From PAT’s to Riches

Today’s guest post is courtesy of Brenden Carr, director of Caztec Group

As many electricians will know PAT Testing can be somewhat of a fruitless monotonous task that gets pushed aside in favour of more rewarding and challenging work. This leads many electricians to even reject enquiries for testing work which I believe is a huge mistake.

PAT Inspections should be embraced and here is why…

At present times are good, a recovering economy and housing shortage means work is in abundance for quality contractors. A decade ago the recession was starting to really bite into business and as all trades will agree the demand for our skills almost ground to a halt.

My problem was I had all my eggs in one basket, I developed from a local Sunderland electrician to a national contractor with a juicy contract awarded by a larger organisation. This one contract became responsible for almost 100% of the Caztec Groups work as I shifted focus from the local customers and smaller jobs.

As you have probably guessed when the recession hit for my contract provider it rolled down to me with almost catastrophic consequences.

It was at this point I needed to open doors and speak to more decision makers within our target market the commercial and industrial sector. This proved to be more challenging than I could have imagined. My old network of customers had replaced me, and rightly so I had neglected them during the boom or priced myself out of the work.

In the end I realised that I needed to get help and enlisted a marketing company to develop a strategy to not only recover my business but safeguard it against any future downturns in the economy.

I laughed when PAT testing featured high on the list of solutions and company road map they presented. I mean at £1.50 per item how was I meant to make a return on a skilled electrician with a salary north of £40k per year.

Yet here I’m 9 years on still following the plan and reaping the rewards of PAT testing can offer. Yes it’s laborious but with great aps like ESC at least the paperwork is not time consuming. Now we have a dedicated member of staff who handles PAT testing, and following marketing plan we have developed relationships and opened doors to larger projects.

I would urge any forward thinking electrician to;

• Embrace pat testing
• Build an efficient process
• Nurture the client you service

Trust me knocking on doors when times are tough is much harder with a small client base, use PAT testing in your business today… to open doors tomorrow…

Brenden Carr

Company Director

Caztec