3 THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN DECEMBER

IF YOU DON’T PREPARE…

Want to learn how the Tradies Success Academy can help you optimise your trade or construction business for profit, growth, and time freedom?

We want to create an environment for you to thrive in your business, if you're noticing that you're burning out in December, lots of mistakes, lots of sick days, a lack of billable hours, annual leave, public holidays then it's not too late to make a change. You can make sure that this is the last year of chaos for you, your business and your family.

We've helped our members set themselves up and now we've unlocked a session for you too. Get access to it here and kick of 2024 with a BANG 💥

Podcast Transcript

Greg Allan

Hey, my friends, welcome to the Tradie Success podcast.

In this episode, we're gonna talk about three things that happened to me in my trade business every year and I had no idea why. And I'm gonna share those with you today. December comes, there's pressure comes on from clients, from staff, from every angle from family and you don't really realise the mess and the pressure that's happening and, and that you actually do have control over some of these things. But it starts with creating the awareness first and then strategising to get out of it.

One of the biggest things that I remember is the extra workload and you guys been in business for a couple of years would know this. It just gets super pressurised because you've got clients with deadlines, you get extra enquiries because other trade businesses are failing to get out there because of their business.

So there's two things that happen here. First of all, because of the rush environment, the work quality drops, work quality drops, people are rushing, they're leaving tools behind. I remember there was mistakes happening.

There was everything was happening because of this rushy environment. The fight of flight response is in and a lot of pressure is on the team to get stuff done. And then all of that pressure flows back to you as the business owner.

And because that pressure's on you as a business owner, then you start becoming rushy, you start being reactive to everything that's happening and you lose control of the situation. And that's definitely what I went through. And the thing about this is understanding that this is a thing allows you to prepare early for it, which a lot of the academy of members have done. They're prepared.

Back in October, we started preparing for December to be ready for December to start and you have capacity to be able to wear the load.Because by wearing the load, you, you've actually got capacity to to be available, you actually pick up on those opportunities that where everyone else is dropping the ball. So that is a huge lesson that I learned.

And now we use at my company and we teach in the academy for people to be able to prepare structure the business in a certain way, in preparation for this influx of workflow and pressure, which can happen throughout the year. And it's just being mindful and aware of that. So that was one of the biggest things and then long-term that leads to burnout.

And I've talked to so many business owners over the years where because of this pressure and because of the long hours and you know, working seven days a week and not getting a break in this period, they get to the end of the year and they're burnt out, staff are burnt out, you know, and everyone is feeling the pressure and the load that they're wearing through that busy period.

Usually relationships breakdown in this period, whether it's with family and with staff if you fall victim to this situation. So December is coming, just want you to be aware that this is something that definitely happens. Now, in terms of the burnout situation, at least to point number two, which is your, which leads to point number two, which is that your resources become inefficient, they become inefficient in, in a couple of different ways. First of all, you get a lot more non-billable time out, trying to get materials rushing to jobs, leaving tools behind like I mentioned earlier.

But the big one that's gonna hit you is because staff get overwhelmed and overloaded. They tend to take sick days, especially when you need the most to be at work and guess who that load lands back on. It's you, the business owner and the rest of the team wears that. So that might happen early in December. And then what happens is everyone else for the next week wears that extra load.

So they're doing even more work and then they're burnt out by the end of the week if you've got a bigger team and then you might get two people call in sick. These sick days are a result of this overcapacity You're doing too much and you're not able to handle the workload that's coming in. And obviously, when all of these mistakes are happening, the rustiness is happening and there's people taking sick days throughout December and annual leave.

That's another thing that affects your efficiency across the board. You can't get the amount of hours you need to substitute the low levels of,, billable days that are available in your month in December because of all of the public holidays. And because a lot of businesses shut down, you don't have as many billable days and that's why you might feel like why do I never make profit?

Why am I always struggling to make what I normally make throughout the year where it usually comes down to you? There's not as many billable days, more holidays, more sick leave and total. When you look at the billable unbid efficiency calculator that we teach in the academy, you will see very clearly that that's the reason you're not able to make profit.

Now, there are strategies around that. It's a bigger story, but I just wanted you to know that that's the thing that happens. So you can start to think about it. The third thing was the amount of opportunities I missed out on because of this business because of the December period, there's a huge amount of opportunity that's available to you as a business owner when you set yourself upright.

Like I said, we started preparing in October in the academy in our foreign fighters program to be prepared for this because we wanna capture all of the opportunity when everyone else is failing and we wanna be able to be there available and pick up on this opportunity and win new clients and wing more work as a result, which will then buffer the low billable hours, low billable days and actually help really stimulate growth throughout the year.

The other thing that happens is there's a huge strategic opportunity for you to re reflecting and planning into the New Year through December.

But if you are that overwhelmed, you can't even think about anything other than getting out and getting the jobs done because of the pressure from clients and the staff calling in sick and all of these situations that happen, then there's no planning and reflection really happens. By the time you're burnt out and you're into Christmas and you start the New Year, you've only just got your energy back. So we really want to create an environment where you, as the business owner has the time to reflect.

Look at the opportunities we've got and prepare for January, which is just a Stonker of a month where you get back to work and you're ready and refreshed but there's no work. What should you do about that? And it's actually a result of everything that happened in December. So huge amount of takings, it took me like eight or nine years to figure this out. Like I lots of reflection, lots of analysis because you don't get a chance to do it every month.

And I think that's the power of co collective knowledge is that you actually have lots of data points to help make what's the best decision and all the moves that you can make. So I just want to encourage you guys to think about that and, and if you want to know how to prepare for December and January, we've got a free training for you that you can check out.

It's a snippet from one of our most powerful sessions leading up to December and January. So click on the link in the show notes, click the link in the post that you're looking at now and you'll be able to go and check out the highlights of that, which is gonna be definitely going deeper into what we've talked about today. Now, if you want to know how to prepare and be a part of our community and doing that, well, reach out to us, go to our website, looking forward to getting you in the program smashing 2024 and I can't wait to see you then.