New Series: Teach and Tradesperson off for the summer.

Follow me as I show what goes on during the summer. From starting a business and preparing for a new school year? How will it pan out? Will I be stressed out or piss off my love ones? Well lets see. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today we're going to start a new series. I am officially done for the summer. As you know, I teach at a local CTE school, high school, and it has ended. I am off until August 29th. So, with that, being off, this is the first time as a tradesperson experiencing that. I cannot sit still. So, as you've been seeing, uh I've been trying to start my own business. It's been going on for about a year. In the beginning, right? Just let you know, you saw me since the beginning. In the beginning, I had this business plan, thought it was amazing, and it was horrible, apparently, because I'm not getting any customers. I was trying to do a strictly online training where you do CBTs, I would train you, I'll meet up with you. It didn't work. So I decided to do a different path. When I left my last company, I will be honest, not to be conceited, but I was a pretty good troubleshooter, and I also trained others there. So I thought, since I'm a trainer and I know how to train, 17 years in the military as a train as a teacher, and now I'm teaching for a CTE, which makes me want to open something like that. So let me show you what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is my different things. Here is my business website. This is my website. This is my contracting. Let me go home. This is my home website. I have with a couple partners is a Tech Train Solutions Service Division, right? That's my contracting. This is where I'm doing residential, commercial, industrial. I have military veteran discounts. I'm provide quick responses to the realtors. And what I'm trying to do is as a veteran-run business, by the way, I am offering discounts to veterans and first-time customers. What I'm looking for is to help you out with residential from services all the way up to rewiring whole house, commercial, which I prefer to do, uh, but I'll take anything that comes aboard. And my specialty, which I love, is the industrial world where I want to fix your machines, I want to keep your machines running, I want to install the machines, I want to help you with my expertise along with my two counterparts. We are and have over, if you count all the bodies, we have over 71 years of experience. That is great. A lot of initiative, a lot of brain power here to provide a service for you. That's where, again, I came from nowhere. I wanted to find something, I wanted a teaching. I left my last job and I decided to start a business. I never, never wanted to start a business, but now I have decided to start a business. Two, by the way. And I didn't want to do two, but I have to because when I got insurance. Funny thing is, I had insurance for a little bit of time. And the insurance, apparently, someone looked at it, I wasn't really covered for everything I was doing. So I went out and tried to get more coverage. I went to a couple different places, and they went, Yeah, we can't cover you. I'm like, I was shocked. They would not cover me because I have, as you see my website, I have contracting. My intention was to go to your plant, go in there, fix your machines. As I'm fixing your machines, I would provide training. That's what I would provide to train your guys how to do it. But now I had to separate the business. So I would have to keep them separated. What I'm still doing, even from the beginning, is I'm going to offer industrial training, workforce development consultation, which I would help you with your maintenance team. Or if you don't have maintenance, we can provide maintenance service for you. And another thing I wanted to do was go in your plant and do an industrial electrical training audit, see what you're lacking, see what you should have to help you better equip your guys. And this is something new that I decided to do. It's an eight-week boot camp with no knowledge to make you better. So that's what I wanted to show you. That's everything that got me started in this world, right? Once I got left the last company because of reasons, I left. I was kind of shocked. I was kind of pissed, to be honest with you. I'm like, I'm gonna start my own business. And with that, I've started a YouTube channel, which you're seeing now. I've done multiple other things, the two businesses. I'm using my own money, by the way, at the moment. It's not helping out. Luckily, I've done a few jobs, um, friends and family, which helped support some of it. License, of course. But what I wanted to show you was my insurance, right? This is I'm talking about. Let me get that up. Let me get that up for you. See here. So, with that, let me go. Right monitor, that should be this one. What's going on here? Alright. Hmm. So, what I wanted to show you was oh, that's why. I'm not truly doing a left or right. I thought I was. Let me fix that. One second, almost there. Okay. I wanted to show you. There. This right here is insurance for the training side. I need insurance strictly for training. Look at the cost to provide good training and give you what you need and also provide us coverage in case something happens. I have to pay per year sixteen hundred dollars a year. That doesn't include Workman's Comm. Luckily for us, we're three business owners that do not get paid. We get paid through the business. Uh, so technically we're not employees, uh, but we're helping our calls. Now, I do want to hire within a year, but this is the cost right there. $1612 is the cost. That is the one for that one. Specifically is for oh, wait, not training, sorry. No, that is for training. Uh is my training insurance. Let me see if I can find my other insurance. Let's see here. Uh I don't see it. My my other insurance, that one was, I think, $1,400, maybe a little more, for contracting. And that does not include uh the cost for workman's comm, which eventually I'm going to have to do. Let me show you the quote of the workman's com. Let me see if I have it still up. Give me a second to look for it. Workman's Com, where you at right. Ownership. Here you go. Canva. Amazon. Oh, not there. So I was looking at Workman's Comm. That cost is $204 for a month. That's what that cost is. Let me show you. Not seeing it. Alright. Trying to I was trying to find that bid that I got from where is it? Oh, there it goes. Nope, wrong one. So needless to say, the workman's con was $204. Now I could have got a ghost workman's con, which I really don't need because I'm not technically an employee. I'm working for myself. I don't need it. I just wanted to see what it costs because I told you, within a year, I want to hire a certified journeyman. I want them to be the bomb to kind of run things uh during the week, and then second shift, I would help out, and then during the summers, I would also help out. That will hire one within a year, and then I want to hire a second. Of course, I would like to have a helper with that person. That's what I would envision in the future. So, with that, I need to make money. So I started contracting residential, commercial, industrial. Uh, didn't want to do it first, but now I am. I ripped that band-aid, I'm doing it, I'm back in it. Uh now I'm gonna go to each township, get their license in each township. I'm gonna start with uh Middletown Township, Aston, Brookhaven, and then expand from there. That is my intention to do that. Let me see if I have it up here. Nope. That was my intention. So that's what I'm about to tell you about after I'm finished teaching, this is what I'm doing. I'm gonna go out there and fix your house. I'm gonna go out there and fix your building. I'm gonna go out there and fix your machines, get it running, and also provide training. I'm able to teach you basic LCs all the way up to intermediate level. I can also teach you how to be an electrician from start to finish. That's why I want to start an apprenticeship program. Now, at the moment, it would just be a pre-apprenticeship program. But the reason why, I'm telling you, as a poor kid in North Philadelphia, right, my family had to work two jobs, they make food on the table. This is during the Reagan time, right? And I'm sure you're Reagan fans, it's cool and all, but you killed the uh poor people. Jobs were sent overseas. My mom was told to train at Aon, which trained her counterpart from India. She just said quit instead. All the jobs going overseas, so that time was tough. So my family had to work multiple jobs just to make food on the table. I wouldn't see my mom or dad until 6 o'clock at night. So I had free reign. Guy with ADHD, I hardly ever did my homework. I just did it right before class started. So I was a C guy. I was C's because I really had no focus, because I had no direction. Their fault. My mom's amazing. She raised me up as a single mother because my real father is a Rolling Stone, never really home. I just traveled all over the world, the United States, left us there. My mom just worked her butt off. She worked as a waitress. We did collect welfare. Welfare, by the way, is amazing. Amazing stuff, welfare cheese. I don't know if it's still out there, but it's so delicious. We had powdered milk, we had eggs. Uh my mom was in the system. We would collect from that. That helped us out very much being poor kids because my mom was a waitress. It was hit and miss in North Philadelphia, technically Kensington, right underneath the yellow. She was a waitress there. I forget the name of the waitress of the restaurant. But she worked there, she worked her bone off, right? And then she finally met my future uh stepfather. Still wouldn't let him put any money towards the family. She's like, I don't want any money until we get married because that's not who I am. So we were still struggling. My dad, my stepdad, my real dad, he worked as a truck driver for Mason Dixon Line, I believe at the time. He was working there before they closed down. So he worked at Mason Dixon Line. He did other jobs. When I closed, he was doing multiple things. He worked at Pretzel Factory. But needless to say, when they got married, my dad finally partaked trying to help us out. Remember, we got, I don't know if I told you, but we have four siblings, not including the step siblings. Four, that makes six. Six feet mouse he has to feed. My mom's helping. But man, we were hungry. We ate, shoot, we used to make up things. I used to make bread, right? Butter and sugar. Bang, done. Or I make bread, butter, and A1 sauce just to feed ourselves because we were starving all the time. But knowing that, being from that world and seeing that and seeing the outreach that's not out there for inner city kids, getting better, by the way, or poor kids like I was, I see a need to fill a gap too. It's starting to fill up more, but my need is to help out. That's why I want to start an apprenticeship. Now, of course, I'm going to make money, uh, but at the same point, I want to be an amazing program, get you trained, get you out there working. Um, I'm hoping my contracting side starts kicking butt so I can start hiring within and then filling that that way. Because my intention for my company is you're gonna make $55 an hour, right? You should make $55 an hour because what I need you to be is one of the smartest guys in the room. And what I mean is I need you to be able to go into a plant off the training, by the way. I'm gonna send you a training, 90 days of training. Off that training, you should be able to go in the plant, look at, because we should look at the machines before we go in, by the way. That's how this works. So technically, if you call us, we need to go in, audit your machines, look at your prints, understand your machines, come up with our own troubleshooting guide, and then we can help out. But I want that guy, woman, to be the best. So what they're gonna be is they go in the plant, they look at the problem, they look at the HMI, and they're like, oh, it's a screen, by the way, that shows stuff. So look at HMI and off of that, have at least a concept of what the problem is. Sometimes you can't find it. Even the smartest people in the world have a hard time finding a problem, but at least you have a clue. That's what I want that person to be. Also to maybe work commercial, industrial, and residential. Because I'm not leaving any money on the table. That is the person I want to hire. So within. So why do I want to do apprenticeship? Because I want to fill the gap in the United States, right? We're hurting for trades, getting more. I want to fill that gap. Uh, number two for my business. And number three, for the residential commercial companies out there that just can't afford apprenticeships. I want to figure out how to make it reasonably priced and have you come and send your send your to me to get them trained. But for now, I have an eight-week boot camp. I can get them trained right now. They won't be journeymen, but they can at least do outlet switches, uh, all the other stuff that you won't need to watch them or have to train them. I could do it for you. So just contact me. Uh, this Tuesday, I'm gonna try to have a class. If no one shows up, I'll at least show up there, look pretty, or do a video of me teaching the class so you guys can see what I'm doing. So, this is what I'm talking about. This beginning of a school year is done. My first time ever experiencing this. I'm gonna try to make the most of it. Uh, I tell people my house is my trap, so I have to try my best to get out of it. Right now, I have no work, and it's kind of my I went on a vacation last week. I went to Disney World right after school, and I turned off my phone. And apparently I asked someone to look at a job. I wasn't able to get to it. He never showed up. I don't I don't blame him. You know, he's he got a lot of stuff going on. It is what it is, what it is. I'm not hurt by it. Just make sure he's not calling, yell at me. So that's what I'm talking about. So I missed that. I missed other calls uh because I was busy. I'm trying Yelp. Right? Yelp is a service. Let me show you my page. So I'm gonna share with you my page. Now, I'm trying not to do is show you my address. Sorry guys, I just don't want my address shown because I just don't feel let me see where I can see this. Uh back to okay. Let me view. Oh, there it goes. Let me show you. This is my page. Tech Train Solutions Service Division. What I have, again, is I have three amazing people. Uh, they are very good electricians. Uh we're not always able to respond to you, uh, but we are willing uh to help. Come there, give a a virtual consultation, a quote. Now that's another thing, too. I have a hard time doing pricing, but I'm working on that because I don't want to rip people off, and I also don't want to be ripped off. So this is my yep, it's okay. I've got to pay $4 a day. It's kind of getting old. Uh this is my plan. I'm a veteran-owned business. This is the couple jobs I've done in the past, along with my two other people. They've done this as you see here, my NFP 70 E gear. That's you know, when you're there, I can do installation replacement, repair, electrical inspections. Let me know. I can help you out. All right, I don't have any reviews yet, uh, because I keep telling I tell my buddies to do reviews, the ones who I did the work for. But this is one of the pages that I have in Yelp. That's what I'm doing. I'm doing during the summer. So I'm gonna try to keep you guys involved of what I'm doing to see it day by day. And I also have to go back to school to prepare for next year. Uh, we're making a lab book. I need to prepare my my lab next year. I'm gonna get materials and stuff like that. So I have to go back, I'll document that, have you be part of it. So this is what I'm showing. Right? So that's that's the bidding, right? I'm having a hard time learning how to bid. I'm trying my best to get better at it, right? Um, because one thing I gotta do is I gotta pay taxes. Okay. Let me see if it's up here. I gotta pay taxes. Uh I have to pay insurance. Okay. Uh let me here. I'm trying AI, but personally, I I think their pricing's a little wrong. I'm just trying to look for the pricing I I I put on here. So if you guys can help me out, that'd be great to figure out the pricing. So here's the one thing I asked AI to help me out with. Let me show you. And if you agree or disagree, that's fine. Um, I'm working with partners to figure out what I want to do. So here, let me show you. So I asked AI, like I had to do a deck 14 feet under the underneath to run a conduit. It's uh for uh an outlet, and then I had to do a GFCI bare through, it's about 40 feet away, it's hard to get to. And I asked, what's the going price, right? They're asking typical pricing is 275 to 450, and if difficult routing, which it is, it's 450 to 700. I asked, well, I kind of knew I kind of already knew this. I kind of did back in the day, not now. So they're saying you need a waterproof receptacle, bell box, in-use cover. This is the underground service, right? This is the underground wire. So I got a couple things going on. This is the deck work, right? So I need a new outlet, bubble cover, GFCI protect it, uh, exterior box, proper support and protection, and test and label. That was 275, 450 for that job, you know, and then you know, getting away in there at 450 to 700. Sorry, that's underground wire. That's for that. Okay, using materials, it cost me about 130 for materials, but then we'll talk about the other job bathroom GFCI replacement. This house had extension cord to this location from the existing like extension cord. It wasn't even 14 wire, it was like 16 gauge. Initially, I left it and I was like, oh no, I can't do that. Because I'll be honest, I left it not thinking, I'm a back. I removed it. I'm like, look, use this. Uh so it's gone. I offered to install a new one, just didn't have the money yet, so that's fine. So, with that, they're saying if I'm only replacing the bathroom GFCI, it's 120 to 225 just for the GFCI. If they're adding a new bathroom receptacle, right, all the way from there, and I got to fish wires, I gotta go through that, which I'm gonna have to. It's a finished basement, $450 to $9.50 is probably what's gonna cost. All right. Uh so with that, I'm not gonna tell you what I charge because I worked on this some more, and that's what they're telling me to charge total. So I just wanted to protect myself. I got to pay for insurance, I gotta pay for other things, and this is the stuff I'm saying. Right, so let me see right here. Look at that journeyman, right? Two journeyman, one helper. Uh, I'm charging uh $125 per hour for the journeyman. Helper is uh $30, but total packets is $45. And this is what AI came up with, right? This is what they told me to estimate. I didn't do that. I just kind of used the template and then I used this other software. Let me see if I can pull it up. Simple wise, which is good, right? The pricing was a little off. I use this for bidding. Let me pull it up. Let's see if you see it. No, you can't see it. All right, simple wise. I've you've been using that, been sending quotes out. Let me see if I can find it here. It's been pretty good to me. All right, let's see. Simple wise. There it goes. So I've been using this lately, this tool. Let me hit an all out to use. Right right now, I'm just using the cost estimator. I don't need a receipt because my bank does that. And I really want this. I just can't have it right now because I can't afford it. I'm not really making much money. But this is what I've been using, and it seems pretty cool. Other companies like House Call Pro's been reaching out to me. Uh, they're like jealous ex girlfriends. They call you every two minutes, right? It's just like, whoa, hey guys, can you can you a little bit? Uh House Call Pro, they pull it up. Another company. Right, let me show you. Pop it up. I'm gonna try it free. This is House Call Pro. They're got different avenues, home, inbox, scheduling, customer, payroll, price book. You'll have to invent and put your own prices in there. And then uh specific jobs and stuff you can create, tracking, uh, helps you market. It seems like a pretty good tool. Seems like I have no problem using it. And I just don't know because you know, just because right now I can't afford any of this stuff. I'm not making enough. I am not insured in all townships yet. I'm doing Yelp, but some of the jobs are way far. I'm not Delaware, I'm not authorized for Delaware or New Jersey. I'm just strictly Delaware County right now. I don't know if I really want to go to Philadelphia because of the uh it's like $300 for license and then not include other things. It's just way too expensive for a new person starting out. So I'm not doing that. Uh it's not happening. So with that, that's that's that's doing the summer. I'm trying my best to become a really good uh electrician for everybody out there. But let me tell you some of the people that have been helping me. This is one company, right? Uh full group. These uh are helping me with the one commercial insurance. I got the other one through Berks. Uh they're a um Berkshire company because I had a separate company. I needed the contracting one right away. This one they got they uh they gave insurance for my business. A very good company. They're in Aston, Pennsylvania. Look them up. Um I enjoyed working with them. Very nice people. They are very helpful. Uh, there's another company I'm trying to find out that's really helpful too. They are let me see where they're at Swivel. That's what it is. Swivel. I wanted, I forgot that. Now, Swivel, they're newer, right? They're all right, Swivel.tech. They're a newer company. Um, really nice people. Um, probably joining our as you you know, I love talking, probably joining our podcasts to just hang out and have a conversation. But let me show you their software now. Just like House Call Pro, all right. So you have your uh dashboard, your scheduler, clients, right? Leads, customers, work orders, task is what people use when they go out in a job. They said jobs, estimate. I was messing around with an estimate, not doing very well with it. I'll have to get better. Invoices can make invoices, payments, and set up. Uh when I can afford it, I'll do the AI uh reception. And this, I need this right now. I have marketing all over the darn place, and nothing's happening. That's why I'm kind of canceling all of to better equip my finances for a push to try to do more work for you out there. So this is called swivel, swivel.tech. They're very good software. They gave me 1200 points to use tomorrow. I'm gonna talk to them. Uh, they want to know about my customers, my dealings, some history. I'm gonna have a conversation with them. They're gonna put me on their commercials, and uh, I'll join their podcast. I also asked them to join my podcast, which is on Sundays, which I might change for a later date. This is what's going on this summer. I will keep tracking and keep showing if I remember. I'm letting you know now I'm very forgetful. Very for when it comes to that stuff. That's why I do notes after notes after notes. Don't forget, I made a curriculum for the training that I'll probably start tomorrow. That is also happening. A curriculum, prints. I'm making a board out of felt, wood, and boxes to help you learn how to do single poles, three-ways, outlets, GFCIs, basic circuitry, series, parallel, stuff like that. That's what I'll be doing during the summer. During August 29th, at which time I'm hoping I am busy as all get out and I need to hire. I would love to hire, and also have a physical location because right now doing out of your home is not the greatest concept. I'll be honest, because I don't want my house to be known technically. Uh I like to be private to certain points. My wife likes to be private. Um so yeah, this is what I'm saying.