I just had a madness. I lost my house keys. The whole family were locked out, nightmare.
So, I did what anyone would. I googled “locksmith near me”, and an hour later, a guy came around, broke my lock and let me in.
The next day he was back, and 10 minutes and £175 later, I had new locks, keys, and an essential feature of my house back.
Yes, yes. You read that right. 10 minutes. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS.I was mind blown. I couldn’t help myself. I just had to ask him more.
My man said he does 8 a day. Again, mind-blowing. Suppose every job is identical to mine. That’s £1400 for an hour and a half of work.
My mind has been racing all week, and to be honest with you, it’s a little frame-breaking for me.
Maybe you’ve been following Ball Business for a while, but if you haven’t, I’m a tech guy. At the moment, my business is making Virtual Reality apps.
VR Headsets, Video Games, Artificial Intelligence, Networks, Start-ups et cetera et cetera. This is my world. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s money to be made here.
But I often find myself in circles where the thesis is that I need 100,000 Twitter followers or 1,000,000 app downloads to make money.
I bet you’ve heard your Grandad say it. But things were different back in his day. There were no Virtual Reality headsets, but there were locksmiths.
Now there are both. But that means that as more and more (young) people move into more tech-related jobs, the number of tradesmen in the workforce has dwindled. But there is still the same amount of doors with locks.
What happens is simple. It’s called supply and demand. The supply of tradesmen is declining, but the demand remains the same. As a result, the price of a locksmith goes up every year.
In fact, Brits search for local tradespeople on Google over 700,000 times a month. The demand is always there.
So why do I say all this? The point is that your business doesn’t have to be sexy to be successful.
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Henri Lansbury is a player for Luton Town. He loves grass. I mean, really LOVES it!
I guess it makes sense. Being a footballer, he spends much of his time touching grass. So, he made a lawn care business.
Grass Gains was launched in 2022, having realised there is a gap in the market for a fresh modern approach to lawn care products.
Basically, if you’ve ever been to Homebase, all the brands are boring. Henri’s branding is modern and stands out.
I mean, what other lawn care brand is making TikTok videos? Grass Gains sells its products online and in stores and is really starting to pick up the pace.
Naturally, Henri is focusing his attention on the football market, making pitches greener and sorting out other footballer’s gardens at home.
He loves it. He even celebrated a goal against Hull by pretending to mow the lawn.
Let’s unpack this business.
I’m not saying you should become a decorator or a gardener. Henri doesn’t show up and mow your lawn for you.
But everyone will always have houses, locks, walls, gardens… you get the idea. A business that does things that are always needed isn’t going to die.
So, there is lots of opportunity. Like Henri, you could run a business that does these things.
Henri’s Grass Gains capitalises on this opportunity with three key things:
- Branding
- Marketing
- Specificity
The average age of tradesmen in the UK is 42. So how many of these guys have a killer brand, a simple website, and a social media presence? My bet is not a lot.
Branding:
One thing I always say is that the currency of life is attention. So like Henri, you could create a modern brand in one of these niches, stand out more than competitors and get more business simply because your brand looks better.
Many people don’t know anything about lawns, so a brand that simply and quickly explains what a product is and how it works will always beat a brand that doesn’t —Which of the two below would you buy?
Marketing:
Another idea is making a website specifically for, let’s say, decorators in London.
Make great Instagram content, have a great website and generate lots of website views from that social media and website content.
Then when people come to your site looking for decorators, book their jobs, and go and hire decorators on their behalf at a premium. You keep the difference.
People will still come to you because your booking experience is easier, your social media posts give them confidence, and your website ranks higher on google searches.
This way you don’t even need to get paint on your trousers.
Specificity:
We say it every week at this point. Niches get riches. If I remember correctly, I think Fiz actually has this tattooed on his chest. There’s a not so good looking brand named Vitax. They they make $20,000,000 a year.
They’re the lawn brand for EVERYONE. So where is the opportunity for Grass Gains? Be the Lawn Bulk product for football pitches, for footballers or for everyday people.
The market isn’t as big. But the market is MUCH easier to win.
Just like it is easier to be the best footballer in Luton than it is to be the best footballer in the world. Maybe you could start an electrical business that specifically targets footballers.
Specialise in the services footballers want, like TVs in the bathroom or whatever. As long as you do that one thing better than anyone else.
From there, you can expand into other services or other audiences. You get the idea, right?
Every week you’re learning all this awesome business information.
This puts you one step ahead, so even when it comes to boring businesses like trades, you can out-manoeuvre the competition with your marketing or business knowledge.
So, if you found this week interesting, forward it to a teammate. You never know. You might even be business partners one day.
