On your bike! Why marginal gains are essential for electrical contractors

Focusing on the urgent rather than the important leads to your business going backwards – but there’s lessons to be learned from the bike…

The day to day is hectic, we know. And we all tell ourselves we’ll get on to do this, that, or the other when things ‘quieten down’. Which of course, never happens.

As business owners, we’ve got to keep the business moving forward, improving and evolving – but waiting for that big opportunity to change is the road to irrelevance.

Instead, we can learn a lot from cycling. Puzzled? Read on.

The power of 1%

Go back a couple of decades or so, and British cycling was a bit of a joke. One gold medal in 76 years was pretty pathetic – so much so that a top bike manufacturer was reluctant for the team to use their gear as they didn’t want to be associated with shoddy performances. Ouch.

Enter Sir Dave Brailsford. He focused on ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’, essentially meaning that if you broke cycling down to its individual parts, and improved each element by 1%, the compound improvement would stack up into something significant.

Over the course of a couple of years, they explored everything from mechanics to form, sleep to hygiene, and improved everything by a marginal amount. For example, better hand hygiene equalled less sickness, meaning better quality training during the course of the year. On their own, these changes may not have made much difference. Together the impact was huge.

Because they didn’t just improve, they dominated – winning seven out of the 10 gold medals available at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and repeating that in London 2012.

Why major change often fails

As a small business owner, change usually happens when it’s forced. You desperately need to change the direction of travel, and things get desperate. For example, you realise your competitors are able to charge less as they’re using AI while you’re still using a paper diary. A bit investment is needed, and it’s a huge undertaking – and expensive, too.

Evolution, on the other hand, is quiet. Understated. It’s making one small tweak this week, trying something new next week. It’s continually looking to make things a little bit better today – be that something in your business processes or ensuring you’re on top of the latest products at your local Gemcell wholesaler.

It doesn’t happen by accident. It’s deliberate, and it’s very, very effective.

Where to find your own marginal gains

So, the lesson here is to embrace your inner Sir Dave Brailsford, and get on that bike. Break down your business into multiple parts and look at areas that could be improved. Even by 1%.

For example, using an AI tool to help you respond to emails could save you 10-15 minutes per day. At an hour per week, that’s an extra 52 hours in the year – an extra week, just like that.

Or how about better organisation of the gear in your van or your storage unit? Cutting down time spent looking for things could add up significantly. Save two minutes on five jobs each day, and that’s another 50 minutes you’re saving each week.

Or how about choosing a faster-to-install light fitting, or AI that can automate job notes[1] ? The opportunities for marginal gains are everywhere – but they’re often overlooked because it’s perceived they won’t have a big enough impact.

That perception, as you can already tell, is wrong.

The compound effect

The maths is simple, but it’s staggering just how much impact this can have. Research shows that if you get 1% better every day, you’ll end up 37% better at the end of a year. If you get 1% worse, by ignoring new tech or new training, for example, you’ll drift back to zero.

Today, the tech in EVs chargers, solar and smart home automation is no longer new or emerging – it’s standard and expected. And as a contractor, the opportunities for those marginal gains are everywhere. Check this out if you don’t believe us.

So put the 1% effect into practice. It’s like cycling – once you learn how to do it, it’s a skill that’ll be with you for ever.