Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities

EP# 99: Illuminating East Tennessee: Daniel Coleman's Journey with Coleman Electric

• Skip Mauney & Daniel Coleman • Episode 99

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What makes Daniel Coleman with Coleman Electric a good neighbor?

Meet Daniel Coleman, the driving force behind Coleman Electric, as he reveals the electrifying story of his family's rich legacy in the electrical trade of East Tennessee. With a passion for residential electrical work and a desire to create an environment where skilled electricians flourish, Daniel shares how he built a company that stands as a beacon for quality service. From tales of his grandfather's mastery in multiple sectors to his father's renovation expertise, Daniel paints a vivid picture of the expertise and dedication that runs in his family. Uncover insights into the motivations that have kept his business thriving in a competitive industry, and why hiring professionals for electrical tasks is not just a luxury but a necessity.

Join us on a journey that explores not only the technical aspects of electrical systems but also the human side of running a small business. Daniel's candid reflections on the challenges of hiring qualified technicians and the financial hurdles during slow seasons offer a real-world glimpse into the stakes of his work. He intertwines these challenges with his love for adrenaline-pumping activities like dirt biking and kayaking, drawing parallels between these pursuits and the thrilling aspects of his career. This episode is not just an exploration of electrical safety misconceptions but a testament to a man's commitment to excellence and adventure.
To learn more about Coleman Electric go to:

https://www.colemanelectrictn.com/

Coleman Electric

(423) 430-7626






Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2:

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I personally don't touch anything electrical because I think it's all dangerous to do so I always call a professional. All dangerous to do so, I always call a professional. So if you're like me, you're in luck today, because I have the pleasure of introducing today your good neighbor, Mr Daniel Coleman, who is the owner operator of Coleman Electric. Daniel, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Hey Skip, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

Glad to have you. Hope you're having a good day.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely Day's been great.

Speaker 2:

Glad to have you.

Speaker 3:

Hope you're having a good day. Absolutely, the day's been great.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, Awesome. Well, as I said, I'm really excited to hear all about you and your company, because I'm the kind of guy that doesn't. I'm not a when it comes to electrical, I'm not a DYI, so I or D well, I'm sorry, Do it yourself. Was that D DYI? You're right, DIY. I'll do a lot of other things, but I don't touch electrical. So I'm sure our listeners are just as excited to hear from you. So, if you don't mind, why don't you start us off by telling us a little bit about your company?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. So Coleman Electric was started because I was the top technician at a residential company in Charlotte and historically, residential electricians once they kind of got to the top of their field they were in what we call the industry topped out. So their company couldn't, they couldn't figure out a way to pay them more and so they would end up transitioning to commercial and industrial. So the residential industry would lose those top guys.

Speaker 3:

And so it was really hard to keep really good people in the residential industry. So I got to that point and I was topped out at an electrician in Charlotte Great company, but still did have that top out, and so I decided that as long as I continue to make the company more money, I shouldn't have a top out. So I want to create a place for those electricians like myself that don't want to switch to commercial and industrial, that want to stay in residential and want to continually give the customer a better product and a better service by continually improving. And I want to provide a place for those electricians. So I started my own company.

Speaker 2:

Wow, Well, congratulations. That's interesting, actually, I could imagine. I mean, so you're garnering some real talent. Then I would think, because people aren't topping out but they're staying in residential.

Speaker 3:

Then I would think because people aren't topping out, but they're staying in residential. Absolutely yeah, we. That has been my goal since the beginning is pay the guys well and I don't have to worry near as much about customer service because I'm taking care of my guys, hiring the right people and they take care of my customers.

Speaker 2:

Very good, Very good Well.

Speaker 3:

Daniel, how did you get into this business? Got into the business from my dad was a general contractor and grandpa was a master electrician, very respected in the area back in the day. And so I, when I was young, I got the opportunity to do all the different trades. All the different trades and what I found out from working with my dad and also talking to customers with him doing estimates I realized the exact same thing that you kind of mentioned in the very beginning that most people are about the same as you, skip. They will do a lot of things themselves, but they will not do electrical oftentimes.

Speaker 3:

So me, as a kind of business minded all, I'm a business owner. This is why I want to start a business, because I want to provide people a great place where they can continue to grow in residential electrical and continue to offer that great service. But yeah, the actual reason I got into electrical is because I loved it and I didn't see that it was something that a lot of DIY people were messing with. I said so. That's a great service that I can specialize in and offer to people and go above and beyond for them, just like I do in anything else.

Speaker 2:

Very good, Well DIY. So you mentioned your grandfather and your dad. Did they have businesses in East Tennessee?

Speaker 3:

They did. Yeah, so my dad, my grandpa, has been long retired now and his was actually Coleman Electric too. He was the original Coleman Electric, oh nice. No, I never actually personally got to work for him. He was retired before I moved back to the area, but he was a way better electrician than I will ever be. He was a way better electrician than I will ever be.

Speaker 3:

I have more of the. He was commercial, industrial and residential. He was all around. I mean, a true master. My strength is I'm a residential master and I'm good at business, but as far as being a master on all three, no, he takes the prize on that. And my dad was just. My dad is one of those just absolute geniuses and just you know jack of all trades. And so he had a small renovation company in the area for a good 25 years and has a lot of good clients that would still love him to be doing their thing, doing his thing, but he has kind of semi-retired and only taken really small jobs. So yeah, I had a lot to look up to as far as you know how to take care of customers all the way from the very beginning.

Speaker 2:

And so it was a natural progression for me to one day start my own trade business Awesome, awesome. So In the electrical industry, are there any myths or misconceptions that you can think of?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, I'd say the biggest one is, especially in our area, is that just because your lights are on and the stuff you have plugged into is working, a lot of people think that that means my electrical system is fine. It might be old, but stuff is still working. So it's not broke, so don't fix it. We have that saying in the rural, in the country. It says if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And that is not true when it comes to electrical, because when it does break, it is not your lawnmower not working anymore, it is your house burning down and potentially losing loved ones. So it has a lot more serious consequences and the kind of misconception comes from okay, well, the stuff is still working.

Speaker 3:

What people aren't seeing, what us electricians see every day, is hey, you're not seeing how brittle that insulation is getting, how loose those connections are getting? Because those wires and that insulation, the stuff around the wires, does break down over time. Those outlets and switches, especially outlets, the longer we use them, the more abuse they see. They're just breaking down, breaking down, breaking down just like anything mechanical. So they do get wear and tear and all it is is one spark away. And what most people don't realize is the the breakers that you have in your home.

Speaker 3:

They will not. They're not designed to stop all fire, to stop, you know, a house fire. They're designed to trip under very certain conditions that don't necessarily mean stopping a house fire. Um, they, they were a big help fuses. But until you have the arc fault breakers the new and improved breakers that will trip at the slightest bit of an arc, at the slightest bit kind of of a spark, then your home is still very susceptible to house fires from outdated wiring because the breaker will not trip just because it's sparks and stuff like that. As, as somebody that got into it and got intrigued by it by sticking screwdrivers and stuff into outlets when I was a kid, I got shocked a lot and the breaker never tripped.

Speaker 3:

Wow, wow.

Speaker 2:

Wow, well, that's a really important misconception to straighten out, Cause I mean, like you said, that could be somebody's house burned to the ground.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's the best case, and the worst case is their life.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep, wow, good, good point. So, daniel, outside of work, what do you like to do for?

Speaker 3:

fun. Curse of being the guy that unless I am in doing something dangerous like dirt biking or whitewater kayaking or something that I am looking for, something like that I'm not having a whole lot of fun unless I'm with my family. So I love dirt biking, whitewater kayaking, I do car road racing on the track, so yeah, pretty much anything that gets that adrenaline going, kind of like working in a working in a breaker panel sometimes does. Yeah it's right up my alley, so electrician fit my role perfectly.

Speaker 2:

Wow, Intense fun. Absolutely that's good. So let's switch gears for just a second. Can you think of a hardship or a challenge you've gone through in your life that you overcame and when you came out the other side you were better from it? Absolutely, I mean.

Speaker 3:

I think this is going to be common among small business owners. I mean, everybody you know got in the business and you know, not necessarily thinking it was going to be easy but having no idea how hard it's going to be. To be easy but having no idea how hard it's going to be and running your own small business, especially in something like the trades and something as dangerous as electrical, it's not like I can just hire anybody and just hope they work out and then just fix it when it breaks or something like that. The technicians I'm hiring, if they do wrong, it's not that your cabinet got painted a different color, it's that, hey, you might not wake up the following day because you had a house fire or because you got shocked or your house might be burned down. Those are the consequences that I have to think about when I'm hiring somebody. So it takes the meaning of the phrase hire slow, fire, fast to a whole new level because of the disastrous consequences of potentially hiring the wrong person. So fortunately I never did that, but I did do the did do the common business mistake of, you know, not understanding the full overhead picture of everything as far as finances and the importance of marketing picture of everything as far as finances and the importance of marketing.

Speaker 3:

And so in that first year I mean that slow season hit, you know, february, like it always does January, february and we got real slow and I had to scrape and scrape and, you know, find business anywhere I possibly could to keep my guys, keep my guys working, whether that was, you know, working at my house, working at the shop, doing whatever. You know doing jobs that we normally might not take on for lesser pay, whatever, just to keep the lights on and keep the business rolling. And then learn from those mistakes and put systems in place and start spending money on the right things. You know training, marketing, you know overhead, things like that that are hard for a beginning business owner to justify. But then, as you go through the growing pains, you realize, hey, I can't do without them, they are absolutely worth the money. So, yeah, I'd say, climbing out of that natural hole that most business owners go through, that first or second year has been by far the best challenge and best growth challenge for me in my life.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think every entrepreneur has to go through that. I believe, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, well, very good. So, daniel, if you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners to remember about your company and about you, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

I would say above and beyond, for the customer to all levels. I mean there's nothing more important for us as a small trade company in a small city than customer service. Making money will come as long as we take care of our customers and our employees. So first, my first goal is to take care of my customers, and how I do that is by taking care of my employees and in turn they will take care of my customers. At Coleman Electric we put profit after customers after service. So I don't care if you know if we did something wrong at your house. You're not going to get pushback on coming back to fix that. You know we are human. We might mess up Technicians might mess up, but we're going to do everything in our power to fix it and make it right and leave you with that knowledge and confidence that we left you better than we found you, and we're going to go above and beyond, to the ends of the earth to make you happy and take care of you.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. I couldn't agree more with both. If you make your employees happy, they're going to work harder to make your customers happy, and if your customer's satisfaction is above and beyond profit, the profit will come. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Well for those of us that want to learn more, maybe give you a call If I've got an outlet that's not working or a major issue going on. How can we learn more about Coleman Electric?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so go to our website. We've got a beautiful website electric. Yeah, so go to our website. We've got a beautiful website that is ColemanElectricTN. Like Tennessee dot com. Go there. You can ask us questions. We've got a little chat bubble that'll go straight to our office manager and if they don't know the answer to the question, they'll reach out to the project manager or myself and we'll get back to you very quickly with a response. You can also check out all of our services on there.

Speaker 3:

There's a link to our Facebook, our Google business profile, where we are getting ready to cross one hundred five star reviews, so that's a very exciting moment for us. Yeah, and then you can always reach us by phone at 4 2-430-7626.

Speaker 2:

7626. Very good, very good, all right. Well, daniel, I know you're a busy guy, you've got a business to run, and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you being on our show and I wish you and your family and Coleman Electric all the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you, Skip. It was great to talk to you and we appreciate the opportunity and we look forward to serving you one day.

Speaker 2:

All right, well, thank you, and hopefully we can have you back on the show. Absolutely Thanks, man.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873. Thank you.