Tony skinner
Hi, and welcome to the podcast channel, podcast my business and content made easy. And today we have Greg from admins the answer .com. au. How are you Greg?
Greg
Good afternoon, Tony. Very well. Thank you. 
Tony skinner
Awesome. We were touching on that big topic, which we’re not going to talk about.
Tony skinner
But beyond you know what, you’re in Queensland, so you’re not locked down. I’m in Sydney and I feel now that things are going to improve and we are through the hard, tough stage now we just have the recovery and move on stage.
Tony skinner
And talking about that, you do admin for tradies? Correct? And, yeah, what is talking about how restrictions impact your business as well. But what I’m thinking is that that’s an opportunity. Because of course, once things start normalizing tradies they get busier again, they’re going to need you even more once things return, and they get bombarded with work.
Greg
Yes. And history will show when we’ve come out of lockdowns previously that our clients do get bombarded. Partly because the kids are now at home destroying the house. Some of our handyman clients are just getting smashed with Can you come and repair this wall and fix this broken window.
Greg
And at the end of the day, houses and properties get older every day, regardless of what the big C is dealing with us. So work continues and adjust it does it builds up? And then we add we get smashed when the guys are allowed to venture outside their front door again.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. So what what are the things that you do and one of the benefits of outsourcing
Greg
In general, and we could talk an hour for specifics of what we do. But in general, we look after what we collectively call the noise of a tradies business and that that is all their admin. So we go as far as taking and receiving their customer calls, help send out all their quotes for them, follow up quotes that haven’t been responded to, because that’s money sitting there potentially on the table waiting to be realized, will send out all their invoices chase those slack customers who are a bit slow in pain.
Greg
We update we keep all of this on, on programmed internet, job management systems well even schedule, all the work for them schedule site visits, all of the admin tasks that a tradies business must get right to be successful. But perhaps if they are tradies, if they’re tradies, like me, having own my own tradie business, previously, they weren’t overly keen on getting all our admin done after being on the tools for, you know, 8 10 hours a day. And partly, that’s why it gets left to you know, it’s a secondary priority. And I get it, I get it.
Tony skinner
So is that the noise of being in a tradie and being a tradesman? That you?
Greg
Yeah I used to call it the noise in my business, you’d get home and you’d just be knackered after being up and down ladders all day or doing whatever you were doing. And, and the computer is at your dining room table covered in papers screaming at you going come on. Mrs. Brown wants that quiet. You promised it yesterday. And that’s the noise I referred to. And you just got to peel yourself off that lounge and go and get that admin done.
Tony skinner
Well, isn’t that your partner’s job? Surely
it was, for the last two years of my trades business. I like many of my colleagues dragged my wife into the office unpaid saying I can’t do this anymore. Can you please help me out? It helped. It wasn’t the right way to run my business. And it wasn’t.
Greg
At the end of the day, the profit and loss should show that I had an employee. She did it because she saw me suffering. Somewhat. Regrettably she joined. But she enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the right way to do it. And the training that she had to do, just on a job management system took us an innate amount of time.
Greg
I would have rather just find someone like me and my business and you know, tick it off on a Monday morning and get stuck into it.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. And I guess what I’m curious about is how it works and what are the the main or key activities that you guys take care of
Greg
Yeah, so we, all my staff work from home. So they’re all all remote. And it doesn’t matter if we’re and they’re all Australian staff. There are services like this that you can find in other countries throughout the world. But I’m extremely passionate, proud Ozzy and proud to say that my whole business is in Australia.
Greg
And, and that’s my intention for the life of this company. So all my staff work from home, they all have mobile phones, they all have access to my clients, emails, they have access, obviously to the job management system. And it’s effectively their job to keep the jobs of our clients better plumber, Sparky, landscaper, window washer, we don’t care what trade the clients in. Yeah, just to keep them organized.
Greg
The overall goal is to keep that noise to a minimum. And the biggest gain is, well, there’s two big gains that our clients see. One is they don’t have to worry about the noise anymore. That’s being managed. And many of our clients then get to build their time out more per day. So we call that billable hours, Tony, a tradie, he’s got a certain window of daylight that they’re available, or they can maximize their billable hours. And they will not maximize it if they’re on the phone all day or in front of the computer.
Greg
So we get them out there. For the maximum time. If there’s an eight hour window, we’ll go and earn eight hours worth of pay. And then by the way, when you get home, there’s no admin to do either.
Tony skinner
Yeah. So do the clients of the trainees notice the difference as well?
Greg
Oh, we’re on first name basis with them, or my staff are anyway. And often. Often, we get the our clients customers. So the end customer be that residential customer, calling my team directly? Because with the greatest respect to the trainee will answer the phone.
Greg
A Tradie he won’t always answer the phone. And I get that the phone always rings when you’re halfway up a letter. So we’re likely to have an answer or to sort out a problem or a concern or a question for that customer on behalf of the tradie. And so the customers start saving out number into their phone, not necessarily the tradies number. So they get they just get a bit of service.
Tony skinner
Excellent. And of course, that’s something that let’s face it. tradies are not famous for,
Greg
you know, are famous for the opposite, aren’t they? But yeah, the poor buggers. It’s not because they’re not working hard. And it’s not because they don’t want to talk to their customers. It’s just that at times when customers call in the middle of the day, that’s their working time. So let us take the call and you just keep working. Absolutely.
Tony skinner
Okay, so what are some good, I guess some good case studies and examples that you’ve helped traders with,
Greg
I finished a case study off just yesterday of a client that I traveled to Sydney a few months back and sat down with one particular client. We had a good old chinwag about his business. And he was talking about reducing his right to improve these, quote conversion, and he’s just talking things he shouldn’t have been talking about.
Greg
And we had a good old chat. I did some financial analysis on his business just yesterday. And had he made the changes that he discussed with me on that day, he’d be worse off today, around $4,000. This is a sole trader working on his own, that’s a significant amount of money for an hour over a coffee in a McDonald’s shop meeting with me and just having a good old chat about business.
Greg
So four grand if I could put four grand in everyone’s pocket each quarter. There’s a case study worth celebrating from the top of a mountain.
Tony skinner
Yeah. Okay, so what are some tips for a tradie? That’s, you know, working on their own. Just out there so cipe are nice and puppies out on the road, just working, getting in the money and getting a bit overwhelmed about customer service. How can I be a bit more organized? Yep, thanks for that Greg.
Tony skinner
So what would be one tip that you would recommend that a tradie you should focus on To make their business a bit more efficient,
Greg
The biggest tip I have for everyone tiny is customer service. So when you think you’ve got your customer service nailed, go and review your customer service, because there’s always more you can do, whether that’s rewarding referrals, whether that’s following up on old clients. And if they’re still happy with that work that you’ve done, leaving a gift on announced, it’s only open to your imagination.
Greg
But people talk to people. And every trainee I talk to tells me that their most reliable source of work is word of mouth. So my very next question is, well, what are you doing to find your next word of mouth customer? And it is all about customer service.
Tony skinner
Yeah, that’s so true. That’s my tip for the day. And we started off talking about the big C that we’ve got happening at the moment. But what I like about your company is that you are very generous in offering support to beyondblue.
Greg
Yeah, I, we linked with beyondblue. many months ago, now, there’s some stats, there’s some stats out there, Tony, that just raised the hair on the back of my neck. For example, a tradie is six times more likely to take his own life than then it being taken through a work accident. And bugging me that should be on the news every single night and every morning.
Greg
So I we’re not the biggest company in the world. But I wanted to do my bit, we donate 100 bucks to beyondblue every time a new client starts with us. So we’re a registered donation avenue for beyondblue. Now, and I just had pleasure throwing 100 bucks there way every time a new client started to stay a little way to recognize the work that they do and help out. People will never make. But that’s all part about being part of a charity.
Tony skinner
Yeah, and I think that’s so important, again, where we’re at the moment and I just say all the traders out there, look, jump on to admins, the answer.com.au and just register find out more about it because one thing’s for sure. When in a few months time we start putting this more and more behind us and lockdowns will become a thing of the past. You’re going to get are going to use a trade you’re going to get hammered. And so you need Greg and his guys to help you win that have Yeah,
Greg
we’ve got we’ve got a number of new clients that we’re talking to right now that have taken it upon themselves to get ready. Because they know they’ve got a bit of bit of business acumen sitting up in that brain of theirs. And they know they’re going to get smashed, so they’ll not have time to talk to me then.
Greg
So best they sort themselves out now. We’re working with about half a dozen of them right now to get them ready for that, for that onslaught. And basically, to make them a bit of business ongoing after that as well.
Tony skinner
Right But thanks very much for that.
Greg
Pleasure, Tony.
