What Does It Mean To Trade A Viking?

TRADE LIKE A VIKING•THE VIKING CODE

What Does It Mean to Trade Like a Viking?

Now that the book is out, I get asked this a lot. Usually with a grin, and usually followed by: "Do I have to grow a beard?"

No beard required. No horns either (the real Vikings never wore them). And definitely no axe.

To Trade Like a Viking™ means running your trade business the way the real Vikings ran their voyages: with a plan, a well-built ship, a crew you trust, and a reason for going in the first place.

That's it. Simple to say. Life-changing to actually do.

The Vikings you didn't learn about at school

Forget the movie version. The real Vikings were some of the best navigators, shipbuilders and traders the world has ever seen. They read the sea, the sky and the seabirds. They built ships light enough to row up a river and strong enough to cross the North Atlantic. And they traded across a network that stretched from Newfoundland to Constantinople.

None of that happened by accident. Every voyage was planned. Every ship was built to last. Every crew knew its job. That's the part worth borrowing.

What it looks like on a Tuesday morning

Picture two trade businesses on the same Tuesday.

In the first one, the owner's phone starts ringing at 6am. They're the only one who knows which job is where, which customer needs a call back and which supplier is late. The new apprentice has been told to "just ask Jo". Quotes get written at the kitchen table at night. Three finished jobs from last week still haven't been invoiced. The owner is working harder than anyone, and the business still depends on them for everything.

In the second one, the crew already knows the plan for the week. Jobs are in the system with proper notes, so anyone can pick one up. The apprentice has a first-fortnight plan and a buddy. Invoices go out the day the job finishes. And the owner? They're quoting the big project they've been chasing, or thinking about where the business will be next year.

Same trade. Same town. Same hours in the day. The difference isn't effort. It's design. The second business is trading like a Viking.

The Viking Code™ in plain English

The book is built around eleven principles. Here they are, grouped into the four things every strong trade business gets right.

Know where you're going

•I. Plan the Voyage. Decide where the business is heading, write it down and share it with the crew.

•VI. Explore New Lands. Grow on purpose. Build the capability before you say yes to the new work.

•XI. Know Your Why. Be clear on why you're building this business at all. It's the principle that makes the others mean something.

Build something that holds

•II. Build Strong Ships. Document how the work gets done, so it doesn't live in one person's head.

•IV. Adapt to the Storm. Plan for the bad days: the lost client, the system outage, the key person on leave.

•V. Protect the Village. Look after the things that keep the business safe, from cash reserves to compliance.

•VIII. Respect the Tools. Get the whole team actually using the systems you've paid for.

Lead people, not just jobs

•III. Trust the Crew. Give people clear roles and real authority, then let them do the job.

•VII. Trade with Honour. Quote fast, communicate well and do what you said you'd do. Reputation travels further than any ad.

Keep getting better, and make it last

•IX. Learn from Every Voyage. Review what happened, fix the cause and get a little better every quarter.

•X. Leave a Legacy. Build a business that could run, be handed on or be sold without you holding every oar.

Three questions to see where you stand

Answer these honestly:

1. Could your business run for two weeks without you making the day-to-day decisions?

2. Is your job management system used properly by the whole team, or just by a few people?

3. Can you say in one sentence where your business will be in three years, and why?

If any of those made you wince, you're in good company. It isn't a failure of effort. Most trade business owners work incredibly hard. It's a failure of design, and design can be fixed.

Where to start

Not with all eleven. Pick one.

At the back of the book there's a Viking Code audit: 55 quick questions that score your business against every principle. Do it once, find your lowest score, and start there. Then do it again next quarter and watch the numbers move. That's how real change happens in a busy trade business: one principle at a time, not a once-a-year overhaul.

Plan the voyage. Build strong ships. Trust the crew.

That's how you Trade Like a Viking.

Trade Like a Viking™: The Viking Code™, 11 Principles for Building a Trade Business That Runs Without You is out now Paperback & eBook And if you'd like help seeing where your business stands, a Viking Chart session maps your whole operation onto one page, so you know exactly which principle to start with: 30 minutes Complimentary Strategy Call