Speaker 1: Welcome to the Master of the NEC podcast, the ultimate
destination for anyone passionate about the electrical trade.
Speaker 2: Whether you're a season electrician, an eager apprentice, or.
Speaker 1: Just someone who wants to dive deep into the world
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Speaker 1: Abernavi, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind
within depth discussions, expertips, and valuable insights that will keep
you ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2: Each episode, Paul.
Speaker 1: Will illuminate the complexities of the trade de code, the
National Electrical Code, and share the latest industry trends, all
while empowering you to take your electrical career to the
next level. So hear up, plug in, and get ready
to supercharge your knowledge because with the Master of the
Neez podcast, the power is in your hands.
Speaker 2: Now get ready. Here is your host, Paul Abernavi.
Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, Paul Lavin at the here.
Speaker 4: Welcome to another episode of Master the NEEC where we're
going to have a great topic today. We're going to
talk about why soft skills make or break electrical service technicians.
And you may think you're the best electrician in the world.
You may have the best skills in the world, but
at the end of the day, you get out on
a job site and you start communicating with a customer
and immediately what happens is you lose that first impression
or you set a bad image for the company.
Speaker 3: So this message is.
Speaker 4: Really to everybody out there who wants to have a
better understanding of communication with their customer, as well as
employers who want to make sure that all of their
employees have the necessary soft skills to deal with the
customers and in turn a probably a stellar service technician
into an amazingly stellar service technician again, So that's what
we're going to talk about today. So you can have
the cleanest panel work in the world, but if the
homeowner doesn't like you, trust you, respect you, or feel
respected by you, then your technical skills just you just
lost that job.
Speaker 3: Now you ain't win in the short term, but you're
going to lose in the long term.
Speaker 4: So in service work, technical skills get you in the door,
but the soft skills or determine whether or not you
get paid, whether you get rehired, or if the company
you work for gets referred so that's what we're going
to talk about in today's episode.
Speaker 3: Again, my name's Paul Abernathy.
Speaker 4: I've been serving the electrical industry for over forty years
as a master electrician. I have written numerous books, blogs,
hundreds and hundreds of blogs, thousands of podcasts. I've owned
electrical contracting businesses in Virginia and in Texas. And I
am also the CEO and founder of Electrical Code Academy,
probably one of the most trusted electrical educational resources on
the Internet. And we've also created fast Tracks Tube, which
is also one of the leading trusted resources for videos
that you can actually trust when it comes to learning
the National Electrical Code. But today we're going to talk
about electricians and we're going to talk about soft skills
a little bit, so again kind of a departure from
our norm but I think it's extremely important that you,
if you're an employer, that you make sure that your
employee employees.
Speaker 3: Listen to this episode, watch the video, that type of thing.
So let's get into it. So let's talk first.
Speaker 4: Number one first thing we'll talk about is what are
soft skills when it comes to the electrical industry. Well,
soft skills can be broken down into many things. They're
the ability to communicate properly, to listen, proper body language,
professional appearance, expect for the customer's home while you're there okay,
how you convey or explain the problems that you encounter
while at the home or while on the job site.
How you may handle conflict, maybe situations change, how you
handle that. All of those things bring in SOLT skills,
and again the method of how you build trust with
the customer, why you're there for the scheduled repair session
or whatever it is, or even the phone call sessions
leading up to that. All of those things are wrapped
up into having really good SOLT skills, and any weakness
in any of those can put a chink in that
armor and start to affect the reputation of the company
you work for, and ultimately, if that happens internally, it'll
affect your reputation within the company as well. So soft
skills are being good at those communicating, handling problems, listening,
your body language, your professional appearance. All these things can
be learned, and they take a look little bit of practice,
because again we're all built with our own innate little
nuances that sometimes don't send the right message, and so
you have to work with those. In any electric contractor
or business, whether you're plumbing, mechanical, whatnot, and you have employees,
you need to make sure that they are fully aware
of soft skills. So you don't overlook soft skills because
somebody just happens to be a pretty good technician. Are
they making you a lot of money? Again, you can
get more out of that and make their life better
and they can understand how to handle stressful situations if
you work on.
Speaker 3: Those soft skills.
Speaker 4: Because soft skills are not extra, they are a product
of service work, and if you're going to be doing
service work, then it's important that your employees as well
as yourself understand these soft skills. Okay, Now, the service
technician is the company. So I don't know whether if
you've watched our previous podcast or listen to our previous
podcast when we talk about electrical contractor versus electrician, you
need to understand that the employee is the company. They're
the vision of the company, they're the they're the messager
of the company.
Speaker 3: So you have to do everything that is right. If
you're an electrical contractor or.
Speaker 4: You're the owner of a business. You need to go
back and listen to that episode because that episode I
think it's episode fifty one of the Master the NEC series.
But it's so important that you realize that you have
to set the tone. Okay, Now, when a technician enters
a home, they become he she, They become the brand.
Speaker 3: Your brand.
Speaker 4: What you're sending out there is extremely important. You know,
don't blame it on the technician if you're not able
to provide them with proper shirts to wear, or that
you have a company policy on how they're supposed to look,
how they're supposed to carry themselves. Don't blame the employee
if you don't set the tone. And if you're a
one man or one woman show.
Speaker 3: It's up to you to set the tone.
Speaker 4: But remember, your brand is everything, and I think that
people forget that now. Some people are very happy with
a mom and pop and they think I've got plenty
of business. I don't need to build my brand. Now
today with all the competition, you need to build a brand.
And that's why cmbcps are taught to understand that this
is conveying their excellence and that sends the message to
the customer. They don't know what CMBCP is, but they
know that it means Certified Master Electrical co Professional. That's
what you are, and that's the message you're carrying. So
everything that you do up to this point is setting the.
Speaker 3: Tone for the company. Okay, Now, the.
Speaker 4: Homeowner doesn't separate the technician from the company. Look, I
have seen it where technicians get on a job and
they bad mouth the company. Look if that's going on
in your company, and if you're the owner and you
get whiff of that, you need to nip that in
the bud. That's a cancer that can destroy your company image.
They may be the best yield or top earner in
your company.
Speaker 3: Got to go or they need to get with the program.
Speaker 4: Okay, one bad interaction can destroy years of reputation building.
You send out somebody and they start mouthing off at
the customer, or they start damaging the customer's property, or
they don't follow your protocols, and you get complacent and
think I'll just send out Johnny and it starts to
hurt your repetition.
Speaker 3: Remember what I say.
Speaker 4: People that have a bad experience will go out of
their way to share it. They'll go on Yelp, they'll
go on Google. They'll go out of their way to
share a bad experience. They won't necessarily go out of
the way to share a good experience. That's why I
train people to use things like these little tags that
you see right here on my head in order to
that if you have a good experience with the customer,
or you train your employee right or the service technician,
they can build a good referral. And this is going
to build dividends for you because people are looking for that. Okay,
your technician is not just fixing the circuit.
Speaker 3: That's not it.
Speaker 4: They're not just they're doing that. This is why we
talk about thermal imaging. In offering a program. If my
technician gets there and solves a problem in thirty minutes,
and we charge by the hour, they need to be
understand how to tactfully add additional services that can help
build your reputation bolster it rather than give a bad experience.
Somebody gets there in ten minutes and leaves, but they
charge them for an hour. That tends to leave a
bad taste in the customer's mouth. You need to balance
out that time. Now you may think, well, that means
I can get him on another job and I.
Speaker 3: Make more money.
Speaker 4: Now you're not thinking right, You're thinking about how many
I can do in a day rather.
Speaker 3: Than how am I building my reputation? And it's a mindset. Okay,
you need to offer them additional services. You need to
offer them.
Speaker 4: If they refuse them, that's fine, but you need to
understand how to incorporate. That's why I say everybody needs
to add thermal imaging, whether it's residential, commercial service work
so much that those cameras can see that the customer
can't see, and that you're able to convey it if
you're trained properly. Okay, So you got to remember your
technician is not there fixing a circuit. That might be
the goal that they were hired to do, but he
or she is actually selling the company's future. Because people
will go out of their way to say bad things,
you have to help them say good things. So there's
a process.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: And I've also talked about this in previous episodes, So
make sure you subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker 3: You go listen to our podcast.
Speaker 4: You can find master the NEC podcast by just simply
searching for it in any of your search engines, Google, whatever,
and you'll find it, go back and listen to some
of the old episodes because we talk about reputation building,
how to set the image. These are powerful things you
as a business owner, you need to start thinking about that.
And if you're a contractor and you're a one man show,
you need to think about how this is going to
help you. See, if you're an electrician, you need to
get yourself into that mindset of an owner. Okay, to
build a business just the way you've got to think today.
You got to be the entrepreneur, you got to be
the chief executive, and you've got to remember that that
what you do sends a message. Now, why does soft
skills matter more than the technical skills? On a service call,
you might be thinking, well, I'm the best electrician in
the world, I'm the best plumber in the world, I'm
the best mechanical guide. Rund Well, if you listen to
my previous episode, episode number fifty one, you will see
that it doesn't matter how skilled you are.
Speaker 3: You're there to fix a problem.
Speaker 4: Whether you fix it in fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, or
thirty minutes, that's your job. But on that service call,
the soft skills how you communicate is what they remember,
how you left that customer, how the expectations, how you
clearly explained what you're doing to them, what you resolved,
what you fixed. Why you're offering these extra services that
they don't have to pay, like a thermal inspection or
something like that. Maybe saying, you know, I check the
lugs in your panel to make sure everything was torqued properly.
Speaker 3: Pay those type of things. It is a requirement of
the code today.
Speaker 4: Or maybe I make a recommendation because I noticed you
need GFCI here. It wasn't required at the time it
was built, but you know what, the code evolves because
there are issues that need to be addressed. No high
pressure sales. That's why are thermal imaging electricians. When we
get into our Certified Thermal Electrician program, we have separate
modules that talk about the approach to sales, approach to
addressing problems or confrontation, or how to get over hurdles.
Speaker 3: There's a reason for.
Speaker 4: All that, and you need to learn that if you
want to be the best electrician and the best contractor
you can be. Now, let's think about this. So saft skills,
why do they matter more than the technical skills? Well,
homeowners judge you and they call you back based on
how you greet them. Whether you listen to them good
listening skills, or you're ignoring them because you think you're
so far above them and knowledge that you don't have
to listen to what they say, or you don't acknowledge them,
or you don't know the right way.
Speaker 3: To acknowledge them. Okay, okay.
Speaker 4: Another one is whether you explain things clearly in a
way that they can understand.
Speaker 3: It takes practice.
Speaker 4: If you're so used to talking technical jargon, then you
need to understand how to convey the message to a
level they'll understand and appreciate.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Also, do you have the ability to show patients or
you just simply just constantly amped up? Do you know
how to have a conversation where you pause properly and
listen to them? Active listening sometimes is the most important
part of communication.
Speaker 3: Okay. Now, do you.
Speaker 4: Make them feel safe? Do you make them feel respected?
Remember they called the company you work for, or they
called you. If you're a one man's show, we want
to make sure that they have this utmost level of
confidence throughout the time that you're there with them.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Here's the other thing. No, they do not judge you
for how perfect your conduit is. They do not judge
you for how many code articles you can quote.
Speaker 3: Or cite to them. Okay.
Speaker 4: They don't judge you by how smart you are. They're
not electricians, they're not plumbers, they're not mechanical folks. Right,
so you can impress them by how you look. See
a ECPs that have that seal. They're gonna look at it.
They're gonna glance at it. They're gonna see it on
your arm, they're gonna see it on the truck.
Speaker 3: They're gonna know these things.
Speaker 4: They're already putting you at this high level. You have
to maintain it.
Speaker 3: Okay. So can you overcome a bad first impression? Absolutely?
Is it harder? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Are you gonna spend the rest of your service call
trying to overcome that first impression when you identify that
you screwed up?
Speaker 3: Absolutely you are. Can you? Yeah, But it's gonna take
you more work, more energy.
Speaker 4: And if you start out right there at the top,
high energy, very respectful, easy to communicate. Listen, well, look
the part. Guess what the job is easy? All they
want is the job fixed. Okay, Now, remember, the customer
doesn't care how much you know until they know how
much you care. That's important because to you, it's just
another job. To them, it's a moment in time that
they wish they didn't have to experience. They didn't want
to call a service tech. They might have been the
woman of the house, might have thought it was something
that the honey do list should have taken care of,
and they can't take care of it, so they don't want.
Speaker 3: To call you.
Speaker 4: So you need to make it as painless as possible,
and that takes practice. You may think you have some
great skills, but do you have those soft skills that
are necessary to to make this transaction memorable so that
they let other people know how memorable it is.
Speaker 3: Now, communication is the revenue skill.
Speaker 4: How many times have you heard somebody say that clear
expectations or clear explanations really do.
Speaker 3: Build trust with the customer.
Speaker 4: Arrive there, let them know what's to take place, what
the expectation is, and then when.
Speaker 3: You find something, you explain it to them. You don't
load it up with.
Speaker 4: So technical jargon because they're not going to be impressed
by you. They're not They want it's solved, but you
can explain to them in a way they understand it.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you build trust.
Speaker 4: With the customer, then what you're doing is building approval.
They will literally go out of their way to recommend you,
but if you breach that trust, they will go out
of their way to destroy you.
Speaker 3: Really, if you've not been on any.
Speaker 4: Yelp reviews lately or any Google reviews lately, I'm just
saying again, tactfulness and the ability to communicate is extremely important,
and not everybody has it. I have my own experiences
with some HVAC guys that came to my house when
I was in mckinniy, Texas. I would not hire that
company again. They're probably a great company, but their technician
bad mouthed them the whole time. He looked terrible, he
smelled like cigarettes, smoked the whole time. His vehicle was terrible.
He pulled up and there was trash falling out of
his vehicle. Did not send the message I want. You
might say, Well, he was great, he was highly skilled.
Look I'm not paying for that. I'm paying to solve
my problem. Right, that's it, And I got a bad
impression of them. Say what you want you can say
is you're electrician. You go, oh, that's bull crap. I'm
the best skilled out there with you're selling yourself short,
you're full of yourself. Okay, communication is what actually is
a revenue growing skill.
Speaker 3: Clearly explain what that is. You're doing.
Speaker 4: Build that trust. Trust builds approval. Approval builds sales and
reoccurring sales. And you know what sales does. Sales builds companies.
They'll tell their brother, they'll tell their cousin, they'll tell
their neighbor, and they're liable to call you back again
because they had a pleasant experience. You did a follow
up call saying hey, I'm here for you. And by
the way, if you need a recommendation for a plumber,
a mechanical person.
Speaker 3: A builder, anything like that, I got you.
Speaker 4: I'm your trusted resource. We talk about that in other podcasts.
How I use these little QR codes right here, and
we do link trees and we build relationships kind of
a B and I builders the network international type of
thing where you're building a loyal trust of other people
that you can recommend. You want to be their go
to person. It's easy again, you say, God, that's hard work. Oh,
that's so much it's not. Once you understand how to
do it, it's very easy to build that trust with
the customer and be that go to person for them.
Right now, a technician with average okay, not above average,
not below, but average technical skill, but they have excellent
communication skills is the one I want. Okay, I can
train somebody to fix in troubleshoot, whether they do it
in twenty minutes, thirty minutes, on an hour, I can
train them through that. That's my responsibility to offer them
that type of training. But you take that mediocre electrician
and you give them some amazing communication skills, they can
outperform a genius electrician with poor people skills every day
of the week. They're still going to solve the problem,
still gonna get the customer with the resolution, but they're
gonna close more work, they're gonna get you more sales,
they're gonna generate you more repeat business, and they're gonna
protect the company's reputation because they understand soft skill people skills,
communication skills, conflict resolution, how to make that customer feel
like you.
Speaker 3: Know what, you're the number one customer for the day.
Speaker 4: Look, if you're an electrician or a plumber, or mechanical,
and you say, look, I got no interest in that.
I'm just an electrician. I'm just doing the work. Hey,
you're a dinosaur. You're gonna be replaced at some point
because everybody's replaceable.
Speaker 3: Take a little pride in your work.
Speaker 4: I like to leave every customer thinking they got the best.
And that's what you should do in every service call
you go on if you want to. It's not kissing
their ass either, because you're offering a service. You're offering explanation, expectation.
You're giving them good communication, you're good listening skills, you're
dealing with resolution. You're working with the customers so that
the end result they are a happy customer.
Speaker 3: Then you leave.
Speaker 4: The next day, you follow up call on your schedule
and you say, hey, I just want to follow up.
Speaker 3: We did some work for you yesterday. Just make sure
everything's okay. If you need anything or anything I could
do better, please let me know. You know.
Speaker 4: Also, if you feel as a good experience, do not
be afraid to ask for a referral, whether it's Google, yelp.
In fact, I teach people to set that up so
they can do it right there while you're there. Easy
five stars. Always ask for five stars, but make sure
you give them.
Speaker 3: Five star results.
Speaker 4: Okay, but be honest with them, right, just saying now
the real cost.
Speaker 3: Of poor soft skills. What's the real cost of that?
Speaker 4: Well, poor soft skills or an employee who has is like, dude,
I've been doing this for forty years. I don't give
a damn dude. You hired me to fix the problem.
That's not true. If you're a one man show and
you want to run your business like that, that's up
to you. But if I'm an owner of a business,
I expect you to understand that your reputation needs to
be upheld within my company, and then I expect you
to work on these skills. If you don't want to
do it, you need to hit the road somewhere else. Okay,
but poor saw skills does what builds? Bad reviews, lost referrals,
customer complaints, canceled estimates, reduced revenue for the company, high
employee turnover because of complaints. Right, one technician, just one
with bad saw skills, can undo an entire marketing budget.
Speaker 3: You have spent a lot of time.
Speaker 4: If you ever sat down and wondered what your reternal
investment if you're an owner of a company, and you're
not thinking about your reternal investment. How hard did you
have to work for that sale? It can be undone
and almost immediately, and you can all that work you
put into it can.
Speaker 3: Go away that quick.
Speaker 4: And all you're asking is for a sales service technician
to treat that customer with the same respect that they'd
expect to be treated.
Speaker 3: That's all we're asking now.
Speaker 4: The five saft skills every service tech must master Number
one first impression, the appearance, the greeting, and the tone. Okay,
when I greet somebody, I look the part.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: You need to invest in shirts, and if you don't
have them for your employees, shame on you.
Speaker 3: That should come out of the company's costs.
Speaker 2: T shirts.
Speaker 4: If even this T shirts like this inexpensive, you can
get involved in it for less than five dollars a shirt.
They should have at least five or six shirts. You say, well,
I've got a thousand employees. Good, then that should be
part of your budget providing shirts, looking the part. Making
sure you have an appearance policy. Look, I'm not against tattoos,
I'm not, but I don't want Satan's worker tattooed on
the forearm of my technician and in being my company, well,
we don't get into religion in our company. Bullshit, because
I don't know if somebody's a Satanist or a you know,
a Holy roller, it should be irrelevant. Okay, if I
have an employee that has all those I'm not against tattoos,
but if they're tattoos that are off putting, then what
happens is they need to be covered up. You do
your own policy. I'm just telling you that was not
happen in my company. I'm not against the tattoos. I'm not,
but I'm not going to send a service technician out there,
no matter how good they are, with skull and crossbones
tattooed all over their face. I'm sorry, I'm just not. Okay,
So those out there that do that, okay, I'm sorry.
I'm you don't like it. I'm straight with you, folks.
That's not the image that my company's going to project.
It's not whether I'm a Holy roller, it's not whether
I'm a satan wordy. I have nothing to do with it.
If they can't be covered up, then they have to
at least be tasteful and if they're not tasteful, and your.
Speaker 3: Company's going to determine that me. Okay, you're company, all right,
so anyway, but those are things you have to think about.
Speaker 4: So appearance, how they greet somebody, and the tone is
critically important. Number two active listening. What does that mean?
That means listening to the customer when you get there.
You might have been told you have to fix something.
You get there, the first thing a technician should go is, look,
I believe that we were sitting on here because you
have a circuit that's not working in a bedroom.
Speaker 3: But you know what, you're the one that needs to
tell me.
Speaker 4: Tell me what do you got going on? Here's what's
exactly going on? And listen, don't interrupt them, let them finish.
Wait for those pauses you want to call them awkward pauses,
that's fine, but you need to practice good listening skills.
Let them get what they have to say out. Okay,
if they were to say something like, well, I have
a circuit, that's bad, but you know, Johnny told me that.
Speaker 3: You know that, you know that y'all look for everything
and you know blah.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah blah, and you know, and my response
would be like or and I don't have a lot
of money and I hear you overcharge it. I'm not
saying that to take place, but I'm just saying i'd go,
I'd listen and go. I can understand that it's probably
happened to you or somebody else before, not how our
company works. This is why I'm, you know, wanted to
take this opportunity to listen to you about what's going on,
because sometimes things can when you call in or somebody
calls in a service deal that they're not they don't
give all the information and for me to fix it
quickly and to understand, I need.
Speaker 3: To hear it from you. And so that's why I
want it.
Speaker 4: So, is there anything else that you may find relevant
or or you know, to what's what's going on. Let
them say it and you listen. Don't interrupt them. Don't
immediately think I have the solution. Oh that sounds like
that's a bad brick. Listen until there's that silence they're
done talking, then you talk.
Speaker 3: Don't interrupt them.
Speaker 4: Now, next, clear explanation, avoid any jargon speak, Simply speak directly,
pauls when necessary, take breasts actively, listen, and then clearly communicate.
That's going to be your biggest tool that you have
to and look, it takes practice. It doesn't just happen
like that because everybody's so itching to spout back something
or or say something or look for instant gratification or acknowledgment. I,
as a technician, am not there then to acknowledge how
great I am.
Speaker 3: They don't know me. They hired the company that I
work for, so I'm always going to keep the company.
Speaker 4: They don't even know how great I am. This is
why the company will do things like put your seals
on there about being a CMCP or or what kind
of training or uniforms. Give that appearance of professionalism that
it already speaks volumes for your company. A well done website,
a well done vehicle market that will send the message.
You don't need to convey You're already there. You don't
need to let them know how great you are. They
already hired you, so speak clearly, speak, simply, convey it, Listen,
pause when necessary, keep the good tone, positive tone. Next,
respect their home, cleanliness, care and courtesy. Don't leave hand
prints fingerprints on everything. If you've got the little booties
that you wear before you come in their house, believe
it or not, whether your.
Speaker 3: Shoes are dirty or not.
Speaker 4: And I've had technicians telling me I ain't taking my
shoes off for nobody. Well, if you work for me,
you will if necessary. I'm telling you right out, I
ain't taking my boots off, and nobody. Oh, I'm so
holier than thou contract electrician that I don't need to
remove my shoes because that customer screw them.
Speaker 3: I'm the technician. You ain't working for me.
Speaker 4: So either I provide you with proper little booties that
go over it, and you're gonna put those on while
the customer's watching because you care. You care, they see
that they remember that, or if you don't have them,
you say to them, I need to go. I want
to take off my boots or take off my work
boots right here at the door. I don't want to
run the risk of tracking anything in your beautiful home.
I just want to take them off here. Is you're
okay with that, They'll be like, oh, that's fine, take
them off a thing. Does that mean you got to
put them on when you go back out back going? Yes,
I'm sorry. Being respectful may inconvenience you but it is
what it is. Do not track through somebody's house, show
courtesy or at least them give you the okay to
say you don't need to take your boots off, or
you don't need.
Speaker 3: To let them if they tell you it's fine.
Speaker 4: I got another old saying that people say that if
you're working on a job and it's hot and they
come up to you and say, do you want to
do you want a glass of water? You take the water.
People say, oh no, I'm okay. First of all, if
you're thirsty, you're thirsty. Secondly, you can say, oh, I
appreciate that it's hot. You know, these uniforms are hot.
You know, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Goes a long way.
Speaker 4: If they're offering they care, and that's part of having
that interactive communication. I'm just saying, okay, now professional closing
soft skill, summarize the work you just did, answer any
follow up questions that they have, ask them, do you
have any other follow up questions for me? And then
at the end of the day, and I see this
not happen. At least it didn't happen in my HVAC
experiences where the actual service tech said thank you, we
appreciate your business.
Speaker 3: Dude, really, are you too good to do that? They
just paid your company money.
Speaker 4: Hell, even if somebody bitches about the price, there's a
tactful way to push that towards the business and say.
Somebody might say, well I think that's a bit overpriced.
Then I might say something like, now, I get it,
I understand. I understand you might feel that way, and
you know, and I get it.
Speaker 3: The problem is.
Speaker 4: Our price structure is based on the burdens and overheads
that our company has and to pay us our wage
and everything like that, so it's broken down amongst employees.
Speaker 3: So it just is what our pay is.
Speaker 4: But I'm more than happy to put you in touch
with our owner and facilitate that for you because I understand,
I get it. It's tough out here that type of thing.
You know, there's ways that you can divert that. But
you don't need to get into confrontation or justify why
you get paid because you didn't set the pay. The
companies set the structure. You're just there to facilitate it.
I'm just saying it goes a long way answer their questions.
Say thank you for their service on behalf of the company.
I'm just saying now, soft skills are trainable. Absolutely. All
this stuff says like, well I'm not going to do this,
I might do that. Well, if you're an employer, you
can mandate a training program within your company where you
build these soft skills. You have some one on one,
some interactive training that you can build these soft skills.
A lot of these complaints that people have with it
companies have is because they don't have a training program
for this. And I don't care whether you have five employees.
That's even more critical because the more people you have
walking around out there on your behalf of a company,
then you need to make sure they're trained. So companies
must train soft skills just like they train technical skills,
especially today when the competition is so high.
Speaker 3: Okay, right along.
Speaker 4: Should be evaluate the communication, not just the workmanship.
Speaker 3: You're not riding.
Speaker 4: If you're the owner, or you have a training provider
or somebody that goes with you, maybe even they're going
as a helper, but they're really not a helper. They're
there to watch how the electrician does their role, or
the plumbing guy whatever. You have somebody in your company
that does that Okay, like kind of a third party
or whatever to do that, right, they go with you.
Maybe you have another electrician who they evaluate each other
with how they do.
Speaker 3: It and they be brutally honest. Okay.
Speaker 4: So again another thing is that internally you should not
put a matrix of promotion on people based on their
skills alone. They should be getting promotions based on their
skills because expected to have a skill their trade, but
also based promotions on their people's skills because that's what
conjunction with their technical skills or what's going to bring
the money in.
Speaker 3: Like I said, you've heard that old saying.
Speaker 4: I can hire a monkey to turn a wrench, but
I can't get that monkey to communicate.
Speaker 3: So I need somebody that can do both very well. Okay.
Speaker 4: Now, SAFT skills should be part of every performance review.
How they interact, what the complaint status is from customers,
evaluation from a ride along now, and then to see
how they interact with the customer. They should be they
should be doing follow up sheets or submittals. As simple
as things are today, they can do a follow up
where they follow up with a customer and then do
a report and submit it on how that interaction. Went
many ways to do this, but promotions within a company
should not be based on skill alone. They have to
work these people skills, these saft skills.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: The best companies build technicians. The elite companies build professionals,
and that's what we're trying to do. Okay, So, folks,
in service work, your product is not the wire.
Speaker 3: The breaker, or the panels they're not.
Speaker 4: Your product is the trust that's bestowed on you as
the technician, and the trust that you build with the
customer so that the company overall reaps the benefit of
that great elite reputation. Okay, soft skills are not optional today.
They are not personality traits. Their business tools, and not
everybody has the best personality. But when they're working for
you from nine to five, from seven to four, from
eight to four, whatever that schedule is, we need to
reprogram them because the technician who masters people skills will
always always outperform technicians who only master electricity. I'm serious,
it's not just a cliche, folks. So anyway, I'm hoping
you got something out of the day's episode.
Speaker 3: And again, think about it.
Speaker 4: If you're a one man's shop or one woman's shop,
think about how you communicate. Make sure you because you
know what repeat business is great and you're likely gonna
get more work out of that job, and you're gonna
get future work out of that job. Don't be thinking
about one and done's. Don't be thinking about Ooh, I
got this one doing, I'm gonna run to the next one.
My goal is to always think about that customer, that
return on investment. They're gonna have future needs. How do
I get more out of that customer. The old saying
you get more bees with honey than you do with
vinegar stands true. Learn those personal skills. Till next time, folks,
Stay safe, God bless.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of the Master
the NDC podcast. We hope you're feeling more powered up
and ready to tackle the electrical world with the knowledge
and confidence you need to succeed. Remember, in the electrical grade,
knowledge is power, and.
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