By Alexandra Cain
Efficient business processes and tradespeople are not always synonymous terms. But smart tradies are increasingly using the services of business coaches to help them improve productivity and maximise profits.
Andrew Pride of Smart-BIZ Consulting is one such coach. A former mechanic, Pride works with numerous 'chippies', 'sparkies' and 'fridgies' to help them improve their businesses.
Andrew Pride coaches helps his clients take a different look at their business practices.
Pride says when it comes to working with tradespeople, there are a number of standard stumbling blocks he has to overcome before he can start focusing on leveraging the business' potential.
“Tradies often think they know it all when it comes to their business and often don't want to investigate innovations," he says.
"They find it difficult to let go of old ways of doing things and they're often not good at managing people, which is usually because they've gone into a trade at 16 and received very little in the way of business management training.”
Pride's approach is to coach his clients “into becoming not what you would expect from a tradie, who typically turns up late and dirty, leaves a mess and bills more than you expect”.
One of Pride's star client's is Allan Gray, who owns two Ultratune franchises and is about to open a third. Since working with Pride, Gray has changed his focus from being the chief mechanic in the business to playing a solely operational role.
“I used to work six days a week, 7am to 6pm. Now, I have managers that run the business and an assistant who looks after the paperwork," Gray says.
"I realised if you work in the business, all you really have is a job. My main role now is to work on the business.”
Gray's main current focus is negotiating with the local council to open a new store in Sydney suburb Rouse Hill.
“With Allan it was about teaching him to trust people to help him run the business,” says Pride.
A key part of helping Gray move away from the day-to-day running of the company was developing a management system that articulates the processes staff have to use to operate the business.
Tradies often think they know it all when it comes to their business and often don't want to investigate innovations
“It's not a formal operations manual, but more like a series of checklists and active documents because tradies don't take well to reading a lengthy manual,” Pride says.
Another area of focus was helping Gray realise the importance of offering good staff a career path. This approach meant he was able to understand one of his former mechanic's goals was to run his own business.
Gray eventually sold one of his stores to the mechanic, which gave him an exit strategy from the business. It also meant he had a motivated, hard-working staff member prior to the sale.
Another of Pride's clients is Daniel Ovington, who runs airconditioning installer and repairer Ample Air. Pride has been able to help Ample Air target niche markets within the airconditioning industry, an approach few companies in the sector take.
“One of our areas of focus is energy efficient systems for architects, including installing multiple indoor units from a single outdoor unit,” says Ovington, explaining this is a specialty area not all airconditioning firms target.
Pride has also encouraged Ovington to specialise in anti-bacterial servicing of airconditioning units, another service he uses to differentiate Ample Air from the rest of the market.
“This line of business is important during times when we're not installing airconditioners,” Ovington says.
According to Pride, the key to providing useful business coaching to tradies is to implement improvements one-by-one and keep things simple.
“It's not about making a million bucks in six months, it's about achieving maximum productivity and performance in each key area of the business,” he says.
This includes things like rationalising the number of trips staff do to collect parts from wholesalers, making sure staff return to the business at a certain time each day so invoices are processed smoothly. It also means more efficient allocation of work so that teams closest to an upcoming job are allocated to it to reduce travel time and costs.
“It's all about doing things a bit differently, doing what you say you'll do and providing a good service to the customer,” Ovington says.