Page 167 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

successful tradespeople that hunt down cash. Also, undeclared income is no use if you have an accident and are off work and need Accident Compensation, nor when you want to sell your business.
Paulism: Tradespeople, think of yourself as a business person, not just another tradesperson. Work on better service and respect of the customer and set high standards. As a result, more business and higher profits will come your way.
6.5 Building loyal tradespeople
If you want to get urgency, commitment and reliability out of tradespeople, pay them quickly and on time (even before the bill is due).
I had made a habit that the 20th of the month, without fail, we would pay our bills, and if we didn’t, the accounts payable person got a hurry up.
Paying your accounts quickly builds loyalty.
We even went further for some young guys who were just setting themselves up in business. We paid them every 7 days to help them out with their cash flow. We also did this in other situations where we needed more commitment from a team or a tradesperson.
Let’s look at it from a tradesperson’s point of view. Will they ask themselves: ‘Am I going to do work for this company when I’m not sure I’m going to get paid’, or will they say, ‘I know this company is a trustworthy company and we know we are going to get paid on the date due?’ Nine