What happens
if you get sick?
It's a scary question,
isn't it? For most of my customers and most of the tradies
and the builders who come to me at least at first, the answer to that question is not very pretty.
A day or two is no problem really if you get by.
Most of your businesses can survive man flu and if you set things up or work a bit
while you're away, most of you businesses can
survive a holiday as well. You've got a holiday, you might have to do some work while you're away
but you can keep things going. You can keep people going and then the rest of it.
Mine's a bit the same. I'm the only coach
right now so If I'm sick, no one's getting coached, are they?
But my business will survive a holiday and a few days if I'm sick
I can show people around if I'm sick or miss a few days and if I have a holiday my customers are understanding.
They want them too.
But real sickness would be a challenge for me and for most of the people
who come to me most of my clients and me we're on a bit of a plan
to make our businesses less vulnerable like this.
And the reason I'm bringing it up today,
is this has just happened to somebody. She just turned to somebody who was about to start coaching
and we've been talking for a while. They came to my last workshop.
They said "We'll start in February,
we're going after Christmas and we're going on holiday after to America, it's going to be great.
After that we're going to start".
And we became friends a bit like what we do often in my business anyway.
Ofcourse I've called them up to set the coaching up for Feb because it nearly is and said how was Christmas?
All cheerful and happy expecting the usual present conversation about what a break they had
and got terrible actually (that was a bit surprised)
taken aback
and of course I asked what I got on and what's happened is after I workshop in November they've gone to visit family,
He the main guy, (it's a team of three people), with a wife and growing up son,
he's fallen sick. He's had a ruptured bowel and it's got sepsis and he nearly died.
I came quite close to death and major surgery saved him.He's okay which is why
he's had a cheerful
before I said how was Christmas
but he was in the hospital for weeks. He's still not properly back at work. He's back at work
and talking but he's not allowed to lift more than half a kilogram or something in weight.
And it's a physical job.
They make glass shower screens, so he lift heavy shit. He can't do that part of his job still
and it's mid late January now
so he's been out of action for six,seven, or eight weeks and he's going to be part capacity for somewhat longer
but his wife and son spent Christmas trying to look after him
and trying to do all the work that was scheduled for Christmas.
It's been quite stressful for them and they've managed to get most of the work done.
They think they're going to catch up to the backlog of work reasonably soon
but then there were no marketing and no sales work so now ofcourse they're anxious
about an upcoming quiet period
and also concerned that their builders, because it's a subcontract work for builders,
are going to be worried about reliability of supply and might go looking elsewhere for these chaff screen supply.
So it's had an impact. His sickness has had a significant impact
on their business. Obviously, they've put the coaching off for a bit
And we laughed and they said,
"If only Jon, we built all our systems and had all our systems in place" and we laughed
because of course that's what they've joined the coaching to do.
It has a big impact and it made me think about how vulnerable
our business is, mine included to the key person if you like or one of the key people
being unable to work but having to be absent, being sick wanting a decent a holiday
something for any longer than a short period.
Most of our businesses, while we're still young businesses, are very dependent on us
and won't continue for very long if something like that happens.
Now I'm thinking about how I can reduce my businesses dependency on me.
I think I want to encourage you to do the same. Think about how it dependent on you is
now to reduce that dependency so if you do need to take in absence or if you want to take a nice long holiday,
how can it cope without you
coming back to having no money or whether you're coming back to having no business or no customers
because you're going nowhere else or something terrible.
And there's two things you need to focus on I think.
One is the systems like I was just saying.
You need to have documented systems for how to do everything and you need to be training people
on how to follow them so that if you're not there they know what to do. Systems for how to do the work
and systems for how the information gets shared,
what needs to be ordered for this job.
So you need to have stuff written down and not just in your head.
You need to be using job management systems like
Servicem8 or Tradify or Simpler or Buildxact or Buildtrend, all those ones and you need to be
using them properly and putting the information in there so that if you suddenly fall sick,
stuff is written. Somebody else can look in the place, find the information and continue the work.
They know what to do because there's a system.
They know what to do because the information pertinent to a particular job is in the system
and they've been trained in it. You've spoken about
what has to happen. They can look up the procedures and refresh themselves if you train them a while.
So that's the one thing. Systems and recording information, biting stuff down.
And the second thing is grow it.
You need to grow enough so there are people there.
They're all the time. So that if you're absent they can take over.
So you need to have more than just you . If it's just you and the apprentice, it's going to be difficult.
But if there are six o 10 of you and somebody working in the office as well,
it's quite likely you have got somebody who can step in,
who you can train, who can spend the time to learn
and cover for you if you're away.
So that's my plan.
Our systems documentation is going quite well. I need to grow bit more so that we can have more than one
coach so that if I'm away, there are people who can cover and look after my customers.
And I think you should be doing the same thing. I think you should be
considering anyway following that same path.
Systematising
and growing - they go hand in hand.
Of course I can help, that's my job. I'm a business coach for traders and builders
and I would like to help you. If you think you like me to help you,
you know what to do. Book your 10-minute chat, talk to me in real life on a phone
for 10 minutes about where the business coach seems right for you or come to my next Tools Down Workshop
and watch me in action for a couple of days and see if my coaching is the right coaching for you.
See you later.