That is an excerpt from “Six Determine Tradesman: 10 Steps to Making $100,000 in Your First 12 months as a Skilled Tradesman” by Elysia and Andrew Gloudeman. The e-book describes life as a self-employed tradesman (or tradeswoman), together with cautionary tales and a 10-step map on what to do.

The Energy in Replying

One thing we hear a LOT, and one of many issues that makes us stand out amongst our rivals, is the truth that we at all times reply. One of many greatest complaints we hear from prospects that employed somebody earlier than they employed us is that the particular person earlier than us was both unresponsive or unreliable.

We all know how it’s to be busy.

We’re constantly turning away work.

Nonetheless, even when we’re booked a month out, if somebody takes their time to go away us a voicemail, ship us an e mail, or textual content us asking for work, we at all times do them the courtesy of responding with our lead time. The few seconds or minutes that it takes will repay in the long term. We can’t rely the variety of instances that somebody has reached out to us for work and we haven’t been accessible within the timeframe they wanted us, however as a result of we handled that particular person with care and responded to them with our “unavailability,” they reached out to rent us for work on a future job.

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How are you going to do that and handle your time when you have already got a full day of labor? Listed below are some steps to make this simpler:

• Give your self a schedule: We advocate at all times responding to prospects inside 24 hours or on the identical day. Don’t plan on responding throughout your workday while you’re with different prospects. As an alternative, end your work for the day and depart your buyer responses till the top of your day when your head is evident and you’ll focus. It’ll take much less time if you are able to do all of the responding without delay as an alternative of stopping in the midst of your day to answer prospects one by one. Most individuals don’t even count on to listen to again inside 24 hours, so that you’ll possible be forward of the sport should you can meet this timeframe.
• Set expectations: Don’t over promise your self. If you happen to really don’t have availability when the client desires you, inform them. This may reveal to your prospects that you’re in demand, they usually might even wait to your companies. It’s so significantly better to say “no” than to overpromise and overextend your self. You may solely final so lengthy if you’re continually overbooking your schedule and dealing lengthy days. You’ll inevitably burn out should you do that and your prospects will get fed up with you overpromising and beneath delivering.
• Don’t provide a quote or estimate earlier than you’ve mentioned a timeline: We advocate not offering a quote till you’ve confirmed along with your buyer that they’re OK ready till your soonest appointment. This (nearly) ensures that you just gained’t waste as a lot time quoting jobs that gained’t come to fruition.

Probably the most essential components of managing your busy enterprise will likely be retaining to a response schedule. As talked about above, a 24-hour response window is good. It provides you with loads of time to do your bodily labor throughout the workday however remains to be a decent sufficient window that the majority prospects gained’t have discovered one other contractor already. Buyer care is without doubt one of the most essential elements in with the ability to keep a 6-figure enterprise, so following these pointers will make your life simpler and your prospects happier.

“Six Determine Tradesman: 10 Steps to Making $100,000 in Your First 12 months as a Skilled Tradesman” is accessible on Amazon.

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