Trade careers are noble careers; often unfairly maligned as mere ‘physical labour’, working as a tradesperson is in fact a highly skilled, highly demanding career path – but not without its potential for earnings and progression alike.
Tradespeople are also in record demand at the moment, as a combination of factors have led to a shortage of trained candidates. This makes the market an utterly lucrative one for someone to build their business in, whether roofing, joinery, carpentry or simply as a handyman. But demand alone is not enough to build a successful trade business.
You also need to provide quality to your clients. Quality can mean different things to different people, but there are some essential signifiers of quality in a given tradesperson or project – whether longevity or simply good customer service. Quality is nothing short of key to customer retention and reputation; how best can you offer quality as a new trade business to clients?
The Work
That the work itself must be of a high standard needs not saying. Your clients are not necessarily reaching out to you for the quickest results; rather, they will want the best results possible for your budget and time. With this in mind, your skills and experience need to be enough that any job within your discipline will not be half-inched.
The quality of a finished work depends not just on skill, but also the materials you source. You should use a reputable supplier in the bulk-ordering of quality sheet materials and timbers, in order to ensure you have the materials to meet the demands of any job and at a quality that will not impinge on said job.
Communication
Quality comes also from the manner in which you undertake a project for which you are hired. Communication is key, whether for domestic callouts or commercial builds; the more available you are for discussion and comment, and the more actively you reach out to notify of plans or changes to plans, the more favourably you will be regarded by your clients.
It might also be that your clients wish to amend the project as it is underway. If you do not facilitate open dialogue from the start, this can make the project inflexible and lead to negative outcomes for your clients.
Service
Lastly, we come to service. Service is a nebulous term, and to some extent covers some of what we have already discussed above. However, more importantly, it covers the importance of your overall service – including after the work is finished. Call-backs in the weeks and months after the job is done to check on its condition – and on the happiness of the clients – can be a real wow factor in trade customer service, and add serious value to your practice. Doing this will increase the likelihood of positive testimonials and good word-of-mouth recommendations.
