Seth Said It

Round-The-Clock Operations: A Deep Dive into the Service Industry

• Seth Mills / Nik Dawson • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Ever wondered what it's like to operate a service-based business in the unpredictable climate of Texas? Join your hosts, Seth Mills and Nik Dawson, as they expose the gritty realities of being on-call 24/7, navigating the high seas of self-employment, and busting the myth of passive income.

We kick off the conversation by sharing our first-hand experiences of managing work calls outside typical working hours. You'll hear us discuss our survival strategies and how we've harnessed technology to streamline communication and operations. We then engage into a conversation about being a contractor who underscores the importance of nurturing relationships with manufacturers to drive mutual business growth. But brace yourself for a reality check, as we debunk the myth of a truly passive income source. You might be eyeing passive income as the golden ticket, but we're here to tell you that success still demands serious effort and engagement.

But our journey doesn't stop there. We take a detour to share our past experiences at Best Buy, spilling the beans on the toxic work environment, the relentless pressure of meeting sales targets, and the high employee turnover. You'll get a glimpse of the colossal markups on items and our experiences with employee discounts. Finally, we dig into the concept of success, exploring different routes to it. As a high school dropout and a college student, we have some unique stories to tell about our path to where we are now. Tune in if you're ready for an enlightening discussion on running a service-based business, the reality of passive income, and the pursuit of success.

Seth Mills:

Welcome back to the Astrocraft grow, influence and best podcast. I'm your host, seth Mills, and joining me today is Nick Dawson. He's going to be your cohost on a lot of the different episodes that we've got, but let's go ahead and jump on into it. Man, how are you doing today?

Nik Dawson:

Hanging in there, man. Hanging in there. Yeah, you've been going. It's been a. It's been a week and a half. Yeah, yeah, no kidding, and it's only been a few days.

Seth Mills:

Exactly. Yeah, you've got a pretty big event going on. You're homeless right now, so I am homeless.

Nik Dawson:

You've already you've always got a home here, buddy. Well, I appreciate that I am homeless. I had to buy new clothes. These aren't even really my clothes. I had to buy more clothes so, but it's okay, it's all good. We're looking on the positive side of things, absolutely.

Seth Mills:

So, other than everything else going on, your life, how's? How's business been?

Nik Dawson:

Business is good. We're kind of coming into that season where it's not the typical things that we normally work on, because we live in Texas. Of course it's hot.

Seth Mills:

for anybody that doesn't know, I work on swimming and pull equipment and for anybody who also doesn't know, the, I believe the hottest we had this summer with heat index was what? 125 to 130, something like that. Yeah, so your heaters aren't going to be an issue during the summer. Yeah.

Nik Dawson:

Most people aren't heating up their pools nor their hot tubs. Yeah, so this time of year is really whenever it starts to kind of pick up a little bit, for you know the two months that we have a really cold weather. So right now it's kind of slow. My area is kind of slow compared to the other guys that I work with, but right now it's I mean we're still making money that's a lot of care about. I mean you just heard the phone call that we just that I just had right before we started this.

Seth Mills:

Yeah. So yeah, may or may not have gotten a behind the scenes blooper, but hey man it's.

Nik Dawson:

It's one of those where it's 539 and still taking phone calls, still taking work calls, because that's part of owning something.

Seth Mills:

Yep, and that's something I was going to talk to you about. How often do you get a phone call past, even in the service industry, I mean, normal work hours could be anywhere from 7am to really like six to set to dark. Right now in Texas we're getting dark around 5 36 o'clock.

Nik Dawson:

So here's the issue that I usually deal with. Okay, most of my clientele they work from 7 in the morning to like four in the afternoon, 4pm or 5pm. Then they're driving home. They're getting home from their long day of work. I'm either still in the field or I'm back home at my own place, when I'm not homeless, and they're wanting to get in their hot tub or they're wanting to use their lights, or that's the first time that they're able to do anything with their swimming pool, or I fix something and then I call would you will? How did it go? It doesn't stop at 5 o'clock. For me stops whenever they get home and they check it out, and especially during, like the summertime, because the summertime people aren't getting home. They're checking their lights, they're doing anything like that. It's like 8pm, 9pm, I mean. I've had phone calls all the way up. I've had a FaceTime call from a customer that I worked on one time at 11pm.

Seth Mills:

I've got a similar story that I will share on the podcast. I'm not going to name names, but I will go through what they texted me as well as my response, because I use Chad GPT for a lot of my responses, just because it's automatic and they can get a quick response. Well, right, right, right, yeah. So I got a text at 10.53pm on a Tuesday night, tuesday before Thanksgiving, and it was a customer texting me because she had called me. For the sake of this, I'll call her Stacy. Stacy had called me and said she said, hey, like, is this XYZ company with Christmas lights? I said, no, man, but we do, we do install Christmas lights.

Seth Mills:

And this was on a Sunday. And I said or a Saturday, it was a Saturday because I was out, it was whenever I broke my foot, so it was that day. And so we call. She says that. I said, hey, no, but I can get you an estimate tomorrow. Obviously, I break my foot an hour later or fracture my foot, but regardless, for the sake of this conversation, broke my foot, you can't do what you used to Exactly.

Nik Dawson:

I still can't For the time being. So I mean you may as well have broke your foot.

Seth Mills:

Yeah, and it's been three weeks and I still can't hardly walk. Well, she texts me. Obviously. I text her Sunday and I'm like, hey, I need to reschedule, I will be in contact with you by Wednesday.

Seth Mills:

Tuesday comes 10 53 at night. She texts me and she says I forget exactly what she said, but she was like and all caps too, and I've never met her, so I don't know if she's older and she just I was gonna go with she probably Accidentally hit the capital, but it's all caps Hello, please, can you get, can you get with me on my Christmas night estimate? And then it goes back to lowercase. So I know she did it on purpose and it was like this is XYZ, this is Stacy at XYZ address, and she was like we really need a estimate. Blah, blah, blah. And so At the end she puts her name again, her number, and then I hadn't responded in To like 1057.

Seth Mills:

Well, at 1055 she texts me again with her name and her phone number. Like you forgot it, like I forgot within the last two minutes that she texted me as I'm Over, I was in bed at that point, right, and so my thing is is I have no problem with the customer texting me after hours. Nine out of ten times I will respond unless I am Doing, unless I'm busy, you know, yeah, or doing something. And so I wanted a chat GPT and I will admit I was pretty furious that a customer's take texting me at 1053 at night on a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, and I had already said look, I will reach out by Wednesday afternoon. Well, I typed my response and then I I go into chat GPT, or like it's not chat GPT, but it's a app on my phone that connects to your messages or your keyboard, and I tell it to rewrite it. But in sarcasm, and Let me, let me pull up Exactly what it wrote, because I mean, you got to think about it.

Nik Dawson:

Nobody's thinking about your time.

Seth Mills:

Exactly, and so she texts me her name and number. The second message within two minutes. So it's 1053, then 1055, 1056. I I was like I was trying I'm still trying to figure out where that other messages, because I Didn't end up sending it. But I sat there for a solid like well, three minutes Debating on if I was gonna send the sarcastic one. You know how it goes. You know how it goes with customers, right? So I'm trying to figure where was it? It was November 21st, so here it is okay. So on this, bless you the sarcastic one.

Seth Mills:

So what I had originally typed was it is 11 pm On a Tuesday night. We are closed and will not be returning to the office until after Thanksgiving, monday November 27th. We will be in touch with you then. This is an automated message, because I always add this is an automated message Just so that the customer doesn't feel attacked. You know, yeah, but so sarcasm.

Seth Mills:

It was updated the message to well, well, well, what do we have here? It's currently 11 pm On a Tuesday night, folks, just to let you know we're closed for business and I see I can't even keep a fucking straight face and won't be back in the office until after Thanksgiving, specifically on Monday November 27th. Yeah, we know you'll miss us, but don't worry, we'll be in touch with you then. And just so you know, this message is fully automated. So I almost sent that just out of pure frustration. You know, I Didn't.

Seth Mills:

I ended up sending something very nice, but I still. I still know well, it was professional, but I still made it a point like it's 11 pm, so I said our office hours have concluded for the day, as it is currently 11 pm On a Tuesday night. And then, obviously, if you're gonna reach out to me and you're not even a customer yet at that point and you're gonna be hounding me at 1053 at night, if it would have been an existing customer with an issue with their lights, I would have hopped over to their house, I would have thrown clothes on, got in my truck, drove over to their house. You're not even a customer yet and you're still texting me Like you own my company.

Nik Dawson:

Well, you got to set some kind of boundary, because if you don't have any boundaries especially for I've never worked on this man's pool and he's wanting to know when I'm gonna be there after I received his stuff today no, it's after five. I still take phone calls after five. But an existing customer mine that I've taken care of for the last two or three years Reaches out. See his name, I know who I'm talking to. I Want to help him. He's respectful of my time and what I know. But if he was anybody else that I've been like, oh, leave me a voicemail, talk to you tomorrow seeing I'm the same way, especially so All of my close clients.

Seth Mills:

I don't know if you have it set up on your phone or not. I have two different lines. So all of my clothes actually, I have three different lines. All of my close Contacts and my friends and family are know my personal phone number. Everybody else who's just a client for instance, here's one of my mentors that will be on one of my episodes that just text me randomly at 547 on a Wednesday night, so Regardless. But all of my close Contacts for business, so my clients that have been clients for a while, or the people I like, they have my personal number. They know they can call me, text me, whatever they need to pass five o'clock past six o'clock. I normally set it as six o'clock as business hours, unless it's a holiday, then it's whenever. Well, so I guess.

Nik Dawson:

I Kind of try and keep those normal time frames, especially if, say, we're going to dinner, where, if I have a family function or if I've got something going on, but my phone Goes into using iPhone, goes into personal mode at 8 pm. Yeah, same here. I'm usually still in front of my computer at 8 pm, if not 9 pm. So I'm still in work mode, regardless of what time it is, and sometimes even way later than that. But if I'm there already working on what I'm doing, somebody calling me to ask me a question or do something, I'm still working. So even if you want to consider eight to eight or seven to eight or six to eight, you're still talking about a 12, 14 hour work day. What's the difference if you got to talk to somebody?

Nik Dawson:

I mean it's just a matter of your relationship with customer. Builder, installer, what's the word? I'm looking for?

Seth Mills:

Distributor, whatever it may be, Vendor somebody, yeah, yeah, no, 100%, so I don't know. That just strikes a nerve for me. As far as the customers who and again you're much different than me you work for a warranty, a big manufacturer, I work for myself. I don't deal with warranty, I don't deal with manufacturers, I don't deal with anything abroad on that spectrum. So I have to chase the work, I have to get the work. I spread my name. Word of mouth has been a huge, huge success for me. This year I have ran $0 in ads and did just as, actually better, than I did last year in my second year of business and this is my third. But as far as chasing what?

Nik Dawson:

It's my two year anniversary today.

Seth Mills:

Congratulations brother.

Nik Dawson:

Hell yeah, I didn't even think about it till just right now.

Seth Mills:

Nice man, but yeah, so I guess it's different in the sense that I can pick and choose my work, my clientele, a little bit more freely than you can. Oh, 100%, because I know you can kick back work orders back out to the manufacturer. But I know you don't like doing that and it probably hurts you as far as being well connected to that manufacturer.

Nik Dawson:

Well, 100%, because every time you reject they can see everything that you've done. Not only that I understand 100%. You have to chase it 100%. The second that I'm redo a customer for one builder. Say they spend a million dollars with this manufacturer or $50,000 with this manufacturer doesn't make a difference to me, I get paid regardless. But if I piss off any of them they can call in and go. Don't ever send Nick out there again. Don't send them to any of my calls. That takes away anywhere from 10 to 150, maybe 200 calls for that builder. So you have to like in your truck before we went and got dinner. That builder right there. I met him two years ago. I do probably 99% of his work. I have to keep that communication because he'll spend probably just spitballing anywhere from $300 to $500,000 on pull equipment. My best interest to keep him happy. I piss him off, I lose that.

Seth Mills:

Well, and not only that, but I hope that the manufacturer that you work for or do work for you don't because you don't work for them, but you do work for them. Right, that makes sense.

Nik Dawson:

They don't have their own employees to do the work that I do.

Seth Mills:

Yeah, you're 1099.

Nik Dawson:

Exactly.

Seth Mills:

So you're self-employed. By all matters of the definition, you are self-employed. You own your own company. As far as having the good relations, I just hope that the warranty manufacturer understands that. I know that from just estimating. I know they take care of you all pretty well, but I hope they know that you guys also drive more business in for them. I don't know how that would work for you all, but if they do, I don't know if you all see anything or if you can talk about it. I don't know if it's confidentiality.

Nik Dawson:

Not necessarily so I mean majority of the time if they can't reach somebody that works directly for said manufacturer or they're on a wait line for an hour, 45 minutes, two hours. We're in a business where time is money and money is time. We got to get in and out Most of my builders. I've had multiple instances where somebody's called me and they've been like dude, can you help me with this? I've been on the phone for an hour and a half on a hold line. Two minutes later, oh, dude, it's working now. Thank you, appreciate it. That keeps them business, keeps me business and all my relationships strong. So it does definitely help and makes them want to use me more.

Seth Mills:

I was gonna say, and it also drives you more work, because every time you get a work order then you get paid. So I understand that there, because once you have the relationship, it doesn't just help the manufacturer, it helps you personally. As far as payment goes A little bit of something that we had touched on a little earlier, passive income I don't know how you feel about it.

Nik Dawson:

The idea is great. Maybe I'm just ignorant to the fact of how it works and how to do it all. I'm very hands on, so anything. That's not where I'm physically doing the work. I don't know how to do it.

Seth Mills:

No, and I completely understand that too. I don't understand it either. However, I will say that in my experience passive I called it a scam previously right.

Nik Dawson:

I still think you stirred up something, did you?

Seth Mills:

I did. I think the TikTok comments were flooded between two different people. Actually, there were over 20 comments from two different people, mainly one person, but for the sake of this conversation, I'll talk about the person who didn't comment a whole bunch on it. So they set up a bleach supply I'm not going to name the name If you're watching this. I'm not trying to call you out, I'm just having a conversation about it. They set up a bleach supply in Houston, right, because we are out of Houston, texas.

Seth Mills:

And he was like oh no, I'm completely hands off with it. It's completely passive income. It's which I asked him okay, do you pay bills? Do you have any kind of contact with the suppliers that supply your bleach for your location? Do you have to do any kind of maintenance? Do you have to do anything? Right, and he said no. And I'm like in my head I'm like, yeah, he said I have people in my bed, I have people for that, right, it's all automated. And I'm like you have to some way somehow. You do still have to work, you still have to put even if it's minimal effort into coordinating something. You have to still be involved. It's not 100% truly passive income for you unless you're a franchisee and the franchiser does everything for you. In that case, great, you've set up a location. You haven't set up a true passive income source for you.

Nik Dawson:

I guess that's my issue is like you can say it's all hands off. But I mean for me, if everybody could just set up a Shopify or buying stuff off of Alibaba or whatever the hell it's called, we'd all do it yeah yeah To bring in 20, 50, 100, 250, whatever they say out there.

Seth Mills:

I mean maybe you can, maybe. I mean I know and like. Another example that was brought to me is Jeff Bezos. On my TikTok video Somebody said, oh, jeff Bezos, Amazon is completely passive for him.

Seth Mills:

I said, okay, but he's still an executive, he's the executive chairman of the board. He is still going to be in there every single day, maybe not on location, but he's still going to be getting reports every day and still have to have his hands dipped in it. And they said, no, he doesn't have to do any of that. That's what he has people for. I said I don't understand. I don't know if you understand what an executive chairman does. They run the company from the board, right. They still have to. I mean, if there's a new CEO, if there's new COOs, any of the top administration, people getting replaced or even have questions, they're calling the executive chairman. So he's still very much involved in it, right?

Seth Mills:

So the term passive income again it comes back around. There's a brand new I don't know if you saw it when you were pulling in because I know you do a lot of work in here but in my neighborhood there's a brand new ice penguin automated deal right Outside of the gate and honestly, I don't know when it was put in, because I go out that gate every day. Maybe I just looked past it, but that's the first time I saw it was today. I don't know. But what's it called? Because I remember when it was just woods.

Seth Mills:

But that could be called passive income. But you still have the water bills, you still have the electricity bills. Even if you get that on automatic billing every month, you're still going to be checking it. You're still going to be worrying about it. It's still going to be in your head, one way or another, whether you're worried about it or you're checking the profits it's bringing in. And even if you're checking the profits it's bringing in, chances are you're having to go and file the taxes with the state. You're having to go do this that you still have. Even if it's passive income, which I'm still going to stand by my words and call it a scam you're still going to have duties that you have to do.

Nik Dawson:

It's not 100% passive. It can be maybe 50% passive.

Seth Mills:

It can be 90% passive. There's still that 10% that you're going to have to work in it.

Nik Dawson:

So I don't know. It's not a matter of. I think the difference between us and our generation now is that it's a matter of okay, what can I do to do the least amount of work, to make the most amount of money and the quickest amount of time? Why can't I sit at home and make $100,000 a year, $1,000 a day, $300, whatever it takes? It would be great. Oh, it'd be fantastic, Trust me. If that was the case, I'd be doing it. We both would.

Seth Mills:

Everybody we know would.

Nik Dawson:

I wouldn't be sweating outside. Nope, I wouldn't be dealing with all these customers like I do. And I say dealing with customers. I love all my customers, but Me too, but dealing with the day to day. If that was the case, man.

Seth Mills:

Dealing with all the expenses and everything in between the customers and the finished product. And when I wake up out in the morning, that's what we mean by dealing with customers, because it's not the customers that we like. We love the customers, at least I. I mean I can speak for both of us when I say that. I think I think you heard my conversation. Exactly.

Nik Dawson:

Even though he was dragging on the conversation a little longer than I was anticipating, but still, I'm a profession that I love, so I love talking about it and me too.

Seth Mills:

So when, when we start with all of that, I mean, man, it's it. When we talk about dealing with customers, it's not the customers that we're talking about. We're talking about all the day to day tasks and the, the miniscule things that add up, because there's so many small, small things that we have to do every day that make our jobs so much more tedious. If that could be automated, dude, I'd oh, man, whoo, I'd fly through the day, man, I'd be making double or triple what I'm making, absolutely If I didn't have to worry about all that small stuff.

Nik Dawson:

Well, I mean, and I don't even know if I know, we're kind of like all over the place right now, but I mean, I don't think that this takes away from this part. But this is kind of the same thing as your passive income. Yeah, you could have somebody else doing part of it for you. How many people in our generation right now, or any generation right now are willing to do what we're doing to make your passive income work?

Seth Mills:

Exactly yeah.

Nik Dawson:

No, I know you've had some hiring stuff. I've had hiring stuff where it just you've got some. I mean, for me it was a little bit different because I knew this is what I wanted to do 10 years ago.

Seth Mills:

Yeah.

Nik Dawson:

Very, very rarely does that happen. But 10 years ago I knew what I wanted to do, so I put anything and everything into this company so that way my boss at the time could take vacations, do everything Me, take a little bit of time but me help push things along.

Nik Dawson:

You can grow the company that you were at at the time. But something I thought about today, before we had this going on, is, from the very beginning he had the very like, the very thought he had every what's the word I'm looking for. He had every intention of me starting my own company. Never once did he go. You're going to work for me forever.

Seth Mills:

See, and that's, I think, what makes a good leader is they want their employees to be with them for a good amount of time, right, and train their replacement. But they also see the growth potential in their employees and want that in. Again. It goes back to our generation. There's growth potential in about, I'd be willing to say, 70% of our generation. The other 30% just want to sit and collect paycheck and there's nothing wrong with that, right? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I pay very well. My salary is $18 an hour for the company I'm starting in January. Right now, for my company, it's $20 an hour. So there's nothing wrong with sitting there and collecting a paycheck. But as a leader, you also have to push your employees to do better and, like you were saying, that's exactly what he was doing, right?

Nik Dawson:

Well, his thought was and I think is everybody's thought should be is if you want a person to put as much effort in going, hey, I don't want you here forever. I'd love to have you around, but I don't want you around forever because if you can do something on your own to do what I'm doing, to have a big house, big ass, you know truck, do what you need to do to learn from me. And for me I was like I don't know if that was reverse psychology or not, but like for me. I was like because I did both. I worked for somebody for five years, learned everything to start a company, but I felt like I didn't learn enough, so I went and did other things.

Seth Mills:

Absolutely.

Nik Dawson:

So I mean working on just getting a salary, doing whatever. If they were to like, hey, we want you to be around, but we really want you to do your own thing. Maybe that's the wrong way of looking at it as a business owner, but at the same time, you're giving them more incentive to do better.

Seth Mills:

Absolutely. You're giving them an incentive to learn on the job, continue learning on the job and as a leader, at least in that position and that role, you're wanting them to continue to push themselves, to thrive, while also growing your company, but also knowing at the same time that they won't be with you forever.

Nik Dawson:

So, yeah, let them know that they're. It's okay to leave. It's okay to leave. You're benefiting by learning all of this. You're benefiting yourself by helping benefit me now.

Seth Mills:

Absolutely.

Nik Dawson:

So for the long run it's going to do you better.

Seth Mills:

For the long run, you're going to succeed better than I have, or at least my company has to this point. Right, because once you have that employee that pushes others pushes to thrive and we'll get into this in another episode later down the road. But I used to work at Best Buy. I quit. I worked from, I believe, either 18 or 19 through 2021. So 2018, 2019 through 2021, right at 2021, when I started my company and he knew that I wasn't getting. He just like your manager at I don't know the name of the company, but Something pull surface.

Nik Dawson:

Yeah, exactly yeah.

Seth Mills:

But the issue that I had well or not issue. But the manager at Best Buy and I can say Best Buy because there's so many locations and he is now retired, so I don't think he cares and, honestly, if Best Buy is watching this, then props to me, because I built something that they're watching right, but he knew I wasn't going to be with the company forever. He actually, I don't know if you know this I'm blacklisted for working for Best Buy ever again. Congratulations. Yeah, I know it's very much an accomplishment, because I never want to work there again, just because of the toxic work environment and the corporate. You know it was Anybody watching this.

Seth Mills:

Do not go to work at Best Buy. The salary or the hourly is great. It's $15 an hour, at least when I was working there, up until I believe now, because I still have friends that work there. But anybody who works or who is thinking about working at Best Buy, there's Amazon, walmart's better, target's better, aliyahaba, no, but five guys, yeah, water, burger, taco Bell, I don't know. But don't go to work there because it's such a toxic work environment and that's the other thing. I cannot stand a toxic work environment. I think that it. Anyway, you know what? Anyways, as far as the toxic work environment goes, it will destroy the communication between the staff, the managers, the supervisors, because at Best Buy, they have managers, supervisors, they have general managers and then they have regular staff or at least that's how it was in 2021.

Seth Mills:

And so when I quit and again we'll get into it in a later episode it was a quite a nice exit for me. 20 minutes after I quit I'm not shitting you. I can post the screenshot on the video podcast. 20 minutes after I quit, I get a screenshot and a text saying what did you do? A screenshot was a Best Buy manager at my location on Facebook posting we are hiring immediately. If you walk in, about 95% chance you were hired on the spot.

Seth Mills:

Hiring today, seriously, yeah, so I put them in a tight position, but it was such a toxic again goes back to the toxic work environment such a toxic and it wasn't because of the staff that I was working with or my coworkers. About 80% of them were amazing and so and I still talked to a couple of them today they know who they are and they're the ones that made it amazing, with the exception of a few other people who made it amazing. Right. I put them in such a tight spot that they had to post and we are hiring immediately on Facebook and I say I'm not trying to let that get to my pride, but they posted it right. And somebody else texted me and they said hey, you were number two in the region of Texas for sales and credit card applications all year.

Seth Mills:

I don't know if that's why they had to hire people immediately, because I mean I was definitely I was, I was definitely I was number one in the store, me and another guy named I'll call him Steve. He knows who he is. His name starts with an, a, a wrong, yeah, a wrong. Steve me and him kept competing for number one in the the region and number one and two in the store. So they I mean we were competing back and like neck and neck one, two in the store, one and two in the region. We were going back and forth like one month we were all. One month I was number one. One month he was number one. We had all the district managers, the managers, the regional managers. I don't know what that was, but other people.

Seth Mills:

I know other people Reaching out to us and and saying, hey, good job, here's a gift card, a Best Buy gift card bonus, etc. And at this point I don't care if I give out confidential information as far as Best Buy goes, because at this point statue of limitations right.

Nik Dawson:

But what's it like getting a gift card to somewhere where you work?

Seth Mills:

It's really it's not great, to be honest, because I mean, I've already bought what I needed from With my employee discount, because we also got employee discounts, yeah, which I'm not going to disclose how much that was, because I do believe that was truly confidential information but it it definitely didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Yeah, if they would have given me like a $50 Amazon gift card or a $50.

Nik Dawson:

Whatever target, something to get you out of the damn store that you're working exactly.

Seth Mills:

So I mean it wasn't great and I can say this. The markup on items, I hope I can say it. The markup on items, man, it is insane. It makes me want to open an electronic store. And again, like you said, we've kind of gone all over the place, kind of just introducing both of us and like and our qualifications and things we've we've had happen to us. But, man, if there was another business and that makes me think even more so on what I'm opening in January If there was another business I'm gonna get into other than that one. It's gonna be an electronic store because the markup on items through the roof Do it. I mean there were a couple of things we didn't get discounts on, right, and it was your major manufacturers such as, like Apple, sony, samsung, stuff like that, but I mean 90% of the stuff in the store.

Seth Mills:

Again, I'm not gonna get into how much of a markup. Man, I wish we were back then. Yeah, I know shit. I wish I needed all of this stuff for the podcast back then. It would have saved me a. You know how much I spent on it. I spent within the what the last two weeks I've spent over about thirty five hundred dollars getting everything together for this podcast and it's still not perfect. I mean the headphones, some of the lights. You can see it in the top right corner above him.

Seth Mills:

You can kind of see the edge oh yeah, I know I need to get some more equipment for it, but or at least if you're watching the video podcast, not the audio podcast. But Dude, that thirty five hundred would have gone a lot, lot further if I would have worked for Best Buy currently. It's crazy.

Nik Dawson:

It'd have been nice, it would have been, but I know you got a meeting to get into here soon or a phone call, so a couple phone calls, especially now that I forgot but then remembered that Two years, two years, two years. Congratulations, brother, congratulations. I'm sure I will have you on a another podcast episode very soon.

Seth Mills:

Thank you for joining me, and Anything else you'd like to say, stay classy, I don't know. Hey, stay classy.

Seth Mills:

We will see you guys in the next episode of Astrocraft grow, influence, invest and we will be talking a little bit about how we got started and what we doing, or what we're doing and how far we've come. High school versus A college student, high school dropout basically high school dropout yeah, versus being in college still, and kind of going back and forth on. If Either of them had a little bit of play to our success, advantages, disadvantages.

Nik Dawson:

Absolutely. People we work with or around that We'll get into that. Absolutely, I've got, I've got some fun stories, even from conversations that I've had today. So yeah, me too.

Seth Mills:

So, once again, thank you guys for tuning in to Astrocraft grow, influence, invest and we will see you guys in the next episode.

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Seth Mills

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