#9 Scaling Your Trade Business 🚀 The Truth About Staff, Salaries & Doing It Properly.

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. 🦁🔥

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#9 Scaling Your Trade Business 🚀 The Truth About Staff, Salaries & Doing It Properly. is an episode from Off The Tools by Wayne Bettess.

This episode is 00:36:13 long.

This episode was published on Jan 14, 2026.

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