Want to scale your trade business… but keep telling yourself “I make more on my own”?
This episode is going to blow that story to pieces. 💣

Wayne and Andy dive into the real, practical side of scaling a trades business — not the Instagram version. We’re talking engineers, office staff, wages, vans, tools, hidden costs, pricing, risk and mindset… all the stuff most lads avoid until it bites them.

Recorded in early December 2025 (while Wayne’s freezing down south and Andy’s even colder up north ❄️😂), this one goes deep on what it actually takes to grow beyond “just you in a van”.

Inside this episode:

• 🔧 Why “I make the same money on my own” = a pricing & setup problem

• 📊 The real cost of putting an engineer on the road (and why it’s NOT just their wage)

• 💷 Salary vs true cost — PAYE, pension, van, tools, insurance, tyres, breakdowns, sick days & more

• 🧮 Why you MUST factor in “phantom costs” (repairs, fuck-ups, training days, overruns)

• 💣 How lads end up turning over £1m and earning less than a good employed engineer

• 💰 Why an engineer should be a profit centre, not just “keeping customers happy”

• 🪣 The “two buckets” analogy — why you can’t catch more water with one bucket

• 🧱 Foundations first: pricing, systems, software, back-end support… THEN scaling

• 🧠 Mindset: fear of risk, bad past experiences, and why most owners stay stuck small

• 🔄 Why the first hire is the hardest — and why every one after gets easier

• 🏗️ What a real business looks like vs just being self-employed

• 🧓 Future you: why staying solo gives you nothing to sell or pass on at retirement

Plus:

• Wayne breaks down why your van, tools and gear MUST be priced into your hourly rate (not paid for out of your back pocket)

• Andy explains why most horror stories about staff come from lads who were undercharging in the first place

• They both hammer home why scaling done properly = more profit, more security, more options — not just more stress

If you:

• feel capped out and knackered 😮‍💨

• are scared to take on your first engineer 😬

• have tried staff before and “it didn’t work” ❌

• or want a business you can sell or step back from one day 🏡…

…you need to listen to this.

Sort your numbers.
Build the foundations.
Then scale properly.

💬 Got questions about pricing, hiring, or using the Off The Tools Pricing Calculator?
Hit up Wayne at wayne@offthetools.co.uk or Andy at andy@offthetools.co.uk, or jump into the Off The Tools / Plum Chat Facebook groups and get involved. 🦁🔥

In this episode, Wayne and Andy tackle a brutally honest topic most tradesmen don’t want to hear:

👉 If you’re still answering your own phone… you’re holding your business back.
Full stop. End of.

This week’s conversation dives deep into why taking calls yourself destroys productivity, kills your pricing confidence, and keeps you trapped as the “local guy who does everything” instead of a real business owner.

Inside this episode:

• 📵 Why answering your own phone instantly caps your growth

• 💁‍♀️ Why women outperform men in admin, customer service & call handling (stats don’t lie)

• 🧠 The emotional bias that makes YOU terrible at quoting — and why office staff fix it

• 💼 How a female voice on the phone elevates your brand, reputation, and perceived value

• 🔧 The difference between a tradesman mindset and a business owner mindset

• 🕒 How many hours you’re wasting every week flicking between jobs and admin

• 🤯 The hidden lost revenue when you miss calls or call customers back “later”

• 📈 Why outsourcing your calls isn’t a cost — it’s one of the best investments you can make

• 🧩 Why you MUST have a job management system before getting admin support

• 🔥 The real reason customers won’t pay your new prices… and how admin staff fix it

• ☎️ How missed calls sabotage every pound you spend on marketing (listen to last week’s episode!)

This is a big wake-up call for tradesmen who:

• want to charge more 💷

• want to appear more professional 🧑‍💼

• want to scale a real business 🚀

• want more time back with their family ❤️

• want to stop being chained to the phone like a 24/7 emergency hotline ☎️🔥

If you want less stress, higher profits, and a business that grows without you doing everything…

Get off the phone.
Get someone in the office.
Grow like a real business.

💬 Got questions about hiring, systems, or call handling?
Drop Wayne or Andy a message or jump into the Off The Tools community on Facebook. 🦁🔥

If you’re still saying “I’ve never advertised and I’m doing fine” — this episode is for you. 🔥

Wayne and Andy rip into one of the biggest myths in the trade game: that word of mouth alone is enough to grow a modern business, charge properly, and stay ahead of the competition. Spoiler: it isn’t. ❌

They break down the difference between primitive marketing (cards, mags, leaflets, vans, local presence) and new age marketing (Google Ads, Checkatrade, platforms, SEO, CRMs) — and why the smartest businesses are doing BOTH. 🧠🚀

Inside this episode:

• 🧯 Why “I don’t need to market” usually means you’re too cheap

• 📉 The brutal truth about relying on word of mouth in 2025

• 🪓 Primitive marketing vs new age marketing — and where each one wins

• 📬 How to use leaflets, A6 cards, local mags & sponsorships properly

• 🔌 Why most trades switch off marketing at the worst possible time

• ⏳ Marketing for the future, not just for “when it’s quiet”

• 🌐 How Checkatrade and lead gen sites actually work (once you stop expecting 60% conversion)

• 🥶 Why cold leads are different – and what’s a realistic win rate

• 💷 How marketing and pricing are linked (more leads = more confidence = higher prices)

• ⚠️ Why chasing turnover without foundations is a fast road to burnout

• 📈 The slow, boring, compounding marketing most lads are too impatient to do

If you want to:

• stop depending on luck and “hoping the phone rings” ☎️

• attract better customers 🤝

• raise your prices without shitting yourself 💰

• and build a business that grows every year instead of yo-yoing 📊…

…then you need to get serious about marketing. Properly. Consistently. Long-term. 💪

💬 Got a question about your marketing or want us to break down your current setup on a future episode?
Drop Wayne or Andy a message or join the free Off The Tools community on Facebook and get involved. 🦁🔥

AI isn’t coming.
It’s already here.
And the trades who ignore it are going to get smoked by the ones who adopt it.

In this episode, Wayne & Andy dive into the truth about AI in the plumbing, heating, and electrical world — stripping out the sci-fi nonsense and showing exactly how real tradesmen can use AI TODAY to save time, win more work, and look more professional than 90% of their competitors.

Inside this unfiltered episode:

🔥 How Wayne went from “AI’s a novelty” → to fully embedding it in two businesses
🔥 Why AI won’t replace tradesmen — but WILL replace slow, old-school businesses
🔥 The biggest game-changer: AI phone answering (live demo included)
🔥 How AI can answer calls, book jobs, send links, collect customer info & upsell… all while you’re under a boiler
🔥 The shocking increase in online bookings once AI handles your first contact
🔥 Why customers prefer AI speed over human small talk
🔥 How AI helps single-man bands COMPETE with companies that have full offices
🔥 Why the older generation actually prefer AI more than you think
🔥 How AI + automations can reduce your office workload by 50–80%
🔥 Why manual call handling is losing you customers every single day
🔥 The one mindset shift that stops tradesmen sabotaging their own growth
🔥 How AI protects your business from “giving away the diagnosis” over the phone
🔥 Using AI for website chat, content creation, customer service & more
🔥 Why “not answering the phone” is the #1 reason customers leave their old tradesman
🔥 The harsh reality: customers want SPEED, not excuses

PLUS:
Real examples from inside Wayne’s business — including a live walk-through of his AI call handler and chat bot, how it collects data, how it routes calls, and how it pushed online bookings up by 50%+ almost overnight.

If you’re a one-man band, small team, or even a growing company with office staff — you NEED to hear this.

AI isn’t a threat.
It’s a tool.
And the ones who pick it up will dominate the next decade of the trades.

Want us to build your AI call handler or chatbot?
Email Wayne or Andy — links in the description.

If systems are the engine of your business, automations are the turbocharger — and most tradesmen aren’t using ANY of it.

In this episode, Wayne & Andy tear into one of the biggest growth multipliers in the trade industry:
Automations that run your business in the background while you crack on with the job.

No robots. No sci-fi nonsense.
Just smart, simple processes that save you hours, make you more professional, and massively boost your reviews, conversions, and customer satisfaction.

Inside this episode we break down:

🔥 What automations REALLY are (in trade language, not tech jargon)
🔥 Why manual reminders, notes & follow-ups are costing you thousands
🔥 The “Big 3” automations every trade business must have
 • Review collection
 • Quote follow-up
 • Booking confirmations & reminders
🔥 Why automations beat human effort every single time
🔥 How to scale from 10 reviews to 1,000+ using one simple automation
🔥 Why customers LOVE consistent communication (and why you can’t do it manually)
🔥 How automations help you upsell service plans without being salesy
🔥 Why manual follow-ups ≠ professionalism
🔥 How automation removes emotion, hesitation & human error
🔥 How to build a customer journey that feels like Amazon/Uber — not “Dave the plumber”
🔥 The truth about complaints: why a handful of moaners shouldn’t dictate your strategy
🔥 Why automations + systems + marketing = explosive growth

PLUS:
Andy shares the exact automations that took his business from zero reviews to nearly 1,000 in eight months.
Wayne explains how 10,000+ automated review requests saved MONTHS of admin time.

If you want:

• More reviews

• More conversions

• Better customers

• Fewer headaches

• More time

• A more professional reputation

• And a business that runs even when you’re not touching it…

This episode will hit home.

Automations aren’t optional anymore.
They’re the difference between staying small…
and scaling properly.

Stop dancing around it — most tradesmen are flat-out undercharging.
And it’s killing their profit, their time, their confidence, and their business.

In this hard-hitting episode, Wayne and Andy tear into the REAL pricing problem in the UK trade industry — why it keeps happening, how it screws your income, and what you must do TODAY to fix it.

This isn’t theory.
This isn’t “charge what you’re worth” fluff.
This is the truth from two lads who have built, coached, systemised, and scaled real trade businesses.

Inside this episode we cover:

• Why nearly every heating engineer, electrician, plumber & spark in the UK is too cheap

• The mindset problem holding most tradesmen back

• Why copying “going rates” is financial suicide

• How to actually work out your real hourly rate (properly)

• Why profit, salary, and overheads MUST be calculated — not guessed

• How inflation is silently robbing your business every single year

• Why being the most expensive in your area is not only possible… it’s smart

• How to raise prices without losing your best customers

• The truth about “busy but broke” tradesmen

• Why most self-employed lads earn LESS than they think

• The simple 10-customer pricing challenge (do it and prove yourself wrong)

PLUS — we break down:

• The free Pricing Calculator Wayne created

• How to start charging based on REAL numbers

• How to start attracting customers who respect value, not bargain hunters

If you’re sick of grafting hard and earning less than you deserve, this is the episode you’ve needed for years.

No excuses.
No guessing.
Do the work.
Raise your prices.
Build a real business.

👉 Send your area + current pricing to wayne@offthetools.co.uk so we can include the data in a future episode.

Most tradesmen say “yes” to every job… and then wonder why they’re stressed, skint, overwhelmed, and never actually growing their business.

In this episode, Wayne and Andy dive deep into the reality most lads ignore:

Not all work is good work.
And some jobs are killing your business without you realising.

This episode is a straight-talking breakdown of how to choose the RIGHT work — the jobs that grow your business, increase lifetime value, build recurring revenue, and stop you being a busy fool.

Inside this episode:

🔥 Why saying “yes to everything” is the reason you’re stuck
🔥 The dangerous myth: “Combi swaps are the golden goose”
🔥 Why service & repair work quietly builds the strongest, most profitable businesses
🔥 How “lifetime value” actually works (and how to use it properly)
🔥 Why five boiler installs a month WON’T grow your business long-term
🔥 The difference between “profit now” vs “profit over 10 years”
🔥 The opportunity cost nobody in the heating/plumbing world talks about
🔥 Why working for builders & letting agents is often a trap
🔥 How to choose work that scales your business — not drowns you
🔥 Why customer acquisition beats short-term cash every time
🔥 The mindset shift every tradesman needs if they want to grow

PLUS:
Wayne and Andy share real stories from their own businesses — including walking away from £100k+ a year in “comfortable” work to unlock bigger, better opportunities.

If your diary is full but your business isn’t growing…
If you’re always busy but never ahead…
If you want to scale but can’t find the time…

This episode is a wake-up call.

Start choosing the right work.
Start building the business you actually want.
Stop surviving. Start growing.