[00:00:00] There's a normal rate of pay. What I charge customers, and then there's mates rates. These people are always calling me up to do some work and recommending me to their friends and family, so why not give 'em a discounted price after all, they're friends. Aren't they Toolbox talks for electricians, loading electricians with the tools and skills they need to reduce stress, gain back time, and earn more money.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. It's me, Ben Polter again, once again, sorry. Your host and customer and employee. Are they actually friends? In this podcast, I'm gonna explain to you my experience of both starting with obviously the most important one, which is customers most important because they're the ones that actually pay you employees.

You have to pay them, and there is a pretty fine line between. A customer of your business and to being a friend. You meet so many different people every day with the work you do, whether it be industrial, commercial or domestic, you meet all sorts of different people on site and obviously in their properties as well.

You go around their house, they're inviting you into their home, so yeah, you're gonna be their friend. It's nice to think as customers, as friends, I think, but however, sometimes it's a one way relat. A customer is someone who do work for, to give them a quote for what they want to get done, and you get their job done to a brilliant high standard, and then you give that customer an invoice.

The customer is then obviously required to pay, and they're required to pay in full. But you've been in this person's house for the past few days, having a cup of tea with them, maybe even sitting there, sitting down for lunch and having a good old chat. So that customer has now become your friend. So surely they deserve mates rates.

Now they've become mates with you. But let me tell you now, mates rates, they don't exist. Not in my world. If you've got a friend that asks you to do some work for you, then the only reason they ask you is because they know that you'll do a good job. And if it costs more than expected, it's probably for a good reason.

That mate or that friend sort of thing has phoned you up to ask you to do some work for them because they know you do a good job, you know you're a good electrician. And to be honest with you, they can't be asked with the hassle of finding someone else that'll do maybe a cheaper job, but they won't do half as good.

They'll do a rubbish job, they work called up, and then they won't turn back. , or they won't come back even. But they'll give you a call because they know you're reliable, you know you're good at what. And they're classed as friends. Friends who support you in your business. Friends call you up to spend time with you when you're not at work.

Someone asking for mates race, well, they're a customer. I popped over to a friend's house one Saturday morning just for a cup. It was after a night out. So you popped around just to have a chin wagon about what happened to the night before, who talked to who, what happened, and if you can remember it sometimes, cause he had a few drinks, but I saw in his kitchen that one of the down lights weren't working.

So I'm an electrician. I, I noticed these things. I look around and say, Hey, your light's not working. So of course I ask a question and say, what's up with your lights? So we've got a chatting about this light, but the new light fitting, it'd always. And he sauced it and it sat on the side. But me being a sparky and half cut from the night before, I said, get a screwdriver.

Like I'll sort that out for you, no problem. But what makes a builder and he's more than capable of changing the downlight himself. He can just pull it out. It's free wise, he knows this, but I did it anyway. So he straight away like, alright, right. Ben Ham much do you want for that? Well, I said, no, it's all right.

You just paid me for that cup of tea. It's fine. But he still wouldn't let me leave the house without stuffing some money in my pocket. That's the mate giving you money even when you say no, you don't owe me anything. , and without trying to sound too negative, a customer is someone that's only nice to you really when you're working at their house.

As soon as you've gone and they don't need you anymore, , you've just forgotten about. You need to be okay with that, especially when it comes to payment. It's when you get on so well for the weeks or , the time or the day or , the few weeks or the month. Sometimes when you return visit on a, a building extension or maybe a rewire.

It's when that last invoice is dropped. It's like they never knew you. Sometimes they become the customer. Oh, , I'm gonna pay you on Monday. I'm just waiting for the other trades to finish the job. Then I'll set it up with you. Or is it okay to wait until the end of the month when I get paid? All the normal excuses come out the woodwork, and this is where you got to have a bit of a split personality.

Maybe sometimes if you've, Ben, you say, what? No, babe, where's my money? But the electrician. It says, good afternoon, Mr. Smith. The invoice is still outstanding, sir, and if you are one of these people that say, no, no, I've got the same voice for everybody, you must be joking because everyone's got a posh voice that they speak to for customers or people they've never met before.

You change the way you speak because you can't talk normal slang too. Everyone didn't know because well, after guys, they probably wouldn't understand me. So how to determine whether the person is a customer or they're your friend. If you can't call that person up and ask for a hand wear moving house or to do some gardening or something that you might need a hand with, then they're a customer.

They're not your friend. But obviously you can have customers who do along the way, become your friend, and you get along well. But most of the time it's a strictly working relationship. Always keep that in mind. So now to move on to the beloved employees, how many have you gone through in, in your time of running your own business electrician, employees, or one of three people, or the old boy who just wants to plot along and get paid his hourly rate or.

They're a useless skit and they get sacked every week cuz they annoy you or they fast every you up or even don't turn up. Or you've got the other end of the spectrum. You've got an ambitious young lad or in a, not even a young lad, sometimes an ambitious guy that will run their own business one day. And in my time of running my own electrical business, I've employed them all.

The old boy who just wants to turn up at a nine o'clock and be home by 4:00 PM cuz he misses, he's got the dinner on the table and they don't go over their set hours and they're not really in any rush to get things done. , if the job is running behind, , , the plasterer is coming in the next day.

The plaster will have to wait for him. He's got to wait to finish in what he's doing. He's not gonna stay another hour later or another hour longer to get that job done to the plaster can crack on straight away in the morning. , you've gotta wait for him to do his bit and he's, he's sitting his ways lovely blokes with plenty of knowledge to get the job done, but they do everything at like a snails pace.

But then you've got the lads that say cash is king. They just want to be paid and they don't really care about the job or care about your business. They don't care about the customer or your reputation. They just want to get in there and get the money. , if there's a problem, they'll sort of just leave it or brush it under the carpet and think, yeah, someone else have to sort that out later on.

It's not my problem. And the worst ones are these kind of lads if they're offered some extra work from the customer. Cause a customer will always try to look for things cheaper without a doubt. If they don't know you or don't know how good you are to start with, they'll always try to maybe offer you, lad, can you do this on the side?

Can you do this at the weekend? And they'll go back at the weekend and do maybe a bit of extra work that I've asked for. And well, we call that moon lighting and it's not. Taking the work from your customers and your business to do it themselves. And this happens, well, it happened to me quite a lot. It's even worse when they sort of go back and do the work, but they assume that you're gonna sign it off through your business.

It's not gonna happen, mate. It's like moon line. You gotta sign that off yourself. And I do find that it's sort of the same story all the time with these sort of guys. They're brilliant. For the first few weeks. They turn up their initiative and stuff like that. They get outta bed, they get in the van and they're spot on.

But then as soon as they get a bit of money in their pocket, it goes down the wrong sort of way. After that, they get a bit of cash in their pocket and they go down the wrong path. They turn up either hanging out their ass or I see if they turn up at. It's not all doom and gloom with employees. Funny enough, it's the apprentices that I've had that work with me that are the best, and they listen.

They work hard, and they're very polite with customers. But as soon as I get a taste of their own work and they find out, Hmm, I could do this myself. Exactly the same. Maybe yourself. You started up back in the day how I started up, I thought, well, actually I could be doing this myself. This company's creaming the sort.

The decent amount of profit for me so I could start up on my own. And this is exactly what I did. I started up on my own. So you can't blame these lads of breaking away once they get their qualifications to actually start up on their own. But these lads, some of the lads that you've worked with, they do become your friends and you can always call 'em up to give them.

A day's work or a bit of advice. Sometimes they call you up and say about, I've got this, I've been called up before for my apprentices that run their own business and say, look man, I'm on a star day automotive. I haven't got a clue. Can you sort it out? They give you work and you say, right, I've got a kitchen that needs doing and it needs doing.

Now you can call them up and they'll help you out as well, so they become friends in a way of your electrical little network. and when you have a decent amount of a few electricians in your little network, you can always call 'em up for when things are a bit like bit tight. They've gotta get the builders in, they've gotta get, something's gotta get done.

It's got done quick. So you can phone up a couple of the lads that you used to work with maybe and say, right, do you want a day's work? I'll get you good money. We've just gotta get this job done like today, this, this weekend. Maybe we've gotta give it a push and get its first fixed so the plasterers can come in and they're always there to help you out cause you'll do exactly the same for them.

And another bonus about staying friends with the guys that broke away and done their own business is that they don't always go and carry on and do like maybe domestics or they don't even carry on with, um, electrical trade. They start. As something else, they start up a separate business cuz there's so many options or avenues.

You can go down as an electrician, as a talk about in episode five of other jobs you can do as an electrician. So that will be a good one to check out next. So keep your customers as customers and your friends will always be there to give you money when you don't ask. Until next time, I'll see you again.

Get inside the toolbox, talks for electricians group, and post your experience of what we've talked about today. I'll leave a link to the group in the show notes below. Until next time, we'll see you again.