Greg Wilkes (00:01):
The construction industry can be a tough business to crack from cash flow problems. Struggling to find skilled labor and not making enough money for your efforts leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom, and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast, and I’m your host Greg Wilkes.
Greg Wilkes (00:42):
Today’s special guest is a really good friend of mine, Dan James from Quantum Electrics. Now I’ve known Dan for some 20-plus years and we’ve often sat down and had a business strategy session talking about the best practices to grow a business. Now, Dan’s journey is really incredible because he was absolutely sick of the industry and wanted to get out of construction completely.
(01:03)
He vowed never to come back again. I remember talking to him about that. But now Dan’s mindset has completely changed and we’re going to learn in this podcast what shifted in his own mindset and with him as a person that allowed him to come back into construction and this time grow a highly successful construction business. So we’re going to look at some of the tactics that he applied. We’re going to talk about his marketing strategies. We’re going to talk about how he manages to find and attract the best talent, and trades and engineers to come into his company. And I think you’re going to find it really useful to see what changes he made and what he really focused on to make his business a success. I’ve been fascinated to see the evolution of his business over the last few years particularly, and now Dan has really set himself up with a fantastic foundation to take this business to eight figures and beyond. Let’s dive in and see what we can learn. So Danny, absolutely fantastic to have you on the show. I’ve been wanting to get you on for a long time. Welcome.
Dan James (02:00):
Thanks, Greg. Nice to be here.
Greg Wilkes (02:02):
Yes, awesome. So we haven’t seen each other for a while and we’ve been good friends for years now, hasn’t it? What is it? 20, 25 years? Something like that?
Dan James (02:10):
Yes, I think about it too long. It’ll make me realize how old I am.
Greg Wilkes (02:15):
Yes, me too mate. So awesome to have you on. The reason I wanted to have you on Danny is because I’ve seen throughout both of our journeys in business, a tremendous progress that you’ve made in your electrical company and you’ve really had a fascinating story and journey that I think is really going to resonate with my listeners. So it’s great to be able to have you on the show and be able to share that with us. So maybe just as we jump into it, do you just want to introduce who you are, Danny, and what company you currently run?
Dan James (02:41):
So it’s Quantum Electricians & Plumbers. I started it, it was founded in 2015. That was just myself at the time with a DHL van, bright yellow. It’s a horrible color. You might remember it. The hand tools. I’d actually had a career in the London Fire Brigade just before that and I left that if I wind the clock back further, I had trained as an electrician leaving school when I was 16 and did an apprenticeship and then a couple of failed businesses and attempts and a few bit lucking around. I ended up in the London Fire Brigade and ran about my mid-thirties. I started up Quantum, so that was just myself. Now we’re doing about 1.4 million a year and it’s gone from that kind of beginning to where we’re at now.
Greg Wilkes (03:24):
Yes, fantastic. So we’re going to dive into that journey a little bit more. So maybe we could just go back, because you talked about you coming out of the industry, you did the fire brigade. Why did you come out of the industry initially? Because you were running an electrical business and then you sort of had enough and got out of it. I think a lot of people can probably relate to that. So why did you choose that path?
Dan James (03:43):
Well, back at the time I was in my early twenties and I suppose honestly I would not employ the Dan James of then today. He was an absolute pain. I had all kinds of expectations that just didn’t mold with the companies at the time. I was always looking for something a bit more and just quite frankly, I was just a nuisance for the employers that I had. So I was part of the problem. Also, at the time, I think the industry, there was a lot of, it was a bully boy culture. There were a lot of averages, which I hate averages, and I’d had enough of it. And by the time I was in my mid-twenties, I’d had a couple of failed attempts at trying to set up a business on my own. I’d got myself despondent, I was depressed, my confidence was on the floor and I left and I swore to myself I’d never go back to it. That was a pledge I’ve made.
Greg Wilkes (04:39):
I remember that pledge. We were sitting at the cafe many times and you were like never going to be doing this industry again. So I think a lot can relate to that. And it is frustrating at times, isn’t it? The business, if we’re finding we’re getting difficult clients, or people aren’t paying us or we’re having problems with employees, it can really stress us out. Especially when you’ve got a young family like you did too. That can really take its toll, can’t it?
Dan James (05:02):
Yes, exactly. Yes, there were all of those problems, not having enough money, always working, never having any money, constantly sorting out firefighting, trouble, grief, putting up customers that were difficult, trying to employ people that just were unmanageable, the whole shooting match. And I just sort of resolved to myself that it was something that was broken that just could not be made a success of unless somebody that was extremely lucky or extremely weird and I didn’t feel I was either of those. And so I got out from the trade completely with the view of never to go back to it.
Greg Wilkes (05:37):
Yes, that’s fair enough. Okay, so you joined the fire brigades and you did that for a few years. So how long were you in the fire brigade then?
Dan James (05:45):
How long was I there? Nine years in total.
Greg Wilkes (05:48):
Long time.
Dan James (05:49):
Yes, it was a good experience for me. I mean it was something I’d wanted to do as a kid. And when I got into the fire brigade, I was fortunate to have a few mentors and so after some bad experiences before that, my confidence was on the floor and I was able to speak to some people that kind of reinforced me that I did have the minerals to make a success of something if I apply my mind to it. And then also working for the broad section of the community of London, seeing people in all different scenarios and crawling through burning buildings and all that kind of stuff, which is a part of it. It’s a small part of it, but it’s definitely a part of that role. And then it just matured me and I came to this kind of realization at that point when I was reflecting that the electrical and the plumbing and the service industry, it’s a people business. And so I suppose I had matured a little bit with the way that I viewed people and dealt with people. And so that was a key sort of instrument in my thinking of later on when I came back to it for round two, I had revised the way I thought about how I was going to do things and I had become more methodical in my mindset. I wasn’t as jumpy and as impulsive as I had been in my early twenties, and I was a bit more calculated in my moves going forward.
Greg Wilkes (07:11):
That’s really interesting. So I know the fire brigade is big on leadership and developing you as a character. So you initially said that you jumped out of the industry because you were a different person back then and the Dan James of 20 years ago isn’t the Dan James of now. So some of the things you said you were difficult with was potentially with your employees and maybe running those and they might have been a bit fed up with you and stuff like that. So how did the fire brigade change that or you as a leader of people?
Dan James (07:40):
Well, it’s just developing of patience with people, I suppose. I say it’s a people business. When I was in my early twenties I oversimplified some things. And I think it’s a mistake to overcomplicate things too, but I definitely oversimplified some things that I was doing at the time as such my expectations were inaccurate. And when I did not meet those expectations, then I became frustrated and it became a negative cycle. But having spent some time growing up and also just life in general, my children were that much younger, and by the time I was in my thirties, things had just moved on a bit. I just had a mellower attitude towards people. If a customer felt a certain way and was anxious, I was more patient with them. I was more inclined to see it and think like a customer, if you like, rather than thinking how this would work for me as a tradesman. And so there was that transition from thinking like a tradesman to thinking more like a businessman, I suppose. Somebody who’s trying to consider things in a view to speculate rather than just looking at what I can do right now to make my living for today and to be out the door at a reasonable time in the afternoon.
Greg Wilkes (09:02):
Yes, I think that’s a really important paradigm shift there that you’ve mentioned. And I think that’s valuable for everyone listening to this that does need to happen. We’ve got to stop thinking about ourselves and how we’re going to grow this business and deal with people. So I think that’s really important. So you decided to leave the fire brigade. What triggered that decision after the experiences you had previously? Why did you then say from “I’m never going to be in this industry again” to “I’m going to now start up a hugely successful electrical company?”
Dan James (09:30):
Well, I don’t like being beaten at anything if I’m honest, which is not always a good thing. I realized I failed badly at the electrical and running the company, and though I loved being in the fire brigade, I wasn’t cut out for staying in the place like that too long term. I wanted to eventually do my own thing. And it was just a case of reflecting on life in general and then starting to think how I might have done something differently and all the mirrored small things, just how I might have spoken to that person, how I might have dealt with that particular incident or how I would’ve treated that customer. I just started to think about it and the cogs were going and I started to think, yeah, I’ll do it differently now. And there were other people around me, you would be one of them who were running successful businesses in the construction industry.
(10:24)
And I thought, you know what? I’m here. And I say I love the fire brigade, but it is not an industry that people go into to make lots of money. And I’d gone into it because I was hoping for some excitement and that kind of thing. As I matured, my priorities changed and I thought I would like to build something that might be more financially rewarding, and something that I could call my own and keep that as mine, and maybe something that I could pass on to my children later on. And that’s when I started to consider what it might look like life, if I were to go back into the construction industry and pursue the business again, pick up the reins, and start getting the van running.
Greg Wilkes (11:06):
Fantastic. So it started with a bit of a goal of what you wanted to achieve in the future. You wanted to build something for you and your family going forward. And that’s a really important point just to hone in on because we need to have a reason why we’re doing this and what’s going to keep driving us when things are tough. So thinking about your journey and how things were going to be different, I know you are big into mentors and coaches, you’ve had coaches throughout your journey as you’ve gone through it as I have, how has that helped you in different phases of your business?
Dan James (11:38):
Well, yes, that would be massive. So I think one of the most common mistakes that people make going into business definitely in the trades, and this would be applicable everywhere, is that because someone is a good electrician, that there’ll be a good electrical contractor because someone’s a good accountant, they’ll run a good accountancy practice. And I reckon because somebody considers themselves to be a good lawyer, that there’ll be a good legal practice. The two are not exactly the same. And so I think anyone that’s looking to make the decision to become, like we’re talking about today, to get into run a contractor or a services company, they may have been great at their trade, but it doesn’t mean to say that they’re going to be good at running a business. And that was exactly what I was like in my early twenties. I didn’t understand company accounts.
(12:26)
They still baffle me to be totally honest, but I know how to deal with people who do know how to deal with company accounts. I didn’t understand customers and customer service. And so in terms of getting mentors and coaches and things, I think if you are looking to compete and businesses competing, it’s all about competing. But if you wanted to compete at golf, no one would think twice about getting a professional golf coach and analyzing your swing, studying your game, and really getting into the minute tie of what makes you good and studying the great players you’d need that because just putting your best in is not going to be enough. You need to know in detail what you need to do. And I think it’s exactly the same in business, that very few people, if any, are just born naturally good at it.
(13:19)
They all learn from someone, everyone actually. And I’m definitely no exception to that rule. And so by bringing in some experts and people that could look at me and say, this is what you’re doing wrong, you might be doing that right, that’s great hearing what we do right, but to say what I was doing wrong and what we need to focus on and how we can look at a business with a bird’s eye view and understand where it’s going, where it’s come from, that’s what having those coaches and mentors is all about. And I think that’s imperative if someone really wants to compete at a good level.
Greg Wilkes (13:56):
Yes, a hundred percent. I think that you’re completely right there. So thinking about once you decided, right, I’m going to get into electrics, build a successful company, obviously there are so many angles you can go with that. Commercial, domestic, all the different callouts, whatever it’s going to be potentially. What made you pick the model that you were going for now? So just describe the model that you have got as a business and then tell us how you arrived at deciding to do that.
Dan James (14:24):
So the model that we predominantly work in now is in the domestic light commercial sector and it’s reactive. We do plumbing, heating, electrics and some other sort of multi-trade tasks that would dovetail with that. There’s obviously the project side of the business, which some people get involved with. That’s not something that just suits me personally and it is not something that I know lots and lots about. But I did like the idea of running a reactive service business within a domestic sector where I’d be dealing directly with clients and people who can pay us immediately without all of the infrastructure that might come with trying to get money out from say a large corporate organization. So that was unlocking cashflow. We’ve got payment on completion policy, which is that’s religious, that’s built into the fabric of the company. So it was being aware of some of the issues that I had previously about getting money in time into the company and how that will kill companies if that’s not done, regardless of how good they might be. And so well, what can we do differently? We’ll choose our customers. We won’t just work for anybody. We’ll be very strict about our pricing. We won’t drop our prices too low. That’s just to name a few things. And then too, looking around at other companies that were successful, there is some out there. I mean it’s a Pimlico Plumbers, we’ve spoken about was a big inspiration. I mean when I first heard about,
Greg Wilkes (15:58):
Just to pause there, we had Charlie Mullins on the podcast a while back, and really generous in his knowledge and his advice to business startups. If anyone’s listened to this podcast and they haven’t heard Charlie Mullen’s podcast, I’d highly encourage you to do that. He has a book as well where he is pretty open about his business tactics and strategies, which is really useful for people who are starting a business up or trying to model a business.
Dan James (16:22):
Yes. And he fascinated me. I mean, I’ve bumped into him and said hello. I don’t know the man, but I mean I’ve got a lot of respect for him and I relate to what he did. He’s a tradesman. He’s from London, like we both are. And when I first heard about Pimlico Plumbers and what they were doing, I was just amazed by it. I suppose it was a freak. It was like I came to the circus and looked at a goldfish that was as big as a double-decker bus. It was just not the sort of thing that you come across apart from the large corporate kind of contractors that will work on major projects like the Channel Tunnel and Canary Wharf.
Dan James (16:57):
But here was a service company that had started out as a one-man operation and was now a highly systemized large-scale company doing the kind of work that lots of people in our industries do, but on a scale unbeknownst to anyone before, and I was just blown away by it, how can this happen? What was it that enabled them to scale to such a level? So I thought, well, okay, we’ll look at a company like that that’s already gone that way. We’ll have made those mistakes and see just through observation what we can learn from them. There were other companies a bit like them, but I think it’s fair to say that for a little while in London, they were like the Rolling Stones, if you like, of the services company during the heyday. And so that was a big sort of thing for me and it kind of was acid test proof that it does work. You can’t deny it because there’s someone there that’s done it and was continuing to do it. And there are others that say like them, but the idea that I might have once had that there’s no money in the game is that it can’t be done. You can’t get the staff. There was now irrefutable evidence that was just not the case, because here in plain view was a company doing I think 40 40-odd million a year at their top end all in that kind of work.
Greg Wilkes (18:27):
Yes, that’s it. And there’s the sayings aren’t there that success leaves clues. Tony Robbins always talks about modeling other successful people or businesses. If you want a roadmap of how to do it, then model someone who’s already done it. So it is great that you’re able to pick out these industry-leading companies where we can look at it and think, well what are they doing that’s right or what don’t I like about that business and what wouldn’t I model? So that’s really useful. But no doubt when you started this new company, it’s not all plain sailing, especially as a startup and starting as a one-man band, what challenges did you face? What were the big challenges as you started to grow this new company after you left the fire brigade?
Dan James (19:03):
Well, initially it’s just the fact that no one really beyond my immediate family and friends knew we were doing it. So there’s a saying, I think that’s something along the lines of you come out of a great idea or something and the world beats up after your door. It’s got to be one of the most incorrect sayings I think there is, because the world won’t beat up after your door. First of all, the world needs to know who you are and why you’re selling it. They need to know where your door is and then they want to know how much you’re going to charge when they get there. And that’s exactly the problem that we had when we set out. So marketing was something that straight away that I realized that say being a good tradesman, being a good electrician, or whatever, it’s not going to cut it.
(19:43)
You now had to be a competent marketeer to be able to take the business forward. That’s just the beginning. And then of course, once you start driving the work, you’ve now got to deliver the product against that work and you’ve got to monetize the customers. So you’ve to be selling your services at a price point that gives you a return on your marketing costs and everything else. It is like a densely layer of the thing, isn’t it? And it’s certainly not something that just comes naturally to me. And so that’s where having an education, I think in business does help you do, I think have to be, there’s probably some genetic DNA involved in it, perhaps it is not for everyone. I speak to lots of people who say it doesn’t suit me, but beyond that, it is something that we have to acquire I think as we go.
(20:37)
So definitely starting out the marketing was a big challenge and then it was attracting the right kinds of engineers and the right kind of people to come on board that would get on board with the way of thinking that I wanted the company to have. And that was something that I wanted to then be obvious to the customers that we worked for so that when people were engaging with us, they felt like they were buying into something a little bit more than just getting the job done, getting them out from a tight corner when their electrics have gone down or the boiler’s packed up.
Greg Wilkes (21:08):
Yes, let’s come on to the trades in a second because I think there’s a whole subject just on that, but just want to come back to the marketing for a minute because when people are building businesses and they want to grow and they want to scale, obviously marketing is absolutely crucial to it, and I don’t think people quite comprehend what’s involved in a marketing strategy. Now there are two types, aren’t there? We can be nice and cheap and do it all organic and that’s a slow burner, or we can decide to rapidly pick up the pace and use paid ads for marketing, but there are obviously some challenges around that. What method did you choose and why did you go down that route?
Dan James (21:45):
Well, I went into paid marketing at the time. It’s changed a bit now, but obviously, there’s things like Google, they own the internet. There’s no two ways about that, but that was a big thing that we invested into. And then there’s socials, but it is just to generate leads and you’ve got to know there is a skill to that. And that isn’t, again, something that it’s like driving a car. No one’s naturally born a good driver. You do have to learn the subtle nuances of pay-per-click marketing and how that works. So that was something that we did move into initially at the beginning. And then on top of that, there would be the social media marketing. That was something that we invested into. I’ve drifted off point a little bit there. What was the initial, sorry
Greg Wilkes (22:35):
Coming back to the paid marketing, so obviously you wanted to go for speed and you wanted to build your business quickly, so you can do that organically, but it’s going to be slow and painful, but you went for the paid method, but there are challenges that go with that when you’re building a new company, there are cashflow issues and Google is there to just suck you dry, isn’t it, and money up. So what challenges did you face? What was the constant balancing act that you were trying to navigate there with paid ads?
Dan James (23:03):
Well, it is finding the sweet spot, which is how much we can put into this, where we can put into it, and what’s going to actually make the phone ring at the end of the day. And I’d say that when you’re talking to a lot of these marketing agencies, a lot of them are selling snake oil, let’s be honest. So I did get my fingers burnt a lot of times at the beginning. And I think it’s important as well when you’re starting out in business to accept that there is going to be a certain amount of collateral damage financially, you’re not going to hit home run after home run. And that’s part of the endurance test of it. And so yeah, initially we did get burnt on things like Google ads. They can be very expensive and Google will happily strip you naked in a heartbeat if it can do.
(23:51)
That was something that had to be tackled. So the landscape of paperclip marketing changes all the time. So when I was first starting out marketing several years back with Google, it has moved on. It’s quite different now to what it was then. But that was something that had to be honed and tuned from the outset. And I’ve got, like I say, you’ve got to throw in the kitchen sink. And one of the big things is that particularly with pay-per-click marketing, all marketing, you can put just enough money into it to fail. If you just put a little bit in and you’re not fully committed, you’ll get something back out from it. But it’s not really going to start moving a business forward. And if you need to move the business forward, you’ve got to be ballsy with it and you’ve got to throw in a kitchen sink.
(24:40)
And that will mean committing some serious funds into the marketing endeavor to get a company moving. It is okay, later on, let’s say we’ve spoken about Pimlico Plumbers, but by the time they’d come to my attention, they were 30-odd years in existence and had just organically over the course of time carved out a piece of the market for themselves. But new companies don’t have that luxury at the beginning. They’ve got to make some things happen on their own. And that unfortunately does involve throwing in the kitchen sink and putting your money forward. It is a risk, it’s not for everyone,
Dan James (25:14):
It is definitely a risk.
Greg Wilkes (25:17):
And what I find fascinating about this is because we talk about the investment that you had to put into that. Now obviously there’s a huge financial investment, but I remember at the time when you were doing this, there was a huge time investment from you as well. So I’m a big believer in the saying that we ask who not how do I do this? Who can I get to do this for me? But actually, you challenge that saying, and I believe you were right in doing that because this was such a fundamental part of your business. It wasn’t just, who am I going to get to do this? You actually learned how to master this yourself, the technicalities of Google Ads. Why did you spend so much time on that? Why did you feel that that was so important?
Dan James (25:53):
I think that there is a writer, actually, I think it’s Perry Marshall, his name is, and he speaks about, at the time it was a thousand dollars an hour jobs and he’s written some books on Google marketing amongst others. He describes learning that as a skill as a thousand dollars an hour jobs, farms out your 10 pounds an hour jobs, no problem, but a thousand dollars an hour jobs. If you are going to give that to somebody else, you want to make sure that they are ninja-level competency before you just give it to them. And this was something, so if people didn’t know who we were, how much we cost, and how to find us, nothing was going to happen. And so it was imperative that if we were going to do this, I had to learn this and give it the devotion that you need.
(26:44)
I think so as well with businesses, you’ve got to be a little bit eccentric in your mindset to make it work. You’ve got to stick with something. Again, maybe some people have a different experience, but nothing’s going to be easy and just flow. And if we’re going to make something work, we’ve got to be all in with it. So I just devoted time to studying how it works, what the expectations of Google were, how much certain keywords cost, and what times of day the customers were even most likely to be looking for us. People weren’t looking so often at 8:00 AM in the morning, but they seemed to be looking between two and three in the afternoon for some services. What type of adverts would work if someone’s going to end up on a page on your website, let’s look at the page on the website.
(27:33)
Are they going to want to pick the phone up and call us? Why should they when they’ve got up to other choices? And so learning that and also getting some tutoring in that which was necessary too, was essential in just getting the business moving. And if you are in the luxurious position where you’ve got millions and millions of pounds worth of investment, loads of banks got behind you or something, that’s great, you could hire the best brains on the planet to do that for you. But for the rest of us, no one else is going to do this. We are going to do it. And I say, I haven’t got anything against marketing agencies, but they’ve got their own agendas, and a lot of them I think are just looking for another notch on the bedpost. And so I didn’t want to be that notch and I thought, we’ll learn it ourselves and then I can devote as much time as needed to make this work and make a success of it.
Greg Wilkes (28:25):
And what I think is also an important thing to mention to people is that once you did learn that strategy going forward, you were then able to hand it off to agencies or other people, but you knew the strategy so that you were never going to get the wall pulled over your eyes with Google ads or pay-per-click again.
Dan James (28:40):
Exactly. Yes. So it’s coming back to that thousand dollars an hour job analogy. Nobody could then mug us off basically and start saying, I’ll take X amount off you per month to manage that side of the business. But now we could say, well, we could put APIs, which again would’ve meant nothing to the Dan James of his early twenties. But key performance indicator, I don’t really like business buzzwords, so I won’t use too many of them, but if we’re going to give that kind of job to someone, I need to know what’s a reasonable expectation to have of them. And if I were a complete layman, they could say anything and if it sounded good, I’d probably believe it. But now that we knew what was realistic, I could sit there and if someone’s trying to tell me that they’re going to promise me the farm barn and stables by month three, I knew that they were fibbing and I knew that I’m probably not even going to work with them if they’re going to try that one at the beginning. And so it gave us an understanding that kind of leveled the playing field. I think a lot of trades might understand that we’ve all spoken to someone who knows just enough to be dangerous. And let’s face it, customers like that are in absolute pain, aren’t they? I now became that kind of customer to the marketers, the chances weren’t going to get away with it, and we were in a position now to actually start setting realistic targets and have a more objective conversation about what could be done next.
Greg Wilkes (30:06):
Yes, fantastic. Yes, so a lot of value in that, Danny, thanks for that. So let’s just talk about something you touched on earlier, the trades trying to bring in good engineers to your business, because that was actually crucial for your growth and for you to be able to step away from the tools. So how have you navigated that minefield? Because we hear this all the time, there’s no trades out there, there’s no good talent, and they’re too expensive. How have you managed to find and attract top trades and engineers to your business?
Dan James (30:32):
Yes, I mean it’s a big problem skill shortage, but getting the right people on board. Top people want to work for successful top companies and people. They’re not going to want to work for C players, they’re going to want to work for guys that are good. So to attract that kind of talent, we had to then think about what we were going to offer them. And so it’s a business transaction. So that generally revolves something around money. The guys that work for me at the minute, if any of them are watching this, they might complain, but they are on the best gig in the country at the minute. I make it my job as well to know what the competition is offering people. That’s something I’m always looking at. And what they get paid at Quantum and the terms that they work under, that’s not readily available elsewhere.
(31:27)
So to get the best talent that’s out there, there had to be an offer to that was going to turn their heads. Then it’s working conditions, how people are going to be treated. I think intellectual people that are driven, people that are ambitious, they like to be challenged. If you leave them to stew for too long, they become, it is just not how they are wired up to operate. So I think it’s important to keep people engaged to interact with them, to offer them opportunities to better themselves. Some of the guys that have come on here have been put through courses like in Automation Electrics, which is something else we’ve got involved with a certain type of work that goes beyond just smashing up people’s houses to install cables and run pipes and things. And so we’re able to offer top engineers a quality of work that they may not get everywhere else, but in an environment where people are going to respect them, where they’re going to be treated as partners within the business, and where they’re also going to have a reward in the company’s success.
(32:40)
And so all the guys that work here are rewarded on a performance-based arrangement. And so the company is only as successful as its staff, as its engineers. I know that sounds like a bit of a cliche, but that is exactly how true it is at Quantum. And so if an engineer is not being successful, then the company is not being successful, and that’s something we would then talk about with them. But to attract the right kind of talent, I think you’ve got to look good enough to attract them in the first place. And so it means offering them something that isn’t just a run-in-the-mill average, not trying to screw them down on the most basic of pay. Again, the guys that work here have all got top-of-the-range vans. We only have Volkswagen transporters that are all only a couple of years old. And recently now, we are shifting over to Mercedes eVito electrics, all brand new. And so no self-respecting tradesmen want to be out and a beaten-up old skip of a vehicle. That’s something else. The vehicle is racked out, they’ve got locks. Everything about it is quality. And so if someone’s going to come on board and join what they receive to be a successful firm where they’ve got to be offered something that’s quality as well.
Greg Wilkes (33:55):
Yes, that’s fantastic. And it sounds like a great place to work. Quantum, obviously you’ve really thought about the company culture you want and the whole setup there, which is important. Now, someone listening to this might just be initially thinking, yeah, well I can’t afford that. I can’t afford to pay the top money. I’m not going to make any money. But you’ve obviously thought about the entire model because you also now get to charge premium prices offering premium engineers to your clients, aren’t you? So the whole holistic approach works, doesn’t it?
Dan James (34:24):
Yes, exactly. I mean, customers will pay more for a better service if that was not a true fact, then companies like Louis Vuitton wouldn’t exist. I could buy a Ford Mondeo for much less. And so offering a quality product is something that people always have and always will pay for. And the engineers that work here, and this is the other thing that I think comes into the respect of them, is that they are the product. They are what we sell. If we were selling shoes or bat handbags, that would be the product. But here, these engineers, so we want to be investing in them and making them the bee’s knees when they turn up at these people’s properties to solve the problems that they’ve been called out to do. And if that happens, it’s like a virtuous circle. The customers will settle the bill, they’re not going to argue over silly little things.
(35:17)
They will pay a premium for it. And I think too, when something is charged at a higher price point, people’s expectations are going to be higher, but they generally have a little bit more respect for something if you try to be the cheapest, but it’s a very difficult battle, that’s not a business strategy. I think that’s best left to the experts to stack high sell low, whatever the saying is, that’s not something I really know how to do. But providing something of quality, something that is optimized and people are going to pay for is where we’re at. And those funds, if you like, that come into the company, well, yeah, that’s how we can put a decent quality van on the road for the engineers to drive around it. And if the engineers have got a decent quality van, they’re not going to be driving around in a rusty old nail that’s going to break down.
(36:01)
And so our reliability is going to be better. If you are a client, do you really want a beaten-up old banger on your driveway that leaks oil after the bloke’s gone, or would you like a smart vehicle there? I know which one I’d rather have out the two of them and what kind of statement that makes. So it is a holistic approach, and having those kinds of costs set like that, then you can reinvest money into the company, whether that be in marketing or back office infrastructure, having people available around the clock to pick phones up and deal with inquiries. And once you are generating the revenue to support that, you can put those systems in place and it will just improve the business product as a whole, which is ultimately what the customers want.
Greg Wilkes (36:46):
Yes, fantastic. So you’ve also applied that same approach, not just with engineers, but also bringing in top talent to the management team, if you like, in the business. So how did you approach that? Because you brought in a pretty big player in, to come and help you grow the business.
Dan James (37:03):
So I’ll make it my job to know what the competition’s up to. I think that’s a really important thing. If you want to stand out from the others, you don’t want to be the sum average of all the others. You’ve got to be better than them. So I’ve spent quite a lot of time in looking at what everyone else in the industry is up to and what’s making them tick. And in that process, if I had certain names come up regularly and you start thinking, okay, who’s this person? They’re a player, they’re on top of their game that this person’s proven themself a few times over now, and then it starts the question, next question is, well, what would happen if they were here? What would they be doing at Quantum if we could harness that talent and bring it in and unleash them in our own little universe?
(37:42)
Now, what would happen next? So yes, there are individuals that I’ve seen like that, and it’s no accident that they’re now here working at Quantum. We didn’t bump into each other walking down the road one day. It was by design that we’ve met and they’ve come on board. And so I think successful people want to be around. They’re attracted to successful things. And so if you can offer someone the excitement or the thrill or the challenge and money will come into it inevitably, but if you can offer that kind of package, it’s going to turn heads. And so if you’re speaking to some of these people and you challenge them at their kind of base level, and they’re going to want to come over and see what they can do. Fortunately, we’ve been very fortunate that we have got some talent that’s come through too, which I’m super grateful and flat to have on board, and it only bodes well really for the future, for the decades ahead, not just the months, but the decades.
Greg Wilkes (38:47):
And I’m really excited to see what that brings you, Dan. So what does the future look like for Quantum? What is your five or 10-year plan? Where do you want to take this business?
Dan James (38:56):
Well, really the more backs and bodies that are out there working, the bigger, more successful financially the business can become. So at the moment, there isn’t really an upper limit on the number of engineers that we could deploy. And so the plan is at the moment, we want to bring in another 10 engineers to add on to what we’ve got. And so that’s our short-term goal. And then after that, we are going to bring in more. We started out, so trades-wise, I’m an electrician by trade. That’s what I started outing, but we’ve got into heating and plumbing a few years ago, and that’s now in the company that’s as big as maybe bigger than the electrical side of it. Now it is probably gone bigger than it, I would say it depends on month to month. And so the core business will always remain electric heating, plumbing, but we will look at other things that will be other sectors that we’ll look into, other aspects, we’re going to get more involved with working overnights and all hours of the day, all days of the year.
(39:58)
That’s something we’re already on, but that is something that’s only going to become more and more firmed up as time goes by. And so yeah, the future’s going to just be more and more of what we’re doing. Just we’re now scaling. We’ve got the system sorted out, it’s all there. The genetics of it are all in place. It’s now a case of just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat over and over again until we’re into multiple numbers of engineers on the road and there’s no sign of slowing down yet. And I’ve still got plenty of steam in the tank, I think. So onwards and upwards.
Greg Wilkes (40:33):
Yes, really exciting. I look forward to hearing exactly how that goes as you go through it. I’d love to know your top tip. If people listening to this, they’re trying to grow a one to a 5 million pound or dollar company, you are obviously there at the moment and you’ve been through the pain points. If you were going to give someone a top tip on what they should be really focusing on, what would your top tip be for business owners like yourself?
Dan James (40:57):
They’ve got to throw in the kitchen sink. And I’ve spoken to lots of people who want to do this safely from a distance and not expose themselves too much. I don’t think that’s going to ever work. You’ve got to be committed to it, and you’ve got to be on board 110%. And I also think there’s too much that gets batted around about business now that makes it look overly romantic that you are a big believer in getting up at the crack of dawn, but I mean, that’s not exactly my bag, but getting up and having a nice bath at 4:30 and then meditating and whatever else it is, and at seven o’clock you’re firing on all cylinders. That’s great and noble for the people that do that, but that is not intrinsic into being successful in business. And so I think that there is a lot of hardship that comes with it, and it’s being ready for that, and it’s having the endurance to stick with it.
(41:52)
So I think you’ve got to have skin like a rhinoceros. That’s something that will help. You’ve got to throw in the kitchen sink and be fully committed, and you’ve got to be prepared to get it wrong a number of times and learn. And so if you put that together, it’s going to be a bumpy road, but don’t expect immediate results. It’s something that’s just got to be stuck with the rest of it. There are books written about it and there are better people qualified than me to probably educate on it. But yeah, I don’t think there is a recipe for success. I think you can formulate things. What works in one specific case may not dovetail somewhere else, but there will be things that could be taken out of it and extrapolated. Maybe that’s where having coaches and mentors and people who have done it before can come in and identify things that may not be obvious to someone who’s starting out on that journey. Like I say, if you want to compete, you’ve got to up your game. And so I think it’s important to bring people in too that can contribute, whether that’s to walk along with the original founder and then later on that would be talent and skills that you’ve bring into the business to help take it forward.
Greg Wilkes (43:04):
Yes, fantastic. Dan, it’s been really useful running through this, and I know I knew your journey. Obviously, we’ve spoken about business many times over a beer and a coffee in the past and it’s really incredible to see what you’ve managed to achieve in this business. And I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen going forward over the next few years. So thank you for the advice and value that you’ve offered on the show today, and I wish you all the best going forward.
Dan James (43:27):
Thanks, Greg. Yes, thanks for bringing me on. It’s been a pleasure.
Greg Wilkes (43:39):
If you’d like to work with me to fast-track your construction business growth, then reach out on www.developcoaching.co.uk.
