Blue Collar Business Podcast
Welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast with Sy Kirby. Dive deep into the world of hands-on entrepreneurship and the gritty side of making things happen. Join us for actionable tips on scaling your blue-collar business, managing teams, and staying ahead in an ever-evolving market. We'll also discuss the latest industry trends and innovations that could impact your bottom line. If you're passionate about the blue-collar world and eager to learn from those who've thrived in it, this podcast is a must-listen. Stay tuned for engaging conversations and real-world advice that can take your blue-collar business to new heights.
Blue Collar Business Podcast
Ep. 42 – Digitizing the Trades: An Aussie Tradie's Mission
Trade skills are vanishing with retiring workers while younger generations struggle to find mentors. Marc Webb, growing up in an Australian coal mining town with limited career options, recognized this crisis after his journey from greenkeeper to youth justice worker to operations manager. His response? UTRADIE - a revolutionary digital passport system connecting trade knowledge across generations.
The platform solves multiple industry challenges: creating verifiable digital resumes for tradespeople, building mentorship pathways between experienced workers and apprentices, and providing a marketplace where trade knowledge can be monetized. This creates what Marc calls a "digital highway" for trades to document, share and evolve their skills throughout their careers.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is how it reveals the striking similarities between trade challenges in Australia and America. Both countries face aging workforces, training inconsistencies, and difficulties attracting new talent. Webb's platform offers a potential solution that transcends borders - using technology not to replace human connection but to enhance it.
Perhaps most compelling is Webb's vision for trades as careers with digital evolution paths. By allowing experienced workers to document and monetize their knowledge, the trades become not just a job but a pathway with long-term growth potential beyond physical labor. This reimagining of trade careers could be exactly what's needed to attract a generation looking for meaningful work with technological integration.
Explore the future of trades and discover how digital tools might save our most essential industries. Visit utradie.com to learn more about this innovative platform connecting trade knowledge across generations and borders.
Click the link above for a free marketing audit with insights to boost your blue collar business!
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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 and sponsored today by podcastvideoscom. I happen to be in one of their wonderful solo pod rooms here. This is either rentable or you can sign up at a subscription based, and they take care of everything behind the scenes. They do. They'll even just do editing for you guys. So make sure you check out podcast videoscom. Been with them a little over a year now and they, as you guys can tell, are doing really, really great things with the show and putting it in where it needs to be.
Speaker 1:To get to you guys, a couple of housekeeping items. Today we're filming this two weeks away, but we are one week away as you're listening to this my Atlanta. I screwed that all up, but I would hope you guys join me on the live stream, come ask some questions. We have about 10 standard questions that I'm going to be answering just completely across the trades. Getting into business what do you do in this situation? And I hope you guys can join us for that, june 25th, from three to five o'clock. But bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom this is, I think, episode 41 or 42. So if you're looking for more episodes and this is the first one you're joining us with head on over there you can watch or listen straight from the website or, hopefully, you're joining us from maybe one of the podcast platforms drop us a like and a follow at the end of the show. Furthermore, guys, thank you for the housekeeping items there.
Speaker 1:I have got a guest that is up in a very different time zone from us today. He got up super early this morning, at 6 o'clock I think it's literally the next day as this is transpiring. This is so crazy. It's 3.30 in the afternoon here in my central United States time zone. But we have got a gentleman that is super passionate, shares the same passion about you guys and trying to help bring something to the table that is new, out of the ordinary, but is going to be a useful tool for you guys, you non-techie guys. He is making a resume system that is going and could take over the entire skilled trades platform, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:We're going to also be talking a little bit about the trade difference between literally what's it like over in Aussie land? Heck, I don't know, and I bet a lot of our listeners here in North America we have some European listeners Shout out to you guys. But seriously, so excited to hear some generalistic differences and we'll get into that. But I'm so excited to bring to you guys Mark Webb, owner of Grow2 out of Queensland, australia. Dude, thank you so much for joining us today awesome.
Speaker 2:So I thank you for the introduction I super appreciate. I'm looking forward to having the chat today. And also, yeah, big thanks to podcastvideoscom. They've been great to help organize this between us. So, yeah, looking forward to diving mark you have just shared briefly.
Speaker 1:we've been talking just about 15 20 minutes here before the show and I have gotten to hear about a very interesting product, utrady, and we're going to get there, but it is a essential electronic resume that you can give new employers, your current employers, but a way to track your certifications. That's where he's at now, but let's go all the way back, buddy, you were just sharing with me where it all started. Give us kind of your version of your way through the trades. And, man, you definitely bit off some more than you could chew there, as you admitted to me. But that's what I want to hear about today, because there's so many guys out there that are jumping into opportunities that maybe necessarily they're not quite trained for and we need to make sure they get the proper training that they need, and you, trady, is also going to be helping there. So, anyways, furthermore, brother, take it away. Let's hear the Aussie version of the trade. Yeah, awesome. Hopefully everyone can understand the slang as I probably go through.
Speaker 2:furthermore, brother, take it away, let's hear this aussie version of the trade. Yeah, awesome, uh, hopefully, uh, hopefully, everyone can understand the slang as I probably go through uh and explain my story. But, um, man, look again, I'm super, uh, humbled and appreciate, appreciative that, yeah, people are giving me the chance to, to tell this story and and to spread the word on you tradie. But look, man, I grew up in a in a small country, uh, coal mining town in central queensland, um, so, yeah, pretty blue collar, um, yeah, men and women around me my entire life, my, I'm one of six kids, so I come from a pretty big family. That's pretty, pretty robust. Uh, that was, you know, pretty, you know, highly focused in sport and, uh, adore what the old man told you to do.
Speaker 2:So my old man's a Vietnam vet. He works in the coal mines. My mum's also in the military as well, so a couple of my brothers and sisters went off and went into the military road. Actually, I've got a sister that lives in Canada and is married to a Canadian, and I've got another sister that's married to an American who was a US Marine. So I know a little bit about America and Canada and actually got the chance to live in America for about six months, went over there and played rugby league for New York, so I was able to learn a little bit about your country and meet some people over there, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Listen, you can't judge us by the New Yorkers up there 're a different breed. We even, we even think they're a different breed up there. Okay, no, hey you get out, you get out of the city, but were you in the city? That's so cool. I didn't even hear that part of the story.
Speaker 2:No, we spent a little uh town called study point uh, which was out of the city, um, and met some people there and was able to travel around. It was, um, yeah, definitely a wild experience, um, for myself and and a mate. We yeah kind of looked at as that's a bit of a gap year. We lived in the uk for a bit and and traveled around there and then, yeah, went to america for that for that small period and then come back to australia. Yeah, it was cool, but wow yeah, like the story really.
Speaker 2:Um, obviously, you know, grew up in a small country town. Yeah, whenever I was getting to the end of their schooling, everyone's applying for apprenticeships in the mines, right, and all I ever really knew I was a pretty naive young kid Again my brain was super fixated on sport more than anything. That's all I really cared about. I wanted to get out of my small little town and follow that aspiration. So towards those later years of school when we put people applying for apprenticeships and you know, all I ever really knew about was, you know, being an electrician or a diesel fitter or a boiler maker or something like that. I never knew what else was out there in the big wide world.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I was lucky enough to go to Sydney straight out of school to follow that aspiration of mine and when I went to the club that looked after me, they gave me an apprenticeship as a greenkeeper. So I started to work with Turf, which kind of links together with the sporting background, I think. Before that I did the odd jobs brickies labour and just carpentry labour and that, that that we all kind of go through. But I remember I, I, uh, I rang my parents when I got offered the apprenticeship and I think the old man said to me oh mate, well, grass isn't going anywhere. That's a pretty, that's a pretty solid.
Speaker 2:Uh, apprenticeship, yeah you may as well do that, yeah, with none of us realizing you know what, what that world would, yeah kind of turn. So, look, it was cool, I enjoyed it, like I worked on private schools and colleges down there in Sydney and high-end sporting fields and stadiums, so I was exposed to that, which was great. And yeah, I listened to your episode there with Matt Keller and he was talking about his time and everything and your time on the golf course running around together. Yeah, it kind of took me back. I actually felt like I was there with you guys because I had a pretty similar apprenticeship and I think when you get exposed to that as a young man or a young woman, that's what kind of gets you a little bit excited about working in the trades, and it's those older guys that kind of gets you a little bit excited about, you know, working in the trades and it's it's those older guys that kind of you know, take you under their wing or, you know, teach you the, teach you the things or teach you the ropes, whether it's you know education about the job or just education on life. Right, like you, you learn a lot. You know those periods between you know 17 and you know 21. So it's, um, yeah, I had a really good experience there with the people that were around me which, um, yeah, helped me sort of progress, you know, forward, you know, through sort of positions up to looking after some sites.
Speaker 2:So, um, as I mentioned to you earlier, I, I was super focused on sort of outworking the person next to me, uh, rather than probably understanding you know what we were doing. So I, I focused on, you know, if we were mulching a garden or something you can. You were next to me. I tried to, yeah, I tried to, do two buckets to your one bucket. That was just where, that was just where my, my head was at. So I it worked for me pretty well, like I was able to, you know, work my way up in into the roles and, um, um, yeah, become become a tradesman and look after things. So what, what happened for me was I got the opportunity to move to another city to play for another team and when I turned up to that town or that city, they offered me and said, oh, yeah, because you still have to work, but the semi sort of professional sports was yeah, we'll be on the, on the, on the, on the golf course.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, we know you're a greenkeeper and so forth. And at that stage I, yeah, I thought, oh yeah, I was kind of a bit stale, you know, when you've kind of just done something and that's the only thing, you know, I was sort of thinking, man, I need to do, I need to do something different. And and I said, oh yeah, and I was lucky, that opportunity all right, and I know, not a lot of people probably get these opportunities where you can probably say no and and try something different. But I was lucky, at that stage there were some people around me that said, oh well, we'll see what else we could do. So I got the opportunity to work with um, you know, disabled kids within a school which you know started.
Speaker 2:You know, opening my eyes to you know different things out there and and I loved that I I thought it was very cool and enjoyed my time and because of that, some people had seen what I was doing and heard what I was doing, and I then got the next opportunity to go in and talk to people about youth justice and talking to them about kids that committed crimes and working with their victims to restore the damage that they'd done. So I became a youth justice conference convener and I would sit in a circle with an offender, their victim and the police and a community representative and would work out ways for that young person to understand the ramifications of their actions.
Speaker 1:Time out. I've got to hop on this train real quick. Number one that sounds so awkward to any one American where you have an offender and a victim in the same room. That's just. I mean, the only place that happens over here is in a courtroom, right. But I want to jump on something real quick because I think that opportunity probably lets you learn how to navigate number one confrontation. Obviously, it's always going to be confrontational every single time you walk in that room, but you also navigated emotions, which is huge in communication, yeah, but then you literally got firsthand knowledge on how to communicate major issues, even if they were minute. But it's a crime, that's a major issue right to the whole country. So, sitting there and navigating all of that, tell us a little bit about that. Don't just skip over that, because that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. Look, I love that. You want to learn about it. It was a big moment for my life, to be honest, even though, even though got the opportunity to help kids, it was probably helping me sort of grow, you know, to the next level of my sort of life, like before that, again, being a small country town kid, I was pretty yeah, pretty shy and I didn't really talk a lot. We didn't know how to have conversations really and ask the right questions and listen. So that opportunity that they gave me to go around and go down and get that training and learning to do was massive.
Speaker 2:But that restorative justice that they did, it actually came from New Zealand. So New Zealand were the pioneers for that type of program. And look that program really it's focused on first-time offenders, so young kids under the age of 17. If you've got a repeat offender, it's not a program that's probably suitable for them. And obviously, yeah, you're right, putting people in a room together to talk about a situation can be challenging. But you do a lot of pre-work before you go to that room and you need to make sure that everyone that goes to that room is prepared. So you would have the offender, their support person, a victim, their support person, a community representative, and then the police there. You would always need to make sure that every person that was in that room understood the role that they were playing in that room. And the biggest thing that you were trying to teach with that young person was then to understand that one action created, you know, reactions to all those people that were in that room and then, if it was a first-time offender, it was very powerful for them to understand. And then obviously you know, when you get to the point of you know working out what will you know, what will that young person do to fix what they had done, and you'd write up an agreement. You obviously need to make sure that that agreement matched the offence that they did. You couldn't get a young person to go over and wash the windows in a house and expect this type of labour or anything from a person, but usually they were very powerful. Meetings you would get people that have had an offence against them of labor or anything for a person, but usually it was they were very powerful. Uh, meetings right, you would. You would get people that have had an offense against them and they would realize, you know, they would see the other side of where this young person's life was. And it amazing to see how, you know, humans react in that situation. And even though a person is that just have an offense done against them and it's hurt them massively and hurt their support people pretty powerful. The agreements that you would come to and usually they were powerful in the sense of, well, let's try and do something that's going to help that young person that's committed that crime, and they were pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It was a great time, but it was also a very challenging time as well. Emotionally, mentally, it creates a big effort on you. A great time, but it was also, you know, a very challenging time as well. Emotionally, yeah, mentally, um, it creates a big, a big um, yeah, a big effort on you. And, yeah, through that period, that's um. You know, I decided to go overseas and travel. That's where I went with my, with my mate, to the uk and then america, as I mentioned, and when I returned back back to australia, obviously that's a government funded um program and things change and there wasn't a lot of funding in that when I returned.
Speaker 2:So I actually took up a job called Work for the Dole, and I don't know if you guys have this in America, but Work for the Dole, so we have social services for you. So if someone's been out of work for 52 weeks here in Australia, the government will give you a fortnightly allowance to try and help you get back onto your feet here in australia. Uh, the government will give you, you know, a fortnightly allowance um to try and help you get back onto your feet here in australia. But once you get to 52 weeks, you have to um start doing conditions to make sure that you're looking for a job or you're studying. So, um, I think we call it.
Speaker 1:Unemployment here. Unemployment, yes, yeah, okay like no literally. I think that's the, that's the government funded program like we yeah, literally we pay unemployment tax oh yeah, yeah, it's I. I think that's sounding about right, so, but yeah, the guidelines are really kind of washy. I would. We're supposed to be applying for jobs and interviewing, but that's been a whole different conversation for another day, but I just wanted to tie that in for the audience. It's sounding a lot like unemployment, unemployment tax, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. By the way, you've expanded there. Sorry, I thought you were making a joke of being unemployed and not having a job.
Speaker 1:No, I saw your face. I'm like no, that's really what it called.
Speaker 2:I didn't defend anyone then while laughing at that. Definitely not, yeah. So that again was the next step of being exposed to different things, because you have men and women there that generally couldn't find a job right. So we would then put them in a program where they would go and mow not-for-profit agencies, mow the grass and, obviously having the green keeping background. Obviously I was the one that had to go in and sort of help with those sort of things. But I found it crazy because I'd just come from the world of kids committing crimes and when they got put on orders we would get them to go out and mow grass and I used to think like we're treating young people that commit offenses and people that are generally trying to get back into work the similar sort of way. So, um, I work towards building a program there to try and connect job seekers with non-for-profit agencies to learn skills that we could then promote those skills to employers and say, hey, we've had this person in the program for, yeah, a certain amount of months and these are the things they learned. And we focus not on like, talented things, but more on like, did the person turn up? Were they willing to listen, were they courteous and polite, the things that you'd want as an employer, the challenges with that, and all the people that are still in those industries right, I take my hat off to them because I'm, yes, trying to work with some of them. Uh, those organizations with you trading now to to provide some support, is there's not a lot of money for those jobs. So, people that are doing those that work, it's yeah, they're helping other people, but they've also got their own challenges with it not being a high paying sort of role, kind of like our teachers are. Uh, and you know, people within medical centers as well. They have those challenges.
Speaker 2:But, fast forward from that point, the owner of the company that I did my apprenticeship and was a tradie with called me up and said there was an opportunity down in Brisbane, because at that time I'd moved back to Queensland. And he said would you like to look after a private school or are you interested in becoming the operations manager for the state? Obviously, most of it is. Once you start progressing forward, you want to continue to progress, right? So I jumped at that opportunity to become that operations manager man. It felt like an imposter straight away once I jumped into that, although I'd learnt all these other skills and everything. There was like a whole new set of things that came towards you.
Speaker 2:But I think that's the biggest thing with life, and I think that's what I've learned with my journey, is coming from a small town of a few thousand people to then go into a city of millions of people. You get exposed. I'm constantly, always getting exposed to different things and I kind of that awkwardness I kind of enjoy if that's a weird thing to say, like, because if you feel that awkwardness or something, I think you're going to learn something out of it at the other end. So, um, trying to get yourself through that is a good thing, but not to say that you don't feel embarrassed or you make mistakes uh, through that that's for sure. Um, so when I, you know, took on that role, uh, so I, I, um, yeah, I remember I was going to a quote, to, to um, to, to see this lady to explain, like, what we needed to do, and I remember sitting there talking to her and I could picture everything about that job, like if you said to me go, go, do the job. I'd go order the materials, I would organize the boys, I'd plan it out, I'd get the work done and it would have a great result and there'd be no issues, because that's what I focused my entire trade career on originally was just being the hardest work of sorting it out.
Speaker 2:What I didn't realize when you start getting into those new positions was we actually got to be able to explain and articulate the reason why you're doing something. You know like, why is the decision that you need to use that equipment and you have to spend that amount of money? Or you know why? You know, will they not be able to use that surface for this amount of time? Yeah, any of those sort of questions, right, and at that stage I I remembered I couldn't. I couldn't answer those questions during that quote and I remember feeling super embarrassed, like a fish out of water, no idea. I remember leaving it.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we won the quote or not, but I do know at that point it was a shift for me.
Speaker 2:Uh, and at that stage I, because of the, the, the previous things I was doing in youth justice and stuff like that, I obviously was keen to look after our apprentices in that new role.
Speaker 2:So I started looking after you know the dozen or so apprentices we had and I remember thinking at that time, man, if, if I feel like this and I'm meant to be in this role, right, and, and many times, yeah, we get into sort of roles and you know they're saying of faking it until you make it or whatever, or faking it until you're caught, which, uh, I probably wasn't caught in that quite, but I caught myself and I sort of realized at that point, if I felt like this I'm sure everyone else is feeling like that, because it's probably not something we hyper focused on and you do have some mentalities of like, oh well, if, if that person doesn't work out, we'll just get rid of them, we'll get the next person in, not realizing that we actually have to, yeah, put the effort into people for them to grow and to become better.
Speaker 2:You know people and trades people as well, like one thing that I I really get irritated with size when I hear older tradies or people say, oh, there's just no good tradies coming through and for me Got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lights on fire, dude.
Speaker 2:Oh my God it makes me upset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, look, that's our responsibility and for some reason we've lost it. Right. And look, no discredit to those people that are saying that. I think potentially it might have been the people before them that probably didn't provide that support to them as well. Right, so we have. We have many challenges here, yeah, in the trades that we've got to try and work through.
Speaker 2:But when, when I, when that all happened and I started working with the apprentices and we changed the way that we ran that program and we're successful with some of the results we got, I remember at that time thinking why are we still training this way? Why are we putting people in classrooms, having someone at the front talk, the people sitting there listening to the information, regurgitating the information? If you just haven't noticed already, I've got ADHD. I bounce off the walls, I'm here, there, everywhere. Like it's hard to you know, sort myself out at times, and I think that's why I, yeah, mostly suited the trades and suited sports. Right, because I could keep continually being active. But that's not to say that I didn't want to learn, I just needed to try and find better ways. So at that time I thought you know why? Why isn't there like a digital library, in your pocket, on your phone, that kind of stayed with you throughout your entire career that you could refer back to, even if you didn't quite understand what that you were getting taught in that moment. You could refer back to it when you get to that point. Because, also, when you're going through your studies and you're learning as a tradie and we're probably all seeing this is you might be learning something in the course at one section but you haven't even done that in the workplace yet and, depending on where you work, you may never actually get exposed to that skill. And I think the way that trades are moving as well now that we're kind of breaking things down a lot like, even as a, a greenkeeper or turf care manager, you're sort of shipping out other people to come in and do spraying, you're shipping out any of the machine maintenance, you're using other contractors to come in and do those sort of stuff. So your apprentices and younger generations are getting exposed to those kinds of tasks that are a part of what their qualification is. And I think, as we continue to move in that direction which, yeah, from a business aspect it makes sense, right, it is cheaper to probably use someone that is more skilled in that field. But the back end to that problem is, well, we're gonna get less skillful people down the track that only know their one, their one thing.
Speaker 2:So that's where the idea for you tradie came. Um, I wanted to have like a digital library in your pocket that you could connect to different skills and use them when you needed them. And look, that was 10 years ago. It's a lot of grass to cut to build a software, that's for sure. But when that lit the fire and I started that journey, and and again, yeah, tech has changed a lot over 10 years um, yeah, I've got a lot of friends that think I'm, yeah, batshit crazy. Uh, that I've continued to spend a lot of my money, yeah, building this. And I've got mates that have probably got houses and situations set up. They're probably, yeah, different to where I am now.
Speaker 2:And I kind of think, well, I've always had this just burning um sensation in me to think that this would work and I need to know that it would work, and that's where we've kind of come to. So at that point I mentioned to you about feeling like a bit of an imposter. As I started to build this. I kind of thought, well, how can I be an employee in one business and then be building something again here and talking to employers? So at that stage I left that business and I started my own greenkeeping business and I thought at the time started my own business, I would make extra money and I'd have extra time and I would set up a crew and they would look after things and I would go on to the world and build this amazing software that people loved and life would be easy. But, as you would know and I can see you laughing I'm sure plenty of business owners are laughing too when you start a small business, you realize you've lost all your spare time. You've probably lost, not that you lose, but your friendships start to change as well, because even when you finish that normal day, you've still got all your paperwork and things to do to sort stuff out.
Speaker 2:So I faced my new set of challenges being my business owner. But I think this is all part of the journey and what kind of helped me with with my platform. Because what I then realized at that stage of being a small business owner was was actually not any support there from people that have done it before, that are willing to help and I know you have this great podcast now and you're shining the light on some of these pressures for business owners and everything. But what I would have loved was if I went onto a platform like you, trady, and went to the mentors feature and I saw Cy Kirby there and you had a set of things that you mentor people on and I signed up to a subscription for you and you helped me understand already the uh you know the trials and errors that you've already been through. Then I wouldn't make those same mistakes. So that then, because of that experience of being a business owner, is why that feature is now created in the system to connect people to mentors and help people along the tracks you know.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is, like you might have I listened to one of your episodes you're talking about when you were a young fellow and having like a hard hat thrown at you if you made a mistake or something you know. Like that's another challenge we have. You have apprentices that you know they could be given a great mentor or tradesman that has the time, because there's no constraints around making sure that job's done to earn the money, so if a mistake happens, they can take the time to explain that to that young person. But if you take that exact same young person, you put them with a tradesman who's got pressures and stresses because they need to make sure the job's done so there's a profit margin, so they can get things sorted. Well, if a mistake happens to that tradie, I feel for that tradie because he's probably already under so much pressure. So rather than taking the time to go, hey mate, look, that's not the way that we do things, let's take our time and work it. He probably does get a hard hat thrown at him and says, like pull your head in or go sit in the lunchroom, but that's not helping us because we're not progressing. That that next step forward and what I was, what we hope with you, tradie, is we can connect those tradesmen that are willing to help.
Speaker 2:Another episode I'll listen to which I thought was great at chad. I think his name was like. I listened to chad and I thought, man, that is the guy, that's the guy of why you chad is created. Like exposing chad to you know. You know thousands, millions of young people around the world that could be connected to someone that genuinely cares and wants to see them move forward could be very powerful for us, pivoted and changed things and made me sort of realize this would have been great if I had this when I was, yeah, one, an apprentice, then as a tradesman, yeah, then as a business owner. So those things pivoted at that time. And COVID changed everyone's lives really and, you know, sporting fields weren't a big thing at that. Yeah, people, people worried were we ever going to play sport again? Right, so yeah, my business started to, you know, take a bit of a um, a bit of a knock, um, obviously we need to, you know, look after the sporting clubs and let them know that, hey, look, we understand you're going to be able to pay these, you know these contracts. So we'll just we'll let it go.
Speaker 2:I've tried to help my boys find all different jobs and I got to the point where it was just me working on my own again and at that point I was just doing anything I could. I remember I was even scrubbing toilets just to get by during that COVID period at a contract. Yeah, I remember, even through all those periods I was just in autopilot, constantly thinking about this software, like I was doing the work. I was just thinking about this software, thinking about this software and I'd always been putting money into it and putting the work in at late nights and talking to developers and changing things.
Speaker 2:I got to the point a few years ago where I knew I was done. I knew I couldn't continue doing the trade stuff because my mind wasn't in it. My mind was in this software. So I was very lucky at that time I'd met a guy on my journey who was another tradie, who created his software and he's gone on to be pretty successful. Then he's in the panel beatings, the smash repair industry, and he looks after parts and everything. He's a widely successful parts check and he so smash repair um, um industry and he looks after parts and everything is, you know, widely successful parts check. And, uh, he become a bit of a mentor to me and I kind of then restart an apprenticeship in software and understanding kind of how software and tech works. And that's now got me to the point now where, yeah, I'm, um, you know, doing this stuff for myself, for you, trotty man.
Speaker 1:What a dadgum story, dude. That is insane. Like you had, for some reason, god puts you on a certain path to affect hopefully I know you did just from the little I've spoke to you those young people, hopefully setting them up, but just your passion for connecting the younger, the new age generation, and finding a way to train them. It's up to employers to find new ways to adapt, to retain the gen z, the alpha generation. We have to find a way that communicates with them. And you're right, sitting up any any person in the trade was sitting in third and fourth grade or grade four, grade three, however you say it and literally sat there staring out the window watching whatever tractor roll by and was getting told that we weren't going to ever succeed if we didn't get that stinking piece of paper turned in by this time. And I'm like I couldn't care less about any of this. Dude, just get me out there. And it's so funny on grade three, grade four, that are now running multi, multi-billion dollar, million dollar operations and projects and literally building the freaking world. So it was so funny.
Speaker 1:When I immigrated, I went to elementary school in Canada. Then I immigrated. Literally what we call down here, they call it middle school, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, before high school, anyways, there's junior high in there as well, but it's a little confusing. But when I moved down here elementary school, obviously not really talking about career paths. But when I got here, dude, I thought it was so weird that in eighth grade I'm sitting here having to fill out this giant maps binder about which college, how and which, and what job I was going to get after. I procured all this debt in student loans and there was no way, this guy, I could have definitely found some grants and scholarships for being a minority, et cetera. But at the same time, dude, I had zero. I did my work program in my senior year. I only went to school for three hours my senior year and had college credits done in my junior year. I did okay. It's not like I had an issue with school, I just knew I wasn't going to go to college. But nobody and I mean nobody Chad Burkett is an amazing man, dude we went to school.
Speaker 1:Basically, rogers, about 30 minutes away is the school district, he's a part of Springdale, and none of that, like I mean, none of that wasn't even a remote, wasn't allowed to be talked about. Anything was college, college, college, college, college, college. And I'm like man, what about the guys working on the water lines? What about the guys paving the roads? What about the guys pouring the concrete for the sidewalk? I wasn't necessarily thinking like that, but like, how do you get to there? I'm sitting here in myself. I knew I wasn't going to college, so I had to figure out how to, number one, make money with my hands. Eventually, hopefully, I get good enough my hands in the back that I can run a few people with my mind. And you know there's, there's a track to that and just like you did, you know. But, um, you hit so many good key points. The imposter syndrome point, man, when, when you served in an operations manager role, um, I face that every day. I literally do. It's not like I was 23 when I was started.
Speaker 1:I'm 33 years old, we're fixing to click over start our 10th year in business. I mentioned that and I'm so proud of that, but I promise you it's not like we're just unbelievably super successful man. I'm going through the worst grind of my life right now, making sure that business is foundationally set for the rest of our lives, like literally the last episode that I had last week was this lady, michelle Michelin a shout out. I hope you guys listen to that episode on processes, systems and procedures. She has literally sat across from my desk and helped me get stuff out of my head on the paper that my wife asked to do this five years ago, but I wouldn't listen to her.
Speaker 1:But, now we're anyways. It's got me into enough a jam that and enough good people have left me and I looked like an idiot long enough that I had to literally put the shame and embarrassment cap on and go. Man, this really kind of sucks, but I've got to figure it out for these people that care about this business. Out of the nine years most of my leadership have been here, three to six years. In that gap I still have my first ever employee. I've had some really good employees that left me as well, because you know I would blame the company because we didn't have trainability. We didn't grab a hold of that guy that you know maybe couldn't figure it out and explain why and how we normally do it If he had. You know, a video a three minute video about onboarding, about hey, your hard hat has to be on when you get out of the truck. It's company policy. I don't care where we're at, I don't care if you're out in the middle of 40 acres and there ain't nobody inside for 52 miles. You are going to have your hard hat if you want a freaking paycheck every single day here. Very adamant about it. But at the same time, if I had a two minute long video, which we're working on directly right now. During that implementation and onboarding and it came from me, not from some superintendent that they barely met, you know and I said, hey guys, look, this is our PPE, this is our high visibility vest. This is why we wear it, so those operators can see you when it's a cloudy day, like, hey, we wear. And I can go on, but it's simple things like that that I never thought of. I'm like why I only do videos for YouTube and everything that we've got going on with Cyclones YouTube channel. Why the heck am I not just sitting down and doing five to 10 videos for these guys that are onboarding with us? And that's literally what I'm doing. But it's people like you challenging the system and going hmm, these people need help, and nobody and I mean nobody on the freaking planet In the US market it's really trendy to talk about Gen Z's into college, alpha generation choosing, I'm sorry, into the trades over college and alpha generation is going to end up in the trades, and we can go off on AI and what that's going to do to the white collar world as well, and I think it's going to force people into the trades. And now I can see clearly folks like Chad have come onto the show and shown that there is programs out there. It's up to people like myself to bring awareness about them so folks like you can eventually meet them. And you're right, get Chad on this platform and connect with those. He keeps with students that he's had in this program four and five years ago. He's still talking to them about just like you're probably an influence and you have three or four people you probably still talk to that you helped work through years ago, right, but dude, number one congrats. I'm going to jump right here real quick. And then I've got an interesting question for you. I got to find out what a tradie and a tradesman is actually qualified in Aussie.
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Speaker 1:All right, mark, I got to know you have been referencing through this and I want to shed some light here on the US. In the trade world there's basically two types you can go into. Okay, very generalistic. Here you have union and non-union. Okay, so I'm a non-union company, sir. That means basically a guy can come start working for me tomorrow and start working on what I call the four-year degree. In four years, I mean, you can be a superintendent here, write proper training, especially with what we're working on, but there's no actual formal document to make you a tradesman.
Speaker 1:Now, on the union side of things, which I am not as koshered with, obviously, I didn't go that route. Arkansas is not. There's a line you can actually Google and see where the union hubs are in within the US, but St Louis, only five hours from us is very, very heavy union presence and it's hard for me to go up there and compete with those guys. It just doesn't make sense because a skid steer operator on the union side may be making 38, $45 an hour. I can't pay a guy to sit in a skid steer $38 an hour but I can maybe $25. Yeah, and they have a totally set of different benefits and they have a certain set of benefits that comes with that. That's where the non-union guys like myself have to compete. We offer full coverage insurance and I know that's kind of blurred lines with it being country. But give us a little insight about apprenticeship into the tradesmen, what makes them a tradesman in Australia, and kind of give us that tour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, sure, yeah. I'll touch on that and then I'll double back to a couple of things you said earlier there that I think I'd love to unpack as well. But look, I think for us right when you talk about unions, that's a whole different. We use the word union in a different context here in Australia. So if you're a union and non-union in Australia, a union in Australia supports workers' rights, so they'll fight for workers in the sense that they might create EPAs, enterprise agreements for an industry and everything or a sector to make sure that everyone's being looked after in the same sort of sense.
Speaker 2:But they don't regulate education in that sense. So we have RTOs, registered training organizations throughout Australia. So one of the biggest ones is TAFE, that a lot of people go and do their trades through TAFE. But you can have private RTOs that provide certifications Cert 2, cert 3, cert 4. Traditionally a trade here in Australia, you need to complete a Cert 3 to be able to say that you are a tradesman. With an apprenticeship that's a four-year period you can apprenticeship. That's a four-year period. You can be signed off before the four-year period. There is certain requirements in the sense that you have to prove competency of your skill. So usually when you start an apprenticeship you may be given a set of 11 elective units within your course that are a must that you have to do, but then you might have four or five selective units so you can choose from a list that refers to your industry, like what you want to do.
Speaker 1:So say for example turf care management.
Speaker 2:You might have your 11 electives and then you may choose five selectives on herbicides and pesticides and so forth.
Speaker 2:So learning how to spray and fertilize might be what you want to move into more prominently, but you have to have your core understanding of how soil and turf and everything like that works, and that same concept works across the board in all sort of industries.
Speaker 2:So that's how you become a tradie or a tradesman is you need to have that certificate, not to say that you can't work for a business as a laborer right, and a lot of laborers still have. They've got a lot of on the job skills and understanding, but they might've gone into the trades a little bit later. So for them to start an apprenticeship on a smaller wage is probably too hard for them. So they will probably just stay as a labourer and potentially get RPL, which is recognised prior learning where they can get a certificate given to them, and then, in that sort of sense, a tradie still is, I guess, someone that has a certificate. Some may argue that you need to do your time as an apprentice to claim being a tradie, but I suppose if you still have the certificates, you have the same qualifications as someone else, so essentially it sounds very much.
Speaker 1:A couple episodes ago I had Jerry's Plumbing has a 20-year plumbing business here. Now the plumbing and electrical. They have their own school that they put on through the state and you actually get exactly like you're talking about. But it's not for every trade.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense. So like if I wanted to go pick up a carpentry tradesman and guys, let me know, reach out to the show if I'm just talking absolute Spanglish here. Let me know, reach out to the show if I'm just talking absolute Spanglish here. But from my understanding is that you can go be an apprentice carpenter in the union but you can be non-union and go work for a labor and end up being a superintendent for a non-union company but nobody really gives you any certification. Now you're growing things like OSHA 30, osha 10, communications courses, any types of trainings and so like.
Speaker 1:Back to pesticides and herbicides. No, nobody can. Just I can't just go start spraying chemicals on somebody's yard here. I would have to accrue a certain herbicide, pesticide spray license to be able to do that application, but it's not really necessarily. That would be something that the company has more or less than a single person. If that makes sense, yeah, and it gives you a license, right. But there is guidelines and boards that ensure that you stay within those parameters working with these licenses. So like I have a unlimited license in the state of Arkansas. That's a contractor's license for just the state of Arkansas, if I jump over 45 minutes over here into Oklahoma.
Speaker 1:there's not a state contractor's licensing board, they handle it more per city. Anyways, it's just very blurred the state. So that's very interesting. I just wanted to hit on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we probably have a similar sort of structure, I guess states so, um, that was that's very interesting, I just wanted to hit on that. Yeah, yeah, so it seemed like we'd probably have a similar sort of structure, I guess. Yeah, the difference yeah, we have obviously australian award rate when it comes to um paying someone. So the government has a clear set of guidelines depending on what your level of qualification and what you do within that business is what we call the award rate. So to be able to go up in award rate, you would have to provide, obviously, a certificate. So if you're just a tradesman and you look after your own type of work, you might be a level one, but then if you're a manager within that industry, you may be a level three, which would get you a few dollars more per hour because that's how you're connected. So everything's connected back and pretty regulated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here in australia, yeah, certain trades, like you said, they're electrical and that obviously that they have their requirements where there's a license that they have to have for them to be able to do electrical work and all those things need to be complied to make sure that you can actually do the work and get your insurance and everything here which is, um, yeah, pretty, pretty highly regulated in Australia. That sort of stuff, the Australian stands for those. But look with you, trady, this is some of the stuff that you know we want to expose, right? So you talked earlier about, yeah, looking out the window and, yeah, thinking about, yeah, other jobs, like people you know working on asphalt and doing roads and stuff like that. One thing that I love about tradies and I get excited about is, like, it's true, like without tradies, the world wouldn't turn.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, yeah, that we feel this sense of I don't know like Matt referred to it as being people looking at you as a lower thing and, yeah, that guy taking the photo for whatever reason he was taking that photo like it's strange, and I remember people like referring to me as like the mold man and that used to get under my skin because I was like man, I've got some qualifications and, with my previous background, that used to irritate me. But what? What we want to do, and connected to the conversations we're saying here about like, oh, what do you need in our, our marketplace, our content marketplace? We've got some information up there about different trades and jobs and what we want to do is get into schools and give it free to school kids that they can go into the marketplace and search you know what is it to be a diesel fitter? And it provide them that information. Now, from our point of view, we've just done it at a basic level. What I want from the listeners and what we're trying to do is to get people that are in those industries to create this content and put it on the marketplace, for them to promote their industry and for them to be the advocates to get people in, because where we're sort of leading to right is an aging workforce. You know, not just in australia, but in America, in the UK, in other countries, we've got a lot of men and women that are going to retire and there seems to be a bit of a gap between who's going to take over that stuff and, like anything, if we haven't got our processes and things in place, then the standard of things are going to start to drop. So our goal, and then the only way you tradie will become successful, is to honouring the people that are in the trades and them helping each other.
Speaker 2:So you tradie is not a story about me, it's a story about you. Like you as a tradie, you put your story on there. It's your passport, it's your information, it's what information you want to share with the next generation or your mate. How do we connect each other to try and help each other? Because I would have loved, yeah, if I rewind to that young 16 year old mark, you know deciding what am I going to do when I leave school and I want to stay in this coal mining town. Man, it would have been cool to see that.
Speaker 2:You know be an aviation technician and work on airplanes or something like that, like something that you like at that stage, on 100%, would never have thought that was even a job that existed as a kid growing up in a small country town and what are those other opportunities around there. You know like working on oil rigs and so forth. Yeah, I did some time as a full circle and doing FIFO work and going and working in a different coal mining town for a little bit to get exposed to that and I didn't realize. Even I grew up in a coal mining town, didn't realize all the other jobs that were involved in a mine. You know like operator roles. You know driving a dozer doing a drag line excavation. You know even soil sampling and the things that have to go there.
Speaker 1:You got drag lines over there and operations still.
Speaker 2:We've got all that stuff. Yeah, Big mines, big mines. Yeah, they're the things I want to expose and I want to get people talking about those things to show each other what's there, right, Like I think we all get to a point in trades where we get a little bit stagnant and worried because you've just spent your entire life learning a skill. You get to a point where you're like what do I do? Have I got to bite down on my tongue and just keep doing this to provide for my family? Get up at 4 am, 3 am, get my breakfast sorted while everyone's still sleeping, get out the door or do I change Now? That's a scary thought for a lot of us because you've got to restart again.
Speaker 2:Like me, education wasn't the best thing, as I said, for me to start with, so to do that again is a challenge and I feel for that for other people. If this platform provides a new opportunity where people can talk and say, oh, actually, if you've got that skill, you just need to do these couple of fillers and you'd be able to change your career and move on to become X, Y and Z, and there's new opportunities for you to go down, and I think you touched on there with AI. Ai is going to change us right, and it already is Like. Ai excites me, Me also yeah.
Speaker 2:Obviously, ai excites me now that I'm in this world of technology and understanding stuff, and I think, like anything, we go through different stages in life where things change the landscape of how work happens, and I think white collar are probably under a lot more pressure than what we are, even though I don't think it's a lot of pressure. I think you just got to learn to work out how AI is going to help you enhance your, your role and move with it. I think if you try to ignore it and I think you think it's not coming then you may be affected. Um, it's the same as that covid period. If you stood there and thought that you know, I'm not going to do anything different and, um, you struggled right. But if you pivoted during covid and you found different ways, you were able to, you know, continue right. It's the same with this AI, but I think what it's going to do and I obviously read and listen to a lot of things is even the fast pace of where AI is going and the changes that it's going to create to our technology and our infrastructures. Traders are still going to build that infrastructure right, like.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing that I like and I think about is is power lines. Like power lines are. If you really stop and think and I'm sure someone could probably put this in the chat, gpt or whatever and think, like our power lines, the best way to transfer electricity between buildings, I'm sure it might give us a better idea. But when that comes to that point and they decide, okay, this is the direction we're going to go, it's going to be tradies that will have to change that infrastructure. There'll be tradies that will have to change the road infrastructure to help electric vehicles or whatever, whenever that period comes right.
Speaker 2:But right, I think when it comes to trades, we're in a pretty secure and safe safe sense, as long as you're continually looking to improve and and to grow and to and move forward. So, yeah, that that excites me, but obviously our goal is, yeah, to try and connect people together and help each other. That's what you know. Grow to is about it. It's, uh, you know, growing together is is the motto of our, of our business and and people helping people I think you need to get a hold of my guys over at boom nation.
Speaker 1:I'll put you in. But I really think for you oil and gas guys. So I'll tell you. In the US, the oil and gas contracted work, these guys can go from North Dakota one minute, oklahoma the next minute, and then all of a sudden they're out in Pennsylvania. They're all over the place. They have kind of a money chasing mentality, but when you're on the road I mean that's, that's all you're chasing. You want to go back home? I mean I do. And so, um, long story short, I think this could really help those guys us, they are the backbone like welders, rig helpers, et cetera and give them those opportunities that hey, do you have a digital resume? Maybe move out of their current role where they're at and maybe put a resume. I mean literally just type it into chat GBT, but literally hop on, hop on.
Speaker 2:You, tradie, put a passport together and I'm assuming you can export a pdf and send it straight over to anywhere anytime yeah, well, you don't even need to export it, you just, um, yeah, you just give the link, uh, to the employer, they would sign up. We'll give them access to a free account for them to check your passport, because obviously that's how we need to grow. Currently, at the moment, businesses pay $55 a month to use uTradie it's free for apprentices and students or anyone that's looking to have a look and then $5.50 a month for tradies to try and help keep all their information in one place. But obviously, my goal is new to this side of software business and everything is to link with the right people to see how we can then turn this platform into being, yeah, completely free for everyone. Um, the goal is obviously I don't want it to be too, yeah, heavily marketed. Um, yeah, that you, that it loses its power of what it's meant to be. But you know, obviously in this, this day and age, we've got to try and work out that is like you talk about um, yeah, the challenges we have as business owners. Right, I love your honesty there about putting these things in place, and you probably lost people because you didn't have it in place. Man, I was exactly the same. As much as I even care. I care and I'm passionate about this and I'm spending money and getting this done in the background. I was, in a sense, probably the word neglecting is probably a little bit too harsh on myself, but you know, for the lack of words probably neglecting the growth of some of those boys that I had there, not realising that, um, I needed to put those effort in. I need to have these things in place for them to sort of grow. Yeah, what I would love with you tradie with the marketplace.
Speaker 2:You say that you're now creating content. Right, you could create that content even though it works for your business. You could put on the marketplace for a business. Say, if I'm starting tomorrow, I could purchase your content to use for my employees, which means that creates a new revenue stream for you, rather than you just creating it once for yourself. You can actually help your industry and provide that.
Speaker 2:You talk about influencers like Chad. Well, they're the influencers that I think that we should be celebrating and helping. I've got young boys and they look at YouTube and, don't get me wrong, I love looking at YouTube clips as well and stuff like that, but when I hear the word influencer from a YouTube perspective, uh, that probably doesn't appeal to me, but if you were to tell me that there is a, a guy you know in, yeah, in the plumbing industry that is providing support and and help in guiding people, well, that's, that's a person that's an influencer in my, in my eyes, and how do we promote them and how do we reward that person? You know, how do we connect you know, businesses like supply chains or products, to that person so they can promote those in those businesses. For me, when I used to have industry reps come out and talk to me about, you know, new fertilizers or chemicals or machinery and stuff like that, also under the pump, just to get the work done, to make sure that I could finish the day, I would never have time to be able to talk to that industry rep. And again we talk about how things are changing rapidly and there's probably new products out there that would make life easier. You kind of stick to what you're used to because you don't have the brainpower to learn something new. What we'd love to see is industry reps providing content in the marketplace. So a business owner, rather than stopping for 45 minutes and learning about that product, they could just be given access to that information and again, like you said before, a three-minute conversation directly to them about why the benefits of this product.
Speaker 2:So it's trying to streamline and speed up the benefits of this product. So it's trying to, you know, streamline and speed up the way that we give information to each other. So we're not in the, you know, the game of trying to fight with rtos or academies or anything like that. Like we, we don't want to, uh, we don't want to focus on accredited content and certificates. We actually want to partner with them. So we, we want, you know, academies that already have this content and certificates. We actually want to partner with them. So we, we want, you know, academies that already have this content and information provide short, non-accredited information into the platform where business owners can give that to their employees to help them upskill, which then is. Then it connects back to the, to the user's passport and shows that person progressing, progressing forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, trying to create that loop of how everyone helps each other, because trying to engage a young person to come into to trade industries, I know here in australia and I believe user in a similar situation is you know what is appealing to them. Like you know, start this trade and you're going to be swinging a shovel until you're 60 years old. Uh, that probably scares a lot of people, right, and the bad stories that we already talked about earlier of like well, uh, you know, I've got an uncle that got treated like you know, treated like shit, when he was doing an apprenticeship, like why would I go do that? Whereas if we can use you tradie as a um, a way to show people the, the life cycle where you start off as an apprentice, you, you learn your trade and you become skillful and become a master in that knowledge and then you become an influencer that provides information back and start creating a passive income that leads towards your retirement and helping the next generation. Well, that starts to then build this new model of how do I get off the tools, and that's what we want to achieve.
Speaker 2:How do I help a guy that's right now in his 50s, 55, his body's starting to break down and he's going? I've got all this knowledge and information that there's only two guys that I work with can't make money off telling those two guys how to do stuff. How do I, how do we take that guy and expose him to the, to the wider industry, because I, I would guarantee there are some amazing human beings out there that are very supportive, very knowledgeable, that could help us move in a direction that we need to go, but we just don't have. We don't have a platform that connects them right. You have youtube. If someone wants to go out and create a youtuber.
Speaker 2:You also have a lot of tradies that for myself, as I mentioned earlier, like the imposter syndrome, I've put myself out there to come on podcasts. It's a bit of a thing for me to sort of overcome, right, like I'm sure there's other tradies that do not want to put themselves on YouTube, where they're exposed to millions and millions of people. But if they were in an environment where it was like-minded tradies and people that want to learn from them, I think you may start to change the mindset of that older tradie. And they're the people we need to touch, because they are the guys and girls that have the knowledge, that have the real-life experience, that are the ones that are going to help the next generation come through Like we keep reinventing the wheel with things, and I think we don't need to. I think people have already been there and done it before.
Speaker 1:No, 100%, dude. What an amazing, amazing product you're building seriously, and have built. I'm actually jumping on it myself and we'll be on there. So check me out, if you guys jump on there, maybe we'll have a little conversation on there. Man, I am just a little intrigued, more than a little very intrigued, at what you're right. It can not only, it just benefits everybody. It literally user businesses, people up skills, not networking relationships, influences, like and there may be a way that you know, for the content creators. You know, like myself, I hate the word influencer, dude, I hate it, I hate it, but at the same time I think, someone like yourself with what you're doing.
Speaker 2:That, and I know you talk about imposter syndrome too, but I think you've got to give yourself some credit that you are influenced and I think you're influencing in a positive way, like you're having these conversations, like I think it takes a great person to sit there and say I've made these mistakes and you know, I may not be proud of it, but I'm happy to try and be told or learn how to get to that next step. And if we could all have a little bit of that, I think we get to get to a point I think you mentioned earlier about the you know, fake it till you make it. I think with where we're moving to with ai and the way you can verify someone's information, you know, like that fake it till you make it is that's not going to be a thing you know pretty soon. So how do we help a young person not have to feel like they're going to fake it to the make it, that they've made it and then all they're doing now is, um, just improving relationships with people, because that's where I sort of hope ai takes us to right.
Speaker 2:Like previously, you could, I guess, probably have an ego based off your knowledge, and that's one thing about tradies that I've I I don't know if you're like in America, but you always get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I had one builder turn up here and have a look at something in my house and they'd tell me something, then another builder turn up and they'd sort of peacock it a little bit of like who's got the better idea with it and stuff like that, whereas I'd love us to get away from that and just be more focused on building relationships and having good conversations with each other than that stuff. And I think AI will help that because you'll be able to verify when a tradie comes in and says, oh no, you're going to have to remove all those pipes and put in a new set of pipes. Well, yeah, eventually we'll get to the point where AI is pretty good and you can take photos and it'll it'll let you know that stuff. So I hope, yeah, uh, that that we will move into a direction where it's it's more relationship building that we'll we'll start to focus on again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as people dude, I talk about it on every episode of the show and businesses relationships. It's not just about building them, as crucial as that is, but it's nurturing once you've built that relationship as well. That is so crucial that a lot of people you used the word neglect earlier and that is another word they neglect that relationship once they've built it, not because they don't necessarily they don don't want that, it's just happening.
Speaker 2:As you know, distant happens anyways, but um, well, I think we strapped with a bit of that sigh right. I think that's the way we're leading not to get too too deep in in our first conversation, but we're leading to a little bit of that with. When it comes to communication between people, these days it's seems to be more challenging, you know, um, and I think, um, yeah, ironically I will say this, considering I I have a software company, but with with a lot of these softwares and things that are out there, they are creating more of a distance between each other that it's easier to have a conversation with someone on a chat system than it is to actually, you know, sit at a bar or at a pub and have a yarn about, like, what happened that day or what's going on in your life.
Speaker 2:And that's concerning like where we're sort of leading to. And I hope that we can sort of reverse that and change that in some sort of capacity that we learn how to communicate with people. And you're 100% right, like building uh is challenging, you know, like a relationship, like whether it's you know your family, your wife and all that they're the most important things in it in your world, but they take time and they have their challenging moments and stuff like that to you know, to kind of work through the same concept with you know the broader circle as you start to, you know, move into those next steps in your working and professional, professional life, is is building those relationship dude, I have absolutely loved this conversation and I have one more thing for you today, my guy I have a feeling we may have to get you back on here, because today I really I would love to hear how you tradies doing here in about a year, man, because I think you are on the.
Speaker 1:I have a feeling we may stay in contact, but I have a feeling, truly, you're on the verge of something that's needed, that needs to happen, and you're right. We just need to bring focus, we need to bring awareness to it and we need to let people know how awesome of an opportunity it is, and there are people out there willing to help you. Here is the platform to do it all. So the last thing I got for you, my guy go as far in depth as you want. I ask this on every single episode. And what's the takeaway, man, for the tradie worker out there who is just sick and tired of being stuck in the mud, mentally, physically, emotionally, any of those?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:And it's those guys that are out there in their first year apprenticeship money's kind of crap and they're just oh, maybe should I do this, should I not, but it's also that guy that's been in the same job for 10 years and he's like man, am I ever going to get a promotion?
Speaker 2:Man, that's a great question. There's probably so many ways to answer that question. Look, I think, look, if we start from the the bottom, we work our way up. I guess right, like if we talk about apprentices and everything is, um, what's that? What's that old old saying of like, if something is easy to do, it's not worth doing, if it's, if it's hard to do, then it's worth doing, or so forth.
Speaker 2:I'll probably mess that up, but that's probably the best way to look at your apprenticeship is sometimes you've just got to, you've got to start at the bottom to understand things and you've got to sit there and you've got to listen, and there are people you know around you that have done it before. And I think the key is to be, you know, courteous and polite and to listen is the main, is the main thing. I probably that was my intent, probably the way that I was raised by, you know, a father, you know that had a military background, it was, you know, don't speak unless spoken to and uh, you know, listen and learn, uh, so that's it, that's. That's probably just my upbringing of what I was, but that that that that helped me through those stages. Um, I think the also the thing, too, is you're not always probably going to find the exact thing that you want straight away, right, but that's not to say to stop and give up on things, because you learn. You learn through perseverance, right. You learn more things about yourself if you can stick through something, if it's's hard, and I think from my sporting background, the things that I learned is those tough times create something, a better performance when it comes to moving into business and starting that small business again. It's that perseverance is what continually pops into my head.
Speaker 2:For me, I felt like I didn't give everything that I should have with sports. I felt like I gave up. So I constantly live with this internal battle with myself that I'm angry about, which is probably something that drives me, for you, where I'm now at a point where I need to know will it work or will it not work? I can't just stop until I know that answer. And if I know that answer and it doesn't turn into the aspirations of what I wanted, at least I know that I would feel happy with myself that I saw it through to the end, because I don't want to live with that feeling twice. I've mentioned this before and I'll give this guy probably a rap. I don't know if you guys know Eric Thomas. He's an American motivational speaker. They call him the hip hop.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know of who you're talking about. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:So through all the tough times when I was running my business and you go through tough times like that's, the one thing that you learn in business is one minute you will think the world is crashing down on you and how could I possibly even make it through to next week and pay people wages, and pay my tax bill and make sure my insurance is covered and deal with these customers and I need to get a new customer, otherwise things are going to struggle. You find those ups and downs will happen and if you persevere and you keep learning, you will understand that they become easier and smaller, shorter downs than they are. But there's a saying that he has in that one of his videos is learning about pain. You know that pain will last with you either for a minute, an hour, a week or a year, or it will subside. But giving up will last forever, you know. So my biggest thing with people is, you know, learn to find ways to keep going.
Speaker 2:Um, you know mental health I talked about. You know adhd. With adhd comes anxiety. I I struggle massively with anxiety at times, you know, and uh, at times I yeah, especially when you're running a business and you you're getting up in the morning and you think I've got to go talk to these people and your brain is in a million different ways is, yeah, again, finding that way to persevere, and it's not about trying to find the answers itself, but it's trying to find the people around you that will help you get to those answers. So definitely not weak to speak and to go talk and find someone that can help you with that. Definitely not weak to speak and to go talk and find someone that can help you with that.
Speaker 2:You know, I was very lucky that, as I probably tried to deal with a lot of stuff myself, but as I've got older, I've learned to understand that the more you talk about something, the more it gets out of your chest, and then you're open to getting that information back in, which then helps you to the next step. So, yeah, I guess really the the key probably to that is perseverance is where you will learn and you know three times. You'll know when it's right to stay and when it's right to go. The old song, the Gambler you know, know when to hold them, know when to fold them.
Speaker 2:You've had a tough time, just probably put that on and that'll probably give you a guidance of you know what you need to do. So, yeah, I think, just stick to it, learn and and always know. Like you know, it's not where you start, it's where you end, right, uh, where it's a beautiful thing, life, and you listen to my story. I started off as a yeah, kid carrying up bricks in a stairways, uh, in in sydney. To now, you know, talking to you know, uh, a podcast on the other side of the world. It's pretty exciting, yeah, so just keep going, keep trying, put yourself out there and don't worry about failing.
Speaker 2:I mentioned earlier to you there's a sportsman here in Australia that I really like. He's a little bit controversial. He's a boxer and a rugby league player. One thing that he talks about is you know, when we have kids and you mentioned you've got kids, I've got, um, I've got my third boy on the way and in about 10 days time. So it's chaos here in our house, but, uh, one thing that he talks about is you know, when you have kids, you're constantly encouraging, you're motivating, you're helping and, um, you're getting them to the next step of them learning how to walk, learning how to talk, like when they have an issue at school, he's overcoming that school. You're constantly helping them and guiding them and helping them.
Speaker 2:But for some reason we get to some sort of age as adults and if someone puts themselves out there like decides to create a podcast or something like that, rather than the encouragement or the like, okay, well, what can I do to kind of help? We may say something and look, we're all human right, like sometimes we say things that we don't mean, but like words can cut, especially to a person that is, you know, putting their self out there to try and do something different. So, you know, my probably hope for other people is, you know, let's help each other. Let's help each other get to those next sort of stages and and see where that sort of yeah, it takes us.
Speaker 1:I think would be very cool dude 100, because but it takes people like me and you having a conversation, putting ourselves out there and driving awareness on this subject. It needs so much awareness brought to it. We need more tradesmen tradies I'm probably going to call them tradies from here on out, I can't. We've got James Starbuck. I don't know if you know that gentleman, but he's an excavation contractor over there in Australia and we've been in contact through LinkedIn and so we're going to have another Aussie here not too long and I'm excited to learn more. But at least I can have some common language, at least you know. But, man, what a great answer. You just had that four parts there and you hit every one of them. But perseverance and putting yourself out there, man can change things, man seriously. So where do we find you, trady? Youtradycom? Right yeah.
Speaker 2:YouTradycom, so it's just a U and then T-R-a-d-i-ecom. Look, if you go to that landing page, there is a section down the bottom where you can, um, you know, create a calendar link and have a meeting with me and have a chat. Uh, again, I started as a tradie. Uh, this is something I've built, you know, for us and something that I I thought I would have loved I was going through. So, the more feedback and the more that people want to get involved and help move this in its direction that it needs to go to, I encourage that. You know the good, bad and the ugly. I've learned to get a bit of a thicker skin as I've got older, so I'm happy to hear what you feel we need to change and what we need to improve because, yeah, we're still early days in what we can become.
Speaker 1:but, um, yeah, hopefully touch some people and people sign up and they look to, you know, start creating some content on the marketplace and and help each other dude, I can't thank you enough today for joining me from literally across the dad cum world and, um, as I shared with you, I've got some family over there in Australia and the UK obviously. So if you guys are listening from there, thank you guys so much for the constant week after week investment and I truly hope this is bringing you guys some value.
Speaker 1:I know today, literally I learned so much just about a whole different side of the world and what they're going through and they're fighting the same fight that we're fighting yeah and it's, and it's just so crazy the similarities and yeah, there's obviously going to be some differences, of course, but yeah, yeah and it was very enlightening to hear that we're dealing with it's not just an american problem.
Speaker 2:This is a global freaking problem really, really big and, uh, you know not this. I know we're getting close to the end here, but yeah, we could even touch on you know what the global market will be in the next decade like. I feel we'll get to a point where we may have an abundance of carpenters here, you may have an abundance of electricians there and we may people may start moving between countries a lot more. My wife is Colombian, right, so I go to Bogota, colombia, and I love South America and, yeah, I look at even the infrastructure and everything that they've got there and some hard workers and everything, maybe different regulations, but that's the one thing trades could really be awesome in the future is the ability to travel and experience different cultures together. That's where I would love you tradie to get to that point of like. Is it a digital highway for tradies to travel between different countries? That would be the ultimate success story, but I think we're many years away from that being being a um, a reality dude.
Speaker 1:That's, that's some visionary thinking right there. That's some, uh, truly visionary thinking. And we need people like you pushing the envelope on the vision of what it could be. Not what it is now, not what it was, but what it could be. Not what it is now, not what it was, but what it could be. And I encourage you, I look forward to working with you on the Utrady stuff and building my little passport repertoire on. There Should be nice and short and sweet dirt and pipe guy. Truly, guys, I hope you learned a little bit more about the digital age, the software world in general, like we spoke on. But go check out utradeycom. I'm very intrigued. Some of this stuff that Mark just literally has me captivated. Up here I got my gears turning just a little bit but, man, I did come through from country to country. Obviously I wasn't chasing a trade, I was my mother's son, but at the same time I don't think people even think that way across the world. But to have a pathway that a gentleman is so passionate about building and helping every man and woman on that platform. Guys, I encourage you go check it out.
Speaker 1:But that basically wraps up our episode here on Blue Collar Business Podcast. Go, check out bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom and if you're here at the end of this, would you mind dropping a rating and a follow? It helps the show out so much. And if there's an episode that's your favorite, share it on your favorite social platform. All it's going to do is drive awareness, drive the show even more. If you're a sponsor or a product in the Blue Collar working space, hit the, become a Sponsor, bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, and we'll make sure you get an ad placed in here. They've been converting on some others already.
Speaker 1:So last little bit, at the very end of the show, I have an ops manager role for Sycon on my LinkedIn and on our webpage at wwwsyconexccom. Check us out there and let me know. Shoot your resume in Been trying to use the podcast as a hopefully a platform to secure somebody. So, mark again, brother, thank you for getting up at 5.30 in the morning tomorrow to jump on a podcast today with me at three o'clock in the afternoon. I've enjoyed it thoroughly and I know the audience will. But, man, until then, until we talk again, you be safe, be kind, be humble, my guy.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I appreciate that, mate. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: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 and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.