Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Tuscaloosa and Northport!
Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Jake Brechin: Mastering Electrical Versatility and Entrepreneurship with J&M Electrical in Birmingham
Ever wondered what it takes to transition from a stable full-time job to launching a thriving business? Our guest, Jake Brechin, owner of J&M Electrical in Birmingham, reveals just that! We promise you'll gain valuable insights into the entrepreneurial mindset and the importance of customer satisfaction straight from Jake, who left a secure job to chase his entrepreneurial dreams. He talks about the unique challenges he faced, the pride he takes in his work, and how J&M Electrical's versatility—handling everything from 36,000-volt connections to 24-volt gate controllers—sets them apart in the industry.
Jake also shares the rigorous training he's undergone, equipping him with the skills to tackle a broad range of electrical issues. With technology evolving at a rapid pace, Jake discusses how staying updated is both a challenge and an exciting opportunity. Whether you're contemplating a career in the trades or curious about what distinguishes top-tier electrical companies, this episode is packed with insights that will leave you inspired. Join us for an engaging conversation with a true professional dedicated to excellence.
#GNPBirmingham #EntrepreneurMindset #SmallBusinessSuccess #ElectricalContractor #Tradespeople #BirminghamAL #CustomerSatisfaction #BusinessJourney #CareerTransition #TechInTrades #ElectricalIndustry #StayInspired #PodcastEpisode #BusinessGrowth #LocalBusiness
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Patricia Blondheim.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, patricia Blondheim, and today we have good neighbor Jake Breakin, and Jake is the owner of J&M Electrical in Birmingham. Jake, how are you today? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm doing fine, thank you. You came very highly recommended by a really well-known construction firm. So I mean, obviously you are something, you're someone very, very accomplished and well thought of in the community. Tell me a little bit about j&m electric electrical right electrical.
Speaker 3:So, uh, we had started j&m electrical in uh early 2022 and, uh, at first it just started as just a way to make some extra money while I was working my full-time job. And, and just over the years, we've gotten busier, busier and busier, and it just came time for me to make a decision whether I want to pursue J&M Electrical or just work two jobs for the rest of my days.
Speaker 2:So well. I mean, it takes a special kind of person to make the leap into being an entrepreneur and owning your own company. It is frankly, much easier to work for another person. What sort of got you going in that direction and how'd you make the leap?
Speaker 3:Just seeing it's really customer satisfaction and just being proud of what you do and something that you could do for someone else or another company and just put your name behind and it's just. To me it's still wild to see that my company name is out there and we're just kind of talking about it in like third person, when I know how it all started, when it was just me and some of the guys from work on weekends and after work, but um it just. I felt like I was in a spot where I'm young enough to try this and if it doesn't work out, I can always go back and find a job somewhere else. It is much, much easier to work for somebody and just have that steady paycheck and a lot less worries, but it I don't know. I feel a good sense of freedom with J&M Electrical.
Speaker 2:I mean you have the ability to live up to your standards. So tell me what? Because a lot of people think you know a switch is a switch, wire is a wire. Not me, I mean, they don't want to do electrical. Not me, I mean they don't want to do electrical. But what's the difference between a run-of-the-mill electrical company and one that holds itself to higher standards? You know, like J&M Electrical.
Speaker 3:So what I tell all our customers is J&M Electrical. We can do anything with wires, whether that's 36,000 volt connections to something as simple as a gate controller, just 24 volts, just anything with wires is what we can handle. And the training that I received when I was an apprentice is just top of the line training and they make you well-rounded to where you can tackle anything. If you're faced with any kind of issue that involves wiring is something as simple as like a thermostat, your thermostat not working, and that could be a wiring issue. I mean, they've gave, they've given me a lot of training in that, in that perspective, and I mean I don't know, it's just anything with wires.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. I think I was a general contractor for nine years and, and the way I see electricians is, they are extremely skilled, problem solvers and yes.
Speaker 3:Now the one thing about the electrical field is that if you were to go home tonight and learn everything there is to know about the electrical field and all kinds of new systems they have out, you'd wake up tomorrow morning and you'd be six months behind changing new products that they want us to install in the field for like rough end walls or overhead fittings, connectors, straps, to like little controllers, relay modules, boards. It's just everything's constantly changing and it's good and it's good to be able to figure out how to make everything work, as it's changing that much and that quick.
Speaker 2:Man technology has thrown a wrench into your works, hasn't it? And it keeps doing it.
Speaker 3:It helps and it hurts.
Speaker 2:Well, tell our listeners about your journey. Jake, how did you end up being an electrician?
Speaker 3:So when I was in high school, when I was approaching my senior year, my parents had given me two options and, uh, I found a loophole between the two. But they said I could either go to college or join the military. So, uh, my dad being a firefighter, um, and my uncle being a firefighter, they had me set up at a shelton state, the fire college there, and I had two months of summer off and I was supposed to attend in August, the fire college, and I decided let me just do some electrical work, work as a helper, make some money, make some fast money in the next two months. And I just ended up.
Speaker 3:I never quit, it's just I found that I enjoyed doing it and my parents were okay with it and the contractor that I chose, they put me through an apprenticeship school and, uh, that counted as college. So that's the little loophole I was talking about, um. But I just kept doing it, kept working and just never really felt like I was working. It just felt like I was there learning and helping out a friend, almost Cause the guys that I've worked with in the past, they're just great and they get to be close friends and just never really felt like a real job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of camaraderie and a good crew right, and I'm supposing that you, with your own business, you've created that in your own business.
Speaker 3:Yes, we have a very, very good team. We have six employees and they're all fantastic. I couldn't ask for a better crew. And you know you could talk to them about work stuff. You can also talk to them about just personal stuff, and you know we're all pretty close.
Speaker 2:I mean that says a lot about the quality of your work. If you have a team that's not aligned, it doesn't matter how good you are, jake, as an electrician the work in your company is going to fall behind. It's going to start to degrade.
Speaker 3:All I really do is I just point and give directions and sign paychecks and get the jobs, but without them we wouldn't be where we're at today with J&M Electrical.
Speaker 2:I agree. What do you do for fun, Jake, when you're not out there working and pointing fingers and signing paychecks? What?
Speaker 3:do you do for fun? So usually in the summertime spring, summer and fall we go up to the lake almost every weekend and try and ride in the boat, just hang out, cruise around, be out in the water and, um, just around around the house. You know, we uh we had a pool put in a couple of years ago so we've really been taking advantage of that. That's been very, very nice.
Speaker 2:I just think it's funny that you spend one one one part of your life in electrical and the other part in the water.
Speaker 3:It doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2:It's like you find the exact opposite of what it is that you do when you get into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's been several jobs and you know the Birmingham area is just notorious for flooding. There's been a few jobs where the storm drain just got clogged up and the water started seeping up under the building and into the electrical room and there, you know, you got to go in and turn the breakers off so it doesn't affect everything downstream. But yeah, I've been standing in the puddle of water for turning breakers off. That's a scary moment.
Speaker 2:That's a scary moment because I'm terrified. I think I told you this. I'm terrified I think I told you this I'm terrified of electrical. The only thing I hate worse than electrical is getting on a roof. Yeah, yeah. So I have nothing but admiration for what you do. Honestly.
Speaker 3:And when you talk, touch them at the same time. That's all.
Speaker 2:So can you talk about? Maybe? You know we've all had challenges and often we have challenges that we recognize. We recognize that challenge is the one that sort of put us on our way, you know, or got us where we're going. Do you have something like that that's cropped up in your life?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Um, the challenges I really kind of struggled with was just making the decision decision to jump full force into J and M electrical Cause there's, there's always the thought of well, I mean, you got four jobs lined up, what happens when you finish those four? What are you doing next? And just the uh, it's just the fear of not having something steady. And, um, and my wife has been very, very supportive through all that and we kind of she was pushing me to you know, you can do this, you can do this, you can always, you can always find a job somewhere else. We're going to make it work. I mean, if you know now's the time, if you're going to do it. So I think those are the challenges that I've always faced is just the fear of not having a steady flow of work or having to close our doors because we're well, we just don't have anything.
Speaker 2:And it's constant. I don't think this has gone away for you, because it never does for any entrepreneur, you know. I think being being a business owner is launching yourself again and again and again into the void and not knowing whether that, that metaphoric monkey bar, is in front of your hand as you swing forward. You know, you gotta, you gotta, constantly let go to grab the next bar. That's right. It's crazy, right.
Speaker 3:It is, I mean it. It keeps me young. I guess it keeps me moving. If everything was easy, then you know.
Speaker 2:You gotta wonder what kind of crazy person does that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and I found that it's a good enough. It's a challenge for me and I always like to be challenged, so I feel like that's good, a good drive to keep.
Speaker 2:What would you like our listeners to take away about J&M? Electrical?
Speaker 3:Just give us electricians a chance. Don't feel like you can't call us. We're not very pricey like everyone thinks and you know we're. I guess that's kind of it. We do provide a quality and craft service. We service all across the board, whether it's residential, commercial.
Speaker 2:We're trying to get into a little bit of industrial work, but we're happy to help anyone and we take almost every job we get kind of a misconception that people have that hiring a licensed and educated electrician I'm sorry the way I said it was probably a little fumbling but hiring a qualified, licensed electrician, that that is an expensive endeavor and that they can go ahead and they can ask, you know, someone down the road to do the work inside of their house. I think it's important to mention that if anything happens to your house as a result of that, um, that electrical work done by someone who's not certified your homeowner's insurance, if they find out that the, let's say, a fire happened, that a fire happened and they can trace it back to that, that that homemade connection, that connection, they'll ask you who did that connection. And if you and if you tell them that it's somebody who's not licensed or they can prove that it's someone that was not licensed that you don't get a single penny for the damage that's done to your home.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's 100% right, and they've got people who are. It's their business to figure that out.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, and it's more of a liability than anything and you know, that's why we always have to treat every job with care and really pay attention, because we're taking liability for that If something were to happen. You know, whenever, a couple of years ago, I started doing property management calls for a residential company, residential property manager and I would. Those houses are just in rough shape. They're, you know, 60 years old, 50 years old, and you go in if you see any kind of knob and tube wiring or just open splices. And you know me as a, as a master electrician, you know I have to tell the property management company about that, whether they want to fix it or not. It's just I can't go in there and fix this one outlet and just ignore the, you know, ignore the obvious, ignore something that's a hazard. So I mean it's it's very, very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I I moved into a house that was. I had all knob and tube wiring in it. It's 120 year old farmhouse yeah and um, it's all knob and tube, every single last one of it. You'd touch the uh, touch the insulation on it, it would just crumble. And guess what? The first thing I did was I hired an electrician, a whole electrician.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's rewire this.
Speaker 2:So, Jake, how can our listeners find you at J&M Electrical?
Speaker 3:So I don't do a lot of advertising. I usually I used to advertise on the next door neighbor app um, and really my business is spread by word of mouth and that comes from a lot, lot, lot of real estate agents. When I first got my start they had passed my business card around to just about a quarter of birmingham, alabama. So I still, I'll still get calls this day. For you know, hey, I got my home inspection. They said this needs to be fixed or this needs to be fixed All right, Jake, it's been great speaking to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming by and sharing J&M Electrical with us.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, Patricia.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbirminghamcom. That's gnpbirminghamcom, or call 205-952-0148.