Blue Collar Business Podcast

Ep. 34 - When Content Became My Most Valuable Tool: Why I Started a Podcast

Sy Kirby Season 1 Episode 34

Ever wondered if marketing your blue-collar business is worth the investment? In this candid solo episode, Sy Kirby pulls back the curtain on how creating the Blue Collar Business Podcast transformed his excavation company in ways he never anticipated.

Nine years into running SyCon Excavation, Sy found himself facing the same challenges many trades entrepreneurs encounter: how to grow without simply adding more equipment, more employees, and more headaches. His journey from reluctant content creator to passionate advocate for trades marketing offers a blueprint for contractors looking to elevate their business visibility.

The path wasn't smooth—from filming YouTube videos at 3 AM after long workdays to questioning whether he had the credibility to share his experiences. Sy reveals the pivotal conversation with a marketing expert who told him, "The time to market is when you have no money," advice that changed his perspective entirely. That wisdom proves especially relevant in today's economic climate as contractors recover from years of hyperinflation and market volatility.

What makes this episode particularly valuable is Sy's transparency about both the business impact and the personal growth that came from stepping outside his comfort zone. He addresses the pride issues that often prevent blue collar entrepreneurs from seeking help or admitting what they don't know. "What if I never did any of this?" he reflects. "There's people out there struggling especially since COVID...what we've had to deal with as entrepreneurs in the last four to five years is mortifying to think about."

Whether you're contemplating starting your own content marketing journey or simply looking for ways to make your trades business stand out, this episode provides honest insights from someone who's walked the path. Want to see how Sy and other successful contractors are navigating today's challenges? Subscribe to the Blue Collar Business Podcast and join a community that's redefining what success looks like in the trades.

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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Welcome back, guys, to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast, brought to you by and sponsored by podcastvideoscom and their beautiful solo pod here today, bringing you guys a different episode. It's just me, me talking to you guys. You could call this a ramble sesh or brand sesh, whatever you would like to call it. Scenes. How podcasting has, I truly believe, helped my business behind the scenes, doing something outside that also feeds the main? Anyways, I'm going to go off into a little bit about that, a couple of things that I've been learning here lately that I think needs reiterated from some of the guests we've had. I'm hoping you guys are enjoying the show. We're about 30 episodes in now through podcastvideoscom studio here and it has been unbelievable, with the team here and their studio always ready with the guests. They handle the guests so well. But today it's just me me and you guys hanging out giving you some suggestions right off the cuff from me to you, and I think this has been needed for a little bit of some time so you guys have an understanding of who I am.

Speaker 1:

Some of you guys have just found the show. Some of you guys have been following along the show. Some of you guys have no idea that I actually have some credibility behind the scenes working at SciCon and may have not tied that tie together. And so nine years ago, me and my wife Sarah episode number two or three go check that out bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom or any of your streaming platforms. But basically we started out and built an excavation business, like so many of you are trying to do or currently are, or trying to figure out how to scale and grow. And I had no idea, man. I had no idea what I was walking into, guys, and just about like today I really don't know where this show is going, but I'm going to be talking and rambling. But nine years in, seven years in, we've been doing some commercial work, not going to be talking about the business and scalability. That's a totally different episode, which we need to. We've got one coming for you guys on scaling and growing that I think you guys are really going to enjoy here shortly.

Speaker 1:

But I was sitting at our home. It was snowing a couple of years ago, about seven, seven and a half years into the business. I'm just like man. What if we could build a marketing campaign that obviously converted back into sales but also drove awareness on the blue collar man and woman but also showed what we do behind the scenes and how we can bring guests in here for me to learn and you guys to learn along the way? And so I had all the podcast wasn't right off the cuff, it was just YouTube mainly and we went to Con Expo Shout out to you guys that I met out there and me and Sarah just walked around Con Expo for three days not having a clue what we were doing.

Speaker 1:

I just started Just literally. I was like all right, get up, let's go to the garage, we're going to film a video. We filmed our first video and from there I tried to do two videos a month and then it became four videos a month a couple of weeks in and I said you know what I'm going to do this weekly Going to do this thing. So I was killing myself 3, 4 AM editing after being dad and husband and business owner and I was like man, this is way too much, this is way too much on me. I really need to see if this is going to go somewhere. But I needed to get past con expo, um to really even remotely think about bringing a quote unquote content creator. And so it's a little bit down the ways. But we head off to Con Expo and we were walking like 20 some thousand steps a day. It was ridiculous. Still didn't see all the shows, so excited. If you guys are going to be at the Con Expo event next year in March, let me know I'm definitely going to be there at a few booths. If you were just at Mid-America Truck Show real quick, mid-america Truck Show in Louisville, I was just there as well, met a few guys, nobody from the show but mainly through YouTube et cetera. But we have been traveling quite a bit.

Speaker 1:

So with going to Con Expo I knew having an excavation heavy equipment channel more behind the scenes of commercial construction, showing the ins and outs of what an excavation and utility guy goes through or a trade in general goes through on one of these commercial jobs. And um got about six months into that, about five months into that, and I looked at sarah. I'm like should we maybe bring somebody on to do this behind the scenes? What should we do? Will came into the picture. Will was 19, I think man shout out to him. He's been at this two years with me now and has been a lot of the reason it has done what it's done.

Speaker 1:

I could grab the content for you guys, but putting it together in something that you guys actually a manner you want to watch is a different. So we're clicking along and then all of a sudden, here comes October and one of those videos from Con Expo. We've been at this about three or four months. We were producing 20, 30 shorts a month, not really having a whole lot of plan and strategy yet, and spin around one of those Con expo video shorts, just 10 million plus views. Um, I'm sorry, 7 million views like 14 something million impressions. It was ridiculous. Hundred and something thousand likes I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head, but it was ridiculous when I don't know what viral is, but if, if the viral thing, um, you want to call it. It went viral and so it really benefited the channel, no doubt because now I'm sitting here going, hmm, oh, oh, my god, this isn't just a hundred subscribers, now we have 500. Holy crap, we just gained 500 subscribers in a day. Oh, my gosh, gosh, we've gained 1500. So that video definitely helped.

Speaker 1:

And, moving into wintertime, I was like, like every entrepreneur, what am I going to do with this extra time that you don't have, that I could never find a resource for other than a relationship or a mentor that I had. But I had no idea where to turn for the common problems in business. Am I having common problems? Am I having problems just for me? And so I was sitting there with Will, we were writing ideas up for YouTube and putting a little bit on track, and I said, man, what if I started a podcast? He's like man, what would we call it? And I'm like, hmm, something about business, skilled trades, business, right, like I've got to. He's like dude, you have got to get some of these rants and things that you've learned experience wise out to the people. Why would you not? And I'm like well, you know, I'm really scared, I don't really want to put myself out there. Well, you're already doing that with YouTube, okay. Well, I don't really want to feed into my competitor base and help them along the way, but a lot of them are so much more advanced in the business operations than I am, so okay.

Speaker 1:

But how do I get into marketability? How do I raise myself in the clientele game without having to buy more machines and buy more equipment in general and trucks and people and add, add, add? While you're trying to figure out profitability and operations and standard, you know we needed to. I needed to slow down. I was going way too fast because I wanted it all right now and made mistakes that I commonly refer to on this show all the time.

Speaker 1:

We're sitting there and I'm like, well, we're going to do this thing, it's going to be called blue collar business and he snaps his neck and looks at me. He's like dude, that's it. I'm like dude, I know, I thought of it last night at like two o'clock, that's it. And I'm like, well, let's start it up, let's see what happens. We'll have a couple of local guys on and see where the show goes. Out of my kitchen and dining room I bought all the cheaper mics and cheap lighting and tried to do it the cheap route. And don't get me wrong, guys, don't be afraid to start with the cheap setup. And especially in the blue collar environment, I think I probably would capture more of the direct blue collar audience if I was probably in the shop just talking with the boys.

Speaker 1:

But at the same time I needed to find well, probably skipping just ahead, but I needed to find a studio that I could bring from the whole purpose of this show and bring those folks in. They're not going to come, the white-collar folks of the world, they're not going to come. The white collar folks of the world. They're not going to come sit in dusty shop on a microphone. It's awkward to begin with, but if they actually come to a studio they might actually do that. And I'm like started kicking around this idea with Will. I'm like man, we need to. We need our own little studio space somewhere. Dude, like I can't afford to rent anything for a podcast. I can't. I can't do any of that. Like not right now, not at a marketing idea. That's not bringing any revenue. So it was.

Speaker 1:

It was tough and we weren't seeing crazy success by any means, but I was getting emails and I was getting text messages from you guys going Cy. That episode made me think like this hey man, I really like what you got going on with your podcast. It helped me in this way and I'm like I'm helping folks. I'm like all right, all right. And then it wasn't about a week go by after I really started putting this studio in my head to really do this thing.

Speaker 1:

News Nation calls me the live national news channel that goes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they asked me to come on. I had done an episode about a younger generation in the trades Gen Z etc. And so they had asked me if I would come on to a live national news interview. Okay, to talk about that exact topic and how I perceive what needs to adapt and change from my perspective and how we capture and retain younger Gen Z employees. That blew my mind because, guys, I need just for a second, follow me here this podcast I was doing.

Speaker 1:

Youtube had just came out with the podcast link section, like the dropdown on your hometown or your homepage. So I was like, oh perfect, we'll just place it on there, because we were idiots and we didn't know anything we were doing for exposure. But we were just literally just testing the waters and it was creating a big time ass. We could never get the equipment right, we can never get the lighting right, we can never get the audio and the video right. It was like we couldn't get all of it 100%, slam, dunk, sigh, sit down, record this, walk away. And that's exactly what needed to happen with me. It's something that I didn't need to add time Hell. I needed to make time but, at the same, produce more time out of me rather than take away. So I was starting to see that that I was really having to set up, tear down. You know cause. We were trying to set our house and so I go do this national news interview. It finally comes time. We've done a couple more episodes along the way, and I sit there, uh, in front of the screen and it was all echoey. It's on the YouTube channel if you want to look at it.

Speaker 1:

I was petrified out of my boots and just sat there and talked about probably a little few different angles than they wanted me to. But how? Entrepreneurs like ourselves need to be more adaptable and more. We need to be working on our training programs to be able to retain this new environment of Gen Z, alpha Gen, whatever you want to call them, workers that were born after the millennial. It's just, they're just totally different how they think about things. And how do we deal with these people and how do we motivate them and incentivize them? Or how do we critique them without them just quitting instantly? Because when you critique someone, you're not just trying to tell them that they did it wrong. You're trying to explain in the way that you know how, in the ways that you were taught that hey, look, this is wrong and we need to fix it for next time. Not, hey, this is wrong. Oh, okay, I quit Too much treasure and so it's.

Speaker 1:

I know we've all been there and, past that interview, I looked at Will and I said, oh my gosh, if they found us on our SciCon oops, sorry, wrong side SciCon YouTube page S-Y-C-O-N. Hit that sub button, come on back. But if they found us on the podcast section of a yes, it's relevant because it's my face, but a non-relevant channel, I'm sorry guys, this is probably confusing as hell, but literally P Cyclone Excavation and Utilities' YouTube page had a Blue Collar Business podcast playlist attached to it. It was literally minuscule on the internet. Go find this guy type of scenario, like you would have never found it, and that's what I kind of wanted. I wanted, I wanted the folks that needed to hear it to find it, because the guys like me are searching for that resource and they will go find it Right.

Speaker 1:

So, about that time, uh, one of my customers, clients um, actually his ownership of this studio and he looked at me and I was literally I was venting to him, had no idea he was the digital marketing guy that he is, and shout out to Mr Howerton and he believed in me when I didn't even believe in myself. I'm like man, this podcast it's just, it's a waste of time. This YouTube, it's got some traction, but we don't know what we're doing with strategy. Is it really converting sales back into PsyCon? And then I've got my team questioning well, does he not need to be out here on the job? I've got this problem, I've got that problem and if he was here sooner we could have it fixed sooner. Or is it the local competitors talking crap about you or your buddies talking crap about you as soon as you walk out of the room? That podcast is stupid.

Speaker 1:

Like all of that hit me all at once, and so I looked at Mr Eric and I said, hey, man, I think I think I'm about done with this podcast thing and I think the YouTube thing might be a thing. But he looked at me and said, cy, you can't afford not to keep that podcast going. And I'm like Tommy's so off guard. I'm like what do you mean, sir? He's like the time to market. The time to market is when you have no money. It's when you're down and out, sales are low. There's no consistency to the pipeline of your funnel into your CRM, all of that. That's the time to market. Now there's always, instead of going straight up marketing and then leveling off and finding a place up and down, you want a consistent wave of up and down in the marketing and there's a plethora of people out there that you can speak about marketing. But from the blue collar perspective, a couple more conversations with him. He's like come check out the studio.

Speaker 1:

And now we're sitting here in the wonderful podcast videoscom studio and they have been helping with the show for almost almost a right at a year and they did a lot of research, a lot of analysis for you guys and myself that we weren't putting out something that somebody else is already doing. Or I kind of had a pretty good clue myself because I knew the resource wasn't out there for me because that's what I was looking for. And then I had to figure out, kind of the purpose of this show, like what am I actually doing? Now? I'm okay, we don't have to rent a studio space, that's cool. Now I have to pay a service to help me push out this show, right. But the good thing is here, guys, about time, and so I'm like all right, we fixed two out of the three scenarios. Let's keep this thing going.

Speaker 1:

The digital marketing man himself said to do it, we're doing it. So I went, went all in Crazy investment. That's not necessarily covered from the get-go. None of it ever is in the marketing world and I don't know if you guys are like me, but your CPA don't love marketing either. And real quick, while I'm talking about marketing and I'll jump right back in but Blue Collar Performance Marketing wore their hat last episode. But them guys over there I made and thinking I knew what marketing strategy and planning was and the value I have received from him and his team helping me is undeniable. It's just literally undeniable. Give them a shot at bcperformancemarketingcom backslash BCB podcast. Bcperformancemarketingcom. Backslash bcbpodcast. Click the link in the description to schedule your discovery. Call and get started with them. They do a free comp analysis of your marketing program that you have now and your website and to give you guys some feedback and to get you guys talking.

Speaker 1:

So during this marketing campaign I needed some help, obviously kept the podcast rolling. We actually killed the podcast from when we took it from the YouTube stage in the house to over here podcast videos team and we were sitting here trying to figure out, navigate, what's the best option, what's the best play, what's the best name. We had to make sure the name was actually going to stick, stay, and it made sense for what we were trying to do. So now I had moved this show over here, I am still guys I ain't going to lie to you not believing in myself. I still don't believe that I need to be sitting here telling you guys anything from where I'm sitting. But if I don't, who will? And I think a lot of people should be investing to behind the scenes and resources. Maybe we wouldn't have so many guys jumping out in our direct field to try and figure it out themselves to either fail or make it, but everybody knows the percentages starting off the gate.

Speaker 1:

So this podcast was 100% purposed and designed to bring the blue collar skilled trades, entrepreneurs and their teams insight and explanation from the engineers, from the financial people, from the CPAs, from the bonding and insurance guys, from the white collar world that we call white collar, to bring you guys in and bridge you guys and have a resource that's a natural environment for us to just sit and have a conversation. I've had two or three engineers that I have done their projects and I don't know if you guys know this very well, but civil guys and civil and civil installers and civil engineers, we usually bought heads and so we have, with every single one of the engineers that came in here and sat, and I mean butted heads and me and Daniel Ellis first episode um, you can go back and listen to it. I have worked on 20 plus of his projects and a couple of them. Yeah, I was fired up and so was he, but we were able to come in here and sit down and talk about the differences in front of you guys. You guys can hear the insight from an installer, from the engineer what's his worry, what's my worry, so you guys can have that insight before walking into your first commercial project with a civil engineer. Before walking into your first commercial project with a civil engineer. Then I brought his inspector in and talked about how to approach a project from the inspection standpoint, because you guys that are in the resi world, trying to crack into the commercial world, you don't even understand what an inspector, a bad inspector, can do to your job and if you don't start off on the right foot relationship wise.

Speaker 1:

So it was not only that, it's from the financial side. I had a shout out to Lauren Furtado, unconventional CFO. She came on the show, talked about and literally she swore to me she wouldn't bore us with financial talk and gave you guys some insight from the white collar world, but in our language that we can understand. Because a lot of those times you guys walk into those white collar conversations for the first time and you're like, okay, I'm ready for this, let's do this. And 15 minutes in that conversation they have got you so lost, you don't know half the words they're using, you don't know anything, and so by the time you walk out of that meeting you're like, well, that was a bunch of waste of time, I didn't get any of that. I stopped listening 15 minutes in because I didn't understand what was going on. So to find that language barrier, note it and go hey man, look, you're going to have to bring this down a notch or two.

Speaker 1:

Most men in the skilled trades and blue collar world are not going to do that. We're prideful men. We're out there building America. We're not trying to worry about whoever's opinion or what they have got to say. We want to make sure that that product that we're delivering and that services that we're offering goes in 100,000% the way we want it to, and make sure they're delivered with a great product.

Speaker 1:

That's pride is what that is is what I'm getting at, and pride gets in the way a lot of times. For myself, no doubt about it, or anybody for that matter. Trying to grow and scale a business, pride can be an absolute killer, and I see that so many more times than not. I had to deal with my own pride issues. I had to get humbled hard. God humbled me exactly when he needed to, and I have looked at things completely different after the fact. But with that being said, putting yourself out there in a world like this is not for the weak-minded or weak-hearted, especially from a 33-year-old. I still view myself as a kid.

Speaker 1:

I started this we're almost 10 years old in the business. I ain't done everything right, by God. I've tried really hard to ensure that we did. There's things that you just don't know in this world, in these conversations that I'm having and with these guests that I'm bringing you guys and so putting myself out there. Yes, do I catch hate? Do I catch? I learn new things about me all the time from phone conversations that I get enlightened on from somebody So-and-so saying so-and-so and so-and-so said that, this, that and it's all talk, guys. But you know what outweighs that? It's that one email I get from one of you guys going hey, man, dude, when I was talking, shout out to Nick Peter, when you guys were talking about that owner episode and not being an employee in your business but being an owner mindset, and having that owner mindset and walking and acting like an owner, that changed my whole freaking life. Dude, what Nick said I'm telling you.

Speaker 1:

I get it all the time and that right there tells me not the revenue, not any of. Well, it's not existing currently, it's coming though. Well, it's not existing currently, it's coming though. But it's all an investment into the blue-collar community that nobody seems to be investing in other than the life coaches and the coaching programs and from these guys that came from the white-collar world or come from you know. They were a six month or a year stand in the blue collar world and now they've done a coaching program for blue collar entrepreneurs and they may have the background, but a lot of times I just don't see the credibility and the actual oh, I don't even know what the.

Speaker 1:

I think credibility is just. The word is just and, don't get me wrong, my credibility is called into question all the time. But I'm not sitting here telling you guys that I know everything. I'm sitting here just trying to bring you a tool and a resource to invest in your business and hopefully miss a mistake that I've done, because I've said to hey, why don't you maybe think about this before that and hopefully that helped you, maybe save a few dollars, maybe add a few more points of profit, whatever the case may be, but if I never, ever, I think about this all the time. What if I never did YouTube? What if I never did this podcast? What if I never did any of this?

Speaker 1:

There's people out there struggling, especially since COVID hyperinflation. What we've had to deal with as entrepreneurs in the last four to five years is mortifying to think about. And now, here we are in the golden era of what we're fixing to move into and we're all trying to get prepared, but we're all still dealing with bruises from whatever parameter or variable that got thrown at you over the last four or five years, and so it's hard to get motivated. Oh, we're going to make money again. Costs are going to drop. Yeah, that's all out in fairytale land and none of us know. And it's the unknown that scares us all, isn't it? But I'm telling you, guys, if you're sitting there and you have a great podcast idea or you have a niche business, okay, that duct cleaning that's the one I just picked out of my brain there, out of my Rolodex duct cleaning, probably not the most, probably pretty easy to sell, but probably hard to get right in front of the right target audience. Every single time when you're spending money in marketing and ads and ad spend and ad spend is a whole different world guys Make sure you're talking to somebody before you spend thousands of dollars on ad spend, because you may just be hurting yourself, trust me.

Speaker 1:

Um, youtube's free. That's the biggest point of the day. Youtube, tiktok, podcasting you can all start out completely free. Doesn't have to be some big production, doesn't have to be some big production. It doesn't have to be some big show, it doesn't have to be any of that. All you have to do is start, just start. It doesn't have to be a weekly video.

Speaker 1:

Put yourself on, look at your schedule, look at the time that you have within yourself and go okay, I can do one video a month. Okay, for the next three months, I'm going can do one video a month. Okay, for the next three months. I'm going to do one video a month For the next three months. After that, I'm going to do two videos every other month. So the one month in the middle. It's summertime, I'm busier, probably going to have a hard time.

Speaker 1:

But what about the short clips contents? Guys, you're telling me you're not already got your phone out, waving it around, taking pictures at the job? Anyways, literally throw that together on a phone app like CapCut and literally let it do the work and post it to TikTok. I'm not a big super fan of Facebook and Instagram, but those Facebook groups. I'm not a big super fan of Facebook and Instagram, but those Facebook groups, those small community pages, which they're not small anymore Everybody's a part of them. Man, really good place to grab work there.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm getting at, guys, is just put yourself out there, don't worry about the four or five or 10 people around you that are in your local market, that are going to talk whether you do it or you don't, that are in your local market, that are going to talk whether you do it or you don't, and they're also those people that are going to sit there and talk mad shit on you nonstop and then spin around as soon as you actually do the damn thing. They're going to be the first. Oh, I knew he'd do it. I knew he'd do it. It's him, of course, but they've been sitting here talking crap about you for freaking 10 years and it's not going to change. Talking crap about you for freaking 10 years and it's not going to change. Do something about it. Prove them wrong.

Speaker 1:

Man, don't listen to the hate Mindset's everything. And don't get me wrong. I'm sitting here. I'm very vulnerable with you guys. I'm kind of a little emotional guy. The hate gets at me, but at the same time, the positive always outweighs the negative and I can't thank you guys enough for listening to the show and getting value. I hope you're truly getting some value out of the show. I read all your comments YouTube I think we're at over 5K subscribers now.

Speaker 1:

Some crazy things happening with the show. We have got some guests coming at you guys this year. That next month I'm going to talk with Dirt Work Podcast. I'm going to go to the people that you guys need, so stay tuned. Truly thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for believing in the blue collar community, skilled trades and listening to the show, giving it a rating, giving it a follow and following along with us, and I encourage you guys. We've got another 30, 40 episodes coming at you over the next year. That's going to about wrap it up on the.

Speaker 1:

I probably could have gone so many different areas here, but I had a 30 minute potter today with you guys a little epi here and I just wanted to bring you some insight as why are you still doing this, why did you start, where's your background, and. But I just wanted to really streamline it on this podcasting and putting yourself out there and the benefits that you can have and give you a little bit of behind the scenes, of how this show even came about, and I hope you guys have truly enjoyed today Just me and you guys. I've really truly enjoyed it and find all these episodes on bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom for free. You can watch and listen for free, strick direct from the website. While you're there, hit that subscribe button on the newsletter so you can find out every single episode, the background and some links that are clickable so you can go. Look at some of these guests, talk to them, reach out yourself. So don't miss out on that opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. Subscribe to that newsletter, guys. Until then, you guys be safe and be kind and be humble and we'll catch you next time. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like. Share it with the fellers. Check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way. We'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.