The advice I wish someone had given me 34 years ago

When you start a business off the back of a craft you are good at, you believe being excellent at the work is what matters. Do great work, and the rest follows. I believed that for longer than I should have.

It is not true.

Being good with your hands and your head on the technical side is what gets you in the door. Understanding the commercial side is what lets you stay in the room.

The numbers. The margins. How money actually moves through a business. When to say no. What a job is really worth. Nobody teaches you any of that while you are learning your trade, and all of it decides whether you are still standing in ten years.

I learned it the hard way, later than I would have liked. I am still learning it now, if I am honest.

If I could go back, I would take the commercial side as seriously as the craft, from day one. Not instead of it. Alongside it.

The best technicians do not always build the best businesses. I do not know if I have built one yet. But I know the ones who last are the ones who take both seriously.