Your Competition Is Your Greatest Asset | 137

I was two minutes away from flicking the main switch on a switchboard full of CBUS I didn't understand. One call to another sparky stopped me making a very expensive mistake. Your competition isn't your enemy... they're your biggest untapped resource. Stop the envy, build the network, and watch the work flow both ways.

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Transcript

Pull the CAT6 cable up the cavity through the roof space and click it into the WAP, I said to the new secondary electrical apprentice. Cardi B WAP? Yes. Wireless access point, Cardi. Pull your head in. You're not an R&B singer anymore. You're an apprentice.

Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing.

I want to speak about relationships that you have with your fellow electricians. And I think in the industry it's pretty sad, but a lot of people have drudgery with other electricians and they despise other electricians and they get really worked up about what they're doing, their business, how much staff they have, how much work they've got on. If they've stolen a job or two from them, and instead of addressing it with them or just developing a relationship, you just persist with a grudge.

And I want to shift your belief today on that — to believe that electricians are actually one of your biggest untapped resources to even feed you work, to be in your network. And I believe firmly that your network is your net worth. And by having a network of good electricians around you from other companies, it is going to float you up to the top with them.

An example of this. A few weeks ago, I had a job. I quoted it over email remotely, and it was for switchboard upgrades. It was a 36-pole switchboard upgrade. It was a Hager. There was a lot of shit in there. So when the client sent me the picture of the switchboard, the cover was hanging on by a thread. There was two Tesla Powerwall batteries in there. There was clamps in there. There was a three-phase isolator in there, and there was all the other circuits and the battery-fed circuits inside. It was an absolute shit fight, and the cover was about to fall off. It was that bad. And I made the client aware of this and he agreed to upgrade it.

So when I was quoting it, out of the corner of my eye, I did see a CBUS module and I was like, okay, that's not too bad. It's got one CBUS thingy on it. I don't know CBUS, and that's where this story is going to go.

I went there to do the original works, which was smoke alarms and another few bits and pieces. And I was like, cool, I'll tackle the board after. Went up there, had a look when I was setting up the gear and I was like, oh fuck.

So I noticed there was four 36-pole Hager boards full of CBUS. And I don't know — I know enough about CBUS. I know the basics. I know how it works. I know how it's wired, but I cannot program it and I cannot fault find on it because that's not my thing. And I couldn't really give a fuck because there's other people out there that will do that, and it doesn't float my boat. So that's where I leave that to the likes of Mr. Robot.

So when I was about to power down the switchboard, I thought for a couple of minutes, is this a wise thing to do? So luckily in my network of people, I've got a guy — Jacob from Robot Smart Homes — and I rang him immediately and I was like, what's best case scenario here? What's worst case scenario here? He's like, best case is you flick it down, you do the upgrade, you turn it back on and everything works. Worst case is you're going to have screens that don't come back on, you're going to have relays that seize, and you're going to lose the program.

So I was like, okay, that doesn't sound good.

So he urged me to re-quote it with him and come back and do it again. The client was a legend, so I basically relayed that to the client and I said, if we go ahead with this now, there may be consequences. So I said what we're going to do is re-quote this. I'm going to get my CBUS specialist on site in the next week or two, and he will actually download the program, go around, test everything and make sure everything's working. And then we will shut it down and then boot it back up and we'll have a backup of your programming if needs be.

So we did that. Jacob took a copy of the program to his laptop and then I did the upgrade. And thankfully, thankfully, everything powered back up again. So it was one of those anxiety-ridden switchboards where that was in the back of my mind through the whole process of ripping it apart and putting it back together.

If you want to see that board, it's actually on my Instagram page. It was one of the last reels that I did. But it was an absolute nightmare. It was just riddled with fucking unnecessary links. There was lack of busbar, which is a pet peeve of mine. There was clamps wedged in there as well. It was just an absolute mess. But I got it sorted in the end.

And thankfully, with the help of Jacob, that just gave me massive peace of mind. I said, if something does go wrong, we've relayed this to the client that there is a possibility that a few of these relays may seize, the screens mightn't come back on, or whatever. We pre-warned them.

And it could have been an extremely expensive mistake. Because had I not warned them or spoken to Jacob and he gave me the advice, I may have turned that down without thinking. And two or three relays might have blown, I mightn't have had the screens come back on, and it could have been more than the switchboard upgrade to fix these items — which I am technically liable for because I was the last person working the circuit. Yes, I've turned the circuit down, it doesn't work anymore. But what's to say I didn't blow it up in the process? And that's most likely what they're thinking — well, you were the last person working on it.

So take that as advice as well for you. If you're about to do something that's going to have consequences or you've got some bit of doubt in the back of your mind that if I do this, it might wreak havoc or do something to something else — put a disclaimer in there. Speak with your client, relay to them that this may happen. It most likely won't happen, but it may happen.

For example, if you're doing your switchboards as well and you're quoting a switchboard, have a disclaimer in there that on power up, if you find a fault in testing — that you've got a dead short or earth leakage or a very, very low reading — that there may be fault finding on that circuit as well. Put that as a disclaimer at the bottom of your quotation. Because when it does happen and they've got a tripping circuit and you've got to go and fault find, you've noted it there. Now if you want to add a price to that or whatever way you want to relay that to the client, that's entirely up to you how you want to deal with that within your business.

There's a lot of envy culture out there as well, and it's pretty shit. Because I think everybody gives like Billy Big Balls on their Instagram and stuff like that where they flex the size of their team, they flex the size of their jobs. But you'll never ever hear about how their profit margins are going or how their bottom line is looking. And that's the most important thing in business.

What I've noticed is that a lot of companies — the bigger companies — they seem like they're doing really well on the outside, but on the inside they're screaming because they're not making any money. And that's why I'm a firm believer in a small lean team that's going to make the same amount of money as a team with a lot of fat, a lot of fluff — that's just basically there to fill a gap. And looks can be deceiving.

Bigger companies with more trucks and all of that, most of the time are in with some sort of project work. Or they've got project work — like ongoing maintenance or ongoing construction going on — where there's four guys consistently on a building project. That one ends, they go to the next one. So just because they've got four, five, six, ten vans on the road — don't compare it. Don't be comparing yourself to them.

At the end of the day, it depends what you want to do with your business, your life, how much money you want to make, how you want to structure your life. Do you want to take regular holidays? Because I want to just build the belief that just because you've got six or seven guys, you can then go on and take a great holiday and switch off. It's probably going to be a worse holiday. If you've got six, seven, eight guys working for you, you're not going to be able to clock off. Whereas if you've got a smaller team and your systems are dialled in, it's less shit that can go wrong. Less headaches. Less logistics.

And I think it's so deceptive. You think more people, more money. But it's generally more people, more headaches. You'll make money, but it'll be fine margins.

I spoke to somebody recently, actually probably about a year ago, and he's worked for an extremely, extremely high-end builder. And he told me that if it was just him and his business partner doing the works, they'd make more money than with the team of guys. And it's sad, but that's just how the game works. That's just business. That's construction. That's how it works with bigger projects and stuff like that. You take smaller margins and you scrape them and scrape, and then you will make money. But you've got a lot more headaches, a lot more responsibility with that.

At the end of the day, I hope and presume you got into business so that you can earn more money, get more time, and have a little bit more freedom.

That's what I got into it for. And it's come to fruition where that is the way that my electrical business is set up — that I can just take off and go on holidays and stuff like that. I don't have to worry about all those headaches. But that's just me. I don't crave construction. I don't crave the adrenaline of a big job. I actually get anxiety attacks. I was looking at someone's video the other day. They were going through their sites and they're talking about the mains and conduits and the size of the building. And I was like, fuck that. That is not me.

I'm just extremely simple. I just want to get in, get out, get paid. That's how I like to roll and I hate big jobs. That's why I specialise in service and maintenance because it's easy work, it is profitable work, and it's just me. And you do you. If you want to do construction, you want to do commercial, you want to do real estate — you do whatever you want. But for me personally, in my electrical business, I just keep things extremely simplistic and most importantly, profitable as well.

Where there's huge opportunity with these collaborations with other electricians is if you do a service and they don't, or vice versa. And I've spoken about this a few times, but let's say hypothetically I need an air con guy. I now have an air con guy in my network that was referred from another mate of mine who's a sparky. Now he's my air con guy. I've got a Level 2 guy. I've got Jacob for my smart stuff. If I've got an issue with something, I've got a network of electricians that are part of another organisation.

And we meet regularly, like once a month. We have a chat, have a beer. At the start, when somebody reached out to me from that organisation, which I signed up to, they were like, come to this networking thing. And this is going way back, like ten years ago. And I was like, I'm not going to this stupid networking thing so I can listen to people brag on about their business.

What you'll find is people that go to these networking events for electricians are the kind of guys that are like-minded like you, where they're going, they're putting themselves out there, getting out of their comfort zone, having a chat, just being normal people. And I've met some of my best mates through these networks.

It's not until you put yourself out there and you liaise with other people — which you may see as competitors — but they're not. They're actually just regular electricians that are in the exact same boat as you. They've got the exact same problems as you.

Do you do air con? Do you do Level 2? That's how you build these opportunities where you can actually pass work through each other.

If you're that guy that's not talking to people, it may not be your fault. Maybe you're actually a shy person and you don't like to mingle. You might be very introverted. Believe it or not, I'm extremely introverted. I'd just rather stick to myself. So if you are that guy, just slightly put yourself out there. Start saying hi to people, mingle with people. Check out what electrician gatherings are coming up. It may be even something through your supplier. They might have like a barbecue night, for example. My local TLE does poker nights, and it's a really good little mingling circle as well where you'll just see people in the area, you'll chat with them and you'll build relationships through that as well.

Something I'm extremely proud of inside my mentorship is I am now building these relationships. There's three guys in the Sunshine Coast that are now all chatting together. Some of them have met for a coffee, if not all of them have mingled for a coffee, and they're passing work with each other. One might be quiet, one is absolutely up the walls at the moment and he's delegating work out to the other guys.

On an ending note, I had an electrician on Valentine's night come to me when I blew up two 200-amp fuses in my face doing something extremely stupid. And I thought, who may have these specific fuses? So I rang my man Andrew. He came out of his own free will and he wasn't — luckily he wasn't on a date. He's married with kids. That's what happens. And he came out and he helped me put those fuses back in and get the place up and running again. Extremely stupid situation. Only my members know what happened with that whole story.

Go out this week, chat to a random electrician at your supplier. Say hi. And I'll catch you next week.