Why is my phone not ringing? Why am I getting no emails? Why is it so quiet out there? Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing. Every electrician fears the quiet spell, especially when you've got bills to pay. And this is probably more common when people start their electrical business. And it's very, very normal. And that's what I'm going to speak about today. There's stages in business where you hit quiet spells and you panic. And as I said, particularly in the first few years of business, they really hit you hard because you lose belief that quitting your job and starting your own electrical business was the right thing to do. Maybe you're at a stage where you're getting a handful of just really bad clients in a row. Panic starts then as well. Of this is shit, I've made the wrong decision. Maybe you had loads of work teed up, i.e. a little fit out, jobs for friends, jobs for family. Just before you left your job, you've left your job, you've gone into that, you've started doing those jobs. One or two of them are coming to an end. The third one is coming to an end. You're looking at your schedule, going, This looks pretty bleak, it looks pretty minimal. What the fuck am I going to do? When this happens, many people panic. Shit, should I have started SEO? Should I run Google Ads? Should I run meta ads? Do I now have to become a content creator? Should I record myself fitting off this PowerPoint? Because I think that that's the right information that I should be giving my client and videos, even though it's the complete wrong shit to be putting to your client, because your client could not give a fuck how you fit off a PowerPoint. It's how you help their problems. When this occurs, the worst thing is because you're caught in the headlights of what the fuck do I do? You end up doing something like ads. You maybe you have a crack off at yourself, and that doesn't solve your problem. They start thinking, well, I've got no leads, I may as well try something. But where this all stems back to is you're trying to market your way out of this panic that you should have prepared for. That's what you're going to hear about today. These dips in lead flow and work are extremely normal in electrical business. I've been part of this for the last 10 years, and you can see patterns over the years. And a prime example of this, the time of recording, we've recently had the budget. There was fear over negative gearing, taxing, small businesses getting caught, capital gains tax, all of that. A few weeks prior to that, we had the fuel crisis. We had fuel gone up over $3, we had shortages on fuel. All these things mentally fuck with your potential clients. Another thing is interest rates. If there's something on the radar around interest rates, clients are tightening up the power strings and they don't want to spend money to put in those fancy lights they were looking at. That additional PowerPoint that they wanted in the corner for that lamp, an extension lead is going to do that for now. Switchboard upgrade, why would I do that? The powers work in the house already. Let's leave that off for a while. All of these things are extremely normal, and you will see patterns as you progress in your electrical business. It will become extremely normal. Election time as well, there's dips in the market. It just happens. And the only thing you can do about this is being prepared for when this does happen. And when I say being prepared, it means planting seeds along the way so that this doesn't happen. And if it does happen, it's a day or two or three, and you're fucking glad of the break. You actually take it on, acknowledge it, and you're like, fuck it, it's the cam before the storm, it's going to kick off again. The fix for the quiet patch isn't necessarily found in the quiet patch. Look, you can start doing your SEO, you can start doing Google Ads, meta ads, and all of that. But the quiet patch fixing is found on the way up to the quiet patch. And that's putting the necessary things in place. The client retention, the follow-ups, the database that you can tap into. The database you should have been tapping into all along the way. It's the work that you do in the good times, so there's work in the bad times. What are your lead channels? I mean, if you've got one builder feeding you all your work, if you've got one or two builders, maybe you've got a handful of clients and you've got complacent because the builder was feeding you work and you're like, I don't need this marketing thing. I just got this lead flow and I've got something else coming in, and that's sweet. And then what happens? The builders can experience the pinch in the quiet times too. The fuel crisis and all that affects them also. Therefore, their jobs might get delayed as well, or maybe they'll get postponed. It's having a network of sobbies as well. Something I stress with guys I work with is if you are thinking about starting your electrical business or taking that leap into the unknown where you're going to basically support your own income. Something I emphasize a lot is having a backup of sobby work. Now, whether you're an established business and you've got two or three guys, it's always handy to have a sobby or a contact that you can offload some of your staff to, or yourself, if you're solar, if you've got you and your apprentice, or you and another tradesman, always having a net where you could find an established business, a far bigger business than you, that's consistently looking for staff or having difficulty with staff, that they will be fucking damn glad to have somebody that's got your intelligence and your capability working for their company and helping them out. It's all about building these relationships and having that backup to rely on. Having different sources and channels of work is also a major backup. For example, in my electrical business, I would have new clients, return clients, referral clients, about three partners that trickle work in as well. That they're companies that send work through. One is a company that sends me a lot of work in regards to induction cooktops, one is an EV charger company, and the other is a lighting store. So all of these avenues combined with the other stuff, there's always a back door, there's always something coming in. To take this back to the start of the podcast about the panic of no work, it's perfectly fucking normal. So do not panic. Taking this back to the start of the podcast about having quiet patches and work, it is completely fucking normal. What's not completely normal is during a quiet patch, you just take it for granted. I have a quiet patch, and you're sitting at home watching Netflix and you're not doing anything actively in your electrical business to get more work. That is where you're dropping the ball. It's when you have a quiet patch, you realize it, digest it, and go, okay, how the fuck can I stop this happening in the future? Are you putting systems into place to retain your clients? Are you putting systems into place that you can outreach to people? Are you meeting people? Are you mingling with people? If you're quiet or you consistently have ebbs and flows in your business, you're the issue. You are the issue for not sorting your shit out. And you have to take that on the chin because if you're taking this electrical business seriously, you need to find these sources. The in-to-finan year happens in less than two weeks. Now, I want you to look back and reflect on your electrical business. How did you actually go this financial year? Did you feel that you didn't make any money? Did you feel that you think you're doing okay, but you could do a lot better? What's the next financial year going to look like for you? Is it going to be a repeat of this financial year? Are you not going to be happy at the end of it? Are you not going to reach your goals? Not going to reach the revenue and profit that you wanted. If that is the case, I would invite you to start the new financial year sprinting. And if you want to do that, there's links in the description below to get all my stuff.
