Good Electrician. Broken Business. Here’s the Real Problem

If you’re an electrician and you’re self employed or running your own business, read this carefully.

Because the way most trades run their businesses is quietly wrecking their mental health. Long hours. Constant pressure. Not enough money in the bank. And a business that feels like a trap instead of freedom.

This article will help you avoid those mistakes and build a business you actually enjoy that works for you, not against you.

Being a trades person can be a high stress career. Multiple studies report over 80% of tradespeople experiencing stress, anxiety and or depression because of their work.

I’m sure there’s a variety of reasons contributing to this. Demands of customers, high stress environments with tight deadlines, keeping up to date with your certs to name but a few.

Add to this the challenges of self employment or business ownership and you’ve got a recipe for unhappiness.

I’m not an electrician so I can’t pretend to fully understand the unique stresses you experience in the work that you do. But I am a business owner. I ran my first business in a way that led to me being depressed and eventually had to close it down.

I now work with businesses of all shapes and sizes ranging from billion pound companies like Travelodge all the way down to sole traders. I help them avoid the mistakes I made in my first business and run their businesses and teams in a way that is enjoyable, not stressful and draining.

In this article I want to share two models with you that I know will help you run your business or be a sole trader electrician in a way that you enjoy and win.

The first model I want to share with you is the Four Fs.

You chose to be an electrician and go self employed for a reason.

I don’t know what that reason is but you will, and it will be some kind of balance of what I call the Four Fs.

- Fun – Doing the work you enjoy
Are you genuinely enjoying the jobs you’re doing week to week?

- Freedom – Working the hours you want to, taking the holidays you want to
Can you take time off without stress or financial panic?

- Fulfilment – Doing work that you’re proud of
Are you proud of the quality and impact of the work you’re putting out?

- Finances – Having the cash in your bank that works for you
After everything is paid, is there actually money left for you?

You might read some of them and think ‘100% that’s exactly why I do this’. You might read some of them and think ‘I don’t really give a crap about that’.

The point is each person is unique and the clearer you are on what you want, the more likely you are to make it happen.

What you want from these four Fs might adapt as you grow and your life situation changes. We have a member in the Happy Electrician community who, as he’s got older, doesn’t want to work Fridays. He got clear on what he wanted in the Freedom category, planned for it and made it happen.

The important point to understand is this. If you don’t plan what you want your business to do for you, you’ll end up with a business that works for other people but not you. i.e. you’ll be working silly hours, doing jobs you don’t like, working for annoying customers, not taking holidays and after all that, not having much money in the bank.

If you want your business to work for you, you have to be INTENTIONAL with what you want.

But how do you know what to charge? How much money you can make etc?

This leads me on to the second part of this article.

The Roadmaps V1

Look, there’s endless ways you can run your business. By the way, if you’re a sole trader I count that as you having your own business, because you do.

There’s no definitive pricing method or electrician bible that tells you exactly how to do it.

But it helps to have rough frameworks that give you an idea of what you can make, what you can take home and what your set up needs to look like to hit those targets.

These models are by no means finished products but they are directionally correct. By studying these and having them in your head you go from directionless to following a map, with intention.

We’ve recognised there are two pathways you can take:

1. Self employed
2. Business with team

So your first decision is to decide which appeals more to you.

The pros of the self employed pathway are you don’t have to build or deal with a team.
The cons of self employed are currently the maximum salary you can really hit is around £60k to £85k and you’ll always be working on the tools. Note these are averages.

The pros of the team model are there is no cap on earnings and you can get to £150k to £250k owner salary whilst working less than 40 hours a week with a team of 9 to 12 people. Again based on averages.
The cons are you’ll have to build a team, invest a lot back into the business and become a professional business owner first, electrician second.

Within each pathway, self employed and business with team, we have outlined three levels.

The way you progress through the levels is by getting more organised, more systemised and more professional. One of the biggest challenges for self employed trades is developing the confidence to charge more than the market average.

I’ve included the images of the stages below for you to familiarise yourself with and study.

I want to finish this article with that word again, INTENTIONAL.

Please process the words you’re reading right now:

Life is not FAIR. You will not have a great business just because you are good at your job. Being a good electrician is vital to the success of your business and you can 100% be rewarded for being a good electrician. But you have to be INTENTIONAL as a business owner to reap the rewards you deserve. You have to be clear on what money you need to make to provide the level of service you are passionate about. You have to be clear on the lifestyle you want, including holidays and other time off, that enable you to be the passionate high quality electrician that you are. These insights are going to lead you to realise that you can’t provide the level of service you desire and compete with the market average on price. These insights will lead you to realise that your business won’t work if you try to serve everyone. If you’re not INTENTIONAL, you’ll end up in the same trap as so many other trades. Stuck in a business working silly hours, not making any money, complaining about how broken the industry is.

​​The industry isn’t broken. There are countless numbers of your ideal customers out there who want quality work done by quality people and are willing to pay above the average for that quality. These are customers that shop on quality not price. Your job is to make yourself the no1 choice for those people.
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​Go smash it - Mike