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Mastering Your Trade | Beyond Technical Skills to Business Success
Prime Directive Training | 4.5 minute read
Full Value Sub & Prime Directive Training
February 09, 2025
As skilled tradespeople, we often excel at our craft but find ourselves challenged by the business of our craft. Success requires mastering both your trade tools and the tools of the business of your trade - they're equally important for sustained growth and profitability.
Physical Tools Management | Understanding your tools goes beyond just using them. Consider:
Implementing a systematic inventory management system for tracking tools and equipment
Creating maintenance schedules to extend tool life and prevent work disruptions
Analyzing cost-per-use to make clear decisions about buying versus renting equipment
Setting up clear procedures for tool sign-out and accountability among employees.
Essential Business Tools | Modern trade businesses need the mastery of several key business tools:
Financial Tools
Accounting software with seamless job cost tracking functionality.
Digital payment processing solutions
Budgeting and forecasting tools
Customer Management:
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems
Digital scheduling and appointment tools
Automated follow-up systems
Operations Management:
Project management software
Digital estimating tools
Time tracking applications
Inventory management systems
The Integration Challenge | Success comes from seamlessly integrating both physical and business tools. Consider:
How your physical tool inventory affects job quotes and timing
Ways to track tool costs within project management systems
Using maintenance schedules to inform business planning
Training employees on both technical and business tools
Growth and Scaling Strategies | Nurturing and implementing, not just discussing and buying.
Regular assessment of tool efficiency and business processes
Investing in training for new technologies and business systems
Building or evolving business systems that scale with your business
Creating standard operating procedures that nurture and support your trade, the business of your trade, and specifically address roles and responsibilities within cross functional activities.
Embrace Learning Moments
Failures in execution should be expected and embraced as they create learning moments.
Learning moments are necessary to develop experience required to sustain consistent growth and scaling. Sustaining consistent growth and scaling is required to become a full value contractor.
Without learning moments and the experience they create mistakes only waste labor, material and other resources. Contractors that waste labor, material and other resources will find sustaining consistent growth and scaling hard to impossible to achieve. Becoming a full value contractor cannot be achieved without sustaining consistent growth and scaling.
Integration Challenges | Technology integration barriers create learning moments
Challenge | Your experienced plumber knows pipe fitting perfectly but struggles with the digital invoicing system
Solution | Record a Loom video on how to create an invoice. Allowing the plumber to watch as many times as needed to learn how to create invoices with pressure or judgement.
Growth Strategies in Action | Team experience development
Create cross-functional training programs where team members learn roles and responsibilities of team members needed to execute them.
Example: Monthly "Cross Functional Tuesday" sessions where team members learn the role and responsibilities of a team member that supports the roles and responsibilities of other team members.
Implement mentor systems pairing technically skilled team members with business-savvy team members.
Trade contractors are living business systems that must evolve as a business grows and scales.
Regular reviews and adjustments ensure you're achieving full value from your business.