8 years ago I was having dinner with an electrician friend of mine.
He spent most of the evening complaining about how little time he had because he was working all hours – for the right reasons …
… to support his family, to gain independence and control of his working life and to prove to others he could make a success of himself.
Some years before, he’d set up on his own.
He’d done well to build up a healthy list of customers; referrals were frequent and he could pick and choose his jobs.
But his success had come at a price.
He now had piles of paperwork to wade through, daily.
And he was increasingly shackled by admin tasks – something he hadn’t the time, or energy, to tackle.
After a hard-day at work he would go home, grab dinner, and then leave to scope out new jobs.
When it came to writing up quotes, they were often done weeks later.
Because of this, he estimated that over the previous five years he had lost more than £50,000 of work by not getting quotes out in good time, or at all.
And this wasn’t even his biggest problem.
His greatest issue was cash-flow.
He wasn’t short of work, but because he wasn’t getting invoices out quickly, he would often go months without being able to pay himself.
Then there was the various tax returns - often left until the night before each due date.
He needed help – and so Business Buddies was born.
Within days we turned his business, and his life, around.
To start with we took all of his reciepts and scraps of paper away and began getting things in order - we even started identifying purchases that he could claim tax relief on that he otherwise would have missed.
We then began tacking business calls - this meant he never missed a call from a potential customer and so never missed out on jobs.
And quickly we worked out a system where he would dictate job specs into his phone, send us the file, and then we would type up his quotes and invoices.
Pretty soon he was getting quotes and invoices out in days and his cash flow made life much easier.
With our help, my friend has increased his turnover 22%.
"Business Buddies have taken a huge weight off my shoulders and allowed me to focus on gaining more work"
– Jay Wright, Owner, J. Wright Electrical
Small changes in the way you manage your administration can have significant, and lasting, positive impact.
If you would like to discuss how you can reduce the amount of time you spend doing your finances and paperwork give me a call ...
It won't cost you a penny to find out, and you might be surprised at how much more money you could be making.
Best
Sarah
01256 630383