Video Marketing Mastery to Elevate Your Business with Mitch Smedley

Get ready for an exhilarating episode as we dive into the extraordinary world of Mitch and her journey to becoming a powerhouse in public speaking and communication. From her love for outdoor adventures and being a proud dog mama to her unwavering passion for empowering others, Mitch's story is as captivating as it is inspiring.

Join us as Mitch shares her personal triumph over a speech problem, and how it ignited her determination to conquer the stage. Discover her secrets to cultivating confidence and comfort in expressing oneself, and how these skills can unlock endless possibilities in life. Mitch's expertise shines through as she explores the importance of breaking down complex topics and sharing knowledge in a way that resonates with others. You'll be amazed at how she empowers individuals to discover their own potential. With her willingness to share wisdom and valuable insights, Mitch reveals creative ways to gain exposure and establish credibility.

Get ready to be inspired, as Mitch's passion for communication and personal growth radiates throughout this episode. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the best in the field.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"I spent 19 years in the trade before starting our company." – Mitch
"I got to learn on somebody else's dime how to lead people, how to manage people, and how to create a department where there wasn't one before." – Mitch
"I've got this track record of building other people's legacies well enough, it's time that I start building my own." – Mitch
"There are people in a company that are willing to share information; learn… from them." – Philip
"The moment you decide you want to go start your own business, you have to look at it… as a zero-options mentality. You have no safety nets, there are no other options. This is the only way forward." – Mitch
"We don't communicate enough as people in general." – Philip
"Business owners have a way of trying to scare their staff into not starting their own business." – Mitch
"Part of what inspired me to get the videographer was other people need to know how to start their businesses." – Mitch
"Trust your gut, especially if you have tons of experience in the industry." – Mitch
"No matter what anybody does…, find a way to make what you do interesting, even though it's naturally not interesting." – Mitch
"[Use] video to establish ourselves as the authority figure when it comes to plumbing in this market." – Mitch
"Video can help your business directly, but it can also open the tap for national income as well." – Mitch
"It doesn't matter what industry you're in, people want to see what you have to share." – Philip
"All of this works out because it's not about what can I get from you today…, it's about what can I give to you. And then eventually, that does come back around. " – Philip
"Add value." – Mitch

RESOURCES
Mitch
Website: https://callsmedley.com/  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitch_smedley/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTraXD0eqOHuscdwB_7bhlA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SmedleyPlumbing 
They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan: https://marcussheridan.com/they-ask-you-answer/ 

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

What's up , guys ? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast

Mitch's background and personal info

Speaker 1 0:05

. I've got Mitch Smedley here and he has been in the plumbing industry since 2001 . Smedley Plumbing opened in 2020 and has been growing ever since . Mitch has also started a podcast called the Void in 2022 with a focus on helping others start their own trades-based businesses . He and his co-host then started a trades-based mentorship program called the TradeWins in 2023 . Tradewins works directly with smaller trades-based business owners to help them get their businesses to incredibly healthy and higher levels .

Speaker 1 0:44

But before we get into the episode , I want to let you know that Mitch is a guy that I've been watching . He does plumbing and if you know anything about plumbing which I don't know really anything about , but it's not something that I would normally sit here and watch but this is a guy that I get interested in watching his content and everything , and so I want to bring Mitch on to be able to talk about how does he get people engaged in a topic that's not necessarily something that would be entertaining , like we see , especially with all these social media influencers , and so I want us to talk about that today how he communicates and builds his personal brand to be able to fit within his business model and we're going to get into some other things today , but with that , mitch , welcome to the show .

Speaker 2 1:27

Thanks for having me , man . I'm excited to be here .

Speaker 1 1:30

Yeah , yeah and , like I said , I've been watching you for quite some time seeing the things you're doing . We've been a part of some masterminds together , got some mutual friends and everything and just really seeing what you've done and really , from 2020 , it's been incredible to see the growth that you've had . And so I would love and I know YouTube is probably the best thing to kind of show that growth that you have had there . But talk to us about , like , how this growth really started and what was like the catalyst for you to really get into the business in

Expanding the plumbing business

Speaker 1 2:01

the first place .

Speaker 2 2:01

Yeah , so I , as you mentioned , my first mentioned I I my first day ever as a plumber was , uh , ironically , september 11th 2001 . Like , everyone remembers where they were that day and it makes it easy for me to remember where I was , cause that was my first day as a plumber and , um , so I spent 19 years in the trade before starting our company and over those 19 years I did , you know , residential new construction , commercial new construction , residential service , commercial service , a little bit of light industrial , like we did . You know , I got to experience all the different facets of plumbing and then , towards the latter half of that 19 years , I got heavily involved in the management side of things , managing larger plumbing departments and everything else . So I got to learn how to manage people and all of that , and so we started our company in 2020 .

Speaker 1 2:54

Another memorable year .

Speaker 2 2:56

Yeah , another memorable year . We made the commitment to start our company . My wife and I made the commitment to each other to start our company in January of 2020 , not knowing what was going to happen a couple of months later . And even when all of that stuff kind of comes around , she's still , you know , giving me that gut check moment of like are you sure we still want to do this , with all of the uncertainty , and I'm like , yeah , we're opening August 1st , and so we made the commitment to start the company in January with an August 1st open date , and we stuck to that and we opened on August 1st and haven't looked back since .

Speaker 2 3:33

Within our first year , when we started out , it was just me in a truck and my wife was handling all the phone calls and doing the bookkeeping and stuff like that . Within the first year , we had like five employees total within the company . We went from two to five . Within the first year , we were also clicking off revenue months that would equate to million-dollar years . We did not achieve the million dollars in our first year , but we grew up to that to where , by the end of that , we were clicking off million dollar months , million dollar pace , annual pace months , but now we have 10 employees and a virtual professional . We've got six trucks on the road , a couple of girls in the office .

Speaker 2 4:19

I actually have a full-time on-staff videographer . We do a lot on YouTube and stuff like that , and the videographer is also instrumental in helping us start a podcast which is separate from the plumbing company , but the podcast was to help inspire others to start their own trades-based business , and then the podcast evolved into a paid mentorship program where we will actually work directly with small trades-based business owners to help get them to their first million in revenue . There's a lot of coaching organizations out there that will help you take your existing million-dollar business to the five or ten million-dollar levels . There's very few , if any , that help you get to your first million , and that's where we came in . So , yeah , that's a quick high level overview of all the things that I do , yeah , man , and that's some incredible stuff .

Speaker 1 5:09

First of all , I want to say that you spent 19 years .

Speaker 1 5:12

You learned the craft , both on the actual physical work side , where you're working and bending the pipe , putting it into places , whatever Obviously I don't know that side and then the management side too .

Speaker 1 5:24

So you spent time there before you went in to this trade and I think a lot of times , especially with social media , the downside is that entrepreneurship and owning a business and running a business is so glorified and it looks like it's so easy that you can just go do it and you'll kind of figure it out along the way . And , of course , entrepreneurship , really life in general , is that way you have to figure things out along the way . But it's almost on social media at least . It's like it's shamed for you to go out there and get experience and work under somebody . And that's the sad thing that a lot of people feel like , oh , I just got to go start on my own and they , man , they're grinding their gears left and right , they're stressed out I mean , divorce happens because they think they have to go out right away and do that rather than be in a quote unquote nine to five or work for a company and learn from them first before stepping out .

Benefits of working under someone

Speaker 2 6:20

So yeah , first one , I'll take that out . Yeah , like one of the positions that I held during the 19 years before starting our company . One of those positions was I started out as at a company as pretty much a peon Like . I had six years of plumbing experience before working there , but it was my first company that I worked at doing commercial new construction work , and so I was the low man on the totem pole and the grunt and I did that for two years at that company and then 2008 hit , and actually 2008 had already come and passed .

Speaker 2 6:56

It took another year or two for the ramifications of the crash of 08 to affect the commercial new construction side of things , and so once new construction slowed down on the commercial side , I stayed at that company and moved over to their residential service side . Had never done residential service before , but got the residential service under my belt , got it all squared away and I was their first plumbing only service technician . Prior to me being there , they had , like HVAC technicians that were kind of doing a little bit of plumbing , but they didn't have anybody that specialized in just plumbing and I was that guy , and so they started to realize the kind of revenues that were capable or possible whenever they dedicated somebody just to plumbing . And so next thing I know next thing they're doing is they're hiring another plumber . And then they hire another plumber and because I was the most tenured there , the most senior , I kind of stayed on the top as the manager of the department and so I spent 10 years at that company . Eight of those years were on the residential service side of things and it was a slow build at first but by the end it was like , okay , we have an actual department with goals and metrics and budgets and we're going to hit them . And so when I started there , they were doing like $200,000 a year in plumbing work and when I left they were on pace to do about 3 million a year in plumbing work , and 200,000 to 3 million over eight years is not overly impressive .

Speaker 2 8:30

But most of the time I was having to convince ownership . That , like ownership was kind of the anchor on that , like I was having to convince them there's more to be had , there's more to be had . And so we still did some pretty admirable stuff there . But I got to learn on somebody else's dime how to lead people and how to manage people and how to create a plumbing department where there wasn't one before , and one of the other positions that I held before starting our company was I spent seven months . This is the last position I held , the last W-2 job I had before starting our company .

Speaker 2 9:07

I spent seven months at a company that did HVAC only for like 33 years . They had never done plumbing and they wanted to get into plumbing . They were trying to buy plumbing companies and nobody would sell , and so I jumped on as their manager and we created a plumbing department out of thin air and in seven months we took them from $0 in plumbing revenue to about $70,000 to $80,000 a month in plumbing revenue in seven months , and so that's just shy of $1 million a year in plumbing revenue all inside of seven months . Year in plumbing revenue all inside of seven months . And so that's the job where I was at , where it's like , okay , it's obvious , I've done this well enough . I've got this track record of building other people's legacies well enough , it's time that I start building my own . And so that's the job where I was at . My wife and I decided in January of 2020 , like , this is happening for us , and it's happening August 1st . And so we made it happen August 1st and haven't looked back , man that is incredible .

Speaker 1 10:14

And again I want to emphasize the point that you learned under other people first . Yes , you were in a unique position that maybe not everybody's able to be in that position to . Literally you're kind of forced to create the company or create the department within the company and everything and be that manager , but it doesn't mean that you still can't learn within that company in some way , shape or form . Is there are people in a company that are willing to share information . Maybe you're not going to do their job full time and really hands-on experience , get that experience , but you can learn those things from them . And , of course , read books , listen to podcasts , watch YouTube videos to learn what you need in order to jump off into your own .

Speaker 1 10:59

I think too often again , we just want to jump right in and we're not ready for that and I'm guilty of that . Right there where I thought about that and actually I did have a stint where I tried to get into real estate doing commercial sales never done sales in my life being an engineer and I'm like , okay , I'm going 100% commission . I wouldn't say the worst mistake of my life , but it made me realize very quickly that I was not apt at the time for sales and I shouldn't have done that . But there there was a couple other reasons , but I tried jumping a little quicker because I was getting ready to get married and for me I was like , oh , my wife's not gonna be on board with that and so I want to do that before she had some , you know , had say in that , since now we are one instead of separate and everything . But on that I'm curious with how you had that conversation with your wife . I mean , you already had this plan and everything . So it sounds like she was pretty on board .

Speaker 1 11:55

But obviously COVID came up . There were some concerns there , even though y'all had that plan . What was the conversation in the communication ? Like for you to say like no , we're going to do this because you're not a guy , that's just like I'm putting my foot down , I'm doing this woman , you listen to me , get behind me , like that's , that's definitely not you . So I'd love to hear , like how you had that conversation with your wife to talk through this and continue to move the business forward , because I know a lot of men are struggling with that in their relationships .

Securing spouse’s support

Speaker 2 12:27

Yeah . So again , that's another area where the 19 years of experience helped with that decision . And not to say like , at the moment you decide you want to go start your own business , you have to look at it like Andy Fursella references it , as a zero options mentality . Right , you have no safety nets , there are no other options . This is the only way forward . And the reason why you would think that is because if you have contingency plans and plan B and plan C , if you have all that , you're going to not give plan A the effort that it deserves and you're likely you're more likely to fall on to plan B and plan C , right . So it's kind of one of those Cortez moments where you burn the ships and don't look back .

Speaker 2 13:13

In my case , the conversation with the wife had to do with the fact of you know , I've got 19 years in the industry . I'm heavily desired around this community as a plumbing department manager , so like not to say this is plan B . But if for some reason this didn't work out , it's not like I've ended my career . I could easily go get a job as a plumber in the community and go right back to where I was before get a job as a plumber or a manager or whatever , and and so that gave her the peace of mind to know that it's not like it's . It's , you know , we go this route and if it doesn't work , we're bankrupt , you know , and that also comes with 19 years in the industry of knowing how to not go bankrupt . And that also comes with 19 years in the industry of knowing how to not go bankrupt , right , Knowing where to spend money and where not to spend money , and what's a foolish expense and what's a needed expense , and all of those kinds of things .

Speaker 1 14:13

And so you just had one conversation with her right . It wasn't like you had multiple conversations .

Speaker 2 14:20

I mean , really it was . It was like we had joked around about it , for , like to give you an idea of how long it's been in the cards that I was going to have my own plumbing company . Back when my wife and I first got we got married in 07 , we , like we lived in this tiny thousand square foot slab home , didn't even have a basement very small home . I built a barn on the side of that house that was 12 feet wide and 24 feet long , and the reason it was 24 feet long is because gas pipe comes in 21 foot lengths , and so I knew eventually I'm going to have my own plumbing company , I'm going to need a place to store pipe , and so I built this barn in 2007 for eventually starting my own plumbing company , and we didn't actually start it until 2020 .

Speaker 2 15:11

But like that's been , you know , plumbing has kind of been the thing for my whole life . It was just a matter of , you know , proving to yourself with all the experience out in the real world for somebody else that you could do it , and then it's just a matter of doing it for yourself . And I tell people all the time like I managed these other departments so well that really nothing changed when I started our company . When I started our company , literally the only thing that changed was it was my name on the side of the truck and somebody else's Like my management style didn't change . My leadership style didn't change . The KPIs that I watched daily and weekly and monthly didn't change . It was just my money on the line and my name on the truck , and that was really it .

Speaker 1 15:56

Yeah . So I mean obviously . So there were conversations kind of had up to that . I think a lot of times and again I'm guilty of this I make the mistake that I have one conversation and think , oh , that's going to be good there and done . No , it takes a lot . So obviously for you had all up front and then you had one conversation once you were going to take that leap officially and the plan was in place to be able to have that conversation . But still , a lot of communication up front I think we don't communicate enough as people in general . So it's really cool to see that you did that . But then so I want to go to this other side . You mentioned about we hired a videographer . I think we're seeing a lot more of this internally , but again , we think about plumbing , we think about the trades we don't necessarily think about , oh , let's hire a videographer . That seems more like a marketing thing . Or maybe you got a high-end automotive dealership or something like that , not a trades industry type thing . So what made you decide to do a full-time

Hiring a videographer

Speaker 1 16:55

?

Speaker 2 16:55

videographer . So a couple of things . When we went to start the business , even I , like I , had all this experience creating plumbing departments out of thin air for other people , but I had never done it myself and so I listened to those other business owners too much . And business owners have a way of trying to scare their staff into not starting their own business . Right , and it's because they're selfish and they don't want their staff to leave , and I totally get it . But they'll say things like , oh , you wouldn't want this level of stress or these level of headaches , or you never get to clock out , or I've almost lost everything all the time and all this stuff . But then the guy gets in his new Corvette and he drives to his house and loads up his new Suburban and drives his family to the lake house and it's like , okay , you start putting all the pieces together and it's like the guy's doing pretty well for trying to tell me that it's too risky and I shouldn't do it . You know what I mean . And so , when you know , so as I put our business plans together , as I was putting our business plans together for everything , I had all of these . I don't want to say contingencies , but like I had . I had like 13 different ways that we would acquire work , and the number one way was the what I felt the most impactful , and the number 13 way was like the least impactful , but I'm willing to do it if I get all the way down to that Right . So I had all these different things and when I started the business , I borrowed $30,000 from myself to start this . So I made a personal investment into the company of 30 grand and I paid that back in three months and so , on top of paying myself a salary and everything else , I was able to pay myself back the $30,000 loan in three months . And so now the business is like up and running on its own two feet . It owes nobody any money . And it's like business is like up and running on its own two feet . It owes nobody any money and it's like holy cow . We did it , like we started a business , and it's it's debt free in three months .

Speaker 2 19:02

And this is something that everyone said nobody can do and , and , and , and , and . It's not that actually nobody can do it , it's just they didn't want their employees leaving to go do that right , and so that is part of what inspired me to get the videographer was other people need to know how to start their own businesses and there are other people out there , just like I was in my shoes , where they have all the knowledge and all the capability and everything else . They just don't have the mentor that it takes to start their own business . And so I brought on the videographer for two reasons . One was because I wanted to start a podcast for how to start your own trades-based business . The other was inside the plumbing company . I knew that video is kind of the way of the future and so , you know , rather than like Facebook posts with words alone or you know , what's better than that is Facebook posts with a picture . Well , what's better than that is video . And so we brought on the videographer for , you know , kind of two directions One was to help grow the plumbing company . The other was to start this podcast . And so we've been running with that videographer ever since and we've done some TV commercials in the past and we self-produced all of those in-house in our shop , didn't have to pay anybody for anything , it was all done 100% in-house . The podcast is done 100% in-house . The podcast is done 100% in-house . We do a YouTube channel where today we crossed 12,000 subscribers on YouTube . Nice , I say that I checked it like two hours ago and we were eight subscribers away from 12,000 . So I'm assuming we've crossed 12,000 . But the YouTube channel has opened up tons of doors and tons of exposure and everything else , and so that was all the reasons for the videographer was I didn't .

Speaker 2 21:09

One of the things in business is you have to trust your gut , especially if you have tons of experience in the industry .

Speaker 2 21:16

Your gut is right , your intuition is right , and so you know , for that guy who's been a plumber for a year and a half and he thinks he wants to start his own company , his gut instincts are not correct . He just doesn't have the wisdom that it takes to rely on his gut instincts . Right , your gut instincts are derived off of wisdom that's come from years of experience , and so my gut said video is the way to go . The budget said video is affordable , like we can afford to pay a videographer , we can afford to buy the equipment and all of that stuff , and I'm not a selfish guy , and so I didn't need to blow up my salary and then say , well , we can't afford a videographer . So I held my salary really low and I brought on a videographer and we've we've not looked back since , and so we've had the videographer now for a little over two years and it's worked in both fashions , with both the podcast and YouTube and then , therefore , all the other social media pieces that come from it . I like it , man .

Speaker 1 22:22

And so what are some tips for us ? If we're thinking , maybe not quite to the videographer level , but if we really want to get into video more to showcase what we do , but obviously we don't want to just be selling on every single video what are some tips that you could give us to help us with our video content , to make it better and to attract the right audience ?

Video production tips

Speaker 2 22:44

So the biggest things that I would say is , no matter what anybody does , like we do , plumbing , plumbing is absolutely not sexy , right ? There's nobody in their right mind that would think plumbing is sexy . There are other professions out there that might be better looking than plumbing , but they're still not sexy . And so you have to try to find a way to make what you do interesting , even though it's naturally not interesting Like plumbing . Nobody thinks about a plumber until they need one , and so to stay relevant on social media and to stay relevant in the forefront of people's minds , you have to find a way to get your plumbing company to stay on the front of people's minds without preaching at them , without trying to sell them anything , without anything overbearing , right . And so , you know , we do some things with our social media where we basically talk about anything but plumbing . We talk about dogs that are available to be adopted in the community . We talk , you know , funny things , humorous things . We share some of our YouTube videos and all of that stuff , and our YouTube videos don't try to sell anything . Our YouTube videos are strictly entertainment and educational and informative , and those are the three areas that we play in in YouTube , and so we ran down that philosophy for a long time . And so we ran down that philosophy for a long time .

Speaker 2 24:13

And then one of my buddies well , I got turned on to a book and I'm reading this book and it's like my jam . It's like everything , all of my instincts , about hiring a videographer and everything that you can do with video , they're like in this book and it's almost as if I read this book years ago and that's what made me decide to hire a videographer . But but I didn't read the book years ago , I just hired the videographer off of instincts . And then I read this book and the book like corroborates everything that that I thought initially . And I keep the book on my desk because I read it like over and over . It's called they Ask you Answer by Marcus Sheridan , and if anybody is looking to get into video , they should absolutely read that book , because the book talks about how to leverage video to maintain your client's interest and it talks about what types of videos to put out , about what types of videos to put out . In other words , if I put out a video , that's like buy a water heater for me because it's better than everybody else .

Speaker 2 25:18

Well , now I sound like Ford versus Chevy versus Dodge right , they've run out of things to be better at the other guys at , and so like they even had jokes about it for a while like the straightest antenna and so like they even had jokes about it for a while like the straightest antenna , the most round tires . Like they've run out of ways to try to cram their product down your throat Right , and so like what we do with the video stuff is like we went to Home Depot and we bought the two most expensive , most powerful toilets that they had for sale , and then we bought the cheapest toilets that they had for sale and then we bought the cheapest toilet that they had for sale and then we torture , tested all three and we were like , is it really worth it to get the better ones ? And keep in mind , I don't sell Home Depot toilets . I would prefer you buy a toilet from us than buy it from Home Depot .

Speaker 2 26:09

But that's the kind of content that our viewers want to watch , and so we're happy to put that out and for the people that are watching this , if you want to see how powerful video can be , if you go to Google right now and you Google what toilet should I buy , and you click on the video results , no matter where you are in the nation , our video will come up as number one , and we didn't pay for the number one spot . We didn't run search engine optimization on the video for it to be the number one spot , it's just it's the content people want and so it shows up . And I see you clicking away on your keyboard , Youles what toilet should I buy ? And my video pops up number one . What do you think happens when somebody in my local service area Googles that exact same thing ? They see a company that they've seen around town have the number one video spot and so now they're more likely to call us versus any other plumber in the area because that video's got like 100,000 views .

Speaker 1 27:39

I was going to say it had like 99,000 . I didn't look any closer into it , but yeah .

Speaker 2 27:43

Yeah , and so if 99,000 people around the nation liked that video , watched that video and saw value in it , well then , absolutely . The people in my local market are going to see that , and we could go on and on . There's a whole bunch of other things I could tell you to search up and you'd find our videos as being number one , but they're all very specific towards questions customers would ask right , what toilet should I buy ? That's a very common question . Customers should ask right , and in every industry would do this right , but , like for the plumbing industries , it's you know , do I need a 40 gallon water heater or a 50 gallon water heater ? What water heater should I buy ?

Speaker 2 28:23

We just released a video four weeks ago that already has . So that toilet video is like I don't know , 17 months old or something like that . It's 700 days old , whatever that comes out to . We just released a video like a month ago , four weeks ago , about what water heater I should buy and do I need to like , should I get one from a box store or professional plumbing supply store ? It's already got 125,000 views in four weeks . It's already got 125,000 views in four weeks , and so that is obviously adding to our brand authority and our brand power and everything else , and it all comes around the idea of using video to establish ourselves as the authority figure when it comes to plumbing in this market . It just so happens that when you share videos on the internet , they go national and global , and so you're also sharing . You're establishing yourself as an authority figure nationally .

Speaker 1 29:20

Yeah , and so obviously for a company like yours at this present moment , nationally is not , it's not bad , but it's not really helping you necessarily either , because it's not like you're going to go take a service call three states away , right . Unless they paid you enough money to go do

Leveraging videos for national coverage

Speaker 1 29:37

that .

Speaker 2 29:37

Yeah , so it's cool that you brought that up . So , like my long-term plan for the plumbing company is , I want to have multiple locations in multiple states and the easiest way to gain traction in a new state is not to pop up a new location out of thin air . It's to buy an existing company and run with it right , because you can play off of their established authority already and their customer base and everything else . Looking to sell his company and he's looking to sell it to a private equity company or to this guy that he's seen on YouTube , that he knows and he likes and he trusts , and both of us are willing to give the same amount of money for his plumbing company he's more likely to sell it to me than a PE company because he knows I'm going to do a better job of taking care of his customers than his private equity company . I'm going to do a better job of taking care of his customers than his private equity company . I'm going to do a better job of taking care of his employees than his private equity company . So there's a long-term play with video too . The other thing that it brings in is like we have a category in our QuickBooks for influencer revenue .

Speaker 2 30:47

Video pays . We make money every month off video . I mean it pays directly , right , youtube will pay you for running ads on your videos , but video also pays in indirect ways . I get no fewer than five solicitations a day of people willing to give us free product or pay us to make a video about their product and it may be a new plumbing item Like Wolverine Boots just emailed me last week . They want to work a deal with us to pay for us to showcase and talk about Wolverine Boots in our videos .

Speaker 2 31:22

Now , will something come from that ? I don't know yet , like it's way too early for that . But it does open doors for national income , and when you're a plumber , all I can do is fix toilets in a 30-mile radius , right ? So how do I find a way to make money nationally when my service area is only a 30-mile radius ? Well , youtube and video is a great way to do that . We've had a lot of other really cool opportunities . I just signed an agreement a week , a week and a half ago , where a major TV network is actually going to use some of our YouTube footage in a TV series , and so they had to get permission from us to do that . We had to sign all the contracts to do it . They have to pay us to use the footage . There's a whole lot that comes from that as well . So , yes , video can help your business directly , but it can also open the tap for national income as well .

Speaker 1 32:19

Man . That is incredible and I 100% support that . I think video is a great way to go and really builds that know , like and trust and differentiates you from your competition , for sure . And speaking of being different , you know , when we think of trades , industries , one thing , I always think of this and of course , when we think of plumbing , we tend to think of the septic tank side , if you will . So that side of plumbing , the really dirty side , obviously there's the water plumbing you could do as well , but I can't help but think about one time I was in Charleston , south Carolina , and there was this company literally set up for all the horse carriage rides , where they would have a GPS . They would click some button and put down a geopin and they would throw out a little flag ball kind of thing , and a company would come by and clean up the poop and pee in the ground because the city required that , and so they literally had a company specific to that and who knows how much it really made , but they were able to make money doing that , and so the same thing when it comes to video content .

Speaker 1 33:26

People want to see different things . Maybe they want to see it one time , maybe they're really intrigued . But it doesn't matter what industry you're in , people want to see what you have to share . So go be engaging , go be entertaining and provide that value , provide that education for them in one way , shape or form . But I want to take a little bit of a shift here and go to the event that you created .

Speaker 1 33:51

So obviously you've been in the industry for a long time . You created your own business . You've been in it for less than five years , but you've gotten off to a very great start with the business . You've done this whole YouTube thing . Now you're this influencer , if you will . Who would have guessed a plumber could be an influencer ? But here we are , live with you right now . But you decided to do this event and this event was out of state in everything and I know this is more not from the plumbing side , but from your Trade Wins company and mastermind group or coaching program , whatever exactly you call it there . So tell us about that . Why did you decide to do it and how was that process ? And how do you feel after that event and everything

From podcast to events

Speaker 1 34:35

?

Speaker 2 34:35

Yeah , so that all started from our podcast . So , separate from the plumbing company , we started this podcast called the Void , which is to help employees of trades-based industries cross the void into self-employment . Right , it's to help bring a business into existence and we had been running that podcast for about a year and I think we had 60 or 70 episodes out . All the episodes are about an hour long , so it's not one of those janky podcasts where it's a seven-minute long podcast and five minutes of it is intro and outro . Those are kind of a joke , right . Like these we actually get to get deep into issues and really flesh out topics and subjects and everything else . And after about a year of the podcast , we had somebody approach us wanting to sponsor the podcast and they gave us like this little . Their sponsorship was like $2,000 a year . I mean it was very little and when you look at all the time , effort and energy it takes to put out a podcast , I mean $2,000, . I think we were . We were making an average of like $3 an hour or something like that . Like it wasn't , it wasn't worth it . But what happens is they gave us a little affiliate link and so that anybody that signed up for their product . We got a little piece of and within like five days of the first show dropping where they sponsored , where their affiliate link went out , they had like three or four people sign up within like five days . And so you know , podcasting is kind of weird because it's a one directional conversation . You don't really . Yeah , all the platforms give you metrics as far as to how many plays , how many downloads , how many listens . You know all those things , but you don't really know how well your audience is listening . And then this affiliate link comes in and it's like holy cow , like just within a matter of days , people signed up for this product because they know , like and trust us and if we're willing to endorse this product , they're buying it . And so that got our wheels turning about what more we could do with the podcast . And so we created a business coaching group called Trade Wins , like winning in the trades , and we basically bring people into the group that are looking to either start their own trades-based business or get their trades-based business to a very healthy level , and we work with them each month through a private Facebook group and through group coaching calls and through private coaching calls to help grow their businesses . And it's really cool the impact that we've had on that . We've got guys that have come in as a one truck shop for a couple of years and within two or three months of being with us , they're now buying their second truck and adding to their team and they're hiring customer service representatives and all kinds of things and they're growing their businesses just because they sought out the mentorship of somebody that can help them do that .

Speaker 2 37:43

And as a byproduct of Tradewinds , we hold these in-person events .

Speaker 2 37:48

We've had two of them so far . We've got a third one planned , and so we bring our members in . Some of these events are open to the public . It just kind of depends . But we bring our members in and we bring speakers in that can help talk with them about how to get over certain milestones .

Speaker 2 38:05

And so the one that you're referencing was in Las Vegas and it was about a month and a half two months ago . We had a blast out there . It was a fairly quick event . It was one day . We only had four speakers all day long , and so that let each person dive in and get real deep into the details with everything that they needed to worry about , and that one was focused on creating . That one was early in the year , and so it was more focused on setting sales goals and business goals and creating a really good vision that you can drive for throughout the whole year .

Speaker 2 38:36

This next event that we have planned , we're actually bringing in a finance guy and he's going to be talking about , like , what to do with your business profits and what to do with money , and how to move money around in the business so that you're giving as little of that money to Uncle Sam as possible while still being legal right , and so we're doing that one later in the year , because the first meetup was about how to create all this profit .

Speaker 2 39:05

Well , now we need to talk about , like , what do you do with all this profit so you don't have to pay Uncle Sam any more than you have to Nice , and so we get kind of strategic with those events . So this next one should be a lot of fun , though we're going to do it at . We got a couple of Airbnbs that are next door to each other at Lake of the Ozarks , and , for those that don't know , the TV show Ozark is filmed at Lake of the Ozarks and it's like two and a half hours from us , so we're going to go down there and hang out on the lake and talk business for a couple of days .

Speaker 1 39:35

Nice , that sounds like a lot of fun . But , yeah , really cool how you made that transition . But that's what I'm seeing with all of this . It's well , on the outside I may be like , oh , this is kind of random , you're randomly doing all this stuff . There is a strategy there , there is a path towards that . It's not like , oh , I'm just going to do this now and just do that .

Speaker 1 40:02

You've really kind of paved the way , so to speak , to be able to get to that place , to be able to do that and everything . And these opportunities have kind of opened up . But you figured it out along the way . You've learned the things that you need to learn , and then you're really going and giving back , which I think goes into just really who you are , your character and everything , which is why all of this works out , because it's not about what can I get from you today and really that's not you at all Like what can I get from you . It's about what can I give to you . And then eventually , that does come back around .

Speaker 1 40:29

And of course , I think about the Go-Giver . You know Bob Berg , the book the Go-Giver and everything . I think that's I'm sure you've read that and the circles we're in and everything . But , man , this has been awesome . I really appreciate you just coming on letting us both talk about the different aspects of how you've really put yourself out there to communicate , to differentiate yourself and your business , which , like we said at the beginning , is not what we would think of as a sexy business Although , like you said , business typically is not very sexy anyways , and if it is somebody's , somebody who's probably not doing something right they're probably just being flashy it's probably that guru out there that's telling you that you can do your work one minute a day and you can make millions of dollars .

Speaker 2 41:12

I'm still waiting for those days . What was that ? I'm still waiting for those days .

Speaker 1 41:16

Right , right , yeah , same here , but , Mitch man , appreciate you coming on . I want to get to our last question here , and that is if you could only share one message for the rest of your life , what would that message be ?

Mitch's message for the rest of his life

Speaker 2 41:28

Add value . That's been a proven tactic for me . If I approach every situation out there with how can I add value to this situation on a long enough timeline , the opportunities come back my way . And unfortunately , too many people think , if I'm going to add value to you , philip , right now , now you owe me something and so I'm going to get value from you at some point in the future . And that's not the right way to look at it . It's not that direct . It's add value to you and add value to anybody else I meet today .

Speaker 2 42:05

And then , on a long enough timeline , there's going to become opportunities . And it may not be directly from you or anybody else I meet . It may be from a conversation you had with somebody else that's wanting to buy a plumbing company or want to sell a plumbing company or wanting to promote this new plumbing product . And now , all of a sudden , the network that I've created from constantly adding value circles back to me in a connection of some kind , in a way that can now bring some value back to me . So you know , that's the motto that I've had . I mean , I've had that motto for years and years and years to make a positive impact on as many people as possible , and that's done by adding value , and you do that long enough and things just magically start working out .

Speaker 1 42:53

Yeah , so true , and I love that you add value . That's definitely a great message to share for the rest of your life , for sure . Value , that's definitely a great message to share for the rest of your life , for sure . And so if people want to follow , you see what you got going on watch the awesome plumbing videos . Where is the best place for them to do that

How to connect with Mitch

Speaker 1 43:08

?

Speaker 2 43:08

Yeah , so we can be found on YouTube . You just search up Smedley Plumbing on YouTube and you'll find us there , and then you can find Mitch Smedley Like . Facebook is probably my most active social media , and so you just look up Mitch Smedley Like . Facebook is probably my most active social media , and so you just look up Mitch Smedley on Facebook and I'm the one with the blue check . I paid for the blue check just to make sure that none of my following gets taken advantage of by scammers , so you can , you can find me on Facebook . I've got Facebook and Instagram linked so , um , you know you can find me on Instagram as well . Don do a lot on tiktok . Mainly it's just facebook , instagram and youtube all right , awesome .

Speaker 1 43:45

Well , mitch , once again , thank you so much for coming on the podcast yeah , thanks for having me .