Eeek! … Working with Partners & Family Members a Challenge?

Andy
So whether you’re a tradie, a supportive partner, or a family member, listen up because we’re about to make your lives a whole lot easier. Let’s get into it.

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! 

Are you  ready  to take your trade business to the next level? Imagine transforming your business in just one day. At Lifestyle Tradie on Tour, we understand that being a great tradie isn’t just about the tools you use, it’s about the business you build. Join us for a power pack day where you’ll discover systems to set your business on autopilot, financial strategies to boost your bottom line, marketing tactics that fill your months, and much, much more. This isn’t just another business seminar. It’s a day of learning for real tradies ready to grow their business and improve their life. One day can change everything. Are you ready? Spaces are limited, so secure your spot today and join us at Lifestyle Tradie on Tour. It’s time to build the business and life that you deserve. 

Ange
Every partner or family member comes into a trade business differently. Sometimes it’s a wife joining her husband in a business he originally set up, or the other way around. 

Andy
Sometimes it’s siblings joining forces, or a daughter or son stepping in to take over the family business. 

Ange
We have lots of different business setups amongst Lifestyle Tradie members. Even a mom who’s come into her son’s plumbing business to work on the finances and they are a great team. So for Andy and I, he started Dr. Drip Plumbing while we were together. So let’s call that a family business. But it was really his baby because I was still working in my own career. 

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. I built the business for the first four years while you had your job in marketing, but you were always supporting me from the sidelines. There were many nights where we spent thrashing out the issues of the day and solving the world’s problems. 

Ange
Yes, I remember those nights well, I often didn’t get home until eight o’clock at night and you’d have dinner on the table ready to go. And we literally solved problems together over dinner. I was basically calling your consultant to brainstorm ideas and decide on next steps, which you then go into action. To be honest, it worked really well. 

Andy
Yes, it did. But after four years, I was super keen for you to come into the business full time. We had a team of five and things were getting really busy.

Ange
Yes. And I agreed to resign from my job and come into the business. But Let’s be honest, it only lasted for four months because of a few different reasons. I won’t go into detail, but we decided we weren’t ready for me to be in the business full time yet. 

Andy
And I suppose we need to talk about it, we hadn’t quite learned how to work together very well back then, right?

Ange
Yes. So if I went to find another job, our agreement was that I needed to take a job that was close to home with little travel so that I could be back at the table with dinner early, like six o’clock. So I took a job with Coca Cola Australia and that allowed me to be there to have table talk earlier. Then another year later, the team at Dr. Drip was getting really big. So I came back and I never left. 

Andy
What a great day that was for society. I just knew that once we ironed out a few things together, we were going to be an absolute powerhouse and I needed your brain to be working on Dr. Drip full time to make it even more incredible. And that is exactly what we did. 

Ange
Now, of course, it wasn’t all rainbows and roses from that day. 

Andy
No, it wasn’t.  

Ange
But working with your partners and family members can be challenging and we’ll get to that. But what we did discover was how important it was to work towards a common goal, to understand our roles in the business and set really clear expectations.

Andy
Absolutely. And I remember when we first started working together more closely, there were definite Clashes more than one, but one important thing we’d learn to do was separate home life from business life. And over time we definitely found our rhythm with this. 

Ange
Yeah. We’ve certainly learned plenty and thankfully have come out the other side somewhat unscathed.

Andy
I’ve got a few scars here and there, but you’d hope we’d get this down pat now we’ve been working together for over 20 years. 

Ange
I know, I love spending every day with you. 

Andy
Yeah, yeah, righto, righto. So we’re here today to share five ways you, a partner or family member can help boost your trade business. So guess what? Here we go. 

Ange
Okay. So number one is about being super clear about how much time you have and when you’re actually available to assist in the business. Let me share why this is crucial. You don’t want to end up in arguments because your partner or family member throws you more work than you can actually handle.

Andy
Exactly, and if you are fitting this in and around your current job, maybe you’re doing that work at night, and maybe it’s every night, maybe it’s even the weekends, and it’s around the children. 

Ange
Aha, yes. You can have all the good intentions in the world working from home around kids. But then the baby suddenly stops napping in the day or they get sick or go quiet. And by the time you’ve got up to investigate, they’ve actually destroyed the entire plastic cupboard in the kitchen and you’re left going, Oh, where did the day go? You actually have to be really realistic about the expectations. 

Andy
Yeah. And you also have to be very flexible in your approach too. Remember, not everyone works the same way. And I remember a husband and wife team that joined forces with the guy’s parents, and it didn’t really work out that well for them, but they had previously both had successful building companies, but they quickly realized they had very different ideas about who does what. And where the money should be spent and how many hours they should work in the office as well.

Ange
Oh dear. 

Andy
You know what? They’re all good now. They actually sold that business and realized for them that business and family should not mix. It saved their relationship by making that decision. Some people just aren’t meant to work together. 

Ange
Yes, that’s fair. So circling back to the topic, you need to be specific about how much time you have available and when. It’s important to have no blurred lines between you. 

Andy
Do you know the problem with not communicating the details? Well, it means each of you was simply deciding your own mind what they think the other meant when they said they were available to help. Time available to one person in the business might mean four hours a day at any time when I need you.

Ange
But, if you were a wife transitioning into the business, that four hours a week might only mean after five o’clock. 

Andy
And here is where the problem lies. 

Ange
Exactly. 

Andy
Like we said, in business, you’ve got to have no blurred lines. 

Ange
Well, I have another story for you that relates to this. I know this couple, Annie and Steve, they’ve got four kids under the age of 10 and a really busy pest control company. Annie wasn’t working because the youngest two were still babies, but she did manage their Airbnb property with bookings and all that kind of stuff. Now, I personally already think the Airbnb plus four young kids is a lot to manage, but she was being pressured by her husband to come into the business and manage the books.

Andy
I’m pretty sure I know where this story is going, Ange. 

Ange
Well, her previous career was a nurse, so doing the bookkeeping was not something she understood. And she had actually openly said that she didn’t love this kind of work. Not to mention it was just too hard for her to do consistently around the kids. Even when she did try to help at night and Steve would watch the kids. She was so knackered after a full day and literally couldn’t think straight. 

Andy
Destined for disaster. And not only are the chances for air are really high, but the expectation to stay on top of this work causes so much stress and arguments.

Ange
Exactly. So in the end, she decided to help her husband by outsourcing this work with a bookkeeper, and then she just managed them. 

Andy
That sounds like a better arrangement. 

Ange
Now we get the idea that sometimes when you first start your business, you might be absolutely bootstrapping it and perhaps have to do jobs that you don’t want to do just to get the business up and running.

Andy
But for longer term plans, you really need to take into consideration when your partner or family member can work in and around what they already do, you don’t want to overload them and have them resent you and also the business. 

Ange
Yes, and once you’ve figured out when you are available, it’s really crucial to set those boundaries.

Andy
And if you work with your life partner, you need to make sure both of you are on the same page about when work ends and personal time begins. Because this clarity prevents misunderstandings and ensures that work doesn’t take over your entire  life. 

Ange
Yes. You don’t switch off, right? We still have a rule to this day that we don’t talk shop at home unless both of us are actually okay about it. That literally means that if I’m excited to talk about something, when we get home, I actually have to say something like, Hey babe, are you okay to talk about work for a bit? 

Andy
And sometimes I’m just not in the mood. Maybe the footies on something’s happening, I’m like, no, I don’t. I just want to sit here and chill. It’s like my brain switched off from work mode and I don’t want to talk about business. So I can say something like, nah, let’s talk tomorrow at the office. Or, sure, but just for a bit because the foot is on. Or, yeah, what’s up? I’ll be happy to have a full convo about this stuff. 

Ange
That really has helped us keep some boundaries around work. For some people who work from home, they actually keep to talking about work at certain times. 

Andy
Members of ours, Jack and Stacey from JDY Electrical in Goulburn actually take their business conversations onto the back deck and that way they really keep their home for their family. 

Ange
I love that. 

Andy
Oh, so do I.

Ange
It would make those winter conversations pretty quick and punchy, right? 

Andy
What is it? It’s like minus two down there at the moment.

Ange
Who wants to stand outside in the freezing cold to have a work conversation?

Andy
Exactly. Okay. Number two of how your partner or family member can help boost your trade business. Leverage your strengths, you know, take on tasks that align with what you’re good at and what we call your genius zone. I mean, maybe you have a marketing background, so taking on the marketing for the business seems natural. This not only makes use of your skills, but also brings a fresh perspective to the business.

Ange
Yes, this was me. I came in with experience managing multi-million dollar budgets in the corporate world. So it was a natural fit for me to take that over. Even though you were quite good at promoting the business and hustling to get work, you actually couldn’t do everything. 

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. And the business had started to grow so much at that stage, I needed you to take over so I could focus on scaling. And it wasn’t without its challenges though, was it? We argued over a stupid thing like a newspaper ad you put in and I’d have to admit, I was a control freak.  And I had trouble letting go. 

Ange
A bit of trouble? 

Andy
Yeah, a lot. 

Ange
I thought it’s a lot. 

Andy
Yeah, definitely a lot. And you know what, tradies are no strangers to being control freaks. I would say most trade business owners are control freaks.

Ange
Well, I suppose it needs to be said that as a partner or family member coming into the business, it might not all be smooth sailing from the beginning. The reality is the business might be like our plumbing business, Dr. Drip. It was affectionately known as Andy’s baby. Maybe you can relate to that. You may have started your business alone from scratch and you called all the shots with everything until your partner or your family member came along.

Andy
Yeah. On reflection, there’s a great deal of your own personal identity and ego wrapped up in the business. So it’s hard to allow someone else to come in and call all the shots, even when that’s exactly what you want. You know, I think it is important for both of you to be patient and not take things personally.

Ange
Be especially kind to each other as you adjust to this new dynamic in the business and in life. It’s actually a really big change and it requires understanding and empathy from all sides. 

Andy
And that’s why it’s really important to have regular management meetings each week with a set time and duration. So let’s say it’s a Tuesday morning between 8 and 9am or whatever time suits you. 

Ange
Yes. And during these meetings agree on what needs to happen. So for example, if you’ve met your customer journey and identified where you fall short, you can prioritize the marketing materials perhaps required and get to work.

Andy
And it’s not just about assigning tasks. It’s also about tracking your progress within the business. And you can check back in at each meeting or daily if needed to discuss any challenges or get some opinions as well. And this keeps both of you accountable and ensures that tasks are moving forward.

Ange
Yeah. So regular check-ins also help to keep communication lines open and address any issues before they become major problems. It’s about creating a system where both of you can contribute effectively and feel value during work hours and not out of them. 

Andy
Remember, leveraging each other’s strengths can turn your business into a well-oiled machine. It’s all about finding the right balance and making sure that both partners or family members feel supported and also appreciated. 

Ange
Absolutely, it’s a team effort and recognizing and utilizing each other’s strengths can make all the difference in the success of your business. Okay. Let’s talk about number three of how your partner or family member can help boost your trade business. This is all about addressing your partner’s weaknesses. 

Andy
Wow. That sounds like a super fun conversation. 

Ange
Well, it might be the elephant in the room, but it is important. It’s not about calling someone out and saying, Oh my God, you’re so crap at that or this, this is actually a professional conversation. And it starts with recognizing that there are two sides to every business, the work on the tools and the work in the office, and one cannot function without the other.

Andy
Yeah. Let’s say your business is in a startup phase and you as the tradie, you’re working hard on the tools, but you’re not that great on admin and let’s face it, it’s a bit of a weakness. So the new person coming into the business, whether that be your wife, husband or other family member or business partner could potentially take over this role.

Ange
Even if the new person doesn’t have a background in administration and finance, if they are meticulous with detail and a can-do attitude, this could be an excellent fit. 

Andy
But let’s be super clear here. As a business owner, understanding the financial data is non negotiable. You’ve got to remember you’re not just a tradie on the tools, you’re a business owner.

Ange
Yes. We’re not saying just hand over all your finances and never look at them again, but if it’s not your favorite job and it’s slowing you down, then it does make sense to delegate it. 

Andy
And when we’re talking about addressing weaknesses, it’s about creating a balanced dynamic where both partners can excel in their respective strengths while supporting each other’s weaknesses. This means being honest about what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at.

Ange
Or what you enjoy doing versus what you hate doing. So, for example, you might be amazing at managing the team and keeping the workflow efficient, but when it comes to marketing, you might feel out of your depth and actually overwhelmed. And that’s where your partner can step in if that’s their strength. 

Andy
It’s also important to recognize and respect different learning styles. You know, some people might be quick learners and can pick up new skills on the fly, while others might need more time and structured learning. Be patient. Be supportive of each other in this learning process.

Ange
And remember, it’s about helping each other excel in your genius zone. So if your partner is naturally good at organizing and planning, then let them handle project management. And if they have a knack for communication, they could be great at handling client relationships and dealing with the team.

Andy
Having these conversations early can help set the stage for a more productive and harmonious working relationship. You’re not just splitting tasks randomly. You’re playing to each other’s strengths and covering for each other’s weaknesses. 

Ange
It’s also a good idea to constantly check in and adjust roles as you need to. So as a business grows and evolves, so too might your roles and responsibilities. So the point here, I guess, is to stay flexible and open to change. 

Andy
And you know, what’s really important here is to celebrate each other’s successes as well. When your partner excels in a task or learns a new school that benefits the business, acknowledge it. Positive reinforcement goes a long way in maintaining motivation and morale. 

Ange
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. Nothing like an internal business cheer squad, right? So working together and leveraging each other’s genius zones, we can create a way more robust and successful business. This is all about teamwork and mutual support.

Andy
So to ram these points home, addressing weaknesses isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about creating a balanced team where each person can thrive in their role. By recognizing and respecting each other’s strengths and learning styles, you set the foundation for a strong collaborative business partnership.

Ange
Exactly. It’s about building a business where both partners feel valued and can contribute in meaningful ways. The reality is you’re not just growing your business. You’re also strengthening your relationship and creating a more fulfilling work environment. 

Andy
Okay. Time for number four on how a partner or family member can help you become a dynamic duo. This is about managing communication effectively, but in this instance, I want to talk specifically about answering the phone. 

Ange
Everyone wants to talk to the business owner, but as the business grows, it becomes more difficult to answer the phone and be present on the job. This is especially true for maintenance based businesses where the volume of phone calls is really high. So once upon a time, you could get away with letting a call go to voicemail, but you cannot do this anymore. 

Andy
Yeah, agreed. Customers are super impatient and have high expectations. If you don’t answer, they simply call the next tradie, especially as you mentioned the maintenance based trade. 

Ange
So helping the business owner stay focused on the job without getting sidetracked by phone calls is crucial. But when you know you don’t want to miss a call, what are you best to do? 

Andy
Well, in the early days, I was clearly the one answering the phones, dealing with customers and organizing the jobs. As the business grew with a bigger team and more jobs each week, I simply couldn’t continue to do both. Although answering the phone is in a really important role. I was not the best person for this job anymore. So the office manager took my mobile away from me and it was a really good number. I have to admit.  At first I really hated it. And you know what? No customers, even the ones I liked could call me directly anymore. And we had to  re-educate our team and my friends with my new number, but we could be very selective. It was actually a real clever step. I ended up with way less calls in a day and the office team were dealing with the customers like they should have been. 

Ange
Well, you know what? It seems simple, but I know how attached you were to that number. It was so much better when you weren’t answering the phones and as a tradie, you actually knew too much to be honest, and hence spent way too much time on the phone to the customers. What was important was developing our call converter, this nine steps in order of how to answer a phone with scripts for anyone to manage this task like an absolute boss. 

Andy
Yeah, it’s important whoever is answering that phone is meticulous with sticking to the scripts we have developed so that they are really clear about handling calls more efficiently.

Ange
Yeah. We learned through trial and error that you don’t need a tradie with knowledge to answer the phone. And in fact, it’s better if you don’t. We simply needed to create these seamless flows where we’re helping the customer make one simple decision, which is to agree to us coming onto their property.

Andy
Yes. So agreeing between you and your partner, who is the best to take responsibility for the incoming phone calls, specifically thinking about how many you receive in a day will help streamline the business and enhance customer satisfaction. It’s all about teamwork and ensuring that every part of the business runs smoothly.

Ange
Agreed. All great stuff. So let’s move on to number five of how a partner or family member can help boost your trade business. And this one is all about taking over managing social media marketing. 

Andy
This is an important part of business today, especially for tradies. It often gets overlooked because tradies are completely overwhelmed by it. They don’t have time for it. They don’t see the return on investment. All they think is that because they have so much work, they don’t need it. But basically they put it in the too hard basket. 

Ange
Well, the thing is you’ve got to remember you need to create a steady flow of new leads to your business all the time and help convert them to contacting you and having a presence on social media is a great way to do just that. 

Andy
Well, your customers, regardless of what market segment they are in, are only human. And that means they are present on social media. 

Ange
Yes. But the thing to remember is you need to build trust with the prospect before they make contact with your business at the buying decision point where they’re doing research about who to choose. And how do you do that through being relevant and regular with your social media presence. 

Andy
It’s not just about posting randomly. It’s about creating a consistent presence that engages your audience and builds your reputation. 

Ange
And you know what? There are plenty of tools available to help manage and design and schedule your social media, making it easier to stay organized and consistent. There are tools like Canva that are gold to design your posts and then there are products like Metrical or Hootsuite, Buffer and even a CRM like Kabooyaa can help you schedule posts months in advance. 

Andy
And this is a great task to allocate to your partner or family member to help your business attract a steady flow of work and keep you top of mind with potential and current customers.

Ange
Yes. So social media might seem daunting at first, but with the right approach and tools, it can become a powerful part of your marketing strategy. 

Andy
So just to recap, that’s five great ways partners and family members can effectively transition into the business and contribute to its success. It’s important to work together. So be open with the communication at all times and agree on long term plans. Together you will be a force to be reckoned with.  

Ange
It’s Tradie Dilemma time. This is our Q&A segment where you let us know what you’re having trouble with within your business and we give you our best advice. 

Andy
And today we have a question for Ben and Lisa in New South Wales and they write, Hey, Andy and Ange, we’ve been running our plumbing business for three years. And we constantly struggle with cash flow. It seems like there’s never enough money to cover our expenses, especially during the slower months we’ve tried budgeting, but nothing seems to work. How can we better manage our cash flow and ensure we have enough to keep the business running smoothly? 

Ange
Ooh, great question, Ben and Lisa. I would say there are plenty of trade business owners in the exact same position as you. 

Andy
Yeah, definitely, there is. And I think one of the biggest ones is cash flow management. And that all comes down to making sure your money comes in fast and your money goes out slower. But the thing to point out here is it comes down to your market segments. Who do you actually work for? Because you have different customers out there. Say you’ve got a residential where you could collect money on the spot. You have real estate and strata or builders that pay in 30 days or 60 days, or some don’t even pay at all. And these are all the things that are contributing to your cash flow issues. The main thing I want to point out though. Most people that have cash flow issues, they’re not actually even charging enough. And I’ve had a chat with a person that was working for a builder recently. And he said, I do all the builders’ work and I’m going, okay. And he goes, I pay me 30 to 60 days and I go, okay. And he goes, but I just never seem to have much money. I seem to be going backwards. And I said, well, are you making money on each job? And he goes, well, what do you mean? He goes, well, when I quote the job, yeah, there’s money there. I reckon I’m going to make a profit. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Are you making money on that job? Do you count every single hour you put into that job? And then all of the materials you used on that job. So at the end, you can actually see if you made profit or not. And he goes, well, no. And I said, well, how do you know you didn’t quote for 200 hours of work, but then it took you 250 hours of work. And he goes, well, I’m pretty confident that we get our work knocked over fast. And I said, yeah, you are. But what about when the builder calls you there and the job’s not ready? What about when the builders are dragging the chain? What about when your guys are on the ghost flow? He goes, Ooh, I haven’t talked about this. So there’s so many different ways of managing your cash flow. But a lot of the time it comes to me, a lot of tradies that don’t have good cash flow, don’t understand their finances properly, and this is one of the most common problems. 

Ange
Yes, I will add, you can be a profitable trade business and still have major cash flow issues. So if you’re not actually watching this flow of money in and out, Where your terms and conditions are really tight and you have a seamless flow of a job and every single one of your tradies are doing the same thing every single time and you’re watching the time spent on every job. I think this is where tradies go wrong a lot if they don’t watch time. It’s really easy to watch materials because it’s tactile. You know, you can touch and feel a lot of this stuff. But they can’t see time. So therefore they just spend too much time on each job. So I would say we need to just be quite consistent around watching this flow of money in and out so that we can actually see the rhythm so that we can get better at managing it.

Andy
And you know, what’s really interesting is a lot of people don’t invoice on time. Like I was chatting to a guy the other day, 346  invoices he still hadn’t done. Now we’re talking about a big business doing, you know, 10 mil or whatever, but 346 invoices  that were over 30 days overdue. And he said to me, Hey, Andy, I’ve got a bit of a problem with cash flow. No freaking way,  dude. Why would that be? Oh, f**king hell. Like seriously, people. You’ve got to invoice your money. You can’t go to McDonald’s and buy a Big Mac and pay a month later. Come on, get with the program team. You’ve got to invoice as fast as you possibly can and get that money in the door as fast as you can.

Ange
When a lot of trade business owners have issues with cash flow inside their business, there are multiple different issues that it could actually relate to. So it is really important to get a really good handle on the financial situation inside your business and watch the numbers really closely because you need to learn this money in and money out and what’s actually happening inside your business with the different kinds of market segments that you work with. Because when you know this with certainty, then we can start making some decisions about how to fix this quickly. 

Andy
The answer is right in front of your face. Understand your finances, look at your money coming in and out and check to make sure your jobs are profitable. Hope that helps Ben and Lisa. If you have a dilemma that you’d like to address, please send them in. We love hearing from you and helping you navigate the challenges of running a trade business. DM us on socials or send us a message via the contact form on our website, lifestyletradie.com.au. 

Ange
We’re all in this together and sharing these experiences can help everyone improve and succeed. See you next week, crew.

Andy
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.