Charging $200+ per hour as an electrician | 112

Most sparkies scale a loss. They hire too early, pay themselves last, and trust a bank balance that's full of lies. This episode is about fixing that. Real wages. Real systems. Real business. If you're still guessing what you earn each week, you're already losing.

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Transcript

Your bank balance is lying to you. Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing. This is very fresh in my head because I’ve just put a session together for the guys inside the mentorship. It’s going to be the podcast for today and it’s about your money. Getting paid properly. Paying your wages. Paying your tax. Paying your super. All of it.

Something I didn’t do properly for a few years when I started the business. It messes with your head. You get used to living off scraps. You take it for granted — money comes in from clients, it lands in the account, and you duck and dive in and out. You pay yourself when you feel like it. Or leave it sitting there for months before you touch it. That’s not how a business should work.

If you’re running an electrical business, treat it like one. Not like a job that randomly spits out cash. When you pull money out, it needs to be properly allocated. Is it wages? A director’s drawing? A dividend? Tax money? Most don’t bother. They hope the accountant just hides it somewhere and nobody asks questions.

But here’s the thing. Your business is meant to fund your life. That means paying yourself properly. If you’ve got employees, they get paid. You should too.

This hit me hard one day. I was in a brewery with a heap of sparkies. One of them had just taken on a full-time worker. I asked what he was paying the guy. He told me. Then I asked what he was paying himself. Turns out the worker was on more. Hundreds more. And he hadn’t even realised.

That’s when it clicked. Sparkies are scaling losses. They hire staff without steadying the ship. They take on more work without charging properly. They don’t even know if they’re winning or losing.

Instead of hiring to keep up, try cranking up your hourly rate. Drop the shitty jobs. Make room for good ones that pay. If your P&L is dialled in, you’ll see you’re often better off solo than hiring someone for the sake of it.

I’ve got serious respect for sparkies who set things up right from the start. Pay themselves properly. Charge properly. Make profit. And only then consider hiring. That’s how it should be.

But most leave well-paid jobs, start their own gig, and stop paying themselves properly. They live off savings, undercharge, and get used to scraping by. Some still live at home, not paying rent or for food. But that’s not a business plan. That’s just avoiding reality.

Undercharging builds a client base that expects cheap. When you finally realise you need to up your rates, they think you’re ripping them off. Better to start high from the get-go.

One of the guys in the group came in hot. Charging over $200 an hour from the start. I was blown away. He had the right mindset. He wasn’t desperate for work. He still had a full-time job when he started, so he wasn’t chasing scraps.

The worst time to start a business is when you're broke and desperate. You end up taking any job and charging too little.

And here’s another thing — if you’re not paying yourself properly, getting finance is a nightmare. No lender wants to see irregular transfers from a business account. They want a clean, consistent wage.

Never use your bank balance to check if your business is healthy. That number is a lie. It doesn’t show what’s about to come out — suppliers, overheads, tax, PAYG. You need to look at your P&L. That’s your scoreboard.

I use TLE as my supplier. They’re part of MMEM. Their invoices automatically sync with Xero through my job management system. So if I buy something, it hits the P&L instantly. That’s how I keep track. Real time. If I make ten grand and spend one, I know I’ve got nine. Not ten.

Same with my fuel through Tex. The receipts get pushed into Xero and deducted from the P&L. When I invoice, it goes back up. That’s how you do it.

Your bank balance means nothing. Your P&L is everything.

Set up a couple of bank accounts. Doesn’t need to be complicated. Just enough to show what’s wages, what’s tax, what’s profit. Make it visual. Make it clear. Don’t just hope it all works out.

And stop pretending you'll fix it later. If you're not paying yourself now, what’s the point?

You started this business for freedom. For better money. Most sparkies get neither. No freedom. Shit wages. Stressed 24/7.

I’m not a finance guy. But I know enough to set this up right. And I’ve done it. If you don’t have a solid accountant, get one. A proper one. Too many sparkies get bad advice. Especially about pricing.

If you’ve never read it, check out Profit First. The original’s by Mike Michalowicz. But there’s a version done for trades here in Australia by Katie Crismale-Marshall. She nails it. That book flips your mindset. Forces you to move money into different accounts and pay yourself profit first. If the money’s not there, you can’t spend it. Simple.

I’ve built my business around this. I’ve got automations in Xero. My VA hits a button and payroll is done. I get the email saying I’ve been paid. Every single week. Even when I’m on holidays. That’s the system.

So set your business up for success now. Not in three years. Not next week. Now.

Pay yourself properly. Even if it’s $500 this week. Then $600 next. Then $700. Build it. Track it. Make it your minimum standard.

If you can earn $120 to $190k a year working for someone else, why are you paying yourself less as a business owner?

If you’re earning $90k and have no plan to increase it, that’s a problem. You’ll wake up in five years stuck in the same loop.

Automate it. Send wages to your account. Send super. Send PAYG. Lock it in.

Your business should support your life. Not wreck it.

If you're wondering how to actually afford to pay yourself right, it comes back to clients and marketing. Right clients. Right prices. A system that feeds you properly.