down here and today's exciting episode I'm gonna share four lessons I learned from two
years in business two years in business two years I recently filed the annual return for
the business which is basically a document that tells the government the Year Scott
Brown carpentry is still a business so yeah officially two years I've learned a lot of
things in that time number one is how to get work that the adage of friends family
and fools is true so most of the work that I get is through friends and family now fools well it
sounds a bit dramatic Falls is basically people who are willing to give your business a chance
cool somebody so when I got back I did work for my girlfriend's family I did work for my family
I did work for their friends and that just sort of snowballed and I ended up doing one after the
other when I first got back to New Zealand two years ago I started working for other boaters
you know they'd already established themselves so they had a whole workload that they couldn't
keep up with and I ended up inheriting a bit of work that way as well I guess the short answer
is you just have to put yourself out there and meet as many people as possible we're gonna try
and squeeze a shower and over there it's gonna be pretty tight now once you find your clients
you get to listen number two in my experience which is be okay with spinning people's money
total mess here this is a difficult one getting comfortable with spending other people's money
is something that I still got to work on myself but the more you do it the more you get used to
it and once you feel confident and the reasons you charge what you charge and you have a you're
more familiar with how much things cost then you slowly start feeling okay with it you'll still
get your clients that might press you money-wise because I mean it's their biggest asset you know
they don't want to just throw money at something if they don't think it's gonna be worth it like
I said I'm still struggling with it myself to this day I order enough materials to do the job
down to a tea or my side I'm always terrified of ordering too much even though I can credit
them I as silly I still struggle with it I'd like to remember that people have come to me
because they wanted to a building project and my responsibility is just to do the best job I can do
and do it at a fair price now lesson three doesn't need much of an explanation it's pretty much take
responsibility for what you can't control and don't stress about the things that you can't
control only reason I mentioned that was because I have to tell myself that every single day
what do I mean by that well if you had any dreams of you know being your own boss and not working
for anybody and answering to no man a building business isn't the way to achieve those champs
not only do you still have a boss that boss changes on every project if you're building
ding for two weeks whoever owns that dick is your boss if you're extending a house for six
months that person is your boss all those feelings that you get when you're working
for someone and he's telling you what to do and all that kind of stuff they're still there when
you own your own business that person just changes more often the good side of that
is clients usually want what I offer you know there's sort of trusting my building expertise
and knowledge and and my suggestions to get a good result it's very rare that you know
I'm forced to do something that I really don't want to do the need to get on with people is
just as important as ever and I can't see a reason why I didn't want to change that
and an official number five is when you ran a business get ready to empty your van over and
over between jobs and that was so much extra tools when I was working for other builders I
didn't think about wheelbarrows and stuff like there that were just around you just
use them but when you're in a business you have to about two of these things
well I hope that was useful to somebody out there who might be if you're thinking about
starting your own business and perhaps you're a little bit apprehensive my
advice would be make it sir there is no good time I've started my business in a
construction boom in New Zealand and I've still had days off because I had
no work the best way to learn to run a business is to try and run a business