Marketingfortradesmenfrance

14/09/2026

Sometimes the most expensive word in business is:

Yes

Yes to the job that doesn't make financial sense
Yes to the customer who wants everything cheaper
Yes to squeezing another job into an already impossible week
Yes to working Saturday because you didn't price enough margin into the job
Yes to doing "just one more thing" for free
Yes to matching a competitor's price
Yes because you're worried there won't be another job

But saying yes to everything doesn't make a business stronger.

Sometimes it simply makes the business owner more exhausted.

There needs to be a point where you can say:
"That's below what my business needs to make this work."

And walk away. That's not arrogance. That's knowing your numbers.
And knowing when saying no protects the business you've worked so hard to build.

07/09/2026

Your business is the sweat you put in and the systems you run. Your brand is the trust that earns your next lead before you’ve even left the site.

Every job you finish today is a brick in the wall of your reputation. Make sure the work you do and the way you're perceived match up perfectly. Build it solid.

06/09/2026

Sometimes, I get to let my hair down.

It was an absolute honour to be part of Auberge du Noyer’s One Night Only on Saturday 5 September, with The Original Pearly Kings and Queens of London, helping out and being part of the occasion.

For those who know me through my work, you’ll know that a huge part of what I do is helping small business owners become better business owners. Thinking commercially, putting proper systems in place, understanding their numbers, marketing themselves properly and, ultimately, building businesses that work for them rather than the other way around.

But that’s only one part of me.

Community has been a thread running through my entire working life, and it's always been part of me. I like bringing people together, creating something that gives people a reason to turn up, and, wherever possible, doing something that gives back to the community around me.

It was an honour to be among Pearlies who had recently been awarded Freedom of the City of London, and to wear, just for a couple of minutes, a Pearly Queen's hat and jacket!

31/08/2026

There are 168 hours in a week.

For a tradesperson, perhaps:

40 hours on the tools
35 hours sleeping
25 hours on business admin

That's 100 hours already accounted for. Leaving 68.

But those 68 hours aren't empty.

There's family, life, travel, shopping, appointments, rest... and then there's the stuff nobody puts on the timesheet.

The head stuff.

The customer you need to reply to
The devis you need to chase
The materials you need to order
The problem you're still thinking about while you're on another job

Most of these things don't necessarily take much time.

But they take attention.

And that's the hidden cost of running a business.

You can be physically working on one job while mentally juggling five others.

So perhaps time management isn't always about finding more hours.

Perhaps it's about getting more of the business out of your head.

Better systems. Clearer processes. Fewer things relying on memory.

Because the goal isn't to squeeze more work into the week.
It's to stop the business from occupying the whole week.

How much of your business are you carrying around in your head?

28/08/2026

Hubby was commenting on how this week's job has had an effect on his knees, so I showed him his Christmas present :P :P

Introducing Parkside knee replacements: Ideal for tradespeople whose original knees now sound like a cement mixer. 😅

27/08/2026

𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦 do you have them, or are you still working on them?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.

We often talk about boundaries in business as though they are something we need to put in place for customers.

“You need to set boundaries with difficult customers.”
And yes, of course you do.

But if you are self-employed, there are actually far more boundaries to consider than just the customer relationship. Because a boundary isn't really about controlling somebody else's behaviour.

It's about deciding what YOU will and won't accept within your business.

And that applies to almost every part of being self-employed.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘
Your working hours
Your days off
How quickly you respond to messages
Whether your phone is permanently attached to your hand

Being self-employed does not mean being available 24/7.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞
What you are prepared to do
What you aren't qualified or insured to do
What falls outside the original scope of the job
How you deal with the inevitable “while you're here…”

Being helpful is great. Being taken advantage of isn't.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗬
Your pricing
Your deposits
Your payment terms
Your minimum charge
Your attitude towards late payment

You don't have to apologise for charging properly for your time, experience, overheads and expertise.

Your price is not a negotiation about your worth.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗦
Quotes
Written approvals
Variations
Invoices
Paperwork
Keeping records

Good processes aren't there to make your business difficult.
They're there to protect it.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣𝗦
And this is the one we don't talk about enough.
Customers aren't the only people you need boundaries with. Sometimes it's...

A supplier
Another tradesperson
A property manager
An estate agent
A friend

Just because someone is part of your network doesn't mean they are entitled to your time, expertise or goodwill.

You can have worked with someone for years and still decide:
“That's not how I want to work.”

And that's okay.

𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗦
This might be the biggest boundary of all.

What standard of work will you accept?
How will you allow people to speak to you?
Who are you prepared to work alongside?
What behaviour crosses the line?
What are you prepared to put up with simply because you're worried about losing the work?

Because sometimes the boundary isn't about saying something.
Sometimes the boundary is walking away.

And here's the bit I really want tradespeople to think about:

⚒️ Being self-employed doesn't mean you have to say yes to everything.
⚒️ It doesn't mean you have to work with everyone.
⚒️ It doesn't mean you have to answer every message immediately.
⚒️ It doesn't mean you have to accept poor behaviour because “they're a customer” or “they’re a mate”.

And it certainly doesn't mean you have to compromise your standards to keep somebody else happy.

So perhaps the question isn't:
“What boundaries do I need to set with my customers?”

Perhaps it's:
“𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹?”

26/08/2026

Lisa Clapisson at The ABC of Accounting for Businesses in France comes highly recommended. She has been instrumental in helping our trade business migrate to EURL and continues to support us, and I regularly recommend her to my professional network, and I know some have had conversations with her.

It's marvellous to see her business growing, and deservedly so. Growth should never be shunned; in fact, positively welcomed. If you need to think about TVA thresholds or are looking to migrate to a business structure that better fits your plans now and in the future, book a chat ASAP! If you can get it booked in before 31 August, you save yourself a bit of TVA !

Are you a business owner in France? Here is our latest article on how you can start mastering the VAT Threshold.

24/08/2026

Eight months in… Back in January, I asked:

“Will 2026 be the year you actually run your business, or will it keep running you?”

Eight months later… How’s that going?

Because January is full of good intentions.

New year
New goals
New prices
Better systems
More organisation
Finally getting on top of the admin

And then… you get busy.

The jobs come in
The diary fills up
The phone keeps ringing
The paperwork gets pushed to the evening
And before you know it, we're in August

So perhaps now is a good time to stop for a moment and ask yourself:

🔶What has actually changed?

🔶Are you more profitable, or simply busier?

🔶Do you know which jobs are making you money?

🔶 Are your prices still right?

🔶 Have you fixed the things that constantly cause you headaches?

🔶 Are you spending less time chasing, firefighting and doing admin?

🔶 Is your diary working for you, or are you working for your diary?

And perhaps the biggest question…

🔶 If you carried on exactly as you are now, would you want to be running the same business in January 2027?

August is actually a great time to look at this.

You've got eight months of real numbers, real jobs, real clients and real experience to work with.

You don't need another business plan.

You need to look honestly at what's working, what's not, and what needs to change before you roll into another year doing exactly the same thing.

Don't wait until January to decide you want a better business.

You've still got four months of 2026 to make a start.

17/08/2026

Are you pricing for profit… or just pricing to stay busy?

With e-invoicing and e-reporting now moving from something "in the future" to something you'll actually have to prepare for, this is a good time to stop looking at your turnover and start looking at your numbers.

Because here's the uncomfortable question:

If your business turned over €40,000 last year… how much of that €40,000 did you actually keep?

Not what you invoiced
Not what landed in the bank
What was left after the costs of running the business?
Materials
Fuel
Insurance
Tools and equipment
Vehicle costs
Subscriptions
Cotisations
Unpaid admin time
Holiday & sick days
And, ultimately, paying you for the time and expertise you put into the business.

This is where I see tradespeople getting caught.

They become so focused on their turnover, their ME ceiling, or whether they might "make too much", that they forget to ask the much more important question:

"Is my business actually making me enough money?"

Because €40,000 of turnover sounds very different when you discover that your real cost of operating the business means you need to generate €250 a day just to cover your key turn cost, before you've created any meaningful profit or financial buffer.

And this isn't an ME problem. It's a business numbers problem.

Whether you're an ME, an EURL, or something else, your business needs to generate enough revenue to cover its costs, pay you properly, absorb the unexpected and leave something behind.

And that's where pricing matters. Your markup isn't something to be embarrassed about. It isn't "charging too much."

It's one of the mechanisms that lets a business create margin, absorb rising costs, replace equipment, survive a quiet period, and stay sustainable.

Because keeping your prices artificially low doesn't make your business safer.

It can simply mean you're working harder for less.

And what happens when you have a bad week? Or two?

What happens when the van needs replacing? When a major tool fails? When you can't work for a few weeks? When your costs rise but your prices haven't?

Being fully booked isn't the same as being profitable.

And €40,000 turnover isn't necessarily a successful business.

So perhaps the question to ask yourself isn't:

"How much can I earn before I hit the threshold?"

Perhaps it's:

"How much does my business actually need to generate for it to be sustainable?"

That's a very different number.

And it's a number every tradesperson should know.

Don't know your number? That's not a problem, but it's worth fixing.

If you need help working out what your business actually needs to earn, get in touch.