Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Paul Abernethy here on today's episode, we're going
to talk about being the best electrician does not always
make the best electrical contractor, and it's kind of time
for us to have that one on one talk. If
you're out there and you're an electrician and your sole
focus is to I'm the best electrician in the world,
But if you're working for an electric contractor, or if
you're an electrician you're working as your own contractor, it's
kind of time to start understanding that it's not about
how good you are. Okay, I can tell you over
the years and I'm a previous VICA winner, I've competed
and that's kind of what got my career started back
in the eighties and went on to do some great things.
But it didn't take me long to realize it wasn't
about being the best electrician. Yes, all of my cables,
you could lay a level on them, all my conductors.
There is this element of pride that you have to
take in, but at the end of the day, you
have to be able to mix that pride and that
workmanship and that sense of really wanting to do the
right thing even when people aren't looking and they'll translate
that into your business, whether you are the electrical contractor
or you work for electric contractor. Look, at the end
of the day, you may say, look, I'm just an electrician.
I am just here to do the work. The boss
is the one that makes all the money, or the
boss or the owner is the one that reaps the benefits.
And that's not true because you're getting a paycheck and
there's a high probability you're getting paid very well to
do what you do. So at the end of the day,
the success of the company is what's going to push
you along as an electrician. So that's kind of what
we want to talk about today, is being the best
electrician does not always make you the best electrical contractor.
It really doesn't. So that's kind of what we're going
to dig into in this episode and really kind of
break it down. Okay, all right, So there's a lot
of stuff we're going to unpack today. Okay, so you know,
I've got my notes so that we can make sure
this and some of this is going to be a
hard truth for many of you out there. Okay, so
again take it what it is, and again, this is
something that the CMEMECP program, and when you're dedicated to
making sure that you complete something on a task, it
kind of helps you understand these things not only to
become better electricians, but it also helps to become better leaders,
and that is about your time management and things like that.
So let's kind of get into it. So number one
the hard truth most electricians avoid one. The market does
not reward technical perfection. It rewards professional presentation and trust.
So if I am electrician, I go out to do
a job and I might do the neatest job in
the world, the customer is going to praise the company.
They will maybe say good things about the technician, but
at the end of the day, they're going to praise
the company, and that's what they should do, because if
I'm going out there to do a task, I want
to make sure that the company I work for is
shined in the best light possible so that they'll call
us back. I think that many people, and I hear
a lot of people say this, is that they're almost
bitter in a sense that they think they deserve more,
they think they should get paid more, and they maybe
they do, but at the end of the day, you've
accepted the job. You're doing the job, so you need
to remember who you actually work for, and we want
to make sure that every time we leave this project
that they talk about how good the company is, not
necessarily how great the technician was. Okay, now you have
to remember that customers cannot see your code knowledge. You're
there for a brief moment in time. You may solve
their problem, you know, very quickly, and they like that
because they're going to pay less right less time you're there.
But the end of the day, they can't see these things,
and you're not there to simply patch yourself on the
back and let the customer know how great you are.
So social media going on videos and doing stuff again
for us to boost our egos. That's great. Everybody wants
to be a teacher, and that's great because we all
have an element of what we can teach. At the
end of the day, if you're an electrician and you're
out there doing the work, you know, the customer can't
see that code knowledge. They're relying on the fact that
the company that hired you hired you because you're proficient
at what you do and that you do a good job,
and that they assume you know these type of things.
But one thing they can see is they cannot see
the code knowledge, but they can see your truck. They
can see the company's website. They can see the paperwork
and how well it's done. You're penmanship and you're not sloppy.
They can see the logo, they can see the attitude
that you project from the moment you arrive to the
job site. And they also see the follow through. How
you finish this up, okay, how you get there, present
what you're about to do, how you make it very
clear what you're going to cover, and then what happens
when you finish it up and you leave, and how
you follow up with that's the stuff they see. That's
what reflects from the company. You have to remember and
we have to understand they really don't care about you.
They don't and so you know, at the end of
the day, you as an electrician should already have an
innate responsibility in yourself to be the best electrician you
can be. Don't look for that gratitude from other people. Now,
I am a firm believer within a company the company
should reward and let you know. And some people say,
I don't need somebody to tell me I'm doing a
good job. You know, I find that is not one
hundred percent accurate. Everybody likes to be told they're doing
a good job. And if you're the owner I'm talking,
do you let your people know, reward them, take them
out to eat again. Don't think about nothing but the
bottom line and the money and the return on investment
without spreading it around. That doesn't mean you have to
give thousands of dollars to your employees, but you need
to let them know that they're worth means something. Okay,
Now it's incumbent on you to teach your staff, if
you're the owner, how to carry themselves. They need to
develop soft skills. Now, you may hire somebody and think
that only reason I hired them is because I want
them to be a really good technician. They do a
lot of good work for me. I don't get many callbacks,
But at the end of the day, that's a kind
of a death sentence to any company because you need
to put an effort into training your staff so they
have those soft skills. They can deal with customers. They
know how to handle resolution and how to pause, how
to breathe and respond with technically accurate information but also factual,
not blowing smoke up their ass type of responses. All
can be trained. It's not like you're born with it.
You can be trained with it. Now, being the best
electrician in the world means nothing if the business you
work for or the business itself is disorganized, sloppy, and unreliable.
So sometimes we have to do this kind of raise
up and do a thousand foot view of our company.
So if you're the owner, you need to look at
your company. Do your guys wear shirts, Do they wear
nice jeans or khakis? Are you giving them the tools
to make you look the best you can? Because the
more you focus on the fact that it's not about
how proficient they are, that's good for you in the
company and you know you have hierarchies there. But ultimately,
as an owner, who's your boss? Your boss is the customer.
And when that employee gets there, the truck, they come in,
the vehicle, are there, the website that got them there,
the return on investment from all that work that you
put in with the logo and the attitude. Okay, you've
probably heard me say this before on podcasts. This attitude
is huge because if you go there with a chip
on your shoulder. That's how it's going to be conveyed.
And while it's important to make a good first impression,
you've heard me talk about that, bad first impressions can
be overcome. It just takes a lot of work. It
takes a lot of extra time to do that. And
if you train them to start out properly. Or if
you're the electrician, think about the company you work for.
They're giving you a job, and many times we look
at an hourly rate or a salary and we do
not realize what else is baked into that, the benefit
package maybe, or the time off, or the security that
the job gives. I tell you it's a hand in
hand deal. Everybody should be taking care of themselves, but you,
as the owners, take care of your employees. The employees
you should be taking care of your owner. Ok Now,
skill alone does not scale a business. Systems scale a business. Okay,
So if you run a mom and pop shop and
you're not interested in growing, then that's on you. But
if you wonder why when times get tight during off
seasons or downtimes, it's because you haven't built a system,
a procedural method of looking the part carrying the part
setting the image, following up on every call that you've made,
so there's a follow up. So these people, these customers think, wow,
these people went out of the way to make me happy.
Not everybody's going to be happy, but you have to
make the effort. Okay, Now, just talk a little bit
about electrician versus electrical contractor a little bit. So best
electricians think about perfect raceway runs, being very code accurate,
technical pride in what you do, the workmanship, personal reputation
amongst your peers. That is very much what I think
about when I think about being an electrician. I want
to do the right thing. I want it to look
good all the time. Now, if you have it, If
I'm an employee and I have this mentality, is that
I'm working for somebody, but I go to a job
site and this may offend some of you and you
may stop watching the video. And that's okay, because I
offend people all the time. If you say, look, I
can't see it from my house, then it tells me
that you're not really worth a damn. You may be
a very efficient technician, you may make the company tons
of money, but at the end of the day, you're
the person that I'm getting rid of. When I'm on
I'm working. I'm working, whether I'm working from seven to
four or eight to five or whatever my schedule is,
I'm giving one hundred percent to the company that's it.
Ok And if you're a person that says I can't
see it from my house, then I'm speaking to the owners.
You need to get rid of them. That's not going
to help you. That is nobody that's going to help
further your business. Okay. So again some people say, oh, Paul,
lighten up. Well, you're just the person I'm talking to, Okay.
And you may think you're good, but you're not. You're
really not in the scheme of what that electrical contractor needs.
You may be good in skill, maybe a good electrician
know your stuff can troubleshoot well, but you're not the
package that I would want because I can replace you,
and everybody's replaceable. They may not be as quick, Okay,
they may not be as neat, but they can get
the job done. But if they help push the mission. Remember,
the end customer doesn't know what's neat. They assume that
you're gonna always give them the needs that you can. Okay.
So you're replaceable. Don't ever forget that everybody's replaceable. Now,
what does the best electrical contractor think about? They think
about the ultimate customer experience. They always think about the
company brand, the professional image that their employees are carrying
out because that's what they expect. The systems and the processes, okay,
change orders, all those type of things. How can it
be done so that it is streamlined across the entire team?
And then they look at the overall team performance. If
I've got one technician that is just killing it and
I got others that are not, then maybe I want
to understand why this one electrician in my team is
killing it and the others are not. Maybe it takes
an evaluation. I have to determine why one is killing
it one is not, and there's some simple processes that
can identify that out. Okay. Also, as a contractor, how
it differs from electrician is that I am looking for
consistent results constantly time after time, not excuses. I'm looking
for when some when in electrician makes a mistake, they
own up to it. I want that electrician it's not
going to bury their problems. Hoping it never rears its
head down the road. That is not what I want.
And I also don't want to instill the fear in
the electrician that they're afraid to come forward with something
because it's going to cause them problems. That's a bad
way to be as well. Okay, so the electrician builds
the work. The contractor is who builds the business. Now,
many of you might be in this situation where you're
wearing all those hats. You're the contractor, you're the business owner,
and you're the electrician. Well, and nobody knows more keenly
than you, because I get calls all the time with
contractors one man two man shops, going how do I
grow my business? And I'll talk to them and I'll
do a consult consulting session with them, and I'll ask
them some real tough questions. I'll say, okay, well, how
do you treat customers? Well? I think I treat them great,
do you? Well, let's talk about it. I'll throse some
scenarios out there, and you know, inevitably somebody will say, well,
the customer's not always right. You know, they're probably not
always right, but there are tactful ways to handle situations
where they're not always right. And now I have people
that say, well, I'm not kissing any customer's ass. Okay,
that's fine. I didn't say kiss their ass. What I
said is understand how to compromise and come to a
mutual agreement that satisfies everybody, and you walk away with
a win win, and you walk away with a potential
customer that may refer somebody else. You heard me say this.
Word of mouth is extremely important. But people, if they
have a bad experience, they immediately rush to Yelp, or
they immediately rush to Google and do a bad review.
Why because they had a bad experience. Now, when somebody
has a really good experience, some of those people will
rush and give you a really good And we talked
about this in other episodes and other podcasts that I've done,
where it's extremely important to make sure that you prompt
that customer and you train your staff to prompt that
customer to give a review while you're there. That's why
I have these these little tags. You see them if
you're watching the video, you'll see this little QR code
that's on my hat. But we sell these little things.
You can make them yourself. Basically, we put the customer
right there and go to this QR code where they
can give a review. And that review is what's going
to drive the confidence in other customers when they see
these reviews. And if you're a local business and you're
trying to grow your business, that is fundamentally important for
you to understand that. If you don't understand that yet
yet you're trying to scale your business and grow your business,
then you're fundamentally missing something. You really are. Now, let's
talk about the customer's thought process. What are they actually buying? Okay,
remember the customer's not buying your conduit bins, not buying
the neat routing of your conductors. Okay, they're not buying
you like your cables to be all level. And again
that's innately something I like to do. I like to
make my work look good, even though it's gonna be
hit behind sheet rock. That's a pride thing, and I
would hope that vast majority of electricians have that pride. Sadly,
younger ones today, all they're worried about is speed. And
if that is what's promoted, is speed alone, then something
has to suffer. And usually in the skill, it's the
workmanship suffers. When we start thinking about nothing but speed.
So there has to be a happy balance. But look,
if you're the electrician, you're gonna have to learn that, right.
But let's think about it. What is the customer actually buying.
They're buying confidence that when you show up or you
as a company, send out that technician. Confidence, reliability, the
ability to communicate effectively what you're gonna do, what you're
gonna fix in the outcome, paying for professionalism. They do
not want the headache. Hell, if they wanted this, they
try to be a di wire. They try to go
to Low's or home depot and do it themselves. Why
are they calling you not because you run the neatest
wire in the world. That's the electricians responsibility. They're calling
the electrical contractor because they want confidence, reliability, communication, effectively
communicating the issue. They want professionalism, they want that level
of trush and they want finality. They want you to
solve their issue. They're gonna go on with their life.
I can tell you right now. I have been on
calls back in the day when I worked in the field,
and that people electricians seem to want to tell and
I've heard this with other trades. They seem to want
to tell the homeowner how good they are, that they're
the best. There's ways to do that without having to
say it. Now you've heard me say there's nothing wrong
with tooting your own horn. If you're trying to grow
your business, you're trying to get followers, or that's fine, okay,
But when it comes to the customer that you're going
out there to do the work for them and you're
putting on your company face, then there's things that you
have to do ahead of time that conveys all those professionalism, trust, communication,
and that is like become a CMMECP. It conveys that
that the patches they're looking good, okay, the nice looking
vehicles with the signage on it, or the magnet mounts
or whatever. That sends that response, that sends the message
to the customer. They don't give a rat's ass about
you personally, They really don't. They may listen to you,
but the moment you're gone, guess what, they got their
own life to deal with. They could care less that
you run the best looking conduit in the world. They
could care less that all of your cables you could
put a level on them. That's something that me as
an electrician, I do because I take an immense amount
of pride in what I do. And if you're electrician
that doesn't, well, that's on you. But again, beauty's in
the eye of the beholder. But there is this level
of expectation from the customers. They judge your company well
before they judge your workmanship. Trust me, if you're late,
they don't care how need of work you do because
they don't know what need is. All they do is
immediately they're judging you. If you get to a job
site and all you do is cusss and look sloppy,
or smoke on the job site, or your vehicle looks terrible,
it doesn't matter. You may be the most code savvy,
neatest electrician in the world, trust me, they don't care.
All they know is AB's c electric sucks. That's the
image they have and as an owner of a company,
you cannot let that be propagated. And if your employees
cannot get on the board or you don't provide the
tools they need to set that image, then you're never
going to grow. And you might say, well, my business
is doing fine, trust me, everybody always wants more, and
you know, maybe you're happy with the way you do it.
That's on you. I'm just trying to tell you that
it's just kind of like codes. Right. If I say
something about the electrical code, there's always somebody out there
that says, not my jurisdiction. Well, I don't care about
your jurisdiction. I don't even care about your state specifically.
I teach the National Electrical Code. So it's national. It's
what the codebook says. Now, somebody may amend it or
modify it, or supplement it or whatever. As a state.
That's on you to understand. I'm not here because I
am not going to teach fifty states. I teach one
national Electrical Code. So when I hear people post comments,
for example, that say, well that my state, well good
on you. That's your state. I don't care about your state.
I teach the national It's your responsibility to learn what
changes are modified. That's why you do continuing it because
tenue ed we'll talk about what changes may have taken
place specifically in your state. You get what I'm saying.
So at the end of the day, you have to
set the message the mindset for the company. Now, something
to remember, your company is always speaking okay, if your
company image is speaking true the look of your vehicle,
your truck, your van, your company speaking by the website
and online presence that you have. Look if you have
nothing but a Google listing, but it just looks very weak,
it's not followed through with images. Chances are, the way
people are today, you're not going to get the call anyway.
You're just not so your website. Everybody should have a website,
whether it's a simple one page, simple frontal page with
the phone number and brief information about your company. I
believe that you should have something that you can share
with everybody. If you don't, you're just falling behind. You
need to have an online presence. But all of those
things are the image that speaks to the company. So
it's got to look good. And with today's templates and
things that we have available, it should not be hard
to have a professional looking website or online presence. Also,
in your company, how the phone is actually answered can
go a long way. How your emails are written. I'll
tell you right now that a lot of the people
have jumped on our trade hog because trade Hog allows
you to when you write something for customer in trade Hog,
for example, you can throw it in trade hog, in
the office hog and ask it to rewrite this professionally
and keep the customer satisfaction in mind, and post what
you wrote, and it will correct it. It will fix
the grammar, it will make it sound professional. Goes a
long way. Use AI to your benefit, because sometimes the
things that people write can kill a deal. That's why
a lot of people do get our trade Hall product
because it is tailored to the contractor. It's going to
say things based on contractor slang. It's going to keep
it very much around that type of tradesman industry type
of responses. Right, but emails important, consistency of headers, footers,
signature titles, things like that extremely important. How your invoices
are delivered, how quickly they're delivered. All of these things
set an image. Look, if you're a one man show
and you want to be a good old boy type
of system, that's fine. Maybe these things don't matter as
much to you. But it doesn't take much for somebody
to say, look, I need to make sure that I
give my electricians and our company all the tools necessary
to be successful. And that means the simple tools emails
with proper formatting, the process on how you answer the phone,
the follow ups after appointments, letting customers know before you
get to the appointment that you're on the way. All
these things are simple that can be done right. Also,
how you handle problems, understanding how to do problem resolution,
and in fact, in our thermal imaging program, our Certified
Thermal Imaging, we have an entire module that talks about
the zig Zigglar approach to sales and how to deal
with objection and how to do that, because I think
it's extremely important that you learn. Patients. I can tell
you right now, I am fifty. Gosh, I'm fifty seven,
fifty eight years old, fifty seven, I guess and look,
I learned early on. I was so hard to deal with.
When I was a young electrician, I knew it all
you know in the field. I did have an advanced
knowledge of most people, and I knew it. And at
the end of the day, I also didn't know how
to handle certain things with my son, and I would
get upset quickly, and he would escalate and get upset quickly,
and it would just result in arguing. And I had
to learn through life to chill. I had to learn
to just relax and breathe before I said anything, Take
a moment. That's why we teach these techniques. How to
kind of wind down a situation. I've got podcast episodes
on this, how to take a breath, and how to
de escalate a situation, look for a win win opportunity,
all those type of things. It does take practice, doesn't
happen immediately right. How to handle problems is huge. How
to overcome hurdles in the field is huge, okay. How
to not bullshit the client and be very honest with
the client. Okay, those type of things. It's a learned process.
It's not natural. Okay. If you think that people are
a natural born salesman, that's not true. What it is is,
the more you get familiar with the product, more you
get familiar with the process, the easier it is to
have it just flow off your tongue and it comes
across as a natural born salesman. I tell people all
the time, the better you know something about something specific,
the better you are to convey it. That's when people
start out in public speaking, they suck. The better they get,
the further on stand up comics they bomb. The better
they get, they learn their delivery. They get better. Same
thing with sales, same thing with electricians, same thing with
following having conflict in the field, it gets better. And
as an employer, you want to give those tools to
your customer. Okay, again, one of the other things that
speaks to the company image is always going to be
how your employees behave on the job site, because you
know what they speak for you, right, It's one of
those things that you know what. I have always made
it a habit. For example, most people know that I travel,
you know, travel for for Encore Wire for years as
their technical expert. We go to meetings. You know. Typically
it wasn't the thing to wear company shirts into the
bar after the meeting and drink because I didn't want
anybody to see the name of the company. I was
on my time, right, so it might have been inconvenient,
but changing your shirt, Okay, Your company policies can be whatever,
But when you're on the road, you know, I always
had to think about the image. I did not want
to be in an elevator with a with a woman
by myself. So if I was ever in an elevator,
and again I tried my best to do this that
I would if it was a woman walks in, I
would stop and I would leave the elevator and take
another elevator. I know you're saying, oh, come on. We
get talked to all the time from lawyers and we
learn certain things. And again, I know what to say
and what not to say and what to do, especially
when I'm on the job and being very tactful, and
that is stuff that you have to understand as an electrician.
There's certain things that you come to do your job.
You don't need to say, you don't need to do
because at the end of the day, you're an employee
and how you behave affects the company. Okay, so you
may be the best electrician in town. Hell, you may
be the best electrician in the state, but your company
might be the worst impression in the room. And they're
not going to see how good you are. What they're
going to see is the company. That's a problem right now.
Why great electricians fail as contractors. So there's tons of
contractors out there or were contractors who electricians and they
come to the realization that they can't make it as
a contractor. Right I think the biggest problem of is
in my opinions, is that they overvalue technical excellence and
undervalue business discipline. They don't understand how to run a business.
They believe that just because they're so good, that the
customer are to overlook all their deficiencies because dude, you're
getting the best electrician in the area. So don't worry
that I look sloppy, or don't worry that I cuss,
or don't worry. It doesn't work like that, and it's
not going to take long. You may have a spike
where people share you upfront and they'll tell people, well,
he's a little brass, but he's a great electrician. That's
gonna it's not going to be good for long term,
trust me. So there's many electricians who tried to be
contractors and failed at it right. Also, they operate as
craftsmen instead of executives. There is this mind shift, and
I give it a good example is the guy that
works for me. Y'all know, Jeff took my spot at
the City of Richmond, Virginia as the top lead plans examiner.
I was an engineer, but he was the lead plans
examiner when I left, and when I hired him back
as an inspector. He was electric contractor been electrical contractor
for years. One of the first and he would tell
you this story. One of the first things I told
to him was, when you become an inspector, it's kind
of like that movie Over the Top, you know, with
Sylvester Stallone. And then is when you become an inspector.
You have to take that electricians hat and turn it
around and put on an inspector's hat. It's not about
how you were rejected or how you failed things, or
how inspectors treated you. Your job is to be the inspector.
Now there's a minimum standard. You do not impose your
personal wills on installations. You follow the code minimum. If
the customer and the electrician together want to exceed the
basic bare minimums of the NEEC, that's on them. That
is not on you. So I used to tell them,
don't impose your own personal wills. It's not your responsibility.
Your responsibility is the minimum standard, and that's what the
NEC is. If they want to go above the minimum
and exceed it, that's their choice. It should never be
the inspector's choice. Oka And so when it comes to
electrical contractors who go out and fail, they focus so
much on the craftsmanship, or they do their work, their
impeccable work, but they don't know how to be executives
of their own company, and that is where they fail.
They don't know how to do taxes, or they don't
know how to do their business. They don't know how
to treat customers. They know how to create a repetitive
process or communicate with their customers effectively, or marketing or
advertising or promotion. They don't know any of that. They
just know that they're good craftsmen. They have said, let
themselves up to fail, and that's sad because they could
have been rising stars, but they ended up teetering out.
That type of thing. Now, another thing is they focus
on their personal pride instead of the company's reputation. Right,
So the electrician wants to be known as the best
electrician in the world. Right, and let's say they go
to a job and they can solve it in ten
minutes where the next electrician may take thirty minutes. They
pride themselves in that I found it where that sucker
took thirty minutes. At the end of the day, that
guy that took thirty minutes, if he follows all the
things to keep their company in the highest regard. They're
going to get the business because you're still charging the
middle of an hour, doesn't matter how quick you were.
But if you do not convey the company image or
that company reputation very high, then you know what, the
customer doesn't see the wire, they don't see the cable.
They don't understand that if it's a little slanted versus flat,
that that even makes a difference. They really don't know.
They really don't, you know, And that's something innate within you,
has nothing to do with the end customer. So typically
those that fail, they focus too much on their personal
pride instead of worrying about the reputation or putting the
company first. Whether you're a one man's shop or one
woman's shop, or you're working for somebody that's got one
thousand employees, you should be always putting the company first
because they're the one that are paying you. They's the
one that keeps your employed and keeps food on your table.
They're the one that gives you the benefits. Okay, to
leave the insurance if you get hurt, they're the ones
paying that. I'm just saying things you have to think about. Okay, Now,
what else do they fail, well, they try to be
the hero instead of building a brand that works without them.
So as you go from a one man to a
two man to a three man or whatever, a lot
of people try to build their value and their worth
in a company as me, me, me, rather than build
a company as a whole so that they are replaceable
by another electrician in the company. Now, you know what
I said about tooting your own horn and making yourself
valuable within the company. That's true. There's nothing wrong with
letting people know in the company that you know that
you're good and you're worth it. That's fine, but never
let that carry over to the customer. No, they don't care, okay,
But what you want to do is let them know
that you're there to be a team player with everybody else,
but you are that good. Right, But you want to
give the impression to the customer that everybody in your
company chain is that good. When you figure that out,
that's when your company is going to be successful, really
it is. Okay, Now, let's talk a little bit different
to shift a gear here. Let's talk about what real
contractor success looks like. Okay, real success of an electric
contractor means what So if you're the contractor and you've
done things right, whether you're a one man show or
a one hundred man show, whatever, the customers recommend the company,
not an individual. They push the company. That's when you
know you're successful. Okay, the business produces consistent income without
your constant presence, so at some point you're able to
take time off as a contractor and the business keeps running.
Those are little signs that you're being successful. In other words,
there's a call about a project and it gets scheduled,
and it gets done, it gets fixed, and you basically
hands off. Now, look, i'm gonna tell you I grew
up as being a sole proprietor. Then it went into
being a corporation. We started out mom and pop, started
out with me and my brother, so vacations were far
and in between. We always had to have our hands
in every issue, but we slowly build it up that
it was bringing in income and problems were getting solved
without our constant presence looking over everything, whether we had
helpers or people working for us, whoever. We got to
that point, and at that point we knew it was successful.
As a sole, single shop owner. That should be your
goal is so that it's generating you income even when
you're not doing it. Now. I know you might not
be ready now, you may not even want that. You
might say, dude, I'm okay by myself. That still doesn't
mean that you don't want more work. That doesn't mean
that you want to have people waiting to come to
your company, not you, your company. That's where you should
be focused on. Okay, Now, the one thing to remember
is that your system that you put in place will
outlast your own labor. Right, So from the moment you
show up or the moment you do the job, the
moment you lead, the system has to be a process,
right that helps grow your reputation. Okay, not just while
you're on the job site. So for example, follow up
calls when you do maybe it's a service call, or
you finish a project even though you've been paid, the
project's finished, out, you should be calling the general contractor
as a follow up, you should be calling the owners
and say, you know, we just wanted to call and
thank you for allowing us to do that last project.
We're here if you need us, if you've got any
problems with it, we stand behind our work. I don't
know that many contractors today that follow up. They seem
to think that you only have to follow up with
the customer on a service call. No, there is absolutely
nothing wrong with following up to the general contractor or
the owner whoever got you the work or saw that
you got the work, following up and thanking them for
that business. And you're here as a follow up. That
doesn't say anything about your work crew. That says everything
about your commitment as a company. And that's what you're
trying to do. Show the company is committed, not any
one individual or even you. It's the system that you're
trying to build that's extremely important. Now let's talk about
the shift that changes everything. Okay, stop trying to be
the best electrician in the world. If you want to
be a contractor, start building the best electrical company you
can in the world. Build your image, lay out your system,
process for change orders, process for invoicing, process for follow
up calls, all those type of things. Okay, build your team,
build your process. I can tell you as a back
in the day when I was a one man show,
my team was my wife. So I'm busy doing the work.
She would take the calls and it wasn't that she
was technically savvy. She wasn't trying to solve calls on
the phone. She was trying to schedule them and line
them out so that I could effectively return those calls.
So she would say, Hey, this is electrical service facialist.
My name is Darlene. How can I help you? And
you would ask me to say, okay, let me set
up a time for one of our estimators or service
technicians or whatever to get out and reach out to you.
What's your name, what's your number. I'll have them get
right back to you. They're more than happy to speak
to you. That's great because that sets the expectation for
the customer. Now you have to make sure you have
a system that follows up simple, right, sounds simple, But
you don't have to have people that are technical experts
or the best electrician in the world that answers the phone.
You don't, and so you need to build a team.
Whether it's you and your partner, but it's you and
your wife. Maybe you're answering all the calls, right, Well,
then you're gonna have to wear multiple hats and you're
gonna have to try to do the best you can
at every hat. But remember whatever hat you're wearing that
day needs to convey one solid message, and that's to
the customer. It's all about the company, not about the individual. Okay,
build that brand around the company. Don't focus on yourself.
Don't focus on you being the best electrician in the world,
because you may be, but it's all about the company.
And if you're the electrician worker for somebody, you would
want the same thing for your business. You'd want the
same employees. So again, let's stop hearing this stuff about
well it's good enough, I can't see it from my house.
Take pride in what you do. Okay, it's a profession.
We're all electricians. Now there'll be some out there on
social media and that'll say it's corny that this is
BS and all that. They usually are nobody's. They usually
have nothing, and they're the first ones to post a
comment because they won't look in a mirror. You realize
that they're thirty, forty, fifty years old and they got nothing.
You're not that person. They are the first person that
rushes to the keyboard. It usually a nobody. They've got nothing.
They get very defensive because it's the truth. The truth
hurts sometimes I'm just saying so. The market does a
reward who knows the most folks. The market rewards the
most professional, acts the most organized, and delivers the most
confidence in the eyes of the for the company. That's it.
Success is not about being the best electrician in the world.
It's about building the best electrical contracting company in the world.
That's why I tell people all the time. You become
a CMCP, you portray that on your vehicles. It will
do the message, it will send all that confidence. It's
all about how you market it. It's all about how
you use it. It's all about how you display it
with the patches on your uniform, the hats. It's all
about how you carry yourself. It's the business cards, it's
the professional communication. It's the professional invoices, it's the professional
follow ups. All of that. I don't care if you're
a one man show. Your goal should be the executive
of your company and be the best you can be.
You know what, And if you're an electrician and you
work for somebody and you say, screll a that I'm
just I'm happy with being just doing none of that. Okay, Well,
you're still getting paid. You work for somebody, take a
little pride in your work. You can try to be
the best electrician you can be, but ultimately you need
to shine, shine, shine for the company, work for I'm
just saying, at the end of the day, a good
employer will reap the benefits and hopefully they showered down
on you folks as well. All Right, all right, folks,
hopefully you got something out of that today and you've
been listening to whether you're listening to the podcast or
you're watching the video, we appreciate you. Until next time,
Stay safe, God bless and we'll catch you on another
episode of Master the NEC Peace Out