COACHING SERIES: From MMA to Master Plumber – Zack Hook’s Journey (Hook, Line & Sink Plumbing)

Andy
Yes, you loved our last coaching series episode with Damien and Ashley, so we thought we’d keep it going. Today, we’re joined with a Victorian country boy, Zack, who’s powering through all of his training here at Lifestyle Tradie. We’re so impressed by his attitude and his work ethic. We wanted to give him the chance to come on here and get some one-on-one time. 

Ange
Well, one unique part about Lifestyle Tradie is our community. They’re such a wealth of knowledge, experience, and inspiration to each other. We meet up at our events throughout the year. Plus we have a Facebook group where everyone is asking questions literally 24/7. And of course, Andy and I participate in answering those questions too. But that said, it’s pretty rare to have both of us together working on one business at the same time. So this is pretty cool. 

Andy
And you get to listen like a fly on a wall. 

Ange
And a quick reminder, Andy. Be nice! 

Andy
Okay, I don’t know why you always have to say this Ange, I am a nice person but I am quite blunt at times and I’m happy to give someone a reality check if they need it. 

Ange
Yeah, okay, that’s fair. Alright, let’s get into the show.

Andy
You’re listening to The Tradie Show. This is the podcast for trade business and contracting bosses like you who want to lead with confidence, make more profit and create a better lifestyle. 

Ange
We’re your hosts, Andy and Angela Smith, husband & wife team and co-founders of Lifestyle Tradie.  Are you ready to have some fun?

Andy
Hell yeah! 

Our Lifestyle Tradie members asked for a buying group and we delivered with Buy4Tradies. And the savings on materials, fuel and other services have been huge. And if you want more profit in your pocket, Buy4Tradies is for you. Electricians, plumbers, solar, aircon, whatever trade you’re in, head to buy4tradies.com.au and complete our price saving calculator to work out how much you can save through the power of our buying collective. We are stronger together.  

So yes, the lad we selected for today’s show is Zack Hook from Hook, Line and Sink. A plumbing and maintenance business in Victoria. 

Ange
So Zack joined Lifestyle Tradie in 2023, and he’s been an active member of the community showing up to events, both big and small.

Andy
And you know what? You can’t miss Zack. You can’t miss him. He walks around with a bigger cobra hat on an absolute legend. He also used to be an MMA fighter for many years. I’m telling you, you can’t miss him. And I still remember one of the first lines he said to me. And he said, Andy, you have to be an animal to be successful in sport and in business. And the other thing is you’ve got to have a bit of a screw loose. I think every tradie would believe that out there that owns a business as well. Zack, welcome to The Tradie Show. And it’s great to have you here.

Zack
Guys, great to be here. 

Andy
Okay, Zack. So to set the scene, can you tell us a little bit more about your business? What you do, how long you’ve been operating and what does your team look like now? 

Zack
Yeah, well, basically, uh, how it started was 10 years ago. Um, I moved to Melbourne. The fighting was going on the back end. So I had to get a real job, you know, I couldn’t sort of sustain that anymore. Uh, and I didn’t have my full plumbing license. I had the apprenticeship under me, but not the cert for, so while I was doing the schooling and everything. I got some magnets made up for the truck, became a handyman so I could trade on my own and, um, and basically got going just had my old old work here, started from there, just registered an ABN. And that was the start. And then over the years, you know, gotten the uh, Cert for, you know, I got the plumbing name and, you know, did all that sort of stuff and then just been steadily growing the team and, and sort of a few years ago, you know, wondering how we can sort of make it better. So how we can sort of get to the next, next level. So basically I’ve been growing steadily on my own, but just grow up very, very steadily. And, you know, hence where you guys sort of came in and things starting to take off now where the team is growing, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got, um, sort of three trucks on the road and we’ve now got, um, an office manager started. So, you know, it’s all, it’s all coming together now, I think they’re really starting to move along. 

Andy
Yeah, that’s absolutely awesome, mate. So, you know, what was life like before you joined Lifestyle Tradie? Like you, you touched on a few bits and pieces, but business wise, what was it really like? 

Zack
I’d say running enthusiastically  in the wrong direction. You know, basically going as hard as I can, you know, but without clear direction. And this is where you guys have really cleared up all the ambiguity and all the, you know, murkiness of running a business. And the, the, the clarity from that is just as, you know, it has been the biggest relief, I guess, since signing on with you guys. You know, but that was, running a business was yeah, very murky. That was probably the best way to put it. 

Ange
So how are you actually feeling about business today?

Zack
I’m feeling a hell of a lot better. It’s, it’s very daunting, you know, cause it’s the old saying, you don’t know what you don’t know. And ignorance is a bliss kind of thing. So when you don’t know with running a business, everything that’s involved with it, and you’re just plodding along, it’s sort of like, it’s not as scary now that I know a heck of a lot more, it’s daunting, but the clarity is, I feel a heck of a lot better. So a lot of the anxiety and stuff has gone because, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, although it’s daunting what, what, what, what’s involved, um, it’s still, it’s nice to have a clear set of goals to be, to be aiming for. So, you know what I mean? It’s like I, I know I can see the mountain in front of me now. You know, it’s the, the, the haze is gone and it’s a bit daunting knowing I’ve gotta scale this thing, but I, I know what I’ve, I know what I’ve gotta do. So it’s, there’s a lot of, um, relief comes with that as well. It’s very freeing, I guess.

Andy
Yeah. And I, I think the, the big thing around it, I, I know in the past. You’ve had coaches, you’ve done other things in the past as well. And before Lifestyle Tradie, but even when we sat down at the very beginning, we went down and to try and have that clear picture. And a lot of tradies say to me, Oh my God, Andy, you talk about how you got to know your numbers. And you know what? I actually really know my numbers now. And I’m like, that is fantastic. And I went, really? It scares the f*ck out of me, you know, and this is the thing, right? Sometimes people are just living in this bliss of you not knowing what you don’t know. And it’s a happy day. They’re the businesses that are falling over. But as you said, when you have clear direction, you have a path, you know where you’re going and you’re on the right path. Yes. There’s still a bit of a mountain for you to climb, but I tell you what, you are kicking some good goals. You’re putting a lot of great things in play. And I know here at Lifestyle Tradie in the team. You are going through what our processes are and our checklists and our training, and you are really ticking off some great goals along the way. So don’t be too hard on yourself, mate. You are right at the start, but I’ll tell you what, what you’re doing at the moment, you’re going to finish off an absolute winner. There’s no doubt about that.

Ange
So Zack, I know you’ve come today with some questions for us. So what’s the first thing you feel you need help with? 

Zack
Yeah. The majority of what I need help with is, what Andy is always carrying on about or, or getting his message across is, um, no, no, you know, it’s probably not a nice way to put it, but, uh, what he’s always drilling into us is know your numbers. And I think from my experience, that’s where, where everybody falls off or most people fall off the cliff. You know, you just, you’re just plodding along, gut feel it all feels great. My issue is I want to dive deep. I want to be a numbers freak. If I can track half of the stuff, you know, you guys are tracking when you had your business, I’ll be, I’ll be, you know, a happy man. So I just want to be all over the numbers and sort of the main thing just to do with, you know, the old saying sales of vanity profit is reality. You know, it’s, it’s to do with, you know, it’s no good having a million dollars of sales and we’ve got 999, 000 of expenses. 

Ange
Great. 

Zack
Um, so recommended percentage or margin gross profit to sales. Look in terms of say round numbers, we’re bringing in a million, what would be nice or what you guys would expect gross profit figures there in percentages and then also percentages of profit to sales. So say a million dollars, do we want 50 percent gross, 30 percent net, you know, what’s, what’s looking good and what’s a nice clear round thing we can sort of aim for.

Andy
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I get asked about it quite a bit. And let’s just start on the gross profit side of things. You know, it’s so variable. Um, it’s variable between every different trade. Every different trade has a scale that they should be sitting in. The other thing that’s variable is, is your P and L set up the right way. We do a lot of training around setting your P and L up the right way. Cause if it’s wrong, it actually is very skewiff on the gross profit and most accountants don’t even set it up the way that we love it here at Lifestyle Tradie. So as a rule of thumb, people are sitting in between that 50 to 65 percent gross profit, depending on your style of business, um, and who you are and what you run. And also it comes down to, are you paying yourself a wage too? Cause that’s skewiff to the gross profit. So there’s a lot of things you can do. And Ange loves talking about, we need to keep an eye on this gross profit number, but it’s got to be set up the right way and everything’s got to be in the right way to get the right result. I have some people saying, Oh, I’m making 90 percent gross profit. But then when you look at their net profit, they’re actually making a loss. And I go, okay, you know, and so it can be vice versa depending on the industries, but let’s dive into net profit because I think that’s a big one. You know, I’m a real believer that everyone should pay themselves at least the basic wage. So a basic wage is around 85, 000 a year. That’s a basic wage. If you want to be taking director takings, that stuff you can do after, but I believe that everyone should be on around that 85K basic wage because it’s paying for your super and going down that path. Now, a lot of people come to us. They’re either a break even business or it’s a low net percentage. They’re sitting around five, maybe some of the good ones are sitting at 10. Now on a million dollars, it does depend on the type of business, but a lot of people say they want to be making 20 percent or 30 percent on this million dollars. Now, when I talk to people, they go, Oh yeah, I’m making 30%. I’m like, well, okay, well, let’s talk about that because what a lot of people do is they set their jobs up to make 30%, but at the end of the financial year, when the accountant’s been through everything, they’re not getting 30%. They’re getting fives and they’re getting tens.

So what we’re trying to do is you’ve got to get your business structured the right way so that at the end of the financial year, when everything is done and dusted, you’re sitting around that 20 to 30%. Now this is on a million bucks, so that’s not a bad place to be aiming for, right? But if you’re a business doing 5 million, I had one of our members just ring me recently. And they rang up and they’re doing about 5 million dollars and they’re sitting around that 25 in between 25 and 30 percent net profit. And he’s like, Andy, is this any good? And I’m like, yeah, man, that’s really good. And he goes, well, I want a 30 percent net profit. And I said, well, that’s something we can strive for. I said, but that’s great for a business with that turnover. A lot of the time these bigger businesses have quite low net profit. So there’s a lot of variables in that mate. I hope that question does clear things up. I would say for you, I’d love you to be pushing towards that 20 to 30 percent net profit on that million dollars. But we all know net profit changes when you purchase a truck, you get a Jetta, you put on new staff. There’s a lot of things that come into that along the way as well.  

Zack
Yeah, that’s great, Andy. Thanks a lot.

Andy
So your next question, mate? 

Zack
To do with scaling the team. So I guess an example from you guys, what would be the optimum point to bring on a new plumber? 

Ange
Great question. And I would say we get this often asked. You can take this one away, Andy. 

Andy
I reckon you’ve got two choices. You got the old way, like the old Dr. Drip and the early days way. And that is when you got enough work and there’s a good guy, you grab him and you put him on. And I still feel in this day and age, if you have an absolute cracking plumber and you know, he’s a cracking plumber, not just a hunch, you know, where he worked before, or, you know, something about him and he’s amazing and you got a lot of work, then you’d be silly not to take him on. But the biggest challenge that most people do, they put on tradies when they’re busy, but they can’t necessarily afford it. They don’t have enough time to find the right person. So they panic and go, Oh, I need a person. I need him now. Oh, Seek’s not working. Oh, and then it’s the next person. The trick to remember is a bad hire is worse than no hire at all. Take that in. A bad hire is worse than no hire at all. But as you know, and Lifestyle Tradie, it’s not all about being bigger is better. It’s about having the right infrastructure of your business set up, understanding your cash, understanding how much money you have in the business, what you can afford and actually going, okay. And a lot of times when you make this decision to put on a new tradie, it’s a little bit of a gamble. It’s a little bit of a gamble, but that’s what you’ve got to do in business as business owners. You’ve got to go, well, I’ve got the work I’m hoping is good. I’m going to probably lose a little bit of money in the first couple of months if I’ve got to train him. But after that, he’s going to bring in the coins. So the optimal point is, for me, In a perfect world, you should have a good structure in your business. You should be, um, have quite a bit of work. You understand your numbers and you know when you’re plugging in, he’s just going to follow the structure that you’ve already built. The way you use your job management system, the way you invoice, the way you quote, the way you collect money, all of that should be all set up. Because you get him to come in and just follow what you already set up. That is the optimum time to bring on a new guy. 

Ange
Which is the replacement now of you being on the tools. So if we broke down that flow of a job and you were very specific about streamlining the processes of how you operate out in trade. Now, when you get busy because the business model is perfect and now you have extra work, it’s a great time to pull in someone who is going to be billable time and is actually going to earn you money. So that they now replace you out in the field, you know, five days a week so that you’re there doing the training. And now we can remove you as the business owner to actually work on what we call these profitable tasks. You know, the strategy of the business and start working on your marketing and, you know, making sure that we’re still working on getting the business model right.

Zack
So basically making sure of the sort of main point you can afford rather than just, Hey, we’re really busy. Uh, we need to put someone on looking at the numbers and, and making sure it’s, it’s a correct purchase before going down that line. 

Andy
I’m a real believer. If you know your numbers, you’ve got good structure in your business and things are going well and you have a lot of work. There’s no better time, no, no better optimum time than right then. With Dr.DRiP, if I had a guy, if I didn’t need a tradie, but I knew this guy was an absolute superstar and I’ve worked with him before, or the boys had or whatever. And I didn’t really have work. You know, there’s time there, but we’ll make him good money. I just hire him anyway and make it work. But normally in a small business, most people are putting on staff on a broken business model because they’re wearing too many hats and they’re stressed. They put on staff for the sake of it. And it always backfires. It causes more headaches than it’s worth. You’re better off having a good business model in your structure right first. 

Ange
So just to add to that, Zack, a really good way to do a bit of a litmus test is to start putting away what you know that you would pay them each week into literally a separate bank account. So use that ATO GST account that we recommend you have, separate so that you know that you can afford them. So if money or cash flow you’re thinking is perhaps a problem. Firstly, if you’re watching your numbers, you know that you’ve got the money in the account, but if you want to be really certain, then you can actually start putting money aside like you’re actually paying for someone each week whilst you’re hunting for someone. And then you know that you’ve got confidence to be able to afford them. 

Zack
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Would you say grab that money from like, say the GST account? Cause there’s no actual money coming in from a plumber, but you’re saying train yourself to put the money away anyway. Would you say like, take it from that to set it aside as a wage or just from wherever?

Ange
As you’re getting paid each week with revenue for billable time, then allocate. So as you’re paying out your operating expenses and you pay your own wages, just separate a separate chunk of money that, you know, would have been the cost for that person that you were going to employ and just put that into the GST account and just keep ticking it over so that you feel confident. Knowing that you’re going to be able to afford them. It’s just a little quick hack. 

Andy
And you do know, Zack, as well that the first few weeks or the first month, there’s going to be a time where you’re not making much, but there’s going to be a time when you are making at least 50 percent of his wage. So you can start staggering how much you need to put aside because you know they’re going to be making some type of income.

Zack
Great idea. 

Ange
What’s your next question, Zack? 

Zack
When planning goals, so one, three, five and 10 years for sustainable growth, so not rapid growth, you know, I’m not, I don’t want to put a hundred trucks on the road tomorrow. I want it to, you know, steady, but constant. How many years should we be planning to get to five to 10 million dollars revenue?

Ange
Great question. 

Andy
Yeah, it’s a good question. And a few of our members, I’ll just go off what some of the guys have done within Lifestyle Tradie. They’ve started, you know, at about $150, 000 turnover. And now they’re sitting at around seven or eight million. And that’s about the five year mark. So you can move pretty fast. I’d say he’s moved fast. He’s an action taker. He’s, um, a gun guy and he’s just gone all in. So that’s sort of about the speed that he’s moved and that’s in maintenance. So obviously in construction, as you get bigger and you’re taking on bigger projects, you may get to that five or 10. But I know you’re a maintenance plumber, so you’re probably asking more about it for yourself. So for me, you know, you can get there in say five to 10 years. It’s not going to be a massive rise to the top really fast. The thing I want to say here is bigger is not always better. We’ve heard it all before. Sometimes a small business is a better business and they make more net profit. But the thing is, if you want to have sustainable growth. It really comes down to those numbers and how much profit you’re making and making sure you’re not putting on people for people’s sake, and it’s sacrificing a lot of your profit along the way. So I would say to get to that 5 million, you’re talking that three to five years, that’s what some people have done. But if I look at the everyone we’ve coached over the many years, there’s probably only 10 percent who have got there. So it takes a special person to get their business in maintenance and actually to do that and to drive with that and to drive their business to those heights. 

Zack
Yeah, perfect. Well, it sort of brings me on to my next question with what would each truck, uh, what would you be expecting each truck to bring in per year, say, depending on how many people you had?

Andy
Yeah, I think, you know, it depends on who’s in the truck. You know, it depends if there’s an apprentice and a tradie in a truck, or there’s just an apprentice in the truck, or maybe you’ve got a third year running around in a truck by himself. But I think in general, it depends on the structure of your business and how you’re doing it. But as a maintenance plumbing business, if you’re selling and you’re selling jobs and you’re selling dig ups and you’re selling relining and you’re selling all these things, you know, some people can be bringing up to 600, 000 a truck. You know, and I do know stories where people have brought in more. That sounds quite high, right? But I think on average, you’re sort of sitting around that 350 to 450. You can do that. And I think there’s a lot of one man shows out there that should be sitting around that 350, 400 as a one man show. Occasionally a subbie comes in, but a lot of the small businesses. I’m still sitting well under 300 and there’s just no money in that style of business. But as you grow, mate, I tend to think around that 350, or 4 to 500 per truck, if you can do it right and you have it structured the right way is a, is a good way to do it. And if they’re a good tradie and they buy themselves or they may have an apprentice next to them and then they’re smashing up that work. But what really lifts that, um, tally is big dig ups and relining for plumbers. There’s big money in that. And if people are selling it at high costs, there’s, there’s big money in that. 

Ange
So a combination of having processes and systems to ensure your team are all doing the same thing consistently whilst they’re with a customer and through the flow of a job and watching your numbers so well all the time to ensure that every job is making you profit.

Zack
Yeah, perfect. That’s great. Gives me an idea of something to aim for, basically. So clears up the haze. 

Ange
Yeah. What’s your next question, Zack? 

Zack
Um, so when you guys ran Dr. Drip, did you guys have apprentices or just tradesmen, you know, with your structure and how they, you know, how you sort of ran it? 

Andy
Yeah, it was really interesting. At the very beginning, we started off with tradies  and apprentices as a bit of a mixture. And then over the years I’ve found apprentices were a lot of, just being honest, were a lot of hard work. And, um, And then we started just getting tradies. So what we found was every truck we had on the road, we had eight at that stage. It was better having a tradie in there by himself. That was the best way where we could make the most money than having a tradie with an apprentice. But again, it comes down to the style of work you do. If you’re climbing under floors and on roofs and you’re jackhammering and doing all this heavy labor stuff, then everyone wants an apprentice to give them a hand. There’s no doubt about that. But my general thought, a lot of people come to me and go, should I put an apprentice first or a tradie first? And it does really come down to your workload. But I think if you’ve got a really good tradie that can make that money straight away from you is probably the best benefit. And what I was saying with Dr. Drip, we had a mixture of tradies and apprentices. Some of my apprentices lasted with me for 11 years. So, you know, looking at that, I couldn’t be, um, too sad about what happened with our apprentices at that period, but in the end of Dr. Drip, we sold about 3 years ago but when it get started a little bit harder, I was actually employing  maturer apprentices, people that were fully qualified, mechanical engineers, around the age of 30, super switched on with their hands, knew how to do it. And then we’d set them up as apprentices, teach them a bit about plumbing. And before you know They were doing work as well as some tradies that we knew as well. So that was a great strategy to bring some older people into the game, bring them in as an apprentice, but they already had their hands, um, skills. I think a lot of the young guys are coming through, and I know I’m stereotyping, but listen, let’s look at my son. It’s almost like these days he goes for a ride in his push bike and the chain comes off and it’s like, dad, I need a new bike. Like, you know, a lot of these kids coming through now haven’t been fixing dirt bikes and mechanics like we did in our day. They’ve all been using their thumbs and playing fortnight or whatever. So you’ve got to make sure you get the right people that are mechanically minded. 

Zack
Yeah. That was sort of my understanding as well. When, when each truck’s essentially its own business, you know, if there’s a need for an apprentice and I guess, like you said, depending on exactly what we’re doing, it makes a lot of sense.

Andy
Yeah, you find people that are pushing into renovations and building and that kind of stuff. They always love to have an apprentice. I think if you ask any tradie out there, you’ve got a choice. You can have an apprentice or you don’t. Everyone wants it because everyone wants someone to talk to during the day and a mate to hold their hand and someone to go get the tools. But as a business point of view, it affects your profitability unless you’re really billing them out. 

Ange
I think in our industry, because you too do a lot of maintenance, Zack, In our situation, it was because our tradespeople were directly in front of a customer all the time. So it was really important for us to have someone quite mature who could actually hold a conversation and talk to a customer and follow the processes that we wanted. And hence, the mature age apprentices worked really well for us because they had the right attitude. They loved the job. They chose this career because they wanted to go into it versus, you know, leaving year 10. And sadly, they were perhaps recommended this as a potential career choice. You know, Andy and I are both huge supporters of supporting the industry as apprentices coming through, for instance. But I definitely think you need to consider the type of business that you are and therefore the requirement of that apprentice. 

Andy
Mate, the industry needs apprentices and every single tradie out there should be putting them on. The problem is by the time they’ve done three or four years with you, you’ve made money, you’ve lost money in the end, maybe they haven’t been amazing. The grass is always greener now and these apprentices are coming out of their time and they’re just going to top tradie wages. You know, they’re going from being on 23 bucks an hour or whatever they are. Now they want 40 and all of a sudden like, well, you’re not worth 40, but you know what? People, someone else out there will pay him 40 and, and that’s the challenge. So business owners are getting a bit savvy and going, well, I’m not going to spend all my time training this person up because I don’t really make anything for him. And then when he does get good, he leaves. And that’s the biggest challenge we have in the trade industry at the moment. We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to, I think the government has to come in and support business owners better around that, because that first four years we do all the hard work. Like when we grew up, it was almost like if you worked with a business owner for four years, you’re expected to at least give them another two or three or four years after to say, thank you. But that’s long gone. 

Ange
That doesn’t happen anymore. 

Zack
Yeah, that’s right. I’m sort of in the same mindset. My first apprentice was actually a mature age and I’m very much along the same lines as you guys. They are very, they sort of know, know what they want to do and, and are more clear on what they want to do rather than an apprentice that may or may not want to be a plumber.

Andy
I left in year 10 and someone said, what do you want to do? And I don’t know, maybe a sparky, maybe a plumber and, and I ended up doing plumbing. But. You know, there’s a lot of people that get out of school. They don’t really know what they want. And their parents are like, well, you should do a trade. So they start a trade and I think, okay, and they get an apprenticeship and within three months to six months, a lot of them are going, this is too hard. I don’t want to do manual labor all day. This is too hard because their mind probably wasn’t in it from the very beginning. And that didn’t see the fact that they could make good money at the end of the journey, because most young people just want to make it now, now, now. And I, I don’t want to buy the Holden Barina now to survive. I want to buy the Ferrari and I just want to get straight to that red Ferrari. 

Zack
Yep. A hundred percent. Okay. Next thing is, um, so now talking about growing the businesses, what marketing strategies did you guys use in Dr. Drip? 

Andy
Yeah. I suppose the best strategy for us, and it’s a bit harder to do now, but I’ll just touch on it. We had 110 plumbing websites all over Sydney. 90 of them were number one on Google search. So we were the number one, um, we did SEO on the mall. We wrote content for the mall, Google maps. They all had Google maps in the local area and we’re absolutely crushing it in the Sydney area. Now, Google changed the rules though, after time and a few different things happened and you know, we had a good couple of years running at that and that was amazing for us and, and then it started to drop away, um, year on year. And that was where Google was getting a bit smarter and they were like, you’re taking advantage of the system. And I was. And, um, and they started slapping us a little bit on some of that stuff. But in this day and age, what marketing strategies should you be doing? Well, Ange, our head of marketing, I’m going to quickly head over to her, but we have done some great stuff. Have we? 

Ange
Zack, as you know, one of the educations that we hang our hat on is the ACDR  formula, so attract, convert, deliver, retain. And one of the first things I would have said with regards to your trade because your maintenance, is let’s go deep real quick on retention, you know, about encouraging repeat business. So too many tradies focus on what I class as attract marketing. And yes, that’s important. And we definitely need to go there to encourage consistent, good quality leads coming through. But we have this incredible database because you’ve been working for people for years already and we naturally collect information, first name, surname, address. We know everything about their house because you’re doing inspection reports. So let’s go deep about repeat business and make sure we can encourage them to come back by staying consistent with communication with them so that your brand stays top of mind. We know that with Dr. Drip. We ended up on the day of selling, we had 77% repeat clients and that is amazing. And that’s what we want for the maintenance industry. Yeah, for the maintenance industry. Yes. And that’s what we would want for you too, is making sure that number is trackable so that we can actually get that as high as possible. Because we even knew that when we actually had an opportunity in maintenance to get back inside that property, even a strata company or you know, property or residential customers. We actually increased our average transaction by three times because they trusted us. They loved us. So that’s really good advice to kind of let’s go heavy on retention cause it’s low cost, no cost stuff. But we do of course need to consider the other pieces. 

Andy
I think the big thing is we do a lot of training around low cost, no cost marketing. And I think that most businesses should do that first before they start spending the big dollars. There’s no doubt about it. If you want to spend big dollars on AdWords, the phone rings, but how much is it costing you? And are you turning that into profit or not? Um, there’s still some great businesses doing great things with AdWords. Um, the cost of AdWords in some areas have dropped to what it was in its peak. But do I recommend the average business to spend money on AdWords? Well, it’s all about test and measure. I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re getting it for. I don’t know how much it’s costing you to get to the front door. And I don’t know how well your guys are at selling, upselling and cross selling work, so it’s a tough one. Um, then you got SEO and SEO is such a beast in itself. And I’d say you get 10 businesses that are doing SEO and you’ll probably get out of those 10, two of them saying it’s the best thing they’ve done, three of them saying it’s probably not worth the money. And the other five say it’s an absolute disaster and I need a new company. So SEO is always a bit of a tough gig around that. But then you start heading into socials and there’s no doubt about it. A lot of people with some good socials are getting some good traction. I know that at our next event. We’re doing how to do 12 months of socials in an hour, and we’re teaching you guys how to do all that kind of stuff. So all these marketing things, it’s, and always talks about pancaking. I reckon you do low cost, no cost at the beginning, and then you pancake it and work on the next ones and the next ones, the next ones. And if you want rapid growth and you want to get to 10 million, then you’re definitely going to be throwing money into AdWords at some stage. 

Zack
That’s what it seems. It seems like AdWords is a bit of a, you know, the, the big guys can throw it, throw massive budgets at it, so it seems like it’s, it’s a really competitive market. So I really like the idea of on the back end of ACDR, you know, play with retention first, reaching out to who we’ve already gotten, who we’ve already won over, and, you know, the trust is already there rather than dealing with new customers first. So that’s really good. 

Andy
Yeah, a hundred percent. 

Zack
Or the, the, the next one following on from that is marketing, you know, talking about AdWords, SEO. That’s not my forte. I’ve got no idea, you know, I’m a grade 10 dropout as well. So how do we keep these guys accountable when they all promise you the world? You know, how do you know when, when you’re getting banged for your buck? 

Andy
Yeah, you got to remember a lot of marketing guys, there’s some good ones and there’s some bad ones. There’s no two ways about it. And there’s ones that just sell ice to Eskimos and you never get any results and it’s poor. And there’s some good ones that you potentially can get results out of. The biggest challenge I see is a lot of the times the numbers and the reporting they give you are wrong. And we knew that because in everything we did marketing wise, we had 188 different phone numbers. So we had a phone number for every piece of marketing we did. So when someone would say something like, you brought in 100 leads.  We’d look and go, no, no, that was 70 leads. And they go, and then if you convert, what’s your conversion rate? We’ll say conversion rate. And they’d say, Oh, well that means you converted 70. And I go, no, no, out of your leads, cause they’re pretty poor leads. We only converted 40 and they go, Oh, and your average dollar sale is around 600. And we’ll go, yeah, but on these ones, our average dollar sale was 300. So we’d put the numbers all back cause we had it through our job management system set up like that. So they couldn’t lie to us. So depending on, you know, small business, big business, whatever marketing you’re doing, the only way you can truly track it, you can ask the customer, I’m telling you 50 percent of the time that to you, the wrong thing from what they did, but because we had the phone number, it actually comes through on our phone and it’ll tell us the piece of marketing that they range from, and we’d put that into our system. So we knew exactly what marketing was working at any given time. 

Ange
Which now means the connection is how have you set up your job management system so that we’ve captured really simple things at the beginning of that question of where did that customer find you and there’s a few other, you know, important aspects that needs to be captured at that point so that we’re capable of printing a report really quickly to see these numbers in marketing. We need to understand the return on investment. And so therefore everything needs to get tracked. 

Zack
So the best way is obviously you guys are doing really in depth testing and measuring and tracking, because that’s what we’re finding the reports. Now you’ve got 70 blah, blah, blah, ranking on Google. It’s like, yeah, but they don’t say it’s ranking it, you know, fourth, fifth and sixth page, you know? So that’s, um, yeah, that’s, that’s great advice. Lastly is, uh, how much cash would you guys have on hand at all times in like an emergency fund, you know, if, if it all sort of comes crashing down, basically, what would you guys have on hand for a rainy day? 

Ange
So general business advice across the board is three months of operating expenses. And I understand you can’t just immediately get that money, but when you know how much you on average of a year is your operating expenses, Then you just start building up a little kitty every single month, you know, you’re taking some of your profit and putting into a separate account, this little emergency fund account. So you’re setting up a separate bank account money that you won’t touch, even if you need to set that bank account up in a completely different bank so that you don’t even see it. And there’s just money constantly getting moved out a percentage of your revenue that’s coming through. Knowing full well that you’ll eventually have a goal to set it up for three months of operating expenses. And that way, when you know, looking at your profit and loss statements over time, that you have these peaks and troughs that happen throughout your year. So I know in Dr. Drip for instance, January was always our quietest month and our boys took holidays and so we had to float a fair bit of cash flow. So, therefore, we would, if we needed to, we knew that there was a cash fund to be able to kind of cover the costs of knowing that we’re paying for wages over that time. So, this is where that kind of little slush fund is really important so that you never have any cash flow issues. And to add to that, When you also know these peaks and troughs inside your business, you can actively do something about it. So in saying that January was one of our dips, like when you have a peak and then a trough. So January was a trough for us. It was low, a low month. We actually sat back and looked at our reports and said, well, why is that so? We need to challenge the status quo because every trade business generally has a bad month for January. So we said, well, why is that? Let’s challenge that. And we actively did strategies to ensure that we switch that over. And in the end, January turned into one of our normal months. It was never a bad month. And that’s what’s cool about reporting when you see this and now you can challenge it and actually put steps in place to fix it. 

Zack
So getting more on the front end of issues, you know, are going to arise. So would you guys then, cause you obviously got good habits with putting money aside for the emergency fund. Would you hit three months and then stop funneling it out? Or would you keep that going just to really plump it up? Or was there a point where you’d tap it and then keep the money in the business? Or? 

Andy
I think the biggest thing here is most tradies, when they get a little bit of extra cash, they go, Ooh, extra cash. And they go and buy some. Now sometimes that shit is good for your business. Sometimes that is tools and fun outside and I get that, but then when, when the sh*t does hit the fan or something doesn’t go right, they haven’t got any reserve. So I just think you’ve got to have that chunk of money there. I think once you get to that money where you’re feeling pretty comfortable, then that’s okay. And then after that, if you want to buy that jet ski, you know, buy new tools for the business or whatever, then that’s it. 

Ange
If you have a growth plan though, it’s good to know that you’ve got money now to invest back in the business, right? So it is important to constantly know that you’ve got profit coming out of the business and we’re funneling money elsewhere. So that you’re going to be able to look after the business, look after the boys, good money, you know, invest back into the business.

Zack
Yeah, perfect. 

Andy
So mate, we’re going to dive right  into some rapid fire questions, buddy. You’ve got about 10 seconds to answer these. Are you ready? 

Zack
Yep. Let’s do it. 

Ange
All right. First question, Zack, what’s one strategy you use to start your day right? 

Zack
Uh, number one would be, gym every morning, wake up early, start the gym, you know, doing that, make sure I go to bed early, make sure I’m eating right. You know, there’s a lot of follow on effects with doing that. So that’s number one. 

Andy
Mate. I love that. Seriously. Some of the best tradies I know start their day the right way. And the ones that don’t start the right way are the ones that are probably more stressed than the average guy. 

Ange
So movement and exercise. 

Andy
Get out there, get amongst and drink a lot of water as well. Eat well. Um, mate, what’s something that’s made you smile recently? 

Zack
My wife is, uh, is pregnant and we’ve gone through a bit of a battle for many years trying to have a baby and she’s, she’s finally pregnant. So that’s, um, that puts a big smile on my face. 

Ange
Oh my gosh. We’re so excited for you. It’s amazing. How many weeks are you? 

Zack
Uh, she’s nearly 11. So we haven’t hit the safety point, but she’s very, very sick. So it’s looking good, you know, in terms of nauseous.

Ange
The only time that you’re happy that she’s not great for her. 

Zack
But if she wakes up and she’s not morning sickness, it’s a, it’s a little stressful, but yeah, so we’re looking good.

Ange
Love that Zack. 

Andy
I love it mate. 

Ange
All right. Third question. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? 

Zack
Best piece of advice. Oh, that’s a hard one. There’s a lot of great information. Probably two bits. Someone once told me to join Lifestyle Tradie, that was a great bit of information. 

Andy
Thank you, mate.

Zack
And, and never quit. Keep going. Don’t stop. 

Andy
Yeah, 100%. I think you get that from your MMA  fighting, mate. You can’t, you can’t, you don’t want to be choked out, do you? So you just keep hanging on.  But that’s it, mate. That’s business, you know, where we’re all like heavy, every business owner’s like a heavyweight boxer. We cop hits all day long. We hit the canvas occasionally as well, but it’s just about getting up and keeping going. Hey, mate, I just want to say a really big thank you for being on The Tradie Show here today. You’re a superstar, mate. We loved every minute and loved having you on, on the podcast today.

Ange
We also love having you as a part of the Lifestyle Tradie community and sharing your journey. So we really wish you the continued success of your business. And we can’t wait to see you at our next member event in literally five weeks time. 

Zack
Thanks a lot, guys. I love being part of the community. So, looking forward to seeing you.

Andy
Good on you, buddy. We’ll chat with you soon. And I think we’re going to finish off with a big, hell yeah!  And we will catch up soon, everyone.

Subscribe to The Tradie Show, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.  Rate and write us a review or for more information about Lifestyle Tradie, head to lifestyletradie.com.au.