THE EDGE on ElevenReader: How to Listen, and What You Get Free

You know how to finish a job. Do you know what happens to the money after? I wrote THE EDGE about the float, the payment rules and winning work without being the cheapest name on the list. I'm Mohamed El Hadri, and this is my listening book on ElevenReader. The first chapters are free. The full book is $4.99.

What ElevenReader is

ElevenReader is the reading and listening app made by ElevenLabs. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, so it doesn't matter what's in your pocket, and the app itself is free to download. THE EDGE is available there as a recorded listening book. You open the link, tap play, and it starts. No separate software to learn, no format to work out. If you can play a song on your phone, you can play a chapter.

Written to be heard

THE EDGE was written to be listened to, not flicked through. Each chapter stands on its own. Listen to one, then come back for the next whenever the same problem turns up again in your business. Stop when you reach the job. Return to the chapter when you've got time. Use the link below to start with the free chapters.

How to start tonight

1. Open the link on your phone, tablet or laptop: listen to THE EDGE on ElevenReader.
2. Tap "Try for $0.00" and follow the prompts.
3. Listen to the free opening chapters.
4. If you want the rest, the full book is $4.99.

Four steps, and you can be listening to chapter one before the kettle's boiled.

What's free and what costs $4.99

The opening chapters cost nothing beyond setting up the account ElevenReader asks for. If you get to the end of what's free and want the rest of the twenty-four chapters, the full book is $4.99. Once you've bought it, come back to any chapter whenever the problem it covers shows up again in your week.

Why a listening book beats a paperback after a day on the tools

Too tired to read after ten hours on site? A listening book doesn't ask anything of your eyes. Put one earbud in on the drive home, or while you're waiting on a delivery, and let a chapter run instead of scrolling. You're not carving out a new hour you don't have. You're filling one that was already dead time.

Two firms, same town, same prices. Ten years later one owner is a millionaire and the other is still chasing invoices.

That's the question THE EDGE is built to answer, and the two firms in that line didn't split apart because one owner worked harder. They split because one of them knew something the other didn't. You can start finding out what that was on your drive home tonight instead of waiting for an evening that never comes free.

What the book covers

Twenty-four chapters across five parts, about two hours in total, each one built to stand on its own. It covers the float, the payment rules that decide who gets paid on time and who doesn't, where the work in this trade is actually heading, how to win contracts without dropping your price, and how to get yourself out of being the bottleneck in your own business.

Part Two covers the payment rules. Under the UK's construction payment rules, a paying party who misses the deadline to issue a valid payment notice or pay less notice can end up owing the sum claimed in full, with any argument over what the work was actually worth left for afterwards. The regime applies to qualifying construction contracts, not contracts with a residential occupier, and the deadline itself is the whole game.

Part Three is about where the work is heading. Under Awaab's Law, social landlords in England now face legal deadlines to investigate and start fixing significant damp, mould and emergency hazards in social rented homes, with more hazard categories due to enter scope through 2026. The chapter is about winning that work before every other contractor in your area has worked out it's there. Part Five is about getting out of the work entirely: finding the one bottleneck that's actually you, and the case for buying an existing business instead of starting one from nothing. I explain all five parts in THE EDGE by Mo El Hadri: the listening book for people who put the tools down, if you want the whole map before you press play.

You know the work. Learn the money.

Your accounts can show a profit while your bank account stays thin, because the money's tied up between one payment and the next. You cut your price to win the next job because you don't know another way to compete. And most days, the business still can't run without you standing in the room. THE EDGE was written about exactly that: the float, winning work without dropping your price, and getting yourself out of being the bottleneck.

None of that gets fixed by working a longer day. It gets fixed by understanding the rules the money actually runs on, the same rules the firm across town that's ten years ahead of you already learned. That's what's in the twenty-four chapters, and none of it requires you to stop being good on the tools. It just stops the tools being the whole business.

Where to go next

If you want the wider view first, the forty-eight laws on how money in the middle moves in any trade, not just building, start with MIDDLEMAN, 7 x 7 = 48. If what you actually want is the deeper story behind how certain families keep getting richer without lifting a tool, join the launch list for The Family Secret. And if you'd rather see the full structure of all forty-eight laws before committing to any book, The 48 Laws of the Money in the Middle lays out every floor.

Start the free opening chapters of THE EDGE on ElevenReader.