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The Journey Of Tom & John – A Carpenter & A Landscaper

The Journey of John The Carpenter

Meet John. John is a carpenter who has been working for someone else for 10 years now.

In fact John started his apprenticeship with this company and has never worked for anyone else in the last 10 years.

One day john decides that it is time that he goes out on his own. It makes more sense to be working the hours he wants and earning all the money for himself rather than making all of the money for his boss.

So, he starts gathering some clients on the side and getting himself out into the public advertising space more.

Eventually he has built up enough of a reputation to give himself the confidence to go out on his own. He plucks up the courage and let’s his boss know that he is grateful but he is going to do it on his own and see how he goes.

It’s all going well for a while. John has a steady stream of clients due to word-of-mouth referrals and he is happy making enough money to scrape by.

One day John has an idea to grow and scale so that he can make more money rather than just his wage. So, he invests in some marketing.

Low and behold John now has lots of enquiries and is doing quotes after hours and weekends.

Then some of the quotes John was doing get accepted and he now has more work than he can handle.

So, John places an add for some help and takes the first person who responds to his add. Not even sure if the person would fit the company vision, mission, and culture but he needed someone to help get through all the work he had created.

Not long into the work John realises that he may have hired the wrong person and now he is working long hours trying to fix all the mistakes his new employee has made, still quoting after hours because he can’t leave the employee on his own and also now doing all the bookwork after hours.

In the meantime, John’s partner has just had a baby and is now a full time stay at home Mum. She is desperate to help john, so she offers to do the books.

Now John has more quotes being accepted and deposits being paid because his partner is chasing up the quotes and following the sales process.

Now John advertises for more staff and hires the next person that comes through the door as he just needs to get through the work and keep people happy rather than letting them down.

John quickly realises that he has made the same rooky error as last time and has someone who is incapable of being left unsupervised and is making mistakes left right and centre.

So now john is busy rectifying his two employee’s mistakes and not making money on himself or being able to get through the current workload to stay on track with the timeline.

In fact, this keeps continuing as John feels that if gets more revenue in his money woes will disappear.

Now his partner has had another child and the financial burden is really starting to hurt them both and they are both at their wits end. The business is driving them apart and they both have no idea how to fix it or what to do next.

They are in debt up to their eyeballs with the Taxation department and struggling to keep up with their super requirements for all their staff.

John has no idea what to do next. In fact he thinks he would be better off working for someone else. But he can’t because he simply won’t make the money back to pay off his debt.

The Journey Of Tom The Landscaper

Meet Tom. Tom has decided after many years of working with someone that it is time for him to go out on his own and start his own landscaping business.

Tom realises that he has no idea how to run the back end of his business. So as soon as he is out on his own, he invests in a business coaching program.

He works with his coach every week and follows the step-by-step plan that they have created together.

Tom is always looking to replace himself at every stage of his business in the day-to-day operations. He is always looking for people that are better than him and fit in with the businesses Vision, Mission, and culture.

When Tom finds this person and inducts them then he looks to bring on more work. Tom is always across his numbers as he has time to work on the business and has certain KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to hit before he buys new equipment, hires someone new or brings his partner into the business.

After 16 months in operation Tom has increased his team to 5. Has enough tools and equipment to run two teams and has $250K in spare revenue in his bank account and chooses when he works on the tools of his business.

What was the difference?

John operated from a scarcity perspective from the start and thought that he had to do it all himself so that he would make money. He was scared to invest in his business from the beginning to help him with the areas that he didn’t know how to do.

Tom on the other hand new his strengths and weaknesses from the start and was always looking for someone that could help him to strengthen his weaknesses so that he could stay in an abundance mindset. He grew the business by slowing down to speed up.

Morale Of The Story?

The morale of the story is this. When you learn a trade most of the time you will not be taught how to run a business. Not investing in the learning how to run a business in the beginning will cost you thousands of dollars, hours of time and will bring you to your knees eventually. Know your strengths and weaknesses and always be looking to improve your strengths by engaging someone who is better than you.