Trick or Treat? The Treat Is a Book
Tonight, little ghosts, witches and the odd pint-sized Viking will knock on doors all over the country asking for treats.
So here’s mine for you. Not lollies. A book.
Why books?
A lolly lasts about four seconds. A good book can last a lifetime.
Every book I’ve written started the same way: someone asked me a question I’d answered a hundred times before. How do I get my team to actually use the system? Why does my business fall apart when I take a week off? How do I stop doing everything myself?
At some point I realised the answers didn’t belong in my head. They belonged on a page, where anyone could pick them up at 10 pm after a long day on the tools and find something useful.
That’s what books do. They let you sit down with someone who has been where you are and hear what they learned, without booking a meeting.
Gain to share
I have a saying: gain to share. You have to gain knowledge before you can share it.
Every lesson in Trade Like a Viking was gained somewhere: a job that went sideways, a system that didn’t stick, a business owner who finally let go of the oars and watched his crew row better than he ever had alone.
Those lessons cost something to learn. Sharing them is how they become worth it.
Never stop learning
The best tradies I know never stop learning. New products, new regulations, new tools, new ways of working. The trade changes, so they change with it.
Running a business is no different. The owner who keeps learning keeps growing, and so does the business.
A book is one of the easiest ways to keep learning. It fits in the ute, it’s there on a lunch break, and it never runs out of battery.
So, trick or treat?
The trick is trying to run a trade business on your own, rowing every oar and wondering why you never get to steer.
The treat is Trade Like a Viking: The Viking Code™. It’s 11 principles for building a trade business that runs without you, out today.
Happy Halloween from the longship. Never stop learning.
Erika Entz
