Electrical Contracting | Don’t make this big mistake! Halo Power Solutions

In this video, Kevin Staigh shares the big mistake he made when he first got started in his electrical contracting business and how you can avoid doing the same. Ted Wong WSI World joins us for another insightful video to help make your electrical contracting business a money making machine.

Transcript:

Hey everyone it’s kevin from halo power solutions.

Hi everyone ted wong here with wsi world and today we are talking about the biggest mistakes i made when i got into business.

So okay what are some of the big mistakes that typical business owners make that you’ve learned from your

Oh my god where do i begin okay so halo power i started seven years ago and uh when i got into business ted i didn’t know what the heck i was doing and a little back story here you know how it got rolling i was actually a general foreman for a uh a big
electrical company and a good friend of mine approached me and said hey i’ve got this opportunity for you to start halo power
I’ll start a company we didn’t even have the name figured out yet start a company and you got to make a decision right now
because i got a year’s worth of work so that was it that was the trigger just to leave my well-paying job as a general
foreman and go off and start a business you know and uh so that was it and it was fantastic because that first year.

I had one big customer and it fed me all this work and i had no complaints we had work every week over and over and over again i was able to hire after well now actually i shouldn’t say in the first year i didn’t even have an employee it was just all me
things were wonderful but you know what ted they weren’t wonderful because i was making a really really big mistake and i think for you guys getting a business going out there if you have an opportunity similar to mine where you’re getting into business
because you have one opportunity with one customer.

This is where it’s going to go off the rails for you nobody knew who i was outside of my one customer does that make sense yeah you know building that brand for your business so that you can have other people know and know your services so it’s got continued marketing so that you have this consistent um leads coming in to help build your business right and that’s the part where a lot of small businesses are missing out they it’s like one job done okay now look for the next job instead of they should have a bunch of jobs in the queue so you know what i had no website i had a sticker on the side of my truck so my neighbors knew that this halo power was something or other nobody knew who i was and such a huge mistake because after a year the work dried up with my big clients they’re still a great client of mine we still do a lot of work for them but when that work ended nobody knew who halo power was i didn’t have a presence online

I didn’t you know there was still the yellow pages kicking around there but i didn’t have an ad going nobody knew who i was i had put all my eggs in one basket with this one client to get the business going very dangerous very slippery slope and that that was it if i could highlight the number one mistake i made when i first got into business was just being so blinded by the actual work
but i when i really think about i didn’t really have a business.

I was self-employed.

I had a corporation started.

I was billing out i was getting paid but that one customer had full control over halo power solutions you know they pumped the brakes they pulled the reins because when the work dried up with them i didn’t have any work either and where does a business owner go from there.

Yeah no you’re you’re telling a story no there are hundreds of thousands of small businesses doing exactly the same as
what happened with you and they’re making these mistakes.

So tell us how if you could do it again what would you do differently.

You know ted the very first thing i would do would be make sure that i have a presence on google.

I would have you know an ad an address on google and start a google business profile that would be the number one thing because one thing i’ve learned that if google doesn’t know about you chances are not too many other people do other than that you know maybe that word of mouth side of things okay yeah for sure google is as we know is king it is the you know the number one search platform in the world so definitely having that presence online is important at that initial step which is having that google profile what else have you learned from.

You know your years of experience in running your electrical company well you can’t do it alone that is the other thing you absolutely can do cannot do it alone and surrounding yourself with like-minded business owners is huge get your network going whether it’s through a networking group a chamber of commerce that sort of thing all really uh really great ways to get involved and surround yourself with these other like-minded people that can relate to the struggles that you’re going to have because let me tell you you are going to have struggles in your business.

I don’t care what book you read out there that tells you how to run your company or what youtube video you watched about how
you can have the million dollar lifestyle it’s not going to happen right away and there is definitely things that need to be put in place and a real system to how you’re going to run your business otherwise you’re going to run around like a chicken with your head cut off and you become very reactive to everything you do in business and that that’s a mistake you know

Ted you’ve read the e-myth

I have not it’s one of those books i would really love to get to but i’ve heard a lot of good things and
i know a lot of other authors make reference to the e-myth.

It’s a classic in terms of the business book world it really is and what i love most about the book e-myth because i’ve read it countless times is you’re building your business following the model that mcdonald’s uses.

Mcdonald’s the world’s small the world’s most successful small business having systems to run your business there’s a reason why mcdonald’s can run a mcdonald’s store with a bunch of high school kids because they’ve got these systems in place.

So really important and had i have had some systems in place with how to market the company when i first opened it up i wouldn’t have been in this boat that i was after year one where other than my one big wonderful customer. That was it that’s all i had so
i’m interested to hear your thoughts on that from a marketing expert standpoint where does a small business that’s just getting going you know where should they start from a marketing standpoint because chances are they don’t have much of a budget.

No for sure yeah so you know given your story you’re articulating a you know a common struggle for small businesses it’s usually an owner operator working in a business typically by themselves and you spoke about earlier having that connections having that
group of people that you can work with trust growing out your your network where you now you can maybe get them to assist you too.

So in terms of marketing you so that you’re not just doing the marketing by yourself and you spending all this time because you’re the man also doing the work trying to get your business built up so hiring out a marketing agency to help promote your
company to get the brand awareness to get you leads and have you convert those leads into sales for your business will then facilitate you to grow your business where you can start hiring people or you can start maybe even hiring you know a second technician to to help build your business to help you on the job then a third technician and then and so on and so forth maybe then you bring in like an office manager and then start coordinating those calls and so that’s part of what you know working with marketing agencies and sales groups is to help you scale your business to the point where now you’re no longer working in the
business you’re working on the business you start building in and fine-tuning your processes whether it’s your sales processes or your operational processes to make your business more efficient that’s kind of how mcdonald’s started you know they just started as one restaurant and now they build up to thousands of restaurants worldwide so that’s kind of how from a marketing perspective
how we can help you grow your business

But then taking it further you know kevin and i were part of a larger group so we are there to help businesses um you know we we
more than happy to share our experience or knowledge to help you grow your business we’re part of a network of individuals with the same mindset to help you grow your business and you want to be a part of a group like that.

You don’t want to be around people who are beating you down. You know saying all these negative things about business or saying you know not being our true support.

For you being a part of a group of like-minded business individuals who are there to support you is where you want to be
don’t you agree kim oh 100 and the one thing that i’ve learned in these years is that i can have this conversation with a realtor a dentist, a plumber, a home renovator, you know ceos of big corporations the struggles are the same.

The challenges are the same

Thinking that your business is is very unique because of the type of work you do when it comes right down to it the fundamentals of how that business operates the challenges you’re gonna have it really doesn’t change and it goes right back to you know i’ll i’ll talk about more of the mistakes that i’ve made in business here in future videos you know i wanted to touch on the very first one today but it can be so frustrating when you make these mistakes and you don’t have support around you and that’s what
really is so important about having a network of people around you like-minded business owners that can help you grow help you support and say you know what i made that mistake but if you just keep doing the same thing over and over again you’re beating
your head against the wall thinking it’s going to change i’ve been there i’ve done that this today will be different

It’s not different until you make a change. Make a change in the way you operate make the change in your mindset.

Video posted by Halo Power Solutions Inc. on the Halo Power Solutions YouTube Channel.