I want to grow the biggest plumbing business in Lincoln before I retire. I have a considerable way to go yet to be honest but that's the plan!!
At the moment our business is still pretty small - 4 of us. Me, one lad who is through his NVQ 2, one apprentice who has just started his NVQ 2 and one person working part time doing the book-keeping and a lot of the admin.
We pay around £60 a month to advertise on Checkatrade, that's the only paid advertising we do. More and more of our business is repeat business and recommendations now.
We also have our vans sign written and all of us wear the same uniforms with our logo embroidered onto the polo shirts we wear. All invoice and communications have our logo and branding on them.
We have a simple but effective website with a quote request form on it. More importantly, it appears on the first page of Google for search terms like 'Lincoln Plumber' etc.
For me it's really important to keep that 'personal' feel you get when dealing with a one man company. Our website has photos of all of us on it so people can see who is coming round before they knock on the door.
2 years back I had the decision a lot of one man bands are faced with - to stay as I was or take on someone and grow the business. Like other on here have mentioned, growing the business actually means more work for yourself than staying as a one man operation. If you get the right first staff member on board though the reward is definitely worth it. It has been tough but for me but my motivation was seeing a guy on a job we did once who was still working as a tradesman at 68 as he didn't have enough money saved up to retire. I thought to myself there is no way I am going to be like that and decided the way to avoid that was to grow the business past just myself.
I remember a comment Ray made when I took on my second staff member. Something along the lines of wanting to grow to 5 as soon as possible. I thought at the time there was no need to rush but now I see why he said that. I've made my business operations as efficient as I can do now really and I am still working many more hours each week than I did on my own. Once you get to 5 you can afford to stand back off the tools and focus on growing the business.
My plan is to take on a time-served plumber with bathroom experience next which will drop me off the tools for all but 10 hours or so each week.
To anyone who is rammed with work as a one person business, my advice is approach your local college and ask to interview the BEST apprentices on the Level 1 Plumbing course. You get enough grants to cover there first year's wages and they should help you grow your business and not have to do so much of the back-breaking work!
