BUSY IS BULLSH*T With Daren Henderson

You know that competitor with the vans, the crews and the brand new pickup? Everyone says he's killing it. Most of the time, he isn't. This one's for trade business owners who've grown the turnover but still can't step away from it.
In this episode, Daren covers:• The £900k owner with 8 vans who was making no money, working six or seven days a week, with his wife about to leave• Why cheap photos attract cheap clients, and cheap clients force cheap prices• How growing past £400k to £500k without systems and people builds a monster you can't walk away from• The simple tell that shows a competitor isn't really killing it• A pen and paper exercise to find the first three jobs to hand off this month
Take the free Business Freedom Assessment: https://tradecoach.co.uk/assessment/

Every trade business owner tells their customers the same thing: we're the best, our guys are the best. It doesn't win you the job. If you run a trade business and want to sell more work at 25 to 30% profit, this one's for you, because what gets you there is how you attract clients, how you make them feel and how you follow up, not how good you are on the tools.
In this episode, Daren covers:
What your Instagram and job photos are really telling customers: the overflowing skip, the pile of sand and the lad with a fag hanging out his mouth
Why customers don't know what they want until you tell them, and why a 10-product brochure beats a 100-product one
How Daren used the Marshalls Register to win jobs at £27k against quotes of £16k and £20k, without once naming a competitor
Why losing on price usually means you should never have been in front of that customer in the first place
Take the free Business Freedom Assessment: https://tradecoach.co.uk/assessment/

Recorded on his terrace in the Maldives, Daren looks back on the days he was so busy he stopped drinking water so he wouldn’t have to stop for a pee. If you run a trade business and you’ve got no time for your health, your family or anything outside work, this one’s for you.
In this episode, Daren covers:
What being too busy for water, proper food, exercise and your hobbies is really costing you
How client Miles went from 70-hour weeks and zero profit to a £1 million property portfolio, by adding value, putting his prices up and bringing in people and systems
Why chasing money misses the point, and how finding your North Star makes every business decision easier
Take the free Business Freedom Assessment: https://tradecoach.co.uk/assessment/

In Episode 5 of Busy Is Bullshit, Daren explains why recruitment was never really the biggest problem in his construction business.
Managing people was.
From tradesmen smoking weed in a brand-new van and crashing it a week later, to two of his best installers quitting on a Sunday night before a job was due to start, he shares some of the recruitment disasters that nearly made him walk away from the business altogether.

Selling your business for £1 million sounds like the dream.
But nobody really talks about what happens after.
In Episode 4 of Busy Is Bullsh*t, Darren shares what selling his construction business actually taught him. Because the goal isn't just to build a bigger business.
It's to build one that gives you the choice to keep it, grow it or sell it — without sacrificing your life in the process.

If every question, decision and problem still comes back to you, how much bigger can your business get before you burn out?
In this episode of Busy Is Bullsh*t, Daren shares how he went from being the answer to everything to running a trade business with 27 staff, nearly £2 million in turnover and around two hours a week of his involvement.
There was no magic software or one employee who fixed everything. It took years of building the team, documenting how things worked and learning to hand over responsibility without taking it straight back.
An honest look at the practical changes, and uncomfortable decisions, behind building a business that can work without you.

In Episode 2 of Busy Is Bullshi*t, Daren explains what he calls the “£500K owner trap”: building a company that depends on you for absolutely everything, and what had to change before the business could grow to nearly £2 million in turnover.
He shares why growth stalled at the Edinburgh Driveway Company, how constantly stepping in taught his team to rely on him, and what had to change before the business could grow to nearly £2 million in turnover.

In the first episode of Busy Is Bullsh*t, Tradecoach founder Daren Henderson shares how he started the Edinburgh Driveway Company and went on to build a construction business turning over nearly £2 million a year, with 27 staff and four teams.
It’s a candid, sweary account of winning his first customers, finding people to deliver the work and figuring things out as he went.