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Wipe the food off your beard. Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing. Today is the first, the very first podcast that I'm doing with a camera. The reason I'm doing it is I'm taking action. I seen somebody else doing it today. When I went on Spotify, I said, What the fuck is this? So I seen somebody has got video on their podcast and I've heard about this coming, and it's what the cool kids are doing and it's what the algorithm favors. Therefore, I now have got to do video. And this is a lesson for you as an electrician that is sitting back and going, I'll do it next week, I'll do it next week. I've seen this today while I was working, and tomorrow the podcast is going to be released. When you watch this, it will be released. But I'm taking immediate action today that I'm going to have this done. So here we are. This is live on Spotify. If you're an Apple listener, go across and you can look at me. Why I started with that intro was I'm like, why do people want to now look at podcasts? Why do you want to look at me as I speak? It's quite weird, but saying that, one of my favorite YouTubers is Beard Meets Food. It is a middle-aged man from the UK who goes around to these restaurants in the UK, Europe, England, and he samples different foods and does different food challenges. Most of it ends up on his beard, but I cannot help but watch it. I can't look away. And it's sometimes it's very grim, but I'm like, is he going to get to the end and finish his meal? Which nine times out of ten he usually does. Rarely he's beaten. I digress. Let's get into the podcast today. I took my sim card out of my phone for five weeks as I went for a trip back to Ireland. Um, I'm just back with about a week and a half, two weeks. And what happened? What was the result of me turning my phones off from my electrical business? It was fucking delightful. I spent time with my family, spent time with my wife, spent time working on Simplified Sparky, spent a week in France just going out, having a great time, not worrying about my electrical business. Now, I will admit that when I did turn my phone off, every day, a day or two, I'd glimpse at my emails just to make sure there was nothing crazy, nothing chaotic. I'd just give a quick glimpse, not like I'm fully away from it, just making sure that everything was there, everything was intact, there's no code reds. So I did that. I kept tabs on my emails and then just made sure that everything was okay, which it was. Now, how would you feel going on holidays if you didn't have to look at your phone or you didn't have to worry about it? You didn't have to go to the pool with the kids and not have to check emails from the builder. You didn't have to go out for dinner and have a sneaky look at your phone to make sure that that quote's been sent for your staff member. Now, what I want to revolve this around, and what this all has simply come down to is running systems in my business. Systems and decisions is what it revolves around. So I made a decision many years ago to work for specific people, and it's something that I strive for and I stress with members and with electricians is do the work that you want to do that makes you happy, that fulfills you, that fills your cup, that you can be happy with the work that you do, that you're not at the whim of people. So, with being at the whim of with people, I chose specifically to not work for builders. I chose specifically to not work for real estate. Any work that's reactive, I cut out for the sole reason that I don't want somebody to dictate my schedule. I want to dictate my own schedule within reason. Now, emergency work and stuff like that. I don't do a lot of emergency work, but I can pick and choose the jobs that I want to do. When I book in a job, I book it on my schedule. I don't wait and let somebody dictate my schedule. I don't give them the option, I give them some options, but it suits me, and I book that in. And all this was made possible, and everything that I was able to achieve and go on holidays for five weeks and literally turn my phone off was done through systems. So how that was achieved was from day dot, I wouldn't say day dot, maybe about a year into business, I got some Vipe phone numbers. So voice over IP, and they essentially beam around the place and they don't come to me. They go to my assistant who answers the phone calls. Now they are available in office hours. After hours, it will just go to a message bank. Something I'm toying with, something that I don't, I'm not against, is something like the likes of service made AI phone answering services purely for after hours. But what I would be suggesting is making them aware that it is an AI answering service after hours. The reason is experience and just give them a good experience to make sure you're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes. But by doing something like that, you are now able to have somebody answer the phone, log the job, and get that into your service med so that when you wake up the next day, it's sitting there. Now, I don't I rarely get calls in the in the nighttime, so it doesn't really matter to me. I'm not too phased, not too bothered. You will go through different stages in your electrical business. There will be the stage where it's feast or famine, where you jump at every single job that comes your way, and I'm well and truly out of the famine and a more so in the feast. So I can be picky with the leads that come in. If I don't like the look of a job, I'm not doing it. If it's a job I can't get to immediately and I'm too busy, I will refer that to somebody else who I defer work to. And this is what we do when we create systems in our business. So I made sure that I systemized my phones, that it got diverted away from me, that somebody was taking my phone calls and they know how to use the job manager software. We've got systems in place with an if that then this situation, that all gets handled by them. My emails is handled by another virtual assistant that scans my emails, scans my job management software, so that when I'm away, and we're in the opposite end of the time zone in in Ireland and in Europe. So this was all over the place with time zones. So while I'm sleeping, they're looking after the back end of my business and making sure that everything's running seamlessly. There was a system put in place to again, if that in this situation, if it's a return client, it goes over here. Are they willing to wait? Is this an emergency? This goes down that pathway, that goes down this pathway. If it's a if it's a new client, they're urgent, they need it done today, immediately gets referred out to the partner that I've got in place. It's about building these systems into place. And I think there is like what I hate to fucking hear is people saying they're too small to systemize, and that's something that I'm changing the game. I am fucking altering and changing the game because recently I have released Simplified Sparky Systems, which I'm super excited about. I will do another separate podcast on the entire flow of that. But I am doing this now because this is what I did, and basically what I'm doing with the members inside there is not only are they learning how to attract, convert, and handle and retain those clients for life, what's happening then is they get busy, they get complacent, they try to do everything themselves instead of delegating little jobs and tasks out. Now, when I say delegating jobs and tasks out, what I'm speaking about is the monotonous stuff that you don't want to do. Checking an email, deleting an email, going into your spam and deleting your spam email, sifting through your spam emails in case there's two leads sitting in there that you don't even know are in there. That could be $5,000 worth of work, replying to leads rapidly, picking up the phone call, like I spoke about hiring somebody to take your phones, like I just spoke about somebody to take your phone calls when you are when you're overseas, when you're under a house, when you're in a roof, somebody to take your phone calls. I don't look at those things as an expense, I look at those things as an investment. And why I say it's an investment is let's say hypothetically, if that phone answering service cost me a thousand dollars per month, what would it have cost me if they didn't answer that switchboard job? If they didn't answer that down like downlight job that turned into you know a full reware, if they didn't answer that job that was an EV charger that turned into a storage protector and a switchboard upgrade, it pays for itself. And this is why I stress get this shit in place now, and then when you've got the systems in place, you've got someone to hire into your process. You haven't got a person you're trying to put a process around, you've got a process for that person to follow, and that's why, as I said, I'm changing the game of systems thinking. I want everybody and my members to not only have the before, during, and after nail down, I want them to have an understanding and a belief and a system that they can build their systems in their electrical business from day dot. And what we focus on first is delegating out the admin. So getting rid of the back and forth emails that you have to do, um generally around your emails, emails, inquiries, gathering photos, responses, check-ins, follow-ups. Yes, some of this can be set from automations. Again, that's another system, putting a system in place that you you have got an automation. For some of the members on the call last night, we went through the money flow, is what we basically map out the entirety of your business on one page at a high-level overview. We go through last night, I believe there were 13 steps from start to finish of how the flow, the money comes into your business and it gets paid and it gets churned back into your business. That lead gets churned back in. And on the call, what I made people realize is a lot of the guys on the call already had that system in place to retain their existing clients that they're that they're paying the money. So they've already got that automation in place that that system is done. It's done, but it's just not documented. And what you would document it is if you've got an admin in place, it should be their job and their role that they can check that that is still automating, it is it is firing. Once a week they're going in there going, did those people that pay that invoice have has that made them trigger into that nurture sequence? Has that moved them into this sequence? Has that moved for that trigger that they move over here? This is what the importance of systems are and having a systems champion in the back end to see everything, to oversee everything. But I couldn't have taken those five weeks off comfortably without those systems in place. So I want to stress that. Like I would have been this exact same as possibly you, absolutely stressed off my tree, worried about a builder putting in concrete tomorrow, and there's meant to be conduites in it, and I'm stressed off my tree, trying to organise a subby, and I'm in the middle of fucking Paris, and I'm having the worst time ever. And I'm sure a lot of you can resonate with that listening to this or watching this. That's gonna start be weird now saying this, watching this business. Um, but yeah, that's that would have destroyed my holiday. And I I built this business around my lifestyle, and I am very proud of what I have built, and it was just being selective of who I worked with, being selective of my target market, being selective of my messaging, the type of work that I do, the type of work that I reject, being firm, learning to say no is extremely powerful. I I've had a few things come in. I had a job yesterday come in, and it was some CCTV, an EV charger, a couple of PowerPoints in a newish house in Miranda, which is out of my area. But I looked at it and I was like, I this guy, backstory to this. This guy came to me maybe about three years ago and he moved to a house in Kingsgrove. I distinctly remember calling this job, and I went in at like nine grand, and there was like a switchboard upgrade, I think single phase, it might have been a meter box upgrade, and there was a few other bits and pieces in the house to tidy up. And it was very weird he accepted it and then kind of phantomed and then it fizzled out, and I tried to contact him, tried to contact him, finally got hold of him, and he goes, Oh, yeah, I've gone with somebody cheaper. And I gave the spiel, which I don't really do anymore, I'm not bothered, but I gave the spiel of like, are you sure this is the right decision? The cheapest quote isn't always the best. Are they licensed? Are they insured? I'm not asked with that anymore because if somebody's made that decision and they've they've locked in the other person, more luck to them, they will learn their lesson, which is exactly what happened to this gentleman. So he called up and they found him back in the system, they asked him questions, and he was like, Look, Alan was right. When that person got in the door, they basically opened up more variations to the job. It ended up costing more than my initial quote. They did a shit job, they disgruntled employees working for them, etc. And he wants me to quote this job. Now, I didn't want to I that left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm a very stubborn person in that sense. If somebody doesn't want to work with me, I'm very, very hesitant to go back with them again. So I looked at that and I was like, I don't really want to do this job. I don't have a security license anyway. So I relay that to him. I said, Look, I can't do the security license, can't do this, this, and this, can do the charger. And then he was like, You want the bit to be supposed? I said, Look, you know what, you're better off work getting somebody else more local to the Shire that can do the whole shebang. And I've ended up referring him to somebody, but that's the luxury I have now for setting up my business correctly. Is I don't have to take the shitty jobs, I don't have to bend over backwards and you know go down my knees again and say, like, yeah, I will greatly do your work. I didn't want to work for that person again because it's just ignorance that I didn't want to do that work because he had rejected me initially, that I'm just like, nah, fuck you've lost your chance, lost your opportunity. So that's just me. But that is that is that is on a long tail wind of how I can do these things is systems in place. Systems, systems, systems. And I can't stress enough, like you, you're never too big or too small for systems. Obviously, if you're a big company, there's so many people around there, out there. You listen to this podcast, may even be one of those that you have got a team of three or four or five, and you don't have a system to be seen, which is mental. It is absolutely mental, and that's why this is so fantastic. Like, I I can see some of the guys that I'm working with now that want to pursue and grow their businesses bigger and bigger and bigger. All their foundations are poured with solid concrete, and they can build a fucking skyscraper on them. That's what I want to set these guys up as, get them to a few staff members if they wish, and just expand and expand. And it it excites me to know that I've contributed to that and I've set them off on the right foot because these are things I learned the hard way. Like it took me three or four years to start like looking into systems because every coach and his dog was trying to confuse the living fuck out of everybody with these flow charts and arrows and a little triangle saying yes, no, maybe down, no, and then you had to follow that along. There's a little thing written over here, and that's intentional. All that stuff in their marketing is made to make it look like systems are extremely confusing, they're extremely overwhelming, you need their help to systemize. I'm going against the grain with that. I I'm focusing on the core 14 to 20 systems in their electrical business that we're going to map out, and then some of those systems will be more complex than others, and then what we'll be doing is mapping out the subsystems inside that. So I'll give you an example of this. So if you are taking a phone call, well, the the admin will be taking the phone call, the flow will go along. There will be a stage of the flow in that system that that lead will end up in your job management software. Now, how do I interlead in the job management software? You go and you make a little micro system, which is a subsystem inside in the master system. So that will then tie in that if at any stage you hire an admin and they're not familiar with your job management software, that they can go through a training day and basically go through the entire flow of the money flow and be like, okay, this, this, this, this, this. That comes in. Okay, how do I do this? Click on that little three-minute video, and they're like, oh, done. I know how to do that now. You have a system that is forever there, it's made once. It can be maybe with updates, it might have to get edited, but you've got a system in place. So be systematic. Systems think from day one. Even if you don't have electrical business right now, fucking systems think. Like when you go to build your business, I want you to be consistently thinking like, can I make a system around this? And now where you're gonna fuck up, and I'm gonna stop you right there, is you don't need a system for everything that you're doing. You only need systems for the core elements of your business. So the core focus of your business that you operate, the money flow, what is your core service, who's it for? You follow that pattern, how the call comes in, how you take money, how you handle the lead, how you quote the lead, how you get them coming back around again, and there's a few steps in between. I'm gonna do a separate podcast on that, and on the on the entirety of this, but just want to get you systems thinking, and I have systems to thank for not having to turn my phone on for five weeks. I turned it on once to get a fucking code that they had SMS to get a login to something, and I think I had one text come from a client that luckily was like two days before, return client, Greg client, and I just literally texted her back and I said, like, the office will give you a call, and she messaged back and she said that the office had shall it bounced or she didn't get a reply, so she actually went and called the number, so then diverted again with the system, bounced off my phone, rang their line. So this would have been like my nighttime, their morning. And yeah, so she had already been sorted out. They had her in the queue inside and service, mate. So systems are key. But yeah, that's it from me. And I will catch you next week for this very first video update. Head across to Spotify if you're an Apple listener, have a go up. And yeah, if you want anything from me, if you want to be a systems thinker, you want to build your business correctly, or you want to stabilize your existing business that is very shaky, there's links in the description below, and I'll catch you next week.