The Money Habits That Separate Wealthy Contractors from Struggling Ones

👇 Take the Trade Traction Score Assessment and discover what to focus on next in your business:  https://tradetraction.scoreapp.com

What separates tradespeople who build wealth from those who stay stuck chasing the next paycheck?

In this episode of Trade Traction, recorded live at the SkillsUSA National Championships, we sit down with Jake Chesney to discuss the financial habits that can transform a career in the skilled trades.

From building a savings foundation and avoiding unnecessary debt to investing, entrepreneurship, sales, and personal development, Jake shares practical lessons that every plumber, HVAC technician, electrician, and contractor should hear early in their career.

Whether you're an apprentice just starting out or a seasoned contractor looking to create long-term financial freedom, this conversation is packed with timeless advice on money, mindset, and success.

00:00 Most Tradespeople Never Learn This
07:18 Stop Financing Cars
09:22 Save First. Invest Second.
13:51 Don't Start a Business Too Early
17:33 How Wealth Is Actually Built
19:31 Invest In Yourself First
21:50 Why Trades Are Winning Right Now
23:55 The Highest-Paid Skill Nobody Learns
27:47 The Confidence Shortcut
29:58 Rewire Your Mindset
32:10 The Advice That Could Change Your Life

Subscribe for more interviews, business strategies, and growth insights for the trades.

#PlumbingBusiness #SkilledTrades #FinancialFreedom #ContractorLife #TradeTraction #Entrepreneurship #SalesSkills #Investing #SkillsUSA

The Podcast that helps plumbing and heating service contractors stop working for free and actually turn a profit. 

Connect with Dennis:

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dennis-hamon/?skipRedirect=true
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dennistheapprentice/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064205912242
Tiktok:https://www.tiktok.com/@dennistheapprentice

Thank you once again for your support and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this podcast with your peers! Stay tuned for more exciting content coming your way every week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Trade Traction, the podcast from plumbing contractors who are tired of working harder every year without seeing the profit they deserve. If you've ever wondered why some contractors build well while others stay stuck chasing the next first call, this episode is for you. Today we're coming to you live from the skilled USA Next Championship, surrounded by the next generation of skilled trade professionals. I sat down with Jake Chester to talk about something that doesn't get discussed nearly enough in our industry.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

The best investors were first the best favors. One of my best voice players on this.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And I'm like, oh no. Yes, I know it's having okay. And he's got no capital reason.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Having a rainy day, fun, it just allows you to weather that storm. If you start early, you're in your position to not go out of business.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Whether you're an apprentice just getting started, or a plumbing business owner trying to create a better future for your family, there are some lessons in this conversation that could change the way you think about money forever. Let's get into it. Jake, welcome to the Trade Traction Podcast here at Skills USA National Championship.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Amazing. Totally overwhelming. And uh didn't know this existed. Thanks for inviting me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Oh, absolutely. I didn't know two years ago, and uh Mike Rowe was talking to 18,000 kids last night, and he said the same thing that people know the feature farmers of America and other stuff. But when you say skills USA, so many people have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, I totally uh have hope because uh I know there's a big gap, like a bubble, and uh even just getting help around my house. Uh, and like I'm put off several months, and uh like I'm not handy and I wish I was, but at the same time, I'm worried about what's going on, and this gives me hope. Like this is coming in, coming in quick.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah. So what people are hearing is we're right across from the teams competition. The teams competition is uh they're doing framing and plumbing and electrical and masonry. And the kids, there's like four kids on each team and are working together to build, they're building the structure. And so that's the noise in the background. And uh to me, it's a beautiful sound. It's the sound of um this is their sport, these skills are these guys' sport.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Just walking around the confidence these kids have that are at this place. You can just see people tend to walk with confidence and uh you can tell they're gonna do well with whatever they put their hands to.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Absolutely. Yeah, what's cool is so these kids there's like over 115 trades that are here at Skills USA National. And they have to be here, they had to win a state competition. So they're already state champions.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

And they're most of these kids are high school, some secondary, and uh now they're here. So everybody you, every young kid you meet is uh already super successful. Yeah. So it's a really fun place to be.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, great to see the parents here uh supporting them, and it's like their travel, their travel, uh, what do you call it, travel baseball, or whatever people do, they're doing many, and yet they're getting they're getting skills that they can use right away and get paid.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah. Yeah, so like like a lot of people don't understand what's going on, but people understand the soccer mom, or you know, we put our kids through soccer and soccer league, and then they go to different regional competitions, and if they keep winning, they keep getting going to bigger conferences, right? And competitions. Well, that's going on in the trades at Skills VSA, and so it's regionals and then state and then national, and every two years it's worlds, and so the winner here of every trade, every competition now has a chance to go to worlds, it's you know, Japan or China next year, and they'll go and compete at the world level, and you can be the world champion in your woman.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, and there's like 150, right? 150. I think it's 115 trades, I think. 115 different trades represented by the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, it was just it's pretty overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, I I like the uh diversity in gender too. A lot of females here, males. You said they have uh we saw what Delta here represented and um the military, Caterpillar, Caterpillar, yeah, all the big industries here.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I kind of what I kind of like we were told in our day, we were told that we had to go to school and uh we get a degree.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Sit behind a desk.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Sit behind a desk. Yeah, and so we were told that so much that now private industry was coming together and collaborating and fixing the problem that that that instruction uh created, right? Yeah. All these people went to school and uh no one went into the trades. So few went into trades. Now what the stat is for every five retiring, there's only two coming in. Plus, our population's growing. Yeah. So let's just refuse giving out for the trades. We'll get back to the show in one second, but real quick, are you a plumbing or HVAC contractor who's staying busy, the trucks are rolling, the bills are getting paid, but there's still not enough left over in the bank? For most contractors, the real issue comes down to one of three things pricing, service, or hiring and retention. But it's hard to know which one needs attention first. That's why I created this short assessment. It's just 17 questions, takes about two minutes, and helps you pinpoint what's costing you money right now. When you finish, I'll give you key training advice based on your results so you know what to work on next. So if you want clarity on what to fix first in your business, I'll leave a link in the bio, take the assessment, and see where you stand. All right, back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, it's like a pendulum. I mean, I've seen colleges go out of business the last five years, so to speak. Private school. And even though it's sad, maybe there was a tradition there, I'm kind of like that's a normal process when uh there's a pendulum swing. Yeah, they need to shrink one and expand this. Yeah, love it.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, so it's very so I'm excited for you to be here because uh you know a little bit about money.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, yeah. And I talk to so one thing that happens with these young kids is these young kids start making money um sooner than anybody really imagined. Their parents didn't really imagine it. Um, even the kids didn't manage understand it, and all of a sudden, these kids are making really good money and they really don't know what to do with it. And so um what do you think? Let's talk about money a little bit. People don't talk about money enough.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

It's kind of the same, this is taboo, but um I was just talking to two kids yesterday. I call them kids. Um this kid's 25 and um he's saving 40% of his money. And that's beyond or outside of his um pension that he's getting to the union. So he's already got a pension, but he doesn't even think about he's saving 40% and um not so sure what to do next. So what what do you think about that?

unknown 7:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

What did you talk about?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Well, I was blessed to be uh exposed to uh some concepts at a young age, and my father shared them with me. And one of them is you know, you don't need to have payments. There's a lot of freedom in your life when you don't have a car payment, you don't have a credit card payment, you don't have, you know, maybe a house payment eventually. And um going that way creates a lot of peace uh for yourself, even your marriage, things like that. So if these kids can change the mindset that it's you say you're gonna buy a vehicle, it's not $800 a month or $300 a month, it's how much does it cost, and and then stay for the next that's a good place to start is being debt-free, even though they don't maybe have college debt if they're not going to college, if they're doing trades and stuff, but not having uh debt in general is a great way to go. And then from there you can start building this foundation where you have opportunities to to invest, maybe purchase businesses, maybe you know make deals, take cash as king. So you may learn where to put it.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yes. That that is what's happening, is these kids so I talked to another young person yesterday. She was told to go to school, and so it costs $70,000 a year. All student debt. And um, she never used the museum that she got. Um, so she's got lots of debt and trying to figure out how to start paying that off versus um another, you know, these other kids are are are saving right from a debt go. I think one of the cool things about the trades is like there's all sorts of things to like you don't have to be in a trade to love your job. But what's cool about the trade jobs is you get paid to learn. And what I think is cool about that is you can start these habits of saving money right away.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Rather than waiting till you know, if you listen to Dave Ramsey saying, get out of debt first, right? Right. That might might take a person until 35 years.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Right? Right. But these kids are starting in 1819, they can start saving right away.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. That's a great way to start. Yeah. Start building that foundation, and then you can you know, I think it's confusing sometimes uh in the financial space because you hear uh when you're young to invest in high risk. And so the idea of actually investing in savings, like building this foundation. The best I I learned that uh the best investors were first the best savers. Because if you have a critical mass, you can say yes to things that you might not otherwise even have the opportunity to even explore. So so building that cash foundation, and and then of course, now where do you put that? Because you don't want to just leave in the bank 100,000. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

I remember when I was when I had my business, I remember going to the bank one day, and I'm like, What? It's really weird, but on Fridays I'll come to the bank, I'll give them my money. I'm like, what's going on? Why are we all giving the bank our money? But we all everybody does.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

So um where would what where would you store your like what would you do besides that?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

So you've got your bank is kind of a convenience in our society for you know run-in processes, pay and sell home bills, things like that. Um, but uh I I was exposed to a concept called uh infinite banking. It's using uh a tool that's been around several centuries uh uh with life insurance as a place to store cash. And it's not just a focus on like if you die, someone gets money, but to actually use it as a bank. And you can use it to pull money out and buy a car, pull money out and invest in your business, pull money out for taking a family trip, uh, you know, bigger expenses, uh that and then you can pay yourself back. And it's just a it gets a higher rate of return uh than like the bank, and it's safer because it's not subject to like inflation, taxation, and and other things that erode uh erode cost.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Right. I love that. Yeah the reason you're here is I do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, Nelson, yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yes, when were you exposed to it?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

So I I um I discovered it over 10 years ago. 10 years, okay. Um and I couldn't quite figure out um I couldn't get my whole family involved, you know? And we had a business and there was good months and bad months. And so it was really hard to get started. And I absolutely ultimately never started. And so what I did was my soulmate business, I put as much money as I could into it.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And so that's how I did it. And so if I could ever if I could start my life over again, one question I ask is everybody is if you could do stuff over again, what would you do? Yeah, almost everybody says they would start saving more than earlier.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Earlier, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Right? Right. Because when you get as you move on, you start having kids and a family and a a business has ebbs and flows, and it's really hard to figure out how to save sometimes from with this because you don't know you don't know if you have a profit or not this month, right? All the time. So I think a lot of people struggle with that. Yeah. And so, but starting early and building up a reservoir, yeah, right? Right, um makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Having a rainy day fund, because uh inevitably you're gonna have uh great times and hard times, and when those hard times are there, it it just allows you to weather that storm. Uh, it could be a few months, it could be longer, but uh if you start early, you're you're positioned to not go out of business and have to go down a different path.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Right. So I think one thing, a lot of these trades guys and gals, some of them have a dream of going business for themselves. The problem is that takes money, and it's always more than they think.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Right? And so what I see in my experience is a lot of guys start businesses. I know what I guess one of my ex I just found out last week, one of my ex-employees started his own business.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

And I'm like, oh no. Oh no. Because I know his habits and stuff. Okay, and he's just starting his business, and he's got no capital reserve, and so I know where to waste. And so um what we're talking about is building up a reservoir of money that that he could, if he did that, then he would have that money to capitalize himself. Instead, he's gotta capitalize every day of the week, he's gotta sell something to make it off and try to figure it all out, and it's stressful. And most of those businesses don't work, you know. So um so how how does the kid how do you get started doing this?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

You know, uh, when I start I'm 53, so I started helping people uh as an advisor for this process um when I was 29. And what's kind of cool is I I I chose I was able to choose a market of people to serve that were 18 to 23. 90% of my clients, my first three years were that age, which is unique. Most people in this in this space of advising are people with money, they're older stuff. But if it if they had a hundred bucks a month back then at least, that was enough. Well, that kind of gave them a little bit of a critical mass of 100 bucks a month, we can do something. Um, if they have a pool of cash and sit in the bank, we can get them started that way. If they've saved 10 grand or 20 grand or something, but really a hundred bucks a month and not if you know, as long as they don't have high interest debt, and I wanted to focus on that if they have that. But if if they're past that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

You start with 100 bucks a month. 100 bucks a month, right? It's not the amount, it's it's uh I I've been telling kids, it's not how much you make, it's what you do with what you make. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yes, that happens.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Well, so you get so really you can start doing this with any level. Yeah. And uh then over time is the magic, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

And then what I like about it is we hear about um compounding interest.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

But as far as I know, this is the only place where there is truly uninterrupted compound interest. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, yeah, because you know, when you borrow money to do something with, invest, or whatever, otherwise it's the money is still growing uh and it has a hole there that you can then pay yourself back and get back on the track you want it. So yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

But you're not borrowing your own money, you're borrowing using it as leverage. Yeah, exactly. Very cool. Um so then so what happens when you get more money? Like so you're saving a hundred dollars a month. What so a lot of these kids they're making they're making twenty bucks now, eighteen bucks now, whatever it is. Then when you get the license, all of a sudden they start get making a lot more money. How's that work?

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, so you start where you can and then build from there. Um, a lot of my clients over the years have you know added to their allocation five, six times over you know, ten years. So you can kind of build it up, and then there's flexibility you know, after you've had it for a while, if you need to, you know, things turn on you, you can you know you have you have some flexibility to it.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, we're not this isn't an investment. No, we're not talking about investing yet. No, no, we're not. We're just talking about stocking where where do we stop our money and store it, right? Yeah, exactly. Savings. Yeah. And then so investing, what like what kind of invet what what are you seeing out there that's working well for goods? This is unique that you're working with younger people.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of I'm M53, a lot of them are in their 30s and 40s now, but I spilt it with the young people. Um, and I'm I'd love to anytime someone calls me, I'd love to help young people. So yeah. Um yeah, I mean, if you're in the trip, if you're if you're a business owner, I found they generally don't want to take their money and lock it into, let's say, like uh a 401k or even any even an investment on Wall Street because their best investment is gonna be in the expansion of their own business. Uh that's the best rate of return, they're vested into it, and they're gonna see it through. They're they're tied emotionally. So uh they want liquid cash. So that's one place is to be able to expand their own, you know, or it could be real estate. A lot of people are doing real estate, and if they're doing this kind of a foundation, it's just more the entrepreneurial route. And then sometimes hard money lending. Um, I've lent money to friends that I trust that needed cash, couldn't get it from banks, and they pay me 20%. There's uh there's real estate partnerships out there who pay 20, kind of a safe 20%, if you will. Uh still always risk, but there's there's places out there that if you have if you have cash, then you you'll be surprised most often.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, I I've discovered that. When you have when you have money, this like there's so many options you have to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

You have to figure out how to say say no to some and say no. Yeah, totally. So you mentioned something. So do you follow Alex Ramosi?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Okay. Alex Ramosi is one of the, in my opinion, one of the very brightest business cream guys out there.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

And he talks about investing in yourself is the best investment. Like, and so in the trades, what these kids are doing is they're they're learning, investing themselves, and learning a high value skill. And so he talks about you know, buying programs that teach you how to sell or or or getting yourself to trade schools. But our own cells, we're the best investment there is.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

And so most people are talking, what you hear out there is people talk about the stock market and real estate. But most it seems like most people don't talk about making ourselves more valuable. It's probably the first place to start.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Well, every industry has its own opportunities. We're at one right now. People come into this and the path to get here, uh, challenging yourself, getting yourself out of your comfort zone, developing the soft skills, you know, uh communication skills. So it could be something totally unrelated and it's still big, uh, it's gonna pay big dip in. But your your ability to lead people and to hire and fire and courageous conversations and all those kind of things are investing in yourself. Um, not just buying tools, which is a great thing as well, but um, yeah, those skills.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah. Tools, I one thing I talked about, well, it should be the budget for these apprentices.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Well, when they make a budget, they need to be invested in the tools because the tools are gonna make them so much money.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah, and then then you learn do you you want to be cheap or you want to be have value? So, you know, if you if money's always tight, then you you might make compromises and and uh provide less value to people because you're you're you're saving uh a dime and losing a dollar kind of thing a lot.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, yeah. So um so you're new to this. So what do you so I've been here a few times, so I I'm used to it. What do you see? What I'd love to see you get your insight on what you see here.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I see uh kids meaning 15 to 22 year olds pretty much, with uh vision, with confidence, with uh hustle. And um they're I don't know if some of them are in college or not, but I hear that a lot of them are not going to college. And they not not that I'm against college, too. My kids graduated school, but they uh they have complete confidence about their future. And uh they're they're getting they know there's support out there, they know there's a a path, and uh they're yeah, they're excited.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah. Yeah, and they're I think what's there's a lot of industry here as well that it's supporting them. So it's a really uh Yeah was a lot of support.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, that's so good to see these companies here to see that they don't need to have a degree and they come in and it's a win-win. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

A lot of these kids um I'm starting to see the trades like a sport. In fact, I just my last interview with Carmen from Washington, um they have a program where they I don't know all the details yet, but they can actually letter in a skill. Like letter in you can let her in football and baseball and track and field. Well, you can letter in a train. And there's so much similarities. These kids, most of these kids don't. Sitting on a desk. Some of these kids have ADD or ADC or those kind of things. And that thing it seems like it's a disability of school, but it's actually a superpower in the trades. These kids are um on fire. I call them kinetic, where they they like to move and be active. And um but really this was a sport. And there's this idea that these kids can actually let it over skill.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, I think kids uh that might be like considered like less achieving oriented. Perhaps they could have been like everybody wants to achieve. Everybody wants to feel good about themselves. They got beat down and didn't have hope, and then so then they're kind of surviving and then they get off on the wrong track sometimes. But if they can be pointed to no, here's here's another path that is not behind the desk and they can run with it. Yeah, it's just about timing. Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Awesome. Okay, so you and I, something was something we have in common as well, is door-door sales. We we just talked around uh one thing I talked about is what's amazing is when we have a skill, that it's a high value skill you get paid well for, and then you learn to sell it. Like when I ran my I ran my business for 23 years, and most of the time, probably a third of my techs made more than I did. Because they they knew how to do the skill well, and then they knew how to sell well. And those guys made so much money. Where do how do you what's in your viewpoint, what's a good way to get started learning how to sell? How do you learn how to sell?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I mean, that's why, you know, for traditionally we promoted, you know, uh in schools, you know, extracurricular activities and sports, because you're out learning these soft skills. It could be grit, it could be um creativity, it's working with a team, uh dealing with failure. So the thing about sales, uh, I think it's just so um challenging for some people is because they've never really given it a chance to push through that learning curve to where they can feel what it's like on the other side and know that wow, I actually can do this because it's not something you're born with. Some obviously have more natural ability than others, but for some reason a lot of society thinks, oh, they're natural, and they're you're born to be an accountant and not talk to people, or you're born to to sell ice to estimate, but no, it's a skill that anybody can learn, and then why would you got to think about why would you want to learn it and what's the value there. I I I use sales as a um a synonym with communication skills. Most people would say, Yes, I want to be a good communicator. Not not everybody would say, Yes, I want to be a good salesperson, but really they're the same thing. Because if you're a uh a successful doctor, lawyer, teacher, uh, you know, if you're in government, the the people at the top are phenomenal salespeople, pastors that are really making a difference, people that can influence, they know how to listen. And that's the other thing is sales is listening more than is talking. And people are surprised at who's really leading companies in sales. It's the one that maybe even is an introvert. And that's that surprised a lot of people too. So, where do your question is, where do you get started? There's tools out there, that there's companies out there. I work with one uh amazing organization called Southwestern Advantage. Um, but there's others, there's many out there. Your mother did Fuller Brush. Yeah, and I'm sure Fuller Brush and their mission statement wasn't necessarily always to have people sell fuller brush for the rest of their life, it was to be a stepping stone to help them go off into the world. Billy Graham sold Fuller Brush. He was quite the salesperson. I didn't know that several summers uh in college. I've got you can read it in his biography. Uh, and he talks a lot about it actually in those summers. And uh he did it with you know with a purpose. So yeah, there's organizations out there that even in academia, there's uh now a growing uh movement uh in the sales departments at colleges, and uh you can have them be on a club and you can come to things like we're at in today where it's like sales competition and role-playing and things like that too. Awesome. There's sales competitions? Oh, big time. Yes, just like yeah, big time. Tell me more about that. Um, I know KSU, Kennesaw State in Atlanta is a hub for one of them. Also Baylor. Uh and then more and more schools are having these clubs, and then they go to state into national and compete and win awards. And again, it's to develop this uh this skill that's very marketable uh upon graduation. So um, yeah, there's just more of it than there was back in my day. Wow. Like you can major in sales now. Are you serious? And not all schools, but a lot of them do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So they compete on like how to sell a pencil to somebody or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they um yeah, yeah, they have a lot of different creative ways to help develop it. My favorite though is if if you're in high school or college, uh where you might have a three-month like availability to go lifeguard or work at a restaurant or do something, uh, is see if you can make one of those summers a sales summer. Because if you can give something uh focus for three months, that that allows you to get past the learning curve. If it's just something on the side, unfortunately, a lot of like they say network marketing and things, those have a lot of good intentions and a lot of them do work for some people, but but a lot of times they get put to the bottom of the laundry list. But if you can be part of something where it's all in, uh where you're committed, then you can really uh generate skill. Right immersion. Yeah, immersion. Like that's the word, that's the word. Immersion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

And I so I tried to sell back when I in my when I was first getting started, I tried to sell life insurance, life and health insurance to small business. And I really struggled. And then my boss told me to uh I made a mistake in hiring you. You gotta start, you have to start door to door. Like if you want to be good at sales, you have to start door to door. And uh even in service, like I owned a plumbing company, we were door to door. Yes, they called us out, but we met them at the door and had to go inside into their kingdom, I called it, and see what was wrong, and then propose some solutions. And uh we had a cell in their home, and it was it was a nice door to door, it was a warm lead, right? They had a problem, but um going door to door, so I did that. I found a company, I went door to door, and that that broke down so many reservations I had about talking to people, yeah, right, and um judging people. Judging, that's a big one, yeah. Um we used to kind of have fun, like when you go to a house that's all beat up and you think you're not gonna sell anything, and you sell, yeah, they buy everything you got, right? And it's so fun when that happens. So we don't judge our territory, we don't judge our customer.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah, houses don't buy, people do, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

And then the scale of it, like every no, like some people get discouraged when someone says no, but what I learned was every no means means I'm closer to a yes. And if the more no's I got, the closer I was to a yes. And oftentimes the yes, the more the longer it took to get a yes, the bigger it was.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So as I went, I would just I would get more excited. Every no, I'd get more excited because I a yes was coming, and very likely it would be multiple yeses. Either I'd go on a good run or someone would buy me out.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

And if you had spring set.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Oh yeah, yeah. And it's what it was coming to my mind is the uh a tool that I never knew about as an athlete because I played college sports, but I never was exposed to this. It's like psychology, but it's it's actually very well accepted now uh in sports. Um, but we've been teaching it for years in sales, is is um self-talk. Uh and and self-talk isn't just like what it's it's like you're by yourself a lot in life, and you have this uh we call it Mr. M on your shoulder, Mr. Mediocrity, and he's gonna always try to take you down and make you lower. And it's we have a natural vibe, I think, as humans, to gravitate towards the negative. And we kind of are hard on ourselves and skeptical. And so we need to fight that by speaking truth, really, to ourselves about ourselves as if we were coaching ourselves. So if you have a friend with you and you're lifting weights, they're like, No, you got this, no, you got this. So you gotta learn to do that with yourself, often audibly. It might be soft audibly, but doing that to fight against, you know, hey, it's the big ones coming at the end. Man, it's been a long string of no's. There must be something great out there coming. I like like that's like it's kind of funny, you can laugh at it, but it's actually true, and then it tends to happen more.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

You're so, you're so right. I just the other night I had a I had a sleepless night. I hardly slept, and I just was kind of thinking that the demons got me. Like I just had all this self-doubt and like uh just even putting yourself out and like I'm in a podcast booth with this trade show, you know, and like who's gonna talk to me and who's gonna be interested, and how's it gonna go? And and uh even though I've done this several times, I just had a lot of I was just insecure a little bit, right? And we all experience that. I'm okay to share that because we all, if we're honest, we all have that, and we have to talk ourselves through it and get back on top of it. And uh even my plumbers have that. Like you hear bad stuff in the news, and like and all of a sudden you think that no one's gonna buy.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

I I was talking to some students in one of my apprentice classes recently, and uh, what was it? Um something bad had happened. Something bad had happened in this interest rates are stopped market or something. And I asked the apprentices how many people knew about it. No one knew. And so I thought they were gonna, I thought I was I was getting up to talk about them and kind of hype them up about like, hey, is that a problem? They didn't even know it was a problem, they didn't even know it existed. And so a lot of in sales, a lot of times we hear something that we think be bad, but our customer doesn't even know. Yeah, and so here we are prejudiced. Yeah, we're actually creating a prejudice that doesn't even exist.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Very cool. Well, I uh I'm so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, you know, uh I was telling uh I was at a men's group last night, a little cookout, and I was telling them about today uh that I was excited to come down. And I I got and so big to you for like, you know, you wanted to create activity, some interesting conversations. A random email in my email box. It looked like probably, I mean, most emails are junk. Yeah, I almost even looked at it and did the swipe left or whatever to delete it. I'm like, wait, all right, something caught me. I'm like, all right, let me just see what it is. And then I read through, I'm like, oh, this is a personal email. This isn't necessarily a spam. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna respond to this guy, and then it's like, what a great day. What I'm I'm excited about just where things might go between us or just you know, this industry and yeah. So yeah, so great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Awesome. Jake, thanks for being on the show. Yeah, awesome. If you got value from this episode, make sure you subscribe to Trade Traction and share this with another plumbing contractor who needs to hear it. The truth is, most contractors don't fail because they can't do the work. They fail because nobody ever taught them how to manage money, understand profit, or build a business that works for them instead of the other way around. Our mission here is simple help plumbing contractors stop working for free, build profitable businesses, and create the freedom they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own. If that's the journey you're on, you're in the right place. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of Trade Traction.