on and on. I know we have limited time, but um, there’s just a couple. But I would come back to mindset, you know, marketing is all about mindset.

Ange
I think we, uh, overcomplicate things, I think you just mentioned then just to keep things simple and, you know, that concept about working backwards is really quite simple, , and I do think we generally overcomplicate things and marketing is exactly that. You just need to really come back to some basics and think about your customer first. That is such a priority. Yeah. Who are you trying to attract? Who are these people that have money, willing to spend it and willing to spend it with you and really understand them well. 

Tim
You know, having worked in large advertising agencies on big brands for many years, there’s actually a one page brief, whether a client wants you to produce a half a million dollar TV commercial, or a billboard or an Ad in the local paper, there’s a one page brief that has six questions on it that you have to answer, and one of the questions is, what’s the key insight into who you are trying to communicate with? So for example, you know, like how a customer feels when dealing with a tradesperson. And if you can understand that, you know, like for Flight Center, I’ll give you an example. When I worked at Flight Center, generally speaking, most people who came to Flight Center were excited. They were really excited cause they’re gonna book a holiday, they’re gonna go away, take me away, give me a, they take me away. So I needed all my people in all the offices around Australia in Flight Center to know, to have that insight into their customer, that they’re excited. So when they come in, acknowledge that excitement. You don’t have to be all wacky about it, but just know that it’s an awesome purchase. Generally speaking, you know, travel. So when you know that, it then allows you to create marketing messaging, the way you talk to the customer, the way you write copy for your website, the way you present in a sales meeting. It’s gonna be so much easier if you understand where your customers are coming from. 

Andy
A hundred percent. And that’s one thing that most tradies need to realize. You know, a lot of the times when they think marketing, they sort of go to SEO and Google AdWords and throw a bucket load of money. But there’s so much more to marketing in general and some of those things you’ve mentioned so far are absolutely huge.

Ange
Yeah. They’re not writing to match their audience. 

Tim
Andy, I’ll give you a mindset around that, marketing is made up of message and medium. Sounds a bit kind of technical, but let’s just just break that down. So many business owners, and probably most listening, go straight to medium, so the medium’s easy. Oh, I’m gonna be on Facebook. I’m gonna get a website. I’m gonna do video marketing. I’m gonna go networking. That’s an easy decision. It’s sort of based on budget and it’s based on where the fish that you’re trying to catch, right? But what they forget is what are you gonna say if you’re gonna get on Facebook, or if you’re gonna do a video, or if you’re gonna go to a networking event, what’s your message? So get your key messages right and then the rest actually falls into place. 

Ange
I love that cuz it is absolutely something we teach because often, Tim comes from the tradies being down at the pub with their mate going, Hey, I kind of need to get some new customers. How do you reckon I should do that? And they go, Facebook’s a bit trendy right now. And they just throw money at Facebook and then all of a sudden go, oh, not connecting to the fact that maybe their person they’re trying to work with are architects, as an example. And had they really stopped to think about it, although architects are still humans and would absolutely perhaps be on Facebook, there’s perhaps a better platform, a better medium, like you were saying, like a LinkedIn as an example, but it actually goes backwards, doesn’t it? To your point, it comes back to who’s the market? Who’s this avatar that we talk about? Therefore, what are you saying? What’s the message? And it’s only then that they’ve really gotta start talking about this medium, about kind of the platform. So, hey, I’ve, um, I’m an avid listener for your podcast. I probably, 

Tim
You’re the one. 

Ange
Listen, I am. I probably listen, uh, I reckon at least one, if not two a week, cuz you’ve got so many and I’m kind of going backwards versus forward. And I’m a big supporter of your book too. 

Tim
Ah, thanks Ange.

Ange
And one of the things that you’ve written inside your book was about helpful marketing, and you’re also talking about push and pull marketing. Can you explain that to our listeners? 

Tim
Sure. So another mindset shift, there are two forms of marketing. There’s push marketing and there’s pool marketing, and there’s, they’re both, right? They’re both okay. But you can decide which ones for you. Once I explain the definitions of each. Push marketing is like advertising, direct sales, sponsorship, and by nature of push marketing, you have a limited amount of time or space. So might be a 32nd ad on the local radio station. It could be a quarter page ad in the local newspaper. It could be an A-five letter box drop, right? And you are forced into a certain amount of space, and by being forced into that space, you cut to the chase in your copy. It’s like, you know, buy from me. Buy now. Closing soon into the financial year sale. There’s no foreplay, right?

Andy
Yeah, yeah. 

Tim
You’ve just gotta cut straight into it. They chase straight into it. Whereas with pool marketing, the whole idea is to pull people towards you because you are setting yourself up as an opinion leader, a thought leader, a trusted source of knowledge in your industry. And in doing that, you build familiarity and trust with your prospects and your clients. And they’re much more likely to use you. And in fact, in doing so, they become less price sensitive because you’ve developed trust. Okay, so forms of pool marketing, video, social media, podcasting, blogging, self-publishing, eBooks, all these little ways of actually pulling people towards you. It’s almost imagine if your customers and your prospects were actually leaning in to what you had to say, this would be extraordinary, you know?

Ange
Yeah. 

Andy
Wow.

Tim
Versus leaning back because it’s a bloody ad. Stop the ad. I don’t wanna be pushed. I don’t want messages pushed on me anymore. So there is a role for both, but I think one of the things I know for sure is there’s never been a better time to market any type of small business. And actually the Internet’s been the big enabler here, and that’s not about social media, it’s just that it’s allowed all these different forms of marketing, the ones I mentioned earlier, they’re very accessible. They’re very cheap and they’re fun to do. So we need to do more of that. And if people wanted to start, as a starting point in pool marketing, I would identify every single question you’ve ever been asked by a prospect and go about answering each of those questions, either on video or in audio. Or in the written word and create what I call a knowledge center on your website. You know, and that just becomes awesome for search engine optimization. Google loves it, but it’s actually also really powerful when you get a call from a client. What would a typical question, Aspar, uh, one of your members would be asked anything, gimme one.

Andy
Yeah, I think normally the customer would, a lot of the things they’d ask is, you know, when can you arrive and how much is it cost? I know, right? It’s very basic. 

Tim
No, no. That’s a good thing to say, but why do you charge what you charge? Or if you wanna be a little bit bold, why are plumbers so expensive?

Andy
Yeah. 

Tim
Because it’s a question people ask. So tackle it head on and have a page on your website in your knowledge center that has the question why a plumber’s so expensive,  underneath that, if you want to do it, do video and have the plumber answer that question. Get that video, rip the audio from it. So then you’ve got audio, send the audio off to a transcriber. Then you’ve got a written word. Then you’ve got video, audio words, and that page on your website becomes really invaluable. Again, both for Google and for when a client rings you and says, Hey, why is a plumber so expensive? And you’ll answer that question on the phone, but then send them the link to your page on your website and they’ll think you’re a rockstar.

Ange
What happens if I hate video? What happens if I don’t wanna be front and center? Which a lot of tradies say is they go, I understand I have to have a website, but I don’t wanna be the face of it. We’re like, yeah, really? 

Tim
Yeah. I get it. I hear it’s a great question. Ange, what happens if you don’t wanna do video? Well, I don’t like forcing any particular marketing medium on any business owner because I think you’ve gotta play to your strength. Now the reality is video’s pretty compelling, but there’s downside to video. You know, you have to, as a viewer, you actually have to stop and watch a screen to consume video. That’s why I love podcasting because people are listening to this while they’re driving in the gym at work, walking the dog in bed. I don’t have to be looking at a screen. But what I would say, and again, I don’t wanna force a video on anyone cuz it’s scary. I get it. And there’s some tips I can give around that. But just know that the first thing I would say is, and I’ll say this to you, Ange, cuz you’re the one who said you don’t like video, get over it. Because it’s not about you, you know it’s about your customer. 

Ange
Good sentences. 

Tim
That’s my brutal answer. 

Ange
They’re not really worried about me, are they? They’re worried about themselves.

Tim
They are. 

Ange
They probably don’t care that I, my hair’s not perfect and what’s coming out of my mouth isn’t polished or

Tim
That’s right.

Ange
I don’t know. 

Tim
You know, uh, customers listen to one radio station. It’s called WIIFM, , what’s in it for me? FM, right? 

Ange
A hundred percent. 

Tim
That’s it. And so I’ll give you, just to finish the video discussion, I’ll give listeners a tip if they’re going, okay, well I’d like to try the video, but I find myself stumbling and bumbling and all this kind of stuff. First of all, get over your hair, your voice, your look, all that. It’s not about you. Second one is, and I learned this, I interviewed and a friend of mine was on getaway for 12 years. Jules Lund and I interviewed Jules once and talked, cause you imagine how many videos he’s produced and Jules’s number one tip for creating short videos is you gotta have a good in and a good out and the middle bit is your strength. That is your, that’s your knowledge. 

Ange
Yes. 

Tim
So good in, for me, let’s say, a question I get asked is, is LinkedIn good for my business? And so my in for, if I was answering that to, to video, I’d go, gday, it’s Timbo Reid here from the Small Business Big Marketing show. I often get asked where LinkedIn is good for business and now I’m in. Yeah. I wanna give you three reasons why LinkedIn is good for business one, two, three. My out is, I hope you found that helpful. There’s plenty more tips over at small business big marketing.com, buy for now. And I’m out. So I’ve got these bookmarks and in the middle is just my knowledge and I know that I know the answer. And so do you listeners. 

Andy
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I, I think it’s really interesting with this push and pull marketing and I haven’t really heard of that before. And is that a concept that you came up with or is this something that everyone’s talking about out there. 

Tim
Andy, a good idea has a thousand fathers and a bad idea is an orphan.

Andy
Exactly. And I suppose if I look at the tradie industry and even what we’ve personally done in our business, there’s so much push, you know, and I think a lot of tradies look at the pull part of it. And they know and they know about content and we’ve done dribs and drabs of it. But it is, it feels like hard work and you’re not getting that immediate satisfaction. Sometimes us tradies, if we’re not getting the immediate satisfaction. It’s just too hard. So that’s where I think everyone listening today has to realize that you can still do that immediate, that push, that immediate satisfaction. You need work, you need it now, but what are you doing to make sure this audience, as you said mate, are leaning in. Because that’s exactly what a great business is all about. How are these people, they’re ready to go. They know who you are and they can’t wait to get on the phone when they have a problem next. 

Tim
I’ll give you a great story. Last night we got home and there was a little card in the letter box that said it was from the water meter reading people, and it said, can’t access your water meter. There’s a snake in your water pit. Right where they had to check the meter. So we ring the snake catcher and he’s around in 15 minutes time and the first thing he did, he goes, okay, we’re ready to go. He goes, get your cameras out guys. He was an awesome social media fiend. And he goes, get your cameras out. And he’s by the little pit where the snake is under the lid. I’d actually lifted the lid and seen the bloody thing and then put it back. Brave down. Yeah, it was stupid. Maybe more than Brave , but my girlfriend thought I was incredibly brave. So like bonus points. Yeah. Andy, you gotta lift the lid mate. . And you know, he came along and just videoed this whole thing, you know, he said, you know, here’s the card and here’s the card from the water people, son. They can’t read the meter. Let’s see what’s in the pit. And he lifts it off. We’re all video. And the next thing, I mean, that video’s gone nuts overnight, you know? And uh, you just gotta, I forgot why I’m telling you that story suffice to say that. Get over yourself  and, and share your knowledge, share experiences, share what’s going on often. I mean, being a snake catcher is an interesting business and he’s always got great content, but you would be surprised as to whether you’re a sparky or a plumber or a chippy or whatever, that you have actually got really interesting things to share. You know, talk about the different jobs you do. Go on site and say, Hey, listen, today I’m fixing a, I don’t know. You know, tree root’s got under a bloody pipe and this and that. It’s actually interesting and it’s all content. Someone somewhere will find that interesting and possibly become a client as a result. 

Ange
Some people go, marketing has to be really creative and I don’t have a creative bone in my body. So how do you get around that? How do you be creative consistently?

Tim
It’s a big word, creativity. Humans, we are creative like we are. So when someone says they’re not creative, what they’re actually saying is, you know, I can’t draw, or I can’t,  you know, write very cleverly. I can’t write like, you know, the rock stars can write, you know, like JK Rollings. It’s like, well, you’re not, you’re not meant to be JK Rollings. Again, you are just sharing your knowledge. But you know, creativity, the power of an idea is incredible. So when you do get an idea, right, that’s why big brands pay big agencies. Big money for big ideas. So like, I get that. But don’t put that pressure on yourself to be creative right now. Stick your head above the trench. And to your point about business owners not wanting to put their face to their business, particularly if you’re a service business, I don’t really get it. I almost wanna say to them like, how dare you not, you know, like, get over yourself. Be frank, what’s his name? Frank Walker from National Tiles, or you know, Jerry Harvey from Harvey Norman. And, and do it. Learn from the big guys because one of the things with service businesses is that they’re intangible, right? So when something’s intangible, you can’t hold it, touch it, smell it, feel it. We have to work hard at making the intangible, tangible. And a great way of doing that is putting your face to the business. And I, I just think it’s a fantastic thing and it’s better than putting a staff member’s face to a business because that staff member’s not gonna be there forever. 

Andy
Yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly right. And I think if we look back, even with lLifestyle Tradie Ange, you know, at the start we’d do a video and we’d be sweating and we’d be stumbling and we’d be worried.

Ange
And it’s 11 years ago, 

Andy
And these days and that’s 11 years ago. And, and these days it’s just like, well, we are what we are. And people go, oh. We make mistakes. We are raw. I mean, anyone that knows me knows I stuffed my words up all day long. Just listen and long enough and you’re here. But I, I’m, I’m past that. That’s just who I am. And I think that’s what business owners need to realize with this is you are who you are. Get the front sorted, get the back sorted. And in between is just you showing who you personally are. And we all know that customers buy from people they like. So if you’re gonna be successful, you’ve gotta be that open, friendly guy, and if you do that, you’ll definitely be getting a lot of work coming through the door. 

Tim
People buy from people, Andy. 

Andy
They do mate . They do. 

Tim
Not brain surgery. 

Andy
Nah. Exactly, exactly.

Ange
I think we’re definitely doing better these days with respect to that. I think that’s one benefit sitting here now in 2021 from a covid situation that tradies still have had that tangibility of still coming in and out of people’s homes. So in essence, we haven’t missed out, right? That human, human contact is still so important. Yet from a marketing perspective, I haven’t had any human touch with you and I’m now as a customer judging you by what I’ve either heard about you or maybe what I’ve read on your website. And that’s another issue we see is a lot of tradies websites just, uh, either they don’t have one, weirdly enough, some tradies still don’t have one. They don’t think it’s important yet. The internet isn’t going away and it’s getting far better. And then they put a website together and it doesn’t communicate anything about their business or, uh, doesn’t put their best front forward. 

Tim
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. It’s weird. Well, I was gonna say, it’s weird. I mean, you, we are, we are in marketing, so we kind of need to cut them a bit of slack, but there are some fundamentals like having a website that just makes sense. You know, you want to be found, you wanna be discoverable, and you know, there’d be tradies listening here. I guarantee it’s more than 50% a go. Yeah, but I get all my business from word of mouth. She likes, yes, I hear it. I hear it all the time.

Ange
Same.

Tim
I actually don’t think word of mouth is marketing. Word of mouth is the result of great marketing, and the best marketing is a great product or service. If you work your way back, word of mouth is the result of that. It’s not ma you, you can’t go and say, today I’m gonna do some word of mouth. You can’t do that , word of mouth happens, right? So therefore you gotta work your way back and offer great customer service, a great customer experience. Have that customer manifesto. Be discoverable, have a website. Introduce yourself and your team. You know, tradies, you guys are going into people’s homes and offices. It’s incredibly personal. . Yes. You know, so there’s a huge trust factor. And again, there’s trust. And when you develop trust, people do become less price sensitive. You know, I’ve said it before, but it’s, it’s a really big one. You know, none of us want to transact on price. You know, I, as the marketing manager for Flight Center, I know what it’s like to be the cheapest. It’s actually really expensive. You’ve gotta have a big advertising budget. And being cheap is just a dead end street. It’s not fun. There’s no margin, there’s always gonna be a loser.

Andy
And I think, um, going down that path with, with more of a social media sort of thing and videos and that, if I go back probably five years ago, I’d probably say that there weren’t many people I knew that were really smashing it on Instagram and Facebook and whatever. They weren’t getting the work that we thought we were gonna get. But times have definitely changed. There’s the work coming through, especially on Instagram and you mentioned, you know, there’s guys out there with tree roots and relining and problem jobs and customers are just constantly watching this and what you’re finding, and obviously if you’re a service industry in the service industry and you’re, and you’re a Mrs. Jones and you’ve got a block drain, You don’t first away, I’ve gotta block drain, I’ve gotta get it fixed. Hang on, I’m gonna go to Instagram and check it out. You’re not actually doing that, right? But if you are a builder or you’re about to build a house and you’ve been watching this builder constantly doing this work, I’ve got a very, very close mate of mine that’s probably one of the best Jeep rockers in Sydney with an incredible team, and they just do high-end property and they smash it and they’re amazing and people just constantly watch them and then all of a sudden he gets a phone call from this builder that he’d always thought he wanted to get in contact with. Hey mate, I’ve been watching you on Instagram. Your work is second to none. No one else in Sydney does work like this. I need you to do mine. And he’s actually charging probably 20 or 30% over the average guide that’s just running around the local neighborhood because he’s specialized in a high target area. So that’s where social media and Instagram really make a big difference. Right? 

Tim
And do the point about, and again, we know that everyone listening here, we said 50%, it’s more are saying word of mouth’s my best marketing. It’s not. If you are getting business from word of mouth, I can guarantee you those who are being told to use you are checking you out. They’re gonna go to your website, they’re gonna go to your socials, and they’re just gonna see, you know, what do they look like? What do they do? Are they real? Have they got a following? Are they responsive? You know, they’re gonna do all that. And the other part that I just wanna touch on something you just said then, Andy. The pull marketing is a slow burn, and we all want quick results. You know, we go, oh geez, you know, I’ll run some Facebook ads and phone’s gonna go off the hook unless you nail your Facebook ads. The phone isn’t gonna go off the hook. Your video, your content marketing, your podcasts, your networking, all that stuff, it is a slow burn. If you wanna do Facebook or you wanna do radio ads or any of that, the reality is, you run a week of Facebook ads and then you gotta find more money for the next week and the next week. Whereas if you create content, it’s there forever. It’s evergreen. So again, I’m not saying one or the other. I think both are very valid, but the reality is, you know, something around Facebook, I, I just, it really saddens me when I hear all these business owners thinking that social media is a silver bullet for their marketing. Now it could be. And every now and then I come across a small business that’s smashing social media. I interviewed a lady recently who has, she’s got one, this one post on her Pinterest gets 1.4 million views a month. Like wow. And that gets her a lot of business. We can’t all do that. But what you’ve gotta realize is if you wanna run Facebook ads, for example, there’s so many variables. It’s like, what’s the headline gonna be? Where am I gonna send people when they click on the ad, what’s the image gonna be? What’s the copy gonna be? Who am I gonna target? There’s just so many things you gotta get right and uh, it’s either gonna work or not based on those variables. 

Ange
I think it’s important for all trade business owners and contractors to understand that marketing in essence needs to be considered like an octopus. And the middle of the octopus is your website. That’s the head. Yeah. And regardless of what you’re doing to the right target audience and whatever it is you’re talking about, whether it’s, you know, this content or whether it’s call to action, quick kind of marketing, doesn’t matter what platform you’re on, everything’s gotta lead you back to that website so that we just don’t have control, do we? I mean, what’s gonna happen? Maybe Facebook won’t be around in 10 years time. We don’t know that. 

Tim
Own the racecourse, not the race horse.

Andy
That’s it. Sentence. That’s it, mate. Just one, um, question just before we start to wrap it up. You know, if there’s one piece of advice for trade business entrepreneurs, what would it be?

Tim
Marketing wise? Gee, I, you know, I reckon we’ve given some pretty good ones between the three of us already, but, um, yeah, but respect marketing, you know, again, 549 interviews with successful business owners. And again, there’s a number of things that link them. One is their respect for marketing, cuz the criteria for being on my podcast is you gotta be a successful small business owner that has used some form of marketing to achieve that success. And so I just think more business owners need to respect it. Don’t be scared of it. Embrace it. Make it a hobby. Have fun with it. It’s not an expense. In fact, it can be incredibly inexpensive these days. You know our iPhone , what a laugh. Yeah, it’s not a phone. It’s a marketing weapon. Yeah, . It’s got email marketing, social media, voice memo, video camera, still’s camera. It’s got like, it’s, I just find that blows me away. Every, every, you know, every day of the week, people go, oh, marketing’s expensive. It’s not, get your phone out. I’ll shut. 

Ange
And then they’re making excuses. They go, I can’t do that, I can’t do any of that. I don’t have the facilities. I don’t have equipment. It’s like, actually you do. It’s in your pocket. 

Andy
Oh, no doubt. There’s a lot of people out there listening to this that have made many, many excuses over the years, and no doubt I have as well. But it’s all about getting in there and working. Nothing comes easy. You gotta put the work into it and love what you do. Hey, Tim, it’s been absolutely incredible having a chat with you today. You know, we’ve got so much out of it, but we play this little game at the end of having our chat with our guests, and it’s gonna be three short questions and you’re gonna have to give us an answer, but the answer’s gonna have to be under 30 seconds. Are you ready? 

Tim
Go. 

Andy
Okay, mate, what is the biggest mistake you’ve personally made in business?

Tim
Not surround myself with great people in the early days trying to do everything myself. 

Andy
Fantastic. A hundred percent right, mate. It wouldn’t, couldn’t agree more. Number two, what do you wish you’d known sooner? 

Tim
That I should surround myself with really good people in the early days. No, it’s big. It’s big. I mean, you know, it’s big. Funny as it is, you know? Cause we live in a world where you can outsource, you know? Yeah. Whether you find people in the Philippines or people locally, that lady who I mentioned on Pinterest, she goes on to Upwork. She has a Pinterest specialist, she’s got an Instagram specialist, she’s got a copywriting specialist. All these people are relatively inexpensive and they’re all individually doing just the one job. 

Ange
And guess what tradies do. They refuse to ask for help. They actually say I’m okay and I’ll do it by myself when in actual fact they don’t know what they don’t know.

Tim
Sad. Most of the blokes . 

Andy
Yeah, there is a lot there. Number three, mate, what’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur? 

Tim
Freedom, you know? I can choose, uh, whether I make money or not, you know, and that’s, um, scary and uplifting. So it’s just, you know, I don’t want anyone breathing down my neck. 

Ange
Those waves at Noosa don’t look too bad either. Hey, ,

Tim
It was pretty flat out there today, but I had a beautiful swim. Swim over a turtle. 

Ange
Oh, cool. That’s when you have a standup paddleboard and a surfboard. Take your. 

Tim
That’s exactly right. 

Andy
So mate, you know, as tradies, it can be so hard for us to say, I need help, or I don’t think I’m the right person for this task. You know, we want to just tackle everything head on because we think we’ve made a deal. There’s no doubt about it. Us tradies, it’s just all about us and what we can do. You know, the truth is though, marketing is not likely to be our era of expertise. We are good with our hands. So we definitely advise seeking advice from the professionals, just like Tim, you know, it’s the best thing you can do for your trade business, and I guarantee you, you get the right people in your business, you’re gonna get the success. Hey Tim, I just wanna say yeah, huge thank you for being on this podcast today, mate. 

Tim
Well done Andy and Angela, for putting it together and, and sharing the love with your people because, uh, it’s important and, you know, it might, it’s fun, but it’s really important as well. So thanks for having me on. 

Ange
It’s been epic to have you tidbits of gold outta there. Great tips, super helpful. Go and check Tim out, guys. I highly recommend it. I listen to it all the time.

Andy
Well, no doubt. We’ll catch you in the next episode where we will answer the questions, why the heck is hiring staff so hard and what to do about it. I’ll let you in on one little secret. Higher fast and fire fast. We’ll see you then. 

Ange
See you then.