Regardless of being a plumber or an electrician you need innovation to survive in a business. When tech trends are rapidly changing, as a tradie, you need to jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of some of these trends that can help you stay ahead of the rest. Technology today may be vast and while it may be difficult to choose, there are some applications and innovative ideas that can impact your tradie business in a large way. Take a look at 5 such innovative trends that tradies should definitely consider using now.
- Drone technology
In its initial years of conception drone technology was considered a rich man’s play toy. Today the potential of utilizing drones in construction is endless. Currently Drones are being used extensively in mapping and surveying in geological applications such as monitoring of eco- systems and wildlife. But consider a similar use for electricians and construction contractors. Drone technology can help a number of tradies in site mapping and survey as well as provide views and survey data that help influence a business in positive ways.
The biggest advantage of using a drone in your work is the cost factor where rather than expensive models you can even pick up a cheap quadcopter from any e-commerce site.
- Social media
Social media is now a much sought after tool for even tradies to market their business. The importance of Social media for tradies is that it helps you know what’s going on in your world. You have to learn about the latest developments that can be applied in business. Social media not only keeps you abreast with current trends, it provides you a valuable platform for customer interaction. While social media in itself is tailor made for the small tradie because of the ability to accurately identify your target audience, large businesses have long been exploiting social media threads and small business pages to explosive effect.
As a tradie, you need to learn how to use social media to maximum effect because this is where you will find out your real clients with the potential for monetization. Social media marketing is flexible without you requiring further resources to identify a target audience. Your social platform does that for you and of course you control your costs. Another brilliant benefit of social media is the fact that you gain access to several platforms each unique in their offering of marketing your wares.
- Innovative marketing
Technology may not always mean investing in expensive tools. But neither can you slow down your pace of a rapidly advancing market. Markets may have brought you ample opportunities for business but they are tight too. The key to being innovative is to research your market and find ways and means to target it. Small tradies today need to spend considerable time on their business rather than in it. This is when you have to explore different innovative means to improve your operations which could even be a task such as walking down the street and observing your competition.
Learning new marketing theories could well reveal a lot of truth in how to improve your business. As a construction contractor or plumber, the more you explore various technology and the latest developments, the better equipped you are in advising clients and influencing them towards monetary conversion. If you want to know how to stay ahead in business you have to start doing things differently.
4.3 D printing
In its earliest years of conception there were limitations to the strength of composites but 3D printing is now heavily in demand. Today the application of 3D printing for tradies is incredibly powerful. Consider the fact that you gain an opportunity to print specialized tools on site itself or effective components and parts like integrated inductor-capacitors, inductors and resistors. 3D printing for small businesses and tradies can be especially beneficial simply because it helps a startup with small productions. It also benefits a tradie’s business with the ability to provide client’s customized products.
- Using software in various platforms of business
As you find your workloads increasing, it then makes good business sense for tradies like plumbers to use helpful software for efficient management. It is an opportune time to utilize software in your tradie business simply because of the cheap tools that help you stay tuned into your business. Through the medium of fully integrated software, you can utilize cloud based management which can be accessed on all devices such as Smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops. Mobile technology has now made it even easier for you to keep monitoring your business at all times.
Software helps you increase your productivity, improve efficiency and of course acquire payments faster.