Why Startups Need Double the Cash You Expect

00;00;00;23 – 00;00;15;07
Unknown
Oh.

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;31;04
Speaker 3
Welcome. The Blue Collar startup, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the frontlines of life in the business of the trades. I’m your solo host today, Derek Foster from Dago Cleaning Systems here in Albany, New York.

00;00;31;06 – 00;00;51;24
Speaker 3
Mike is, knee deep in and some project work. So, covering for him today, and I’m super excited, to have our guest on the show, Andrew Wilkinson. So, without further ado, Andrew, why don’t you, introduce yourself and tell a little bit about your background and how you got into what you’re doing now?

00;00;51;26 – 00;01;10;22
Speaker 2
Well, thank you, Derek. I’m very, very excited to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for the last few weeks. And, well, so my background is maybe a little different than a lot of people, who kind of come on your show, my, a variety of backgrounds. So mine’s as a technologist. So I started my career as a Silicon Valley software engineer over a decade ago now.

00;01;10;25 – 00;01;27;22
Speaker 2
So did the San Francisco thing. Worked at big tech companies like Microsoft, Cisco Systems, the networking giant, and worked in a couple of startups. So I had at founded those startups I was working for, you know, other founders. We are in my 20s. And then, you know, and then kind of switched to technology investing for a few years.

00;01;27;22 – 00;01;41;09
Speaker 2
I did what they called venture capital. And, you know, I’m a big reader. And, you know, if you read a lot, eventually you think you want to write, you’re like, I could write a book. Yeah. I’m like, I could do this. Yeah. You you you look at you work with enough tech companies or at them, you know, startups.

00;01;41;12 – 00;02;01;15
Speaker 2
And when you you invest in them, especially, at least for me, I was like, well, can I do this? And so, started national trade tech, about 17, 18 months ago. And so we are an online trade school for the, the skilled trades. So we use virtual reality as a heavy part, you know, or try simulation as a heavy part of what we do.

00;02;01;17 – 00;02;14;26
Speaker 3
So what specific if there was a specific problem. But where did you see the opportunity in this. Because obviously your timing is very good with the way things are, are moving now. But what was the moment for you?

00;02;14;28 – 00;02;15;22
Speaker 1
It was it wasn’t.

00;02;15;26 – 00;02;37;17
Speaker 2
Necessarily a one single moment, I guess. You know, I’ve been kind of tracking, this I believe that everyone knew it. You think going around talking about at least in the US, right now, and I started noticing, a lot of my friends, people in my network, you know, you know, in these office jobs, these technology jobs were losing their jobs and they weren’t finding anything, and no one was hiring.

00;02;37;20 – 00;02;53;11
Speaker 2
Meanwhile, you know, my father was a tradesman, so I, I’ve always kind of had respect and fascination for the trade, sort of like, could I, could I do that myself? I was never, you know, as you know, go to my hands, you know, my mother. But I always have my brother built the furniture on. You’re young because he’s like, oh, Andrew, my kind of styles for the thing.

00;02;53;13 – 00;03;16;05
Speaker 2
So, so anyway, I, I always had always, like, been fascinated by the trades and then kind of noticing a couple of years ago, a lot of, like, people I knew just losing their jobs due to, you know, I fundamentally or their job being automated to some extent. Got me thinking. Well, there’s a massive shortage. And the more I looked into it in the, you know, the skilled trades, you know, everything from technician roles, we call it plumbers, electricians, everything.

00;03;16;05 – 00;03;31;01
Speaker 2
But even stuff. You girl. I mean think of like appliance repair technicians, like, you know, smaller scale if you don’t think about it. And so was like, well, you know, I’m ready to kind of I want to start a company. I was like, you have a four year old, right? And saw this opportunity. And so how can we do that?

00;03;31;01 – 00;03;36;11
Speaker 2
So that was, that was like I kind of the it’s like, guys, if you will.

00;03;36;14 – 00;03;50;01
Speaker 3
When, when you were, I guess starting and looking at this idea, did you interview any employers and in the trades to see what they’re struggling with the most?

00;03;50;04 – 00;04;08;07
Speaker 2
Yes. I, I was one of those kids in school who always did their homework, usually early and stuff like that, and did the extra reading if I could. Yeah. Like the professor, the teacher was assigned. So, yeah, I talked to everybody. I talked to you, you know, employers in the trades. I talked to some trade schools.

00;04;08;09 – 00;04;25;23
Speaker 2
I talked to, you know, government officials whose job is workforce development, as they call this, this part of this would go under that, and I talked to, like, nonprofits, think tanks. You kind of, you know, add this as part of their mandate. So I talked to everyone under the sun, and they all kind of point at the same thing, like, we have a mass shortage.

00;04;25;23 – 00;04;40;02
Speaker 2
I mean, I think the average age of a plumber in new Jersey, I learned, is 62 years old or something like that. There’s so much demand and there’s just not nearly enough people going into these trades and these skills, young people and and people who are looking for a career change, maybe they’re in their 30s or 40s.

00;04;40;02 – 00;04;48;16
Speaker 2
We get people like that all the time. And the demand is there, the jobs are there. The opportunity is there for anyone who wants to put in the work.

00;04;48;18 – 00;05;06;17
Speaker 3
So I have a bit of an icebreaker question for you before we get into the, the bulk of of the episode here. But if you were 18 years old again and had no college degree or college degree and doing it all over again and wanted to go into the trades, what trade would you choose and why?

00;05;06;20 – 00;05;24;00
Speaker 2
That’s a that’s, that’s a good one for me. I have a little bias. I, so I my, I studied, electrical, computer engineering, so definitely electrical electrician. I always loved electricity. If as a kid, my science projects were all electrical based. Yeah, I’d shock myself and stuff like that. So definitely electrical pathway.

00;05;24;02 – 00;05;30;02
Speaker 3
Okay. Very good. I stay far away from electricity. Yeah. Anything to do with it? I don’t touch it.

00;05;30;05 – 00;05;32;13
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;05;32;16 – 00;06;02;12
Speaker 3
Totally. Totally get it. So I want to talk about the state of the, the trades and in general, everybody’s talking about the labor shortage. You know, it’s no secret, finding staff or employees is always a topic of conversation. And there’s a lot of organizations that are working to to help with this. We have one here locally, the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition.

00;06;02;15 – 00;06;14;21
Speaker 3
They actually have their annual dinner coming up here locally. And, you know, we’re trying and part of our podcast is to try to echo, you know, some of the work that we’re doing and tie these pieces together. But

00;06;14;24 – 00;06;21;20
Speaker 3
from what you’ve seen and what you’ve read, how bad is the labor shortage? Really?

00;06;21;22 – 00;06;44;01
Speaker 1
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00;06;44;04 – 00;06;57;09
Speaker 1
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00;06;57;12 – 00;07;03;02
Speaker 3
from what you’ve seen and what you’ve read, how bad is the labor shortage? Really?

00;07;03;04 – 00;07;24;21
Speaker 2
It’s really bad. I think, honestly, the, the official statistics are under representing, we get we talk to employers, they can’t find people who have any skill training or any sort of training or certification at all. And they’re always hiring, like most most players in these fields are always hiring. They always want people.

00;07;24;23 – 00;07;39;27
Speaker 2
And yeah, we get reached out to actually we call it call, I don’t know, Alice. And I find us saying, hey, do you have any graduates in our area or are you going to have any graduates in our area? You know, we interview them. So that happens on a like weekly, biweekly basis. Just people, you know, the players in these fields, finding our website.

00;07;39;29 – 00;07;48;28
Speaker 2
So really makes you think there is a very the shortage is real. It’s getting worse by the day pretty quickly.

00;07;49;00 – 00;08;07;20
Speaker 3
Yeah I agree. And you know, everything that we’ve heard, it’s it’s a major problem right now. What trades are you seeing the most demand or what trades are in the greatest demand currently? From your standpoint?

00;08;07;22 – 00;08;23;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so we’re, so I have a interesting data on that because we’re, we’re actually so we’re national. All right. So we’re we’re in about 22 states right now where you want to be in all 50 states. So we but we get requests with the relationships of local governments across the United States, from the East Coast, all the way to the West Coast and in between.

00;08;23;29 – 00;08;44;28
Speaker 2
And there they all kind of come to us of different types of training or skilling they need and their needs and such. So yeah, definitely what we hear a lot of is electric, some electrical sales, Highland demand. You’re not just your traditional, pathway, but yeah. Even like, you know, working in factories or maintenance, you know, roles and industrial, you know, you need does electrical skills.

00;08;44;28 – 00;09;01;25
Speaker 2
You may not have to be a full master electrician, like, we have ten years of training or whatnot. But you but they need people who have the basics and such. You know, we get we got call from the state of Kansas the other day, one of their, employers, a large manufacturer, was looking for people who had some electrical background.

00;09;01;27 – 00;09;17;21
Speaker 2
So electrical is definitely a big one. And the other one we get a lot of calls about is HVAC. So that that comes up quite a lot too. So those are probably our two most popular programs at this point in time. I mean, it’s very, very knocking on the door yesterday.

00;09;17;24 – 00;09;45;17
Speaker 3
You know, those are the ones that we, we we’ve had a number of HVAC, business owners on the show and, a lot of fantastic stories there. You know, we’ve highlighted a number of different careers, obviously, you know, anything to do with construction, carpentry, building things. But what are some of the, the more overlooked, trades opportunities by young people that you’re seeing?

00;09;45;17 – 00;09;56;21
Speaker 3
You mentioned appliance repair, so I yeah. What are some of those that you see is being overlooked currently but could be huge opportunities down the road in the next five, ten years.

00;09;56;23 – 00;10;14;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the appliance repair is a big one. No one thinks of it because it is a smaller trade in general that no one it’s a trade. No one thing. So so this is, you know, fixing refrigerators, dishwashers, you know, anything in your house, basically that breaks the guy, guys or girls who come out to fix the fix stuff.

00;10;14;08 – 00;10;30;00
Speaker 2
And so people don’t really think of that as a trigger. It doesn’t really come up, but it’s very wild because, we get calls. So, for example, whenever we have students in Alaska, we are told there’s like a town in Alaska of 20,000 people that had the state officials who manage the workforce board for that, that area.

00;10;30;06 – 00;10;46;05
Speaker 2
We’re like, there’s only one appliance repair, person in the entire for the entire town of like 20,000 people. I never like that guy. So that’s what, you know, works whatever he wants. So he makes as much money as he wants, and he could charge, you know, any of them. Not only like, you know, and we get that message over and over again.

00;10;46;08 – 00;11;02;11
Speaker 2
So that’s one I would definitely bring to people’s attention. It’s, you know, you can and, and that one’s really cool because there is you could, you know, it’s very low risk. Right. Like, yeah, you know, you’re not working on big aspect where you can go in at the, you know, entry level from our course and start your own company pretty easily.

00;11;02;13 – 00;11;10;07
Speaker 2
If you’re in a more rural area, you can run some Google ads and you’ll get business within a week. We’ve had people do that.

00;11;10;09 – 00;11;15;08
Speaker 3
That’s amazing. You’re reaching Alaska. Yeah. It’s just incredible.

00;11;15;11 – 00;11;26;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, yeah, we’ve been trying in Hawaii. I keep trying to, you know, interested. I have to take a business trip to Hawaii, you know, for a for the good of the company, of course. But I’m I’m working on that.

00;11;26;14 – 00;11;41;01
Speaker 3
It’s amazing. So from, you know, graduates that are are leaving trade schools, what are some of the realistic first year earnings that the trades can you know on average what can these these students expect.

00;11;41;03 – 00;11;59;28
Speaker 2
Yeah I mean it depends where you are. So you know probably average yellow 20 years starting. And I but we’ve had people in like expensive states like California being the big one. We had some I start like 31 or 32 an hour. They’re now obviously more expensive. It’s not. Yeah. You’re gonna make that start starting off in, like, Louisiana.

00;12;00;06 – 00;12;16;08
Speaker 2
But, you know, you’re on you’re starting at, you know. Yeah. Low 20s. But you go up fast. So people I know people always think of the starting wage in these careers. But in a few years, you’re making 40 plus an hour. You have overtime options, you benefits. It just kind of goes up and up and up. And if you want to, you can start your own company.

00;12;16;14 – 00;12;28;29
Speaker 2
You know, as you’re as I was a year out has shown over and over and then you can you can do very, very well financially India under a decade. So yeah. You know so starting lower 20s but it just goes up.

00;12;29;01 – 00;12;40;19
Speaker 3
It’s good good opportunity for somebody that’s young and fresh out of school. And and without the debt of college I would imagine.

00;12;40;22 – 00;12;41;09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;12;41;11 – 00;12;52;16
Speaker 2
Oh, definitely. We, we, we get calls from people who are considering both options or even in know more traditional and, you know, facility, you know, in-person, schools and.

00;12;52;19 – 00;12;53;07
Speaker 1
That but the.

00;12;53;07 – 00;13;00;28
Speaker 2
Tuition is they say to us it’s just wild. It’s like five, six times. It really blows my mind.

00;13;01;01 – 00;13;21;06
Speaker 3
Now, you mentioned business ownership, so I can’t help but ask because obviously, one of our goals here for the show is to show and highlight stories of folks who have moved from a career in the trades to having a side hustle. But really, that side hustle, you know, pays off when somebody is able to take the leap and jump in full time.

00;13;21;12 – 00;13;29;11
Speaker 3
Yeah. Do you offer or do you guys offer a business component as part of the courses? And I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit later as well.

00;13;29;13 – 00;13;46;01
Speaker 2
Yeah we do. So our, so we do a little bit. But our, our programs are mostly designed to get people into the fields and get them the entry level. But we do we do have some modules and our instructors, do you kind of focus on as well, customer service, which obviously working with customers is a part of your business?

00;13;46;06 – 00;13;50;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. You as the business, how are you’re you’re selling you’re working with customers, at least for the.

00;13;50;04 – 00;13;50;29
Speaker 1
The.

00;13;51;01 – 00;14;05;21
Speaker 2
The early and mid stages of your company, maybe the whole lifetime of your company. So customer, customer skills and communication skills, we work very heavily with them as part, as part of our training.

00;14;05;24 – 00;14;09;22
Speaker 3
Some of the most important things being able to communicate.

00;14;09;24 – 00;14;23;03
Speaker 2
I very much agree. It’s something we get feedback from employers, even when they can find people who have the technical skills. They, they some of them just don’t know how to handle customers and they can’t hire them. They have to let them go. They don’t know how to work with the customer.

00;14;23;05 – 00;14;53;21
Speaker 3
It’s funny. I always think we had, a gentleman by the name of Max story on the podcast a while back, and I don’t know if you’ve read any of of his material, but, you know, he’s got a whole set of books, for people who are looking to, to better themselves and grow themselves. And he, he says, you know, you have to be able to sell yourself first before you can sell everything and sell anything else, you know, build your own brand, your own personal brand, which is, you know, in my opinion, absolutely extremely important.

00;14;53;23 – 00;15;01;10
Speaker 3
Being able to do that, just do the little things right and then eventually molding yourself into what you want to become.

00;15;01;13 – 00;15;05;17
Speaker 2
But I couldn’t agree more. I need to check out his work. Thank you for the recommendation.

00;15;05;17 – 00;15;34;17
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. He’s got some great stuff out there. So kind of transitioning into, you know, the modern aspect of trade education because obviously what you’re doing is somewhat newer, to the market. So why don’t you talk a little bit about national trade tech and, and some of the things that you guys are doing that differs from maybe some of the the two year college programs that you’ve seen and some of the parallels with those programs.

00;15;34;19 – 00;15;35;17
Speaker 1
Yep. Yeah.

00;15;35;18 – 00;15;43;00
Speaker 2
So at National Trade Tech, what we are is we’re building, truly national. So we want to be in all 50 states and online trade school.

00;15;43;01 – 00;15;46;01
Speaker 1
So, you know, not everyone, you know.

00;15;46;08 – 00;16;05;12
Speaker 2
Nothing around of in-person, schools, obviously they’ve worked very well. You know, we think, one there’s a huge there’s they can’t sell the demand, by themselves within two, especially transportation issues, especially in a lot of the US getting those, places, really, is a big challenge for a lot of people. I’m actually more rural areas.

00;16;05;12 – 00;16;28;25
Speaker 2
I just signed up a few, students today in a more rural part of Nebraska. So, if we see ourselves as a complement to kind of those in-person schools. So what we do is it’s, it’s a combination of we give every student a laptop and a virtual reality headset. So that’s included. We just ship anyone who rolls into our program, gets a new laptop and a new virtual reality headset, the Meta Quest three, as if you played with us.

00;16;28;25 – 00;16;47;29
Speaker 2
They’re very, very cool. Technology has gotten very good meta. But, you know, billions of dollars into making it like pretty cool. And so what it is are programs. So we have a number of programs in the trades. We do everything from HVAC, which is our original to, you know, electrical technician, plumbing technician facilities and property maintenance technician, appliance repair.

00;16;48;01 – 00;17;05;08
Speaker 2
We’re always working on new, programs. We develop everything in-house from scratch. We’re actually we’re actually working on a data center technician program. One of the trades of the future, if you will. There’s a lot of demand for that, and we’ll be. I see it’s not going away. Unfortunately or fortunately. So a lot of need there as well.

00;17;05;10 – 00;17;25;05
Speaker 2
So our programs are, 3 to 6 months, in length. And, people can they’re designed for flexibility so people can. Yeah. They don’t have to sign in or log in to class from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or anything like that. So a lot of people who need flexibility, their life, actually a lot of adults, once you’re, you know, once you’re working, you have a family, you have other stuff going on.

00;17;25;07 – 00;17;39;04
Speaker 2
They just work through a number of modules every week at, you know, whatever they want night, day, whenever with live instructor support and in virtual reality simulations, which are very, very cool. And I hope everyone comes into our website kind of see you through this version. Player out of it. It’s it’s it’s kind of like a video game.

00;17;39;04 – 00;17;42;03
Speaker 2
And people really love the virtual reality.

00;17;42;05 – 00;18;08;11
Speaker 3
So how now the virtual reality and and forgive me if I, I’m messing this up, but does that give the student hands on experience of what it would be like in the field, let’s say for an appliance repair technician of what it’s like to actually work on a piece of equipment, or is it more for them to be a, you know, virtually in a classroom setting with the professor or what have you there?

00;18;08;14 – 00;18;25;11
Speaker 2
No. Excellent question. So when I say virtual reality, yeah, they’re not in a virtual classroom. Yeah. Sitting in a lecture hall or whatever, virtually or even in person is not. I think that the toy to learn and academics and studies have shown being lectured at for an hour, with a blackboard is actually not that efficient or effective at teaching.

00;18;25;13 – 00;18;44;26
Speaker 2
No, these are full. You’re on the job. They’re very, very cool. You the way it works is you you put on the headset, you can go in and. Yeah, you’re you’re in a scenario whether, you know, a boiler issue, an HVAC issue. You have the punch ticket. Yeah. The customer or this that they can’t. The heating doesn’t work, the air conditioning doesn’t work.

00;18;44;29 – 00;19;03;10
Speaker 2
And then the simulations, they walk you through step by step. What to do? They say, okay, I go here and you move around in the VR, you go look at the HVAC, you go down to the basement. It is a fully reconstructed like this. You know, the facility, you go, you you you take off, you know, has you everything from taking off the cover of the HVAC unit.

00;19;03;13 – 00;19;26;26
Speaker 2
Or let me up, unscrew this. Here’s your tools, and it walks you through initially, step by step. You get it. And our simulations are very detail equipment. It’s not like these blocky. It’s very high resolution, very detailed, views of the components of these systems. So that HVAC unit or electrical circuits, etc.. And then you go through and it walks you through, you know, what you should test for.

00;19;26;26 – 00;19;42;17
Speaker 2
Okay. Here, here’s your multimeter, here is etc.. Yeah. Okay. What are you gonna do? You’re gonna turn this off, and you go through it step by step, with the software guiding you through as you end this virtual reality simulation. But then we know and we have, like, you know, each program has like, you know, 15 plus of those.

00;19;42;17 – 00;20;00;21
Speaker 2
So different scenarios, different troubleshooting issues, but also we start taking away the instruction. So we just say, here’s your ticket. Yeah. You got a job order. This house has an HVAC issue. Go figure it out. So then you know you know by the end of the series of simulations in the class, there’s no there’s no instruction there. Just here’s the situation.

00;20;00;21 – 00;20;06;28
Speaker 2
What are you gonna do? Figure it out, fix it and do it safely and you’ll be scored. And the system will measure you on that.

00;20;07;01 – 00;20;17;22
Speaker 3
So I don’t want you to give away any of, your secrets here, but I have to ask, where. How is that? How are you creating that content? To me, that’s just incredible.

00;20;17;24 – 00;20;41;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it’s it’s. I’m not going to lie. It’s very time consuming. So we do it all in-house, so we create all the contact in-house. So we have, we have, specialist, in virtual reality development, you know, simulation development who actually go build lot by block, who then work with our, we work with a number of master, tradespeople, you know, for all different programs we develop, to actually go through situation by simulation.

00;20;41;13 – 00;21;00;28
Speaker 2
They give us, they tell us what’s, you know, what to do. What the what what what what the situations are that anyone at the entry level should know how to handle and be experienced in, and we work hand in hand with them. I do we do iterations, and we don’t just do it once and then like say, okay, the program’s release, we actually revamp our simulations or improve them both graphic wise and realism wise.

00;21;00;28 – 00;21;17;23
Speaker 2
But also, you know, and we always employers tell us about more situations. They want, to our students to know about how to handle, a big one is heat pumps HVAC program. Initially you have heat pumps, but we start getting employers saying, hey, I would like you out. Yeah. If you’re person you about you know, and you find also the key Thompson.

00;21;17;23 – 00;21;30;19
Speaker 2
So we started building simulations around that. We can test so we can update our courses very quickly. And we do that at least twice a year from a graphics perspective, a real but also having all sorts of simulations, what they’re going to do on the job.

00;21;30;21 – 00;21;39;11
Speaker 3
That’s amazing. So how often are you getting that feedback from employers? Is that like an ongoing conversation that you’re getting or feedback that you’re getting?

00;21;39;14 – 00;21;55;29
Speaker 2
It’s mostly ongoing. Yeah. So we we have employers who’ve hired our graduates that tend to want more of our graduates. And then we also have I have a customer advisory board, actually, it’s a very useful thing. So we have, you know, contacts a on this advisory board, you know, people who’ve been on the trades for a long time.

00;21;55;29 – 00;22;15;04
Speaker 2
You, it’s all sizes of small, medium, big sized companies of the trades. And we can go to them and ask them, you know, like what? You know, a year you run a training program for, you know, a 1000 person property management company, or, you know, what are issues that you would love to be addressed. And so we we get that feedback constantly.

00;22;15;07 – 00;22;33;21
Speaker 3
So what certifications matter most to the employers. Are they looking are there different levels to the programs. And you know, how does a student go from starting a course to, I guess, graduating or being deemed competent in that area of study.

00;22;33;23 – 00;22;55;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So each program you know each each trade has certifications, national certifications that are what employers are looking for. And these certifications aren’t easy to get right. You have to take usually multiple or technical examinations. For that reason we we we we we that’s part of our program. And so we, you know, depends on the trade, but an even bigger one is the ETA six elite universal for HVAC.

00;22;55;02 – 00;23;16;00
Speaker 2
So that’s a license, in the United States to, purchase, handle, dispose of coolants and refrigerants obviously critical to entry evaluation, for your trade profession. So that’s a big one that is, you know, nationally require that we get our students. And again, it’s a multi our technical examination. It’s not not trivial at all. But we get our students, we get them ready for it.

00;23;16;06 – 00;23;37;20
Speaker 2
We tutor them and we get them through it very, very quickly. So stuff like that are what employers are looking for. Because it, it makes them much higher level on the spot. We’ve actually that’s the NCO going interview. We get hired on the spot. You know part. Yeah. In part because of their knowledge, but also because they’ve proven their knowledge by having these certifications that are not the easiest to get.

00;23;37;22 – 00;23;53;09
Speaker 3
So cool. So in your opinion, I guess what from the students that have gone through your courses, what separates the successful, students from those who maybe struggle a little bit with the courses?

00;23;53;11 – 00;24;10;24
Speaker 2
Frankly, it’s the hunger to, to just better themselves and to to to do work. Right? So we get people who who sign up, who maybe aren’t the most motivate, self-motivated people, and they kind of, you know, struggle more. They don’t put that extra effort in. They don’t take advantage of our live instructors. They just, you know, maybe can’t be bothered.

00;24;10;24 – 00;24;29;03
Speaker 2
I. Yeah. And but doing it people who are very driven, they get through the program in record time and they get a job within a week or two, sometimes within days of graduation. But they’re very on top of it. Their response, if they’re using the instructors that we have, they’re doing the virtual reality simulations over and over again, so they really know their stuff.

00;24;29;05 – 00;24;37;19
Speaker 2
You can just tell they’re hungry for it and they’re they’re yeah, yeah. I don’t want to say work ethic, but that’s kind of what it is. They’re just very driven, motivated people, self-motivated.

00;24;37;21 – 00;24;39;07
Speaker 1
So that work ethic.

00;24;39;10 – 00;24;43;24
Speaker 3
You know, is more important than actual technical ability?

00;24;43;27 – 00;25;04;10
Speaker 2
I think so, especially at least at the entry level that we train for. And from what I hear from employers, they always ask, like, you know, you can find something is going to show up on time. You have a good attitude and is willing to learn and put in the work. They’ll hire them. So the I would say that even more, the type of you’re willing and eager to work and to learn and to, you know, you know, put in the effort.

00;25;04;13 – 00;25;14;26
Speaker 2
I don’t think there’s any even outside the trades. And, no, there’s a career you can’t do well in. But it does take work, which some people, yeah, you know, struggle with the different parts of their lives. We’ve all been there.

00;25;14;28 – 00;25;21;19
Speaker 3
Very cool. So shifting gears a little bit, into AI technology and the trades.

00;25;21;19 – 00;25;38;07
Speaker 3
So national trade tech teaches AI fundamentals alongside the trade programs if I’m correct. So you know, from your perspective, how was I changing the trainings.

00;25;38;10 – 00;26;02;06
Speaker 1
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00;26;02;09 – 00;26;18;09
Speaker 3
So national trade tech teaches AI fundamentals alongside the trade programs if I’m correct. So you know, from your perspective, how was I changing the trainings.

00;26;18;12 – 00;26;37;04
Speaker 2
Excellent question. And so we do we do offer computer trades as well. And that actually came from the request by state governments. So like the state of Oregon, for example, was a big proponent of there’s some states that are really pushing, to get their get their populations and their workforce. Similar to, I say, eyes like electricity, right?

00;26;37;04 – 00;26;58;17
Speaker 2
It cuts across every industry, every every career, every job. Eventually it’s yeah, it’s new. So it’s still trickling there, but it’s there. But for the the trades in particular, you know, no school can teach you everything you need to know in the field, right? You’re gonna you’re gonna hit problems and trouble. So, you know, our fundamentals from could teach, you know, our graduates how to how to, you know, quickly, efficiently diagnose something.

00;26;58;17 – 00;27;14;00
Speaker 2
If they don’t know, if it’s not something easy or obvious, maybe it’s a, a unique situation. The. I can very much help you, you know, someone, you know, you know, show you that for sure. You’ve shown eye is the most useful for people who know had some subject matter expertise and then use the, I thought, partner to troubleshoot.

00;27;14;00 – 00;27;31;11
Speaker 2
But they know the lingo. They know what they’re going for, where so they it becomes a companion or advisor that helps them while they’re, on the job, if you will. So that’s a Bay area for working technicians and tradespeople while they’re on the job, especially younger ones or, you know, the ones we train the early in their career, they can use the eye to help them.

00;27;31;11 – 00;27;47;04
Speaker 2
Okay. I haven’t seen this exact scenario before, do I do you think I should do this or this? What were the advice? And they can get answers, you know, very, very quickly. And kind of proceed with the job basically. So that’s just one example. Obviously running a business these days of I is name day, I do it.

00;27;47;07 – 00;27;56;12
Speaker 2
We have asked the staff it would need, did you manage our business because we can use AI to automate a lot of. Yeah, more tedious manual things.

00;27;56;14 – 00;28;19;17
Speaker 3
Absolutely. I totally agree. You know, we’re using it as well. You know, where we can. And, you know, we’ve deployed some, robotic technology and automating and helping some of our field teams, actually. And it’s been, it’s been a great experience so far. A lot of learning. And we started early about three years ago. But our staff loves it, you know, and everybody’s kind of embrace that.

00;28;19;17 – 00;28;34;28
Speaker 3
We made that part of our, our culture here. But, you know, should there be any concerns or any worries, amongst tradespeople about automation and I.

00;28;35;00 – 00;28;52;19
Speaker 2
Honestly, I not from a job loss perspective, maybe in 50, 60 years if we have robots. But that’s a that’s a long times away. If you, if you, if you follow how I think of robots it’s it’s it’s it’s got a ways to go. We’re not there any time in the foreseeable future. I think they’ll just enhance the make them more product productive.

00;28;52;21 – 00;29;08;04
Speaker 2
You’ll be able to get through jobs more quickly, especially where you’re unsure what optimal ways to solve it. You know, it’s not simple problems that you know, you’ll handle, tasks more, more quickly. And then for the businesses, the business become more efficient so they can serve more customers faster. Basically just because, yeah, I get it.

00;29;08;04 – 00;29;21;10
Speaker 2
Titans a lot. Every little thing. Yeah. So I, I actually am very, I think it goes hand in hand really helping the trades and trades people, you know, for the foreseeable future.

00;29;21;12 – 00;29;42;19
Speaker 3
So fast forward ten years, what does, you know, a an HVAC company or an electrical contractor look like in ten years as compared to today? If they do adopt some of those eye, technologies and, and implement into their business.

00;29;42;21 – 00;30;00;28
Speaker 2
I think they become much more efficient machines in the fact that they’ll be able to handle more jobs. You know, for this, you know, we obviously all have the same 24 hours in a day. You’re talking to technicians or trades companies. Will it will be able to actually, you know, schedule logistically handle more doctors, obviously, you know, scheduling jobs, getting it, dealing with inbound stuff like that.

00;30;00;28 – 00;30;16;23
Speaker 2
There’s a lot of logistics there that’s like takes a lot of manpower. And it only goes as fast as the humans. You know, working at the company can kind of schedule organize so you’ll have that much more efficiently. So technicians, and you know, will be, you know, be doing more jobs per hour or per day, every one of the bank market.

00;30;16;28 – 00;30;31;01
Speaker 2
And then I think the technicians will be more efficient and more effective and faster, because, you know, a lot of that when you’re there, if it’s not something, something simple and you have to think through it, the I can help them think through how to how to fix this you need is complicated HVAC set up that they haven’t seen before.

00;30;31;04 – 00;30;49;01
Speaker 2
So it’s just like hours and hours. They’ll be able to do it in like 1 or 2 hours instead of like 5 or 6 sort of thing. So I really just think that these companies get more efficient, which means they can serve more customers. So it’s good for the businesses and it’s good for the customers. Right. So, you know, it’s I think it’s a win win for everybody.

00;30;49;03 – 00;31;00;17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I, I agree, what should what technology should, young tradespeople start learning now to get ahead of the curve.

00;31;00;19 – 00;31;18;05
Speaker 2
Well, if there are assuming a, if they’re if you’re assuming they’re already in the trades, I don’t even know if it’d be technology. I would say I think customer service skills are probably the number one. Even in a world of I, you know, it’s an old technology of being able to talk to people, which is a skill like.

00;31;18;05 – 00;31;38;11
Speaker 2
Right. There’s a lot of people I’ve met and I’m sure everyone has who just aren’t good with other people. But I still think that, you know, outside of the technical skills, just being able to interact with customers, explain what they need done, you know, in a clear manner that they can understand because, you know, people are any specialist, like a, you know, like some of the trades, every, every trade, you know, like doctors have their own lingo.

00;31;38;11 – 00;31;56;18
Speaker 2
Right? So if you can make it very clear and clean, concise English, you know, you know, basic English, it’s, someone who’s not in that field, what’s needed, and get their buy in. It works really, really well. So I, I just go back to those customer service and customer communication skills, even if they’re not. Yeah, they’re an old technology from thousands of years ago.

00;31;56;18 – 00;31;59;09
Speaker 2
Our.

00;31;59;12 – 00;32;00;22
Speaker 1
Very good.

00;32;00;24 – 00;32;24;17
Speaker 3
So now moving into some advice I guess from the an employer standpoint obviously you know you you’ve mentioned you interact and have an open line of communication with, with several employers. What are employers doing wrong when recruiting talent.

00;32;24;20 – 00;32;27;01
Speaker 1
That’s a good one.

00;32;27;04 – 00;32;50;18
Speaker 2
I think it’s really a lot of employers, you know, even big ones that blew my mind. You, you know, put Yahoo had a thousand plus technicians. They don’t really have standardized training programs internally that they’ve improved on. They kind of hack things together. I was just talking yesterday to the head of, facilities for, you know, large state university.

00;32;50;18 – 00;33;05;24
Speaker 2
It has tens of thousands of students. So you can imagine they have a lot of facilities and they have a huge campus. And she was like, we don’t have a formal training program. We just kind of throw them in and have some of the senior guys teach them like they’re there. Yeah, facilities and HVAC technicians. And you’re just kind of like, wow.

00;33;05;24 – 00;33;29;26
Speaker 2
And I hear that even from big companies of like thousands, technicians, you kind of here. Yeah, they sort out something. They’ve cobble it together. They’re not there. None of them are happy with it either way. Like now, the people who run these, if not their companies or none of them, are actually happy with what they have. And so it’s kind of just having a methodical, structure with all the content easily accessible in bite size units, like, kind of like our program with the simulation.

00;33;29;26 – 00;33;48;16
Speaker 2
And, you know, obviously putting the hands on training, which they do. So so we actually are trying to do that with a lot of companies where we kind of come in as this high tech textbook, if you will, to really add structure for our programing. And then, you know, kind of compliment how, you know, their in-house training as well and get them structure, which a lot of them are grateful for it.

00;33;48;18 – 00;34;13;22
Speaker 3
What does the cost benefit analysis look like for some of those larger employers that maybe don’t have that training program? Because obviously it costs, you know, quite a bit to recruit, hire on board and then plug people in a train. What does that look like compared to the cost of a course, or having a formal training program or using national trade tech as that bridge?

00;34;13;25 – 00;34;30;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s it’s almost a no brainer for a lot of them because, you know, if they have to bring someone in, and they don’t train them well and they have to let them go. Turnover as I think every business owner knows, I answered this on this podcast. Turnover is a massive cost for businesses. You know, hiring someone they can’t get up to, where you need them to lease.

00;34;30;14 – 00;34;48;14
Speaker 2
You might have to let them go that you have to go hire them again. It’s it’s waste time. It waste a lot of money. But compared to real costs on like us, we are really cheap, relatively speaking. You have to get them all their training and certifications. You know, even just getting them, they’re not, they’re they’re licensing and certifications because we handle all that and automated fashion.

00;34;48;17 – 00;35;08;29
Speaker 2
And we give them updates, reports that saves like full time employees and HR and training for these companies. Time and head time legs. They don’t need as many people because we just kind of do it all. And they were doing it all manually with spreadsheets, which is, you know, 30 years out of date, basically. So we are very, very a low cost, way to kind of really add that structure.

00;35;08;29 – 00;35;15;15
Speaker 2
And, we’re getting a lot of interesting conversations cause, you know, companies are starting to realize that.

00;35;15;17 – 00;35;27;18
Speaker 3
How can some smaller businesses compete with those larger, organizations to hire and retain good talent and.

00;35;27;20 – 00;35;43;07
Speaker 2
Get them, get them trained out? Because I hopefully I have, as I alluded, or especially, the larger companies don’t have it really figured out as easily. Again, I’ve been shocked at what the state of some of them is. So getting, you know, good training. You know, for, you know, easy bite sized training pieces like we do already.

00;35;43;07 – 00;36;04;28
Speaker 2
Others do. And then, investing in them. So getting them the and you’re helping them get those certifications they need to not just at the entry level like we do, but even at the more advanced level as a as these, how easily people, go into the career so they can advance, you know, get, get higher pay, do more, add more value to the company by getting them a more advanced training and knowledge as they get experience.

00;36;05;01 – 00;36;21;05
Speaker 2
I really it really just kind of, you know, teaching on the, those skills and being there that support them and such and being willing to maybe even cover it or do partial tuition assistance or something like that and see all structures. But just investing in your people, usually results in them kind of investing in you as you.

00;36;21;05 – 00;36;22;22
Speaker 2
Well.

00;36;22;24 – 00;36;46;13
Speaker 3
Yeah, 100%. So is that one of the benefits? My next question was going to be, you know, what benefits matter the most to some of the students when they’re there looking? Because obviously there’s so many jobs open. You know, companies are competing for a limited pool right now of dental trades workers. So what are some of the benefits that the students are looking for?

00;36;46;15 – 00;37;02;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, I I’ve seen and heard all types I mean obviously somewhat more money per hour. Others, some of them, you know, a lot of people, you have to know what type of person you’re when you’re measuring people are you have a workforce. You know what each person wants or not. Everyone you know is surely permeated by money.

00;37;02;18 – 00;37;25;18
Speaker 2
Like, more money isn’t always better than to. So some people or a lot of people, you know, recognition, right? Like, investing in their education and paying, you know, hey, you know, we we’ll bring you on and you’re, you’re you’re at that. You’re obviously the entry or junior level. We’ll guarantee you’ll work with our senior at most senior, you know, person who has 20 years experience, and they’ll teach you all the tricks of the trade in the next couple of years, sort of thing.

00;37;25;22 – 00;37;50;09
Speaker 2
So it’s really it really is, just a case by case basis. Beyond the simple, you know, I’ll pay the more money sort of thing. I mean, that doesn’t hurt, of course. But a lot of people aren’t motivated by more money. You know, intrinsic, you know, recognition is a big one for a lot of people that I think most people don’t see that much business owners don’t really think about or even realize.

00;37;50;11 – 00;38;24;02
Speaker 3
It’s a good answer. Building that culture of reward recognition and and giving those employees, what they’re looking for can be sometimes a challenging task. You know, obviously, smaller businesses are challenged every day by a number of problems, in your opinion or from your standpoint, what is what is a simple way to implement some of those, recognition programs and, and start building that culture?

00;38;24;05 – 00;38;33;13
Speaker 3
I guess instead of, I always refer to it as the, the carrot versus the stick, right? Dangling that carrot and helping people do the right things and rewarding them for it.

00;38;33;15 – 00;38;33;28
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;38;33;28 – 00;38;58;19
Speaker 2
I mean, a good example is, I, I don’t remember exactly the metric, but there is a mid-size local company in, Missouri. What the IRS telling us he does, he’s probably got like 50 employees or so. But like his top performing employee every quarter he takes to a really nice dinner, at obviously on his dime, and he, you know, steak or whatever they want.

00;38;58;19 – 00;39;21;22
Speaker 2
Sushi, you know, whatever, like a high end, you know, not not your McDonald’s or whatnot. The high end restaurant. And he just treats them in their wife or their family or something other, to a really nice dinner. And so he said people in his organization like to get to that dinner. It’s like it’s like the cool thing to to do, really in the company you went to the dinner with, you know, you know, John Doe, he took you two.

00;39;21;23 – 00;39;41;07
Speaker 2
He took you to the really expensive steakhouse in the, the neighborhood. So even small things like that, make a big difference and create that culture of and of itself. It honestly doesn’t take as much as you think to really create that culture. And 1 or 2 small things like that. It changes the culture in a great way.

00;39;41;09 – 00;39;44;04
Speaker 3
It’s a great idea.

00;39;44;07 – 00;39;45;29
Speaker 3
A simple dinner.

00;39;46;02 – 00;39;47;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00;39;47;22 – 00;40;03;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. It really and it, it becomes like a competition among the employees, but like the, the workers, like, why did I get up? Am I going to. Yeah. I promised my wife I would get her to that dinner next quarter. The next two, the next two months I better I gotta really like, you know, do the extra hard hard work.

00;40;03;23 – 00;40;27;08
Speaker 3
So for employers who are looking to, engage with national trade tech or collaborate to provide some of that training, and give their current employees, the skill sets that they’ll need to be successful in the future, whether they stay or they move on to another organization. How can they do that? And what does that process look like?

00;40;27;10 – 00;40;28;01
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;40;28;04 – 00;40;44;04
Speaker 2
We make it very, very simple. And you just go to our website, they can your website has here, they can either book a call to us, they can just email us and we call them, or message them back. Or they can just call us during business hours where we’re staffed. And we respond very quickly because we are a technology company.

00;40;44;04 – 00;41;03;08
Speaker 2
And I think she must come if you say that you have to move fast. So we are very, very responsive. And so they’re welcome. Just going to run site whatever way, you know, phone appointments, email whatever way suits them. Reach out and we will get back to you. Probably same day, but within 24 business hours is kind of our standard at the at the latest.

00;41;03;10 – 00;41;18;18
Speaker 3
I know on your website you have a list of, the current programs that you have. What does the future look like for national trade tech and where do you see it going, in terms of expansion and growth and what courses are offered now?

00;41;18;21 – 00;41;19;00
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;41;19;00 – 00;41;27;04
Speaker 2
So we we do most of our programs by request. So we start with the HVAC, and know all the other programs we’ve gotten request.

00;41;27;06 – 00;41;27;25
Speaker 1
So,

00;41;27;28 – 00;41;42;20
Speaker 2
We we’ve had a lot of requests, love em or hate them, these data centers, the data center technician is long. We’re working very hard on. There’s a lot of demand. These are great paying jobs. And they’re going to be here to stay to some extent. Yeah, I know there’s a lot of back and forth on it.

00;41;42;23 – 00;41;58;08
Speaker 2
But, so that’s our next program. We also are working on, solar technician, program. It’s it’s obvious, I think long term, you know, this country and the rest of the world are going to be using solar to a much greater extent and other sources of energy. So, yes, I’m gonna have to go install those solar panels.

00;41;58;08 – 00;42;15;17
Speaker 2
Someone has to, maintain them. Right. So these are new, new trade fields kind of being created as we speak, that we want to be there for as they grow and develop. And I’m sure there’ll be many changes over the next decade or two, in those fields and what you need to know and stuff, but that those are kind of new trades.

00;42;15;17 – 00;42;20;13
Speaker 2
So we are working heavily on those type of programs right now.

00;42;20;15 – 00;42;23;20
Speaker 3
That’s, the talk of the media these days.

00;42;23;22 – 00;42;25;09
Speaker 2
The data center stuff. I don’t know.

00;42;25;09 – 00;42;26;12
Speaker 1
About the people.

00;42;26;12 – 00;42;40;26
Speaker 2
Solar isn’t as cool under the yeah, this administration necessarily, but it’s going to come back. It’s just so cheap. It’s just such cheap energy. And the US has a lot of open land with a lot of sunshine. So. So yeah, almost free energy, you know, with today’s technology and cost basis.

00;42;40;28 – 00;43;08;20
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. So I want to shift the, into our final segment. Andrew. And, what obviously, be respectful of your time. But, you know, since blue collar startup is we’re focusing heavily on on entrepreneurship, you know, on the podcast and interviewing the success stories and people who have, built a business and some of the, I guess, hurdles that they’ve had to clear in order to do so.

00;43;08;23 – 00;43;21;04
Speaker 3
We’ve had some amazing stories on, for you, what trade would you start a business in today and why?

00;43;21;07 – 00;43;42;11
Speaker 2
I mean, I think I’m a little biased because I do like the, like. Oh, I did and I did study a long ago when I was in school myself, electrical and computer engineering. So I’ve always been fascinated by electricity. And so, electric fields. And I used to solder when I was a teenager. I hated that. And looking around, I was at the safe house or legal as, but and stuff like that.

00;43;42;11 – 00;43;59;12
Speaker 2
It it’s we have these, like, thick carpets that easily could have caught fire. Never happened, but my, my mother eventually kind of exiled me to the garage. But, but, yes, I do love the electrical. It’s a great trade, like all of. Honestly, you can’t really go wrong in this day and age with the trade. Any of the trades.

00;43;59;15 – 00;44;15;00
Speaker 2
But if you wanted to get started really quickly, we’ve seen some of our graduates, do the appliance repair because it’s such a there’s such a shortage. No one thinks about it. And you can just you can just literally start running Google ads in your neighborhood or your local town or city, and you will start getting business like there is such a demand.

00;44;15;06 – 00;44;29;29
Speaker 2
So if you wanted to start a company really quick, we get people who have a very entrepreneurial mindset. You come to us and we always advise them, well, if you don’t want to work for someone else and kind of, you know, apprentices are working, you know, for years and you always want to start, you know, appliance repair. Very easy way to start your own business in this day and age.

00;44;29;29 – 00;44;46;06
Speaker 2
And again, you can you might, you know, especially in your smaller town, less populated area, you might have a natural monopoly, which is just wild for our business. It’s just to have the talent that we were told in Iowa and the states of Iowa and Kansas were the only appliance repair trainers in the entire state. So I imagine you could start.

00;44;46;06 – 00;44;54;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you’re in states like that, you can start your own repair business and have, you know, have, have a, have a pretty good lifestyle then a year.

00;44;54;11 – 00;44;59;20
Speaker 3
For any students that want to move to Alaska. Sounds like there’s opportunity, up north as well.

00;44;59;27 – 00;45;19;29
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. I swear that for us for was like begging us to send people to or train some people. There’s they have some competition. I think that I think the, person who ran their workforce had, you know, had to hire the one person who had a monopoly in this 40,000 person town of appliance repair. And I think, you know, her refrigerator went out and the price to fix it was, was astronomical.

00;45;19;29 – 00;45;23;00
Speaker 2
So I think she wants some competition.

00;45;23;03 – 00;45;38;07
Speaker 3
Amazing. For somebody that is looking to start their own business, what barriers of entry, you know, makes sense? And which ones do you feel are are overblown for somebody to get into their own business?

00;45;38;10 – 00;45;54;23
Speaker 2
These days, I think, especially with I, you can automate like, your bookkeeping a lot. You can automate a lot of tedious stuff, even filing, you know, filings and stuff like that. Your legal stuff, I mean, you get a lawyer, review it, but you can actually do the first draft, something like that with the I. It’s so good.

00;45;54;25 – 00;46;14;11
Speaker 2
So I think a lot of the technical, the mechanical, I call it mechanical, kind of starting a business, you know, because for business there’s the service you do, but then there’s all the other stuff the reporting, the accounting, the customer service, the just the customer tracking systems, your what they call your CRM, customer relationship management systems are you can kind of automate a lot of that.

00;46;14;11 – 00;46;32;01
Speaker 2
So you can focus on being at your core competency, you know, where HVAC company service to your customers electrical and just really focus there. You can even automate your marketing. And a lot of ways these days, you know, more and more, right, a day. So I think it’s I think it’s awesome. So I think a lot of this barriers as headaches are right there.

00;46;32;04 – 00;46;55;20
Speaker 2
You know what? Can you not automate finding good talent right at the end of the day, if you want to expand a business, it’s all about the talent, the people you have. And that’s always been hard. I don’t think technology today or, you know, years ago makes it a I don’t you just have to find good people however you can and, you know, treat them well, reward them and let them grow and develop and, and, you know, really get there all to your business.

00;46;55;22 – 00;46;59;04
Speaker 3
One mistake to.

00;46;59;06 – 00;47;01;00
Speaker 1
What’s the, I guess, the, the.

00;47;01;00 – 00;47;02;06
Speaker 3
Most common mistake.

00;47;02;13 – 00;47;02;25
Speaker 1
That.

00;47;02;25 – 00;47;08;18
Speaker 3
You’ve seen first time entrepreneurs make when starting a business?

00;47;08;21 – 00;47;13;00
Speaker 2
There’s so many, but I probably probably the big one that comes to my mind, is.

00;47;13;02 – 00;47;13;18
Speaker 1
Under.

00;47;13;18 – 00;47;32;06
Speaker 2
Overestimating how quickly they’ll get revenue. And so that meaning the underestimate how much cash they need to start a business. You want, you know, they call working capital or just kind of money in the bank that you, you use. It always seems to take longer than you hope, but then you think, then your worst nightmare to start getting, you know, real revenue.

00;47;32;06 – 00;47;45;27
Speaker 2
And I mean, I was like, oh, you mean you have one good month and then it dries up for a month or two, and then so, you know, you get that recurring reliable kind of revenue basically, if you will, or at least, you know, you know, you’ll have a certain baseline every month. So you’re gonna want more cash than you ever thought.

00;47;45;29 – 00;47;56;28
Speaker 2
Whether you can get it easily or already have it in a bank base in the near your business bank accounts, always whatever you forecast, you’ll need, like double or triple it tend to be.

00;47;57;00 – 00;48;00;06
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;48;00;08 – 00;48;23;06
Speaker 3
Good advice. It does take a while. And again, back to your communication skills and being able to simplify the the problem then and sell and take a job across the finish line is, obviously a unique skill that can be certainly it can certainly be learned obviously. But takes time. So as an avid as an avid reader,

00;48;23;06 – 00;48;31;00
Speaker 3
Andrew, I got to ask you, what is one book that every entrepreneur should, should read in your opinion?

00;48;31;02 – 00;48;57;16
Speaker 1
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00;48;57;19 – 00;49;04;26
Speaker 3
Andrew, I got to ask you, what is one book that every entrepreneur should, should read in your opinion?

00;49;04;29 – 00;49;06;26
Speaker 2
This is a this is a tough one. I’ve read.

00;49;07;02 – 00;49;08;01
Speaker 1
Limit it guy.

00;49;08;01 – 00;49;15;19
Speaker 2
Limited. Thing that so many and there’s so many good ones there. This is the Star Wars question you’ve asked me.

00;49;15;21 – 00;49;16;01
Speaker 1
To be.

00;49;16;01 – 00;49;35;23
Speaker 2
Honest, it’s not like a true entrepreneur, but but this one always. I always come back to this one. I it’s throughout my life, basically, a book called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. I already had that one. Recommended. So he’s actually, he’s not, he’s entrepreneur these days, but, he started off as a hostage negotiator for, like, the FBI and a bunch of different organizations.

00;49;35;28 – 00;49;39;23
Speaker 2
So he I mean, fundamentally, the ocean is the most high stakes.

00;49;39;25 – 00;49;40;17
Speaker 1
Of.

00;49;40;20 – 00;49;59;25
Speaker 2
Human interaction or, you know, almost, you know, in a way, he was negotiating with his customers, right, of, you know, criminals, terrorists or whatever you want to call them. So, you know, he really talks about customer interaction skills, even though he doesn’t phrase it as now I think he has his consulting company does that now. But, you know, going back to that.

00;49;59;25 – 00;50;21;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I know we’ve talked a number of times about the the skill communication and stuff like that. Special customers, you know, for, for a book that does not talk about customer communication, it’s, it’s the single best customer communication and just human nature communication, especially during more intense like, you know, business, you know, things like that. It is it is hands down very tactical, a very useful.

00;50;21;08 – 00;50;24;09
Speaker 3
I actually haven’t read that one. So I’ll, I’ll have to get it.

00;50;24;11 – 00;50;32;11
Speaker 2
It’s a quick, read and it’s very I like that he doesn’t he’s tactical like this this in this.

00;50;32;13 – 00;50;42;18
Speaker 3
Awesome. So if people want to learn more about national trade tech Andrew where can they find you guys? I know you mentioned the website before, but how do they get in touch with you.

00;50;42;21 – 00;50;43;01
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;50;43;05 – 00;50;58;09
Speaker 2
So our website is the easiest place. Frankly I don’t even I’ll see you on LinkedIn but I our website is probably faster sort of thing. So National Trade Télécom, you that call you get in Texas, you can send us emails, you can book call like now we’ll call you, but it makes it very, very easy.

00;50;58;09 – 00;51;02;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. We’re very, very responsive, so we’d love to chat.

00;51;02;19 – 00;51;13;15
Speaker 3
Awesome. Well thank you answer for, taking the time to to join us. And, we wish you the best of luck and, excited to hear about all the students that you, you dream.

00;51;13;17 – 00;51;16;26
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for the great questions.

00;51;16;29 – 00;51;38;26
Speaker 3
Yeah. And thank you, everybody. Thanks to all of our listeners. And thank you for all of our sponsors who helped make the show possible, allowing us to, continue to keep the show moving and, hopefully inspire the next generation of trades workers. So till next time, everybody. We’ll, talk soon.

00;51;38;28 – 00;51;41;09
Speaker 3
That was good, Andrew. Oh. Nice job.

00;51;41;11 – 00;51;48;22
Speaker 2
You have great questions. I, I really like the I should have I, yeah, I the book line, I was like, man, I should have known. I should have known that I was calling.

00;51;48;24 – 00;52;11;15
Speaker 3
It’s, What what you said, avid reader, because I, I love it, too, you know, and you’re there’s always something new to learn. And as you know, we try to make that a part of what we do here in our company. And, you know, making mistakes is, you know, it’s fine as long as you’re learning every day. And, you know, I, I give our teams materials and stuff to, to read from time to time.

00;52;11;15 – 00;52;15;05
Speaker 3
I think it’s really important. So I’m, I’m with you on that.

00;52;15;08 – 00;52;22;22
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. I’m a trade book club. So yes, I, I think it’s that it’s fun and it’s, it’s super easy. It’s the mind sharp.

00;52;22;24 – 00;52;29;07
Speaker 3
Are you are those like, entrepreneur based, book clubs or just locally.

00;52;29;09 – 00;52;29;28
Speaker 1
Well.

00;52;30;01 – 00;52;44;22
Speaker 2
So they’re actually a mix. One of them is, one’s a more business one. So we read like we actually just finished a book on in video, you know, that they keep company. It’s not that I’m in the world right now. So we finished a book about, you know, their founder, recently and how he built it and how he manages his company.

00;52;44;24 – 00;53;01;29
Speaker 2
It’s very different. Very unique, way if you haven’t looked into it, it’s a great book called The End Video. I’m happy to send it to, send it here. So I have one book club that does that. I have another book club. It’s just it’s open to any genres. We write fiction. Nonfiction. I think we’re reading a biography that’s coming up.

00;53;01;29 – 00;53;19;14
Speaker 2
I don’t need to read biography, so it’s nice to kind of branch out and see things you would normally see and such. So. Yeah. So it’s, it’s. And then I have another book club that’s, it’s all nonfiction, current event like stuff like geopolitical and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s a wide ranging, set of topics, if you will.

00;53;19;16 – 00;53;31;14
Speaker 3
Awesome. Very cool. Yeah. Please, please send over any, any new books that you do read and, you know, again, I’m, I like, I like that that’s what I do at night.

00;53;31;17 – 00;53;51;13
Speaker 2
Yeah. I did want to ask your advice, if I may, because I, because you’re you’re obviously a, you know, operating entrepreneur, but you also are in the media, so I don’t have as much experience of the media. So is there worth hiring a publicist or is that like, I, I’ve talked to a few, I don’t know, are they really helpful or is it not work like I super heard mixed things.

00;53;51;16 – 00;54;10;19
Speaker 3
You’re. Well, I don’t, to be honest with you. I don’t have a good answer for you. You know, I think what you’re doing is unique and very different. And I, I how many podcasts are you doing? Have you done a lot of them?

00;54;10;23 – 00;54;23;26
Speaker 2
No, no, this is only my second. I have no more lined up. I don’t I don’t even know. I just did some cold outreach, but I, I don’t even know how you get on podcast. Do you have to have a publicist. Do you have to pay? Like. I don’t actually know how it works, I resist. Yeah, I like your shows, like emails.

00;54;23;26 – 00;54;50;23
Speaker 3
You guys know it’s awesome. I was going to ask you how you found us as well, but, I would recommend we get outreach. Every so often, we’ll probably get 3 or 4, emails a week. And some of the guests that we’ve had on the show actually created. Okay. An eye agent or bot, to search through some of the podcasts and interesting categories.

00;54;50;23 – 00;55;10;04
Speaker 3
That would be a good fit for them. Oh, and then they have the agent actually. So we’ve we’ve gotten emails and we’re like, we’ve asked them after was that actually you emailing us or, you know, somebody and we’ve gotten some really cool. So that might be something for you to look at. That’s a, very inexpensive alternative.

00;55;10;06 – 00;55;30;15
Speaker 3
And, you know, again, you’ll be able to use the clip, share it on social media. You know, we’ll let you know when the episode actually airs and, and is up. Should be I think we’re about a week, week and a half turnaround time. But that’s what I would recommend. It depends on what your goal is and who you’re looking to get in front of.

00;55;30;18 – 00;55;37;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I look into that. You said it’s an AI tool or you had some people on the show like.

00;55;37;23 – 00;56;01;01
Speaker 3
Yeah, like there’s I think it’s Gronk or one of the AI platforms they have, you can actually build your own AI agent and give it tasks to, to do. And I think one of those is, you know, reach out to different media outlets to feature you, you know, what you’re doing as well. You’re down in New York City, correct?

00;56;01;03 – 00;56;02;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Correct.

00;56;02;14 – 00;56;34;13
Speaker 3
So I know there’s an American Business Journal’s down there as well. You know, Mike, I’m sure if you reached out to him, you know, he’d be happy to, to do an article, specifically for this area. Yeah. So he has, a paper here locally, that that’s distributed. And, you know, the more media that you can get behind it, behind you and putting your story out there, I think organically it’ll help improve your, your search results.

00;56;34;13 – 00;56;57;17
Speaker 3
But also in some of the smaller communities like ours, for example, we have HVC, which is, a monster, and they, they put through, you know, so many students, and they’re looking to go more the online route. So it’s only going to increase. Yeah. But I would, I would look at targeting, you know, some of the smaller you mentioned rural areas as well.

00;56;57;17 – 00;57;06;13
Speaker 3
Some of them, they still go by the local papers and some of the smaller stuff that’s there, you know.

00;57;06;15 – 00;57;25;00
Speaker 2
But take yeah, to take a look. It’s as I knew area. Yeah. You know, I, I mentioned entrepreneurship is constant learning but yeah, I, I, I in my career I didn’t really deal at media. So you know, figuring out how that whole piece works and how to best utilize it and efficiently and effectively. So that’s something kind of in wrestling with right now.

00;57;25;03 – 00;57;45;28
Speaker 3
Mike is very good at that. So, you know, we can certainly follow up and I can have him reach out to you or if you want to reach out to Mike direct there, he’ll have a really good answer for that. And I’m sure he can even help you with some of that stuff, you know, getting in front of some of those folks, but, yeah, I, I, wish you the best, man.

00;57;45;28 – 00;57;50;00
Speaker 3
I’ll get an intro out to, Doctor Brophy here over the next week.

00;57;50;02 – 00;57;50;27
Speaker 2
Thank you.

00;57;50;29 – 00;58;15;04
Speaker 3
And, I have a really good idea. And I think a way now to be able to to put that to him and make it, very enticing. The virtual reality component is, extremely important because, are any other online training platforms integrating that or implementing that?

00;58;15;06 – 00;58;16;10
Speaker 1
Not right now.

00;58;16;10 – 00;58;34;29
Speaker 2
They started talking about it, but they moved very slow. I find, a lot of education, you know, it’s just move slow, right. So, you know, we’re we’re we’re a technology company. We move very quickly. But, yeah, we are getting interest. Scott, schools in Missouri that found us. I don’t know how, and, yeah, it’s like.

00;58;34;29 – 00;58;49;16
Speaker 2
It’s like every week we get some interest from somewhere I never even heard of or thought of. That is like, hey, this is actually especially as gas prices go up, you know, up and up and up. Yeah. Yeah, we we’re hearing that a lot in the last few months.

00;58;49;18 – 00;59;07;05
Speaker 3
That’s good. Yeah. I mean, you’re you’re doing something right then. Yeah. I’m awesome. Well, I can’t wait to, to follow your journey. And, thank you again for taking the time to join us. And, we’ll let you know when everything is is out. And if you don’t hear from me in a week, just shoot me. A quick follow up reminder, and, I’ll get that intro on to you.

00;59;07;07 – 00;59;18;17
Speaker 2
Gotcha. Oh, yeah. Maybe I’m at chance. The appliance repair information. I said hopefully that was, helpful. Did you see you guys? If not, I get it. But hopefully it might be a resource for you.

00;59;18;19 – 00;59;46;03
Speaker 3
It it. So we. Besides the commercial cleaning component, I started, exhausted cleaning, business about three years ago for restaurants and commercial kitchens. Yeah, that’s fire code regulated. It’s a very specific training. And honestly, I was going to mention to you that that might be something that you guys can look at, because currently the only trainings that are offered, MFS trade school out of Orlando.

00;59;46;05 – 00;59;46;24
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;59;46;27 – 01;00;16;27
Speaker 3
Is one of the few that are out there and you actually have to fly there to get the hands on in person experience. If there was a virtual reality training component or way to integrate that, it would be a home run. It’s one of those niche, necessary services. I mean, our business has grown significantly over three years on our end, and it’s a nice compliment because a lot of the buildings were in have commercial kitchens so that you work together.

01;00;16;29 – 01;00;24;24
Speaker 2
And what’s the training? What’s is typically called this type of training of this move to US trade school calls or what is it, a asset cleaning or what would it. What’s that.

01;00;24;25 – 01;01;08;00
Speaker 3
Yeah. So Ichika I k EQA is the acronym. They are the International Kitchen Exhaustive Cleaning Association. And they are like the governing body. They offer a number of trainings and their certification is the certification to get a lot of bids and contracts require that you host that you hold that certification. So if you’re able to get in front of them and say, hey, I could create a training for you guys, they could easily plug you into the back end of that and offer it to, you know, companies such as ours, you know, because everybody that is doing it right is a member.

01;01;08;02 – 01;01;19;13
Speaker 2
Very cool. Yeah. You go to your point, your question earlier about niche kind of trade. Yeah. I, I never even heard of that. So every week I learn something new about like, oh that’s great. But yeah, I will take a look into this. Like, yeah.

01;01;19;16 – 01;01;36;19
Speaker 3
Restaurants can’t operate unless they have their hood serviced twice a year at a minimum. So it’s necessary, but, yeah. Happy to, stay obviously. Communication. So if you have any questions on I happen to make introductions where I can and, Yeah. Well, that’s the Loch.

01;01;36;19 – 01;01;37;02
Speaker 1
Man.

01;01;37;05 – 01;01;45;09
Speaker 2
Sounds great. And I’ll keep listening to the podcast. It’s now one of my regulars, like, let me. Yeah, it’s okay to hear about the industry from a different perspective. It’s really helpful.

01;01;45;11 – 01;01;51;21
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to get connected to anybody that’s, you know, on the show or what have you, let me know and happy to do it.

01;01;51;23 – 01;02;19;23
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Audio or email us at Hardhat Derby CSU at gmail.com.

01;02;19;23 – 01;02;32;19
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building, keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

01;02;32;22 – 01;02;33;20
Unknown
Oh.