S3 EP34 The Hidden Cost Of Success In The Trades | Scott Parker

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because when you want to quit, that's what you gotta do. You gotta remember why you started in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Your why's gotta be bigger than your why not. We are human. The journey is definitely not just unilateral, it's not horizontal the whole way, it's ebb and flow and up and down. Everyone has emotions, everyone has hard days, and I hope if you guys get nothing else from this episode that you take it's okay to have a bad one, and it's just so important to have people around you that can help you through those moments. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

I'm Joseph Lucani, and together with my co-host Clay New Meyer, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service man.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Now it's time for sales. It's time for scale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another great episode of the Million Dollar Electrician. Man, we've got some great electricians here today, uh, myself included. I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back to start this one off. Joseph, as always with me. This interview, though, is really great because we've got Scott Parker of Rhino Electric. Scott's been doing amazing things, giving back so much to the trade, to the youth. Scott, you're the president of the Kiwanas Club locally. I mean, everything Scott does just seems to be about contribution. And he just said before we hit record, he said, you know, I promise you I get way more than I give. And that's the thing about Learn Do Teach. So, Scott, you're captain, learn to teach, man. I can't wait to learn from you today. I know, Jer Joe, you shared the same feelings. Joseph, how are you doing today, brother?

SPEAKER_04 1:48

I'm feeling great. I've always been looking forward to this specific conversation because Scott's story is just so cool. Like I personally resonate with it so much. And when I got to actually really dig into the details, I'm like, oh my, we got to share this. So honestly, I'm getting goosebumps just even thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

And to give Scott the proper intro before I ask how you're doing, Scott, uh, Scott has done some incredible things in his business, including something that I think many of us uh at some point we have to make a decision and we run from this, we're afraid of this thing. But Scott, you were over 1 million. I think you said 1.2 million at one point, and Scott decided to rebuild because he didn't, wasn't quite happy with the directions. We're gonna learn about that today. Learn uh what he's changed, how it's going, go over some of the challenges he's facing in the changes. But also, uh Scott, you just set a record uh 165k a month. So congrats to you on that one. That's a massive uh shift in the right direction. We couldn't be prouder, brother. Let's kick it off. How are you doing today, Scott?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Man, I'm doing fantastic. Glad to be here and uh very honored.

unknown 2:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Thank you, guard, brother. It truly is. We are too. First and foremost, I remember you and I had an early chat and you told me why you chose the name Rhino Electric. And I think that's just like the best way we could start this. Uh, because people got to know, you gotta know Scott Parker. Scott, by the way, even teaches evening classes every week in our app. Like he's given so much. Scott, what's up with Rhino? Why did you choose that name?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Man, that's great. I don't want to go too deep into the story, but uh I will tell you in February of 2019, I had a vision of Rhino Electric. I never told a soul about it, not my wife or anybody, just a vision. In March of 2019, we just started we decided to start a business and I didn't have a name. And when we were going to name it, Jennifer, uh, my wife, was on the Secretary of State to register the name, and she started saying, What do you want to call it? Scott's Electric, Parker Electric, what do you want? And I told her, No, I don't want it to be about me. I want this to be about something special. I want it to be a culture. I want to build a company that celebrates tradesmen and treats them right and lets them know that they're freaking superheroes, man, that we're just as important as doctors. Okay. And so she, we got quiet and she said, Well, how about Rhino Electric? And I got chills, I got chills, just think about it now. And here it is. It comes from a book called Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander that I read in 1993. That's how old I am. Okay. It's the first business type self-help book that I read. Now, since then, Dave Ramsey has gone on to endorse the book. He gives it to all his employees. It's a cheesy book, but I really loved it and it resonated with me because it proved to me that I have two-inch thick skin like a rhinoceros. I can't run through a jungle and knock down trees. And uh, I just always looked at it like this. We call the lion the king of the jungle, and that's because the rhino allows him to be that. We give him permission. You don't see lions trying to eat rhinos, but one time, one time, and when they hook them with that big horn, it's over with. So there's my my little motivational speech about rhino electric, man.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I love that, and I love watching Joe's face light up when you were saying that. Uh Joe, what are you thinking, man? Absolute fire uh first start of an episode, or what?

SPEAKER_04 5:01

You know, the thing is that I love the analogy of what it means because there's two parts that really hit me to the core. And one was that you're trying to celebrate the electricians and the trade, and that hits me so personally, because that's one of the reasons why I became a coach in the first place. I wanted to specifically promote electricians and say, we're just as good at HBAC and plumbing, even though there aren't coaches yet at the time for them. But the second was the two-inch thick skin. I clicked, I was like, that's why it's rhinoceros. Because you're right, it takes such a level of durability to withstand the constant attrition that is business growth until you can get to the plateau to where you're over the grind mentality, and you can now actually start thinking and breathing. So, like, that is an awesome concept, and the two of them together just like, oh, I just love it. I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Scott, prior to the episode, I remember you saying that uh electricians are in your family, carpenters are in your family, you've got trade blood, and we could tell that right out the gates. What do you want people to know about your past that you think is relevant to what you're shaping up into here today? How did you get into this? What are those driving principles that make you the rhino?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

So, one thing was my dad taught me how to work when I was very young, and he's had me on construction sites my entire life. I mean, in diapers. Okay, I have been around some type of building. In between high school and the summers, I would build how I was a framing carpenter or a helper. My grandfather was an electrician. I was in my 20s and trying to decide what I was going to do. I've done everything from manage restaurants to drive 18-wheelers to working at a body shop to all sorts of things. When a friend of mine called me up and said there was an electrical contractor that was looking for a helper. And I just thought to myself, I'll try this. And literally, man, I I think I feel like it was in the, it had to be the first two hours, if not just the first day. I knew immediately I found what I was going to do the rest of my life. And so the funny thing was I got picked on a lot because I wanted to learn the electrical so deep. I wanted to know everything. So I pursued any kind of education I could find, going to school, sitting in the front of the class of the school. And I was, this is back in the 90s now, so I would bring a tape recorder with me, but this is before the digital ones, an actual cassette tape recorder, and sit at the front table and I recorded everything the instructor said, and I listened to it in my car constantly. And I would go to work and they would pick on me and I would say, I'm not gonna be a good electrician, I'm gonna be the best electrician.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

And they would pick on me, man. They would pick on me. Gosh, they would. So, anyway, what I discovered was it's not so much about being the best electrician. Okay, you can be a good person. And then you can um, I'm gonna try to think where I'm trying to go with this. It's more of when when you asked me what kind of built me where I am, is uh is when I made the decision to shift from blue-collar worker to CEO of a multi-million dollar company. And if you notice behind me, all those books back there, each one of them, I can't tell you every single thing in every one of the books, but I can tell you one thing out of each one of them that inspired me some kind of way.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I love that. I love that. Are you today the CEO of a multi-million dollar business?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

I am, and I'm growing towards it every day. I'm actually building a business that runs without me at this point.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So the the amount of certainty in your voice, I just can tell like there's no other way for you, and that just embodies the rhino so much, brother. I I couldn't say enough good stuff about you uh for that reason.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Just Joe will pick up on what I'm saying. This is the way it's coming out in May over here. I don't know about you, the new movie, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Oh, yeah, I'm with it.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

Man, I'm gonna see it with you.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Uh Scott, you we kind of introduced this as like you had a rebuild phase. I really want to go into that as well, but there's something in class that happened one day, and I remember I was on actually on the road this day. You said something profound about because your wife helps you in the business too, right? You guys are working together, and you had this principle around not quitting. Do you remember what you said to me that day? And would you share that?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Not only in our business, but in our marriage, Jennifer have always had this pact that we will never quit on the same day. So I had a quit day last week. As a matter of fact, I was struggling, man. I texted her and I said, Look, I'm having one of those days, and she knows when I say that, then okay, I have to step up. I've got to take the lead. Scott needs a moment. I need to breathe. I need, I just gotta go ride in my truck somewhere. I gotta, I gotta take a moment, and I have to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because when you want to quit, that's what you got to do. You got to remember why you started in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Your why's gotta be bigger than your why not. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

The pact to never quit on the same day. If you guys wanted to hit rewind on that, listen out a few more times, I wouldn't blame you. That that thing landed so heavy the first time I heard that. I just thought, oh, that's profound. That works for marriages, it works for business relationships. We are human. The journey is definitely not just unilateral, it's not horizontal the whole way, it's ebb and flow and up and down. Everyone has emotions, everyone has hard days. And I hope if you guys get nothing else from this episode that you take it's okay to have a bad one, and it's just so important to have people around you that can help you through those moments. Uh, how impactful, Scott. You've been that person for so many of our clients now with this weekly thing, but also before, like the whole reason we started talking about it, you were already doing this in your own group as well. Why do you take extra time to help people and be that rock for them?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Clay, man, that's a great question, but it was a little bit selfish. Okay. I started the original round table because I was struggling in my business. I had spent money on coaching programs that it seemed like HVHC contractors and plumbers were doing very well at. And I spent well over $100,000 on coaching, man, and I was still right where I was. And so my last ditch effort was the CRM that we have back during COVID started a little round table for electricians, and I loved it. And they quit doing it. And so I just got with a few guys and started throwing it around, kind of like you did through Rebs, Clay. I mean, I just thought if you could do it, maybe I could do it.

SPEAKER_06 11:32

And so early days.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Um, and so I started the round table, which reacquainted me with Joe Miller, who's a friend of mine that we we actually kind of grew up together here in Louisiana, and uh now he's in Texas. And that that also led me, the round table led me to Austin Matthews, uh, who I met, and I started talking to these guys, and I started doing the round table talking about coaching. Like, man, I'm here because I want to learn how to run my business. And I figured if we just help each other, we can figure this out. And they both told me, man, have you looked at SLE? And I said, Man, I don't know. I, you know, and so I started really looking into it and really digging into the podcast, and I knew right away, I was like, this is what I've been looking for. So I almost wanted to just quit the round table because I found the thing that was missing for the electricians. What you guys are doing is amazing. And uh, I just hope that more and more guys can find their way over because I was thinking about it this morning, man. This SLE is not for everybody, and we know that, okay? There's gonna be some guys come in and they're gonna have negative things, whatever. But what I love about the guys that stick is their heart. If you come on a round table with us on Wednesday nights, you'll see it, man. It's guys helping each other. Last night we had Kyle on, who's new to our world. I don't know Kyle, just met him last night, and man, he was dropping some nuggets and he was also picking up some nuggets. So Scott from uh Southern Circuits down here shared something with Kyle. And Kyle, I just saw the light bulb go off. Like, my gosh, that's something I can add in my sixth option. Uh, and all it was was simply he was building power poles for mobile homes, and Scott said, here's a great option you can add. Put a light on top of the pole.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

And so, so I mean, that's the kind of stuff, man. So hopefully I'm I'm going in the right direction with this for you.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

I love that you mentioned that because that was literally an option we built in yesterday's options class because we were designing RV parks with uh Emilio, and we said, Well, why don't we go up there and put a pole and then on top of the pole connect the camera lights, and then everything's been snowballing since. That's phenomenal. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, yeah, really good share, Scott. Uh, thank you so much again. Uh, just before this recording, I said, like, I we couldn't repay you enough. And the interesting thing about that statement is I know, Scott, you don't feel like there's a repayment worthwhile and that you get more than anyone by doing it. And again, so we talked about this principle of learn, do, teach. Why, when your business felt like it wasn't doing well, would you run in and take up more stuff that seems to be not relevant to your business?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Man, I'll I'll give it to you like this. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher and an electrician. He did both. Okay. My mother was a social worker. So there is something in my blood that loves to give back. I get much joy. Okay. The other thing is Jennifer and I are empty nesters. My son just graduated, got his master's degree. He's out living his own life, doing what he loves, about to get married. And so I don't like to watch TV, honestly. I like to do stuff productive. And uh serving other people is what I feel like I was put on this earth to do. I get so much joy from that. It just makes me happy to serve other people. So doing the free electrical classes at the library, that started by I heard of two single ladies that put this together at the library to teach other single ladies basic home maintenance. Some of it was very basic electricity, HVAC, automotive. I found out about that. I had to go join in. So I was raised by a single mom. Got in there doing that. Then I posted on Facebook about it, and people said, man, I would love to go to that. So I just started doing free basic electrical classes. And I'm sure we'll go a little deeper into that as we go. So that was it. I'm just I'm just put here to give back, man. That's what I do. That's what makes me happy.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So, in doing that, then help us understand what's changed in your business. Are you actually seeing that come back and serve you too?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I think so, man. We stay slammed over here. Um, and I think it's a lot of referrals. I honestly, man, I'll confess to you that I have never paid for an ad. I've never spent one dime on a paid ad. Now, I'm going to because I started posting these videos and several went viral, and now I have something that I'm going to put ad spin behind. I've been talking to Forrest about doing it locally. But we have to get our team a little bit more ready. We're doing our training every week. We train our guys two hours a week to just get us ready for what's coming. Because there's a wave coming, and I told them to polish their surfboards.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Nice. And in the intro, I could have done better justice by introducing these great videos you've been doing too. How are you doing? What's your approach to this? Like I've seen some of them myself, but in your words, how do you go about this? How do you choose what topic to do, Scott? And which ones have you noticed are doing better than other ones?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

It all started with a getting a call from a customer that was frustrated that changed out a GFCI outlet himself. And it wouldn't work. And he swore up and down. I put it exactly the way it was. I took the wires exactly off and put them exactly the way it was. If you know anything about GFCIs, Levanton, the line sides on the top.

SPEAKER_06 16:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Eaton, the line sides on the bottom. So anyway, he didn't have the line and load correct. And I tried to explain that, but he said, look, at this point, I'm not touching it, I'm done. Just come over here and fix it. And so I ended up taking the call and I went over there and I realized that there's people that are brave enough to try their own electrical. And I said, Man, if nothing else, I got to teach them. And I was reading the uh Facebook cheat sheet in our uh SLE program, and I was looking at ways to get myself top of mind. Um, another thing that happened, and I and this will all tie together, was I had a friend go on Facebook that knows me and post it, I'm looking for an electrician. Anyone got one? And I was like, come on, man, are you serious? I'm an electrician. And so I said, I'm not staying top of mind, even though I thought I was. So I needed to double down on something that I could get um just stay top of mind. And making videos for DI wires is where it started, and then it it shifted a little bit more into one day I looked on my, like for instance, here I have a smart GFI sitting on my desk. And I started thinking that people don't people don't even know this exists. I had a guy lose an entire elk in his freezer because his GFI tripped in his garage, and he paid lots of money to go on this elk hunt, and he didn't go in the garage a lot, he didn't park his car in the garage. It was kind of a man cave sort of, and that GFI tripped and he didn't know about it until it was too late.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

For those, if I could just say, for those of you maybe not as familiar with hunting, like an elk hunt is your ultimate trophy game hunt. There's a special bond between man and elk on these hunts. That is not an easy loss.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Well, we don't have elk in Louisiana, so he had to travel. Okay. But anyway, that you know, that was another thing to share things that people didn't know existed, like a humidity switch for your bathroom, or even a heat vent or a vent light uh combo that has a humidity sensor built in to turn it on, especially upstairs when there's high humidity in Louisiana. It just started like that, and lately I've been shifting. Um, I got a little more attention from electricians than I really cared because you know how they are. Man, you want to know what's the worst thing about electrical, it's electricians.

SPEAKER_06 19:07

Yes, 100,000 percent.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You are brutal, man. And uh I have been called.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

You can laugh at that, you're probably in the right place. If not, then maybe not so much.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I know you guys can relate, man, because you started a business, you started doing this, trying to serve electricians who were thinking that you were out to get them or something instead of trying to where where your heart truly is. And my heart was there to help. And I just had to quit reading the comments, and uh, so we had some videos go viral, and uh that was a unique experience uh to all of a sudden start getting you know 50 to 100 new followers every single day uh on my Facebook, and uh and now it's learning with Forrest how to take that attention across the country, dial it into my area, and how do I utilize because the the the nation is telling me what people want to know? And so what I have to remember there's thousands of people that enjoy my videos, and there's three or four knuckleheads that's got something to judge about or to say about it that I don't even need to pay attention. I'm not this video is not for them.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

There are three things that you said that I absolutely have to plant a flag in. Like, we just cannot continue further without going into it. Because the first is that I can imagine an electrician listening to this and saying, You mean to tell me that you're gonna teach homeowners how to fix the calls that you can go on instead, and now you could potentially be losing revenue because you're teaching for free. And like it's so cool how that's the negative mentality that people would bring into it, but as a direct result, you stayed top of mind and it actually generated more followers, which then led to additional customers, which then led to additional sales. First thing, absolutely awesome. I love that. Second thing is you are so right about that Levitant Smart. And I'm gonna shame myself here, and uh sure electricians can laugh at it. I literally didn't know about the Levitin Smart for a long time, and I actually disabled a GFI to power my meat freezer for the exact same reason until I found it, and now it's it's a complete game changer. But if we don't know about that, I'm sure there's electricians who would say, I'm not gonna GFI your freezer because look what happened to this guy. You know, and that's gonna request the third thing. Electricians, I almost did it, Clay, almost did it. The third thing was that you're so right about electricians being the worst part of electrical work because I was actually told that was one of the reasons why people didn't want to work with electricians. The two statements that I heard was one, they're all assholes, and two, they don't have any money. It's crazy to think that. But I love how you've proven that every single one of those things you approached head on like a rhinoceros, ended up getting amazing results out of it. You now so started DIY, but then grew massively from it. You're teaching new products that people are now clamoring for, and you're able to rise above and say, Screw those guys. I don't care if they're amigators, everyone else is. Valuing this. So you have so I have so much respect for what you're doing, man. Like, I can't even begin to say it. It's really so inspiring to hear.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

And for those of you that don't know what just happened to Joe, there's a little uh curse that's becoming more known here at SLE where we say we have three things and we only can remember two. If that's it, only you were so close, man, to falling. Uh, good job remembering numbers. Yeah, I literally did that so bad one time on a call that I hit mute and shut my video off, and I just had a fit. I just had to come back. So super embarrassing when it happens. Good job on the recovery, Joe.

SPEAKER_06 22:37

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Can I share an insight, Scott? Hormosy said something, and I know you got hormose books behind you. Uh, great marketer, great business uh mentor, and he did this video recently and he talked about you know, social media, the death of social media is actually ads because there's more ads than content now, or very close, right? It's like two to one where it used to be four to one, organic to ad. And so social media makes money based on ad revenue. However, the best possible situation for social media is ads that look like organic content so they don't get slammed for having too many ads. And so what you're doing is really genius there. It's so good for you guys to stretch your muscles, be okay with sucking at first, commit yourself to some video content. We'll go over the controversy here next of the what you're doing, and I'd love to uh explore what your guys' thoughts are. But ultimately, making sure you put it organic first, see what pops off, and then put ads behind that, uh ad spend behind that. That's a massive strategy, and it helps the social media company too. So naturally, they want to help you win on that strategy. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I've got a suggestion for you, if I may. And again, I want to hit this controversy. Maybe we'll do the controversy first.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Okay, I'm down.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

We're gonna invite electricians to comment below on this one. If you guys are on YouTube, that's a great place to comment below. What are your thoughts? Do you think we should be showing homeowners how to do some of these basic electrical things? Scott, we just we stoked a fireman. I know that there's mixed thoughts on this, but I'd love to go and spend a minute on it. Um, and then I'm gonna tie in my advice to it because I agree with Joe and I agree with you 100%. I I've seen the shift happen in the marketplace where we used to build a fortress around our intellectual property, our experience, knowledge, and skills, and then say that fortress, that wall is a paywall. You get nothing until you pay. And then the market started shifting, and guys like us and hormozy, we talked about, started giving information away freely because we're in the age of information, and now we've actually come to a place where you could see this on your Facebook, on your Instagram, anywhere. We pay to give our information away to buy some trust from someone so that they might choose us to do this. So, Scott, uh, my little piece of advice for this was I agree with this methodology. I would add, if you haven't already, a disclaimer just to make sure that people know hey, this is regulated electrical work. As always, you want to be safe, you want to check with your insurance company, make sure that you're okay to do this work without compromising your home or any of the safety or values of your insurance or or family, right? But nonetheless, I want you to understand this work, and that's really the reason for these videos, is so you have a better understanding of what a regulated electrician like ourselves might do for you in your home at this time. I think that's a really solid approach that kind of gets you out of any potential trouble as well. What are your thoughts on that, Scott?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

I think it's good. One um I have played around with that, trying to add something in. So in some of my videos, I did go into I haven't really pulled a receptacle out and showed them like it's all been sitting at my desk with wire and and things like that. So I've tried to keep it kind of simple, very basic. Uh, so there's a couple things that come to mind, what what you just said. One was I had a guy call me to book an appointment with our company and said the reason he picked us when we asked, why did you pick us? What made you pick Rhino? And he said, because any guy that's given away free to electrical advice is a guy that's not going to rip me off. And that's I was like, I didn't even think of myself being that way. And I was like, of course I wouldn't rip you off, man. I'm here to serve you. I'm here to make sure your family's safe. We come through your threshold of your house as if our children are sleeping in this house tonight. That's how we look at it. And then the other thing with with a disclaimer, yes, we need to uh we need to protect ourselves because if somebody does get hurt, I've I've done some study with some some lawyers about could I necessarily get sued and that stuff. I've not shown them step by step exactly how to do things. And so part of it is what I'm looking to do is educate them enough that if they want to try to change the reciprocal, they can, or if they hire an electrician in their home, they're educated enough to know if the guy is a hack or not. It's kind of the point.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yep. Yeah, that's important. And I I want to highlight one more thing with this is this is like Chinese to you, right? If you're not an electrician, you're a homeowner, and this thing feels like a Rubik's Cube, then what actually happens, Scott, is they don't just watch once if they're interested in that topic. They go back and they go, oh, wait, what? And replay and replay. And you've probably seen that in some of the stats if you've ever looked. Sometimes on our YouTube videos, we get that because we talk about and try to simplify complex business topics, right? And so people will go back and you'll see, oh yeah, viewership dropped, and then all of a sudden there's this big hump here a couple minutes in, where clearly people had to go back and replay, replay, replay. And so what ends up happening, just like that guy you mentioned, is they're hearing your voice in their head over and over and over explain this. Who do you trust more at that point? I mean, you're already invested. And so we call that actually a parasocial relationship, which means you've got little Scots out there working for you that have gone viral. And you could be sleeping, man, you could you could be sawing logs, right? And people are still hearing your voice, getting exposure to you, believing in rhino electric, and building up that repertoire that you aim to uh to build there. So uh congratulations. I I think it's the right move. And I like how you're taking an approach that's like not, hey, go do this yourself. It's just, hey, here's how to understand what we're doing. You could do it too, or you could hire uh a proper electrician to do it. Joe, what were you thinking, brother?

SPEAKER_04 28:42

The thing that immediately came to mind was I know, you know, Scott, you and I connect over, you know, faith-based beliefs and good character and moral upstanding. The the thing that just hit me was it's almost like the good deed that carries on. Where Clay's saying, yeah, you know, your voice is speaking and you're helping people, but it's also one of the best ways of actually gaining the reward of a good deed because you're out there helping someone and then you go to sleep, but that aid is continuing to help, and then someone shares it, and then it helps someone else, and then it helps someone else, and it helps someone else. So on one side, yeah, it's marketing, you are marketing to people, but on the other side, your small effort or consider conceived small effort becomes a larger benefit to a much larger community. So you actually can go through and say, I'm not doing these to market per se. Marketing's the side effect. I'm doing this to get the best good deed, and as a result, it does help me with my marketing. Yeah, it's such a cool concept that you turn on your head, you're like from a moral standing, you're actually really benefiting the world as a whole by actually marketing.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, you're making me think of two things the ripple effect and the butterfly effect.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

100%. I love those two concepts, and it's amazing when you think about there could be some butterfly in Japan that's physically blowing, just flapping around on a bonsai tree, and now here we are getting a hurricane. Amazing to think, but it's a big possibility. Who knows what life you're changing by one of those videos?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah, yeah. Our current coach said a couple of things that stood out to us recently. As you know, we invest in coaches too, we believe in it. We wouldn't uh feel ourselves if we didn't uh do that as well, right? Not hypocrites, that's for sure. Uh, good content solves a lot of problems, solves a lot of business problems. It really does. And the other thing that really kicked me uh hard was just your marketing will help more people than your services ever will. That's really important to realize. And if you think about this like a funnel, well, marketing should. Shouldn't we do our diligence to educate people as electricians to homeowners? Shouldn't we help them have a safer place? Shouldn't we also actually evolve past the gated community thing? The the whole like uh only way I'm talking to you is if you pay. It's all part of the strategy to get there, obviously, and be able to inspect in person. And that's where there's sort of uh dichotomy here is because if we can't get to the house and there are other hidden electrical issues, well, that's unfortunate too. At some point, I believe it is in everyone's best interest to have an electrician to the house. We had a guy from Belgium. Gosh, his name slipping me right now. Did he ever attend your call, Scott?

SPEAKER_04 31:22

Yes, I believe I remember him, but I think it's was it Frederick, I believe. Fredericton?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah, was he ever in the round table, Scott? Do you remember him?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Man, I'm not sure if there was somebody from Belgium. We have Josh from Australia there every year.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, Josh has been crushing thanks to guys like you and Billy. Um, but yeah, I think it was Frederick and in Belgium. He told me something really significant. He said, Here, you have to have an electrician in your home every 25 years, that's not an option. So, guess what else is true for Belgium, right? Way fewer electrical fires. There's still over 50,000 electric home fires a year in the US. Any electric fire, in my opinion, is preventable. What do you guys think about that?

SPEAKER_04 32:08

I want to jump in on that because there's two real thoughts here. You mentioned something I don't want to let it slip, which was you're saying how you're educating people on things that they may not have known. And as a result, they don't know how to prevent said problem. I think that's actually where options really come in to benefit a lot of people. Because let's say we are talking about the smoke detector issue where you're it's not an issue. You're yeah, you're right, Scott. You could have this bare minimum basic smoke detector, and that's all you offer to the customer. But how do they know that there aren't smart automated systems that'll talk to you or message you or directly tie into your security system or call the fire department or tell you which room to run out of or what the exact fault is? Like they would have no idea unless they're product knowledge experts or engineers. So by you actually offering them the choices of higher levels to lower levels, they become educated in things they didn't otherwise know, and therefore you are standing off not only your competition, but you're serving them and preventing tragedy before it has the opportunity to even become a reality.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yeah, I love that. You know what I love about Scott? Scott, you're taking notes turns out. I love that. Yeah, this Scott is a legend.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Man, he's dropping gold. I gotta write this down. I just got a video idea.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Absolutely. They used to call me the notepad Nazi. I know I've said that before, it's an embarrassing name, and it's not one I stand behind, but that's how much conviction I have in memory through taking notes, brother. So I'm with you. You just make me happy every time you look down and start writing. All right, Scott, you decided to rebuild. We got to get back to your story here. Why did you decide to tear it all down, even if you had over a million-dollar business in the past?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Well, you you know, you can do a million dollars and spend two million to do it, okay?

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

You can you can do a million dollars is I don't want to say it's easy to do, but it's easy to do. Okay. Being profitable. So we were probably more profitable last year at 525 than we were at 1.2 in 2022. Okay. We were not efficient, we didn't have SOPs. We just we were flying by we were doing every electrical job that came our way. I mean, we wanted to be everybody's electrician, and we were wiring houses, we were doing, we were working with general contractors, we were doing all kinds of things. When I decided that I didn't care for working with general contractors anymore, not saying I won't, but I don't go looking for them. There are very few that I will work with, and we have very strict rules if they want to work with us. First of all, they got to agree to our prices, and most of them don't. So we eliminate them. But uh there are um we just prefer to work with the homeowner. And so some of the guys that I had were more construction workers than they were customer-facing character. I mean, they had they were good people, they weren't thieves or nothing. I checked them all out drug tests, background checks, but they were construction hands, man. They they they want to show up at the job, you know, do the work, smoke cigarettes, throw them on the ground, whatever, do what they do. And I didn't want to go that way anymore. I wanted to shift more towards it's when I started wearing the white shirts. I started studying companies, okay. I and I'm the only one that wears a white shirt, but my guys won't wear them. But I just do it. I think it makes it makes me feel a certain way, and it makes me look when I go out to I do a lot of networking and and stuff, and I get accused of being a fireman sometimes because I got the little flag, and you know, but I studied custom uh companies, man, big companies all across the world, not just in America, everywhere, the UK, everywhere. Companies like uh any hour, they all wear white shirts, every one of them. So I said, okay, I'm gonna try the white shirt thing. I'm just gonna see how I feel about it. And I've ruined a bunch of them, trust me.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

What do you think the white says?

SPEAKER_00 35:56

I've tried to figure that out, but it it's clean, it just makes me feel uniformed better than uh than just some sloppy t-shirt or something.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

And some mix of pink and gray and black.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

True. I've actually done the research on this. There is actually a specific um mental connection that people have perceived from the white shirt. And from what I've learned, it's because the connotation of a doctor walks in with a white lab coat, any white-collared shirt is then considered this is a person of higher education and someone of authority. So when you think of a manager, that's one thing, but imagine if you picture a doctor in your head, the first thing you see is he walks in with a white lab coat, it's clean and it's crisp, and he's got the stethic uh stethoscope around his neck. So by you actually wearing the same thing with a collar and a button down, you can create the same mental image and have the association in the customer's mind without having to say anything.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah. So let me clear one thing real quick. I don't want to offend anybody by what I said about t-shirts. I do have a t-shirt in my truck. In the event I go on a call and it turns into an immediate call, I can take this white shirt off and put my gray t-shirt on that has rhino electric. And I'll tell them jokingly all the time, all right, you saw my white, pretty clean shirt. I made my first impression. Now I'm gonna get into work clothes. I take off the nice black hat, I put on the gray one that has the sweat marks on it, you know, get my headlight, whatever I gotta do, and go to work. And so I've made my first impression. You get one chance to make a first impression, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah, a thousand percent. And it's just what a couple seconds long, I think.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

Yeah, what was that? Was that yeah, it's I think it was actually a study on that. I think it was like 0.3 seconds, it was between one to 0.3 where a customer could look at you and they don't they don't even register the thought. It's that quick of a thing. Where, yeah, it was, I think it was between one second and 0.3 seconds where someone would look at you and they assess you before even really taking in the picture. Because you know how I'd mentioned how like you coming across with a white coat, there are so many mental images we have like slides that are constantly playing on our brain, and you almost match up like a lottery ticket or like a slot machine. And you're like, if I tick, tick, tick, okay, he's good. So it's really interesting how you're right. The first impression is so quick, and you only get one shot at it.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

And Tony just messaged from the back. I remember Eddie Bros. Uh, yeah, we had an interview with the Eddie brothers a few times, and they always talk about the electric MDs, the doctors. That's funny you said that, Tony. I wanted to call that to attention because I was just thinking the same thing. Flickering lights equals coughing. Yeah, something's sick. We got to fix that. We got to look at this. Hey, you guys, if this episode sparks something for you, imagine stacking that every single week. That's how businesses stop flickering and start running steady. If you subscribe to the show or leave a review if you're on audio, and if you're driving down the road, please pull over when it's safe because I've got something you're not gonna want to skip. For every person that subscribes and or leaves a review and fills out the form below, letting us know that you did that thing, we're gonna draw one monthly subscriber for our open circuit lifetime membership worth $1,500. And that's not all. Every six months, we're actually gonna draw another subscriber for our $5,000 scholarship, which you can use for any of our electric service packages to get your business and your service rocking better than ever. Come on, guys, let's brighten this thing up. Is it gonna be you? Back to the show.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

I have a friend in California who owns a company named Electric Medics, and he did the exact same thing because he's like, I treat every single home as if I'm the doctor going in because you actually had EMS prior to being an electrician. Was that Mike? Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say he was at the workshop last night, dude. There were so many people at the workshop. I was just focused on dialing in, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

All right, Mike Parks, he just got a shout out.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

There you go, man. Nothing but love for you.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, fully agree. Chase Hughes talks about this too. Have you guys heard of Chase Hughes, Scott? Do you know that guy yet?

SPEAKER_00 40:01

I don't recognize the name.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

He was uh XCIA um mind and behavioralist expert. He's all over YouTube right now, one of the big guy, uh big accounts. So he used to brainwash and do counter espionage. So, like they would find a spy, he would get a hold of this person for a couple weeks, and they would turn that person into a counter-spy on their own country. So, like this guy wrote a book, I paid 250 bucks for it, that is like a code book of behavioral science. And he talks about the white coat, the lab coat, and the effect it has, and how literally watch people enter a doctor's clinic, even a medical clinic, and you'll see a different person outside the doors than you see inside. So there's a very obedient mentality that happens once we're inside. And they've done uh clinical studies on this. One study he talked about within two or three hours, I think he talks about in uh in these YouTube and in this book, they got people to commit murder. Now, not real murder, but like turn up an electrocution device on someone in the other room and think that you were really hurting them, and still with a doctor or scientist, someone in a lab coat saying, uh, no, not quite enough. You got to go up again. And these people kept going up and they knew they were doing damage. At one point, the person stops making noise. It's all part of the act, right? It's just a study, but they don't know that, they're not in on it, and they still go again. And I'm talking like this was an 80% conversion rate on people committing murder because of this effect. Now, obviously, that's an extreme dramatic example, but that's how powerful what you wear and how you present yourself actually is. Yeah, I don't think enough people appreciate that, so I wanted to bring it to your attention. Uh, Scott, I don't think you're out there doing harm to anyone. So maybe that was too extreme, but crazy, crazy facts, man. And yet you talk about the construction workers and guys that'll go with unlaced boots, maybe a shirt untucked, maybe a button too low, showing a white beater underneath, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like that just doesn't fly in service when you need that first impression to be so strong. What are you guys' thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 42:15

I I remember a plumber who changed my mind, and it was I met him on a job site. Um, my partner and I had slightly different views on whether we needed the collared shirt or whether we needed the t-shirt. And I was always arguing for collared shirt, but his argument was always, well, no one actually wears it's in the field. And I was installing a generator and we had subbed out a plumber. The plumber comes on and he's wearing this green, I'm similar to this like forest green t-shirt or uh collared shirt. I look at him like, hey man, listen, I'm the owner of the company. I was like, I appreciate you coming all dressed up. The client's actually not home. You don't have to worry about it. If you want to get into your work clothes, I listen, I'm gonna give you a pass. I'm not gonna write your view. He's like, No, this is my uniform, this is what we wear, whether the customer is watching or not. And I remember looking at him being like, I'm never gonna go back. I'm I this is a complete game changer because he's the commitment, he was sweating beads, and he's like, This is what I'm gonna do. Because it doesn't matter whether they're watching, I know I'm supposed to do it, and that's what I'm gonna do. And ever since then, I'm like, you know, all right, I'm not showing up in a t-shirt ever again. And I would always insist on working in my polo if I had the chance.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Anyway, we distracted from your story again, Scott. We keep going deep dives because uh you're just you're so smart about this, man. And I don't even know if you realize how much your intuition is guiding you in the right direction here. Really appreciate that. So uh you were talking about trading it in, the construction workers, the 1.2, just deciding, you know, it wasn't profitable. We had to do something different. Uh, pick us up where you feel is right there, brother.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Um, so it was about culture, man. I started reading about culture. I knew what I wanted my company to be. And again, man, not taken away from the guys that were. They were great electricians, they worked very hard, they just weren't service electricians, they weren't wired to become Customer, I so I was running myself ragged, going ahead of them, making the relationships with the customers. Okay, so I was literally killing myself almost seven days a week, trying to stay ahead of them, trying to like be on the job with them and don't let them talk to the customer because you don't know what they're gonna say, and you I don't know if they're gonna smoke on the customer. I don't, you know what I mean? And it used to irritate me. I'd go over there and one of my guys would be standing there talking to the customer with a cigarette in his hand. I wanted to just string on him. Man, do not so and that reminds me of another rule, Joe. You're gonna love this. I'm always three rules. You ready? Yeah, three rules. Rule number one, don't shock yourself.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Okay, and check that rule number two.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

If you're gonna shock yourself, don't do it in front of the customer.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Check that.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Rule number three, don't shock the customer. I love that. That's a great way to go about it.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Yeah, if you're gonna get shocked, make sure they don't see you do it. If they get shocked, don't yell.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

That's right. So, anyway, that that just made me think of that with the cigarette. Don't smoke in front of the customer. I mean, if you have to smoke or something, then finish the job and go down the street somewhere, get out of the van and wear a patch, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

We're five patches.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I don't care.

SPEAKER_04 45:09

Like no damage do you need? Just don't don't let it show. That patches all over your backs and arms.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Sure, sure. So I do keep mints, mouthwash, body deodorant, all that stuff in the vans. So fresh uniform, everything. So uh I was kind of doing that before SLE. I I'd heard that before. So we, you know, so we try to keep the guys, especially the service guys, install guys are typically going to a job where they're gonna be there six or eight hours, they're gonna be there all day, typically. And uh so uh they do have extra shirts if they get a little too sweaty, they can change their shirt at lunch, you know, try to keep themselves looking appropriate, and uh, but the service guys, they gotta look like just the first job of the day.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So when you say tear it down, like you fired all your clients, you got rid of staff. How far did you go with this?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

It it all kind of happened weirdly, man. During COVID, when a lot of people couldn't work in the plants and commercial jobs were shutting down. I hired, we got busy and I started hiring. Now, these guys are industrial electricians, and you know, there's there's basically there's many types, but I guess there's three: there's residential, commercial, industrial. Now, there's some guys talented enough to do all three. Yeah, but there's some guys that call themselves electricians when they're really just conduit hands. They run conduit in chemical plants and industrial factories. Yeah, they run conduit on commercial jobs, they pull wire. And then, and so some of these guys were not really good troubleshooters. They were great installers. If I had took them to a job and said we're gonna run this conduit, they can run conduit all day long. But anyway, the culture of that was I wanted to change the look of the company. I wanted to change the culture, and I felt like I had allowed these guys to do too many things that I don't think I could, I didn't feel like I could change them to what I wanted. And I felt like I just needed to strip it down. And so as COVID lifted and these guys started going back to the plants and things like that, some of them quit, some of them I got rid of. Some of them, you know, gave me a two-week notice and went back to working to plant. They said, Ah man, it's crawling in attics, it's not for me. They'd rather be crawling around in pipe racks. So, or in man lifts. So it kind of it kind of all happened together. I and I just started really, really thinking about where did I want my business to go? And I started kind of designing. I actually, well, another thing that happened, honestly, now that you're making me think about it, I wrote a business plan. I didn't have a business plan. So I actually started to write a business plan and come up with where I want it to go, where I want it to be at the end of 2025, at the end of 2026, where I want to be at 2030 when I'm 60 years old, where this company's gonna be. And thanks to AI now, man, you can do this very simply. You can talk to Chat GPT or Claude and give it all your ideas, and it can help you put this together into a beautiful business plan that we have now. And so we have the Rhino playbook now. And um there's even a man, I'll tell you, I got my SLE book up here.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

This is my secret. This is the Rhino electric content machine.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Love that. There's gonna be people reaching out and trying to get that. They're gonna be going to buy that from you.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Of my video ideas and my uh why Rhino makes video, everything. It's pages. It's not as thick as my SLE book, but the print case. I'm the guy, guys. Honestly, I'm the guy. I don't know if anybody's ever done this. Every PDF that y'all had on the bronze level, I printed every one of them and put them in a binder so I can highlight and take notes and everything.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

I mean you look at me and say, Why aren't you following everything? Because I'm hard headed.

SPEAKER_04 48:49

But anyway, no, I was just gonna say, I I love the fact that there are some people who will join a program for the mental relief of I've paid for the problem to go away. And there are other people who say, I've paid and I'm gonna get every single cent of this investment, like yourself, who then say, All right, I'm gonna print everything out. I'm gonna come to every class. Screw it, I'll teach a class if I have to. Like, I'm gonna get my value out of this. And it's just it's so refreshing and so wonderful having a client like yourself who's that invested in your own personal growth and in growth of the industry.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Yeah, I'm pretty sure y'all gonna have to run me away from here.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Ain't gonna happen anytime soon, and we have nothing but love for you.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Well, I have to make it to the gold level. So there's there's levels in this that I kind of know about that I need to get to certain levels.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

So we should talk about that after. Scott, you've uh you're about six employees, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Yes. Now we just lost a guy uh two weeks ago who uh, due to some personal reasons, decided to move to Ohio for a little while with his sister to regroup for a second. And man, it hurt because he was our selling tech. And he was the guy that I had. He's Jordan, he he sold a platinum. He y'all celebrated him. Uh, but I told him that I would get licensed in Ohio if we need to. So yeah, just it was a little far. But anyway, uh, I wish him the best. I hope that he gets straight and comes back, man. He was a great, great employee. Miss him dearly. Somebody in Ohio is gonna pick up a great guy.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Yeah, um, yeah. So you said you're averaging 80k months, then you're now five, you were six. You just had a hundred and sixty-five K month. What do you think is the biggest difference for you, Scott? What happened that was magic last month that you'd love to continue? And what did it show you that maybe needs work?

SPEAKER_00 50:29

One thing we we're starting to price ourselves right now. I was telling you before the podcast, before we started, where we're going wrong with some things, where we're still we still have a tendency sometimes to go look at some jobs, some opportunity calls, where it's just easy, just email it over and we write the estimate, we give them a couple of options and we send it to them. And we're we're and we know that we're forcing the customer to do our job. They have to determine what these options mean. They don't know what it means. And so where we're at in our journey in SLE, we've we've picked up on the options, we've picked up on building the options, we've picked up on handling objections, a lot of things. And now where we are now is getting more to the two call closes and being able to uh take less estimates per day, less opportunity calls, or the other thing is is I'm trying to dial myself back a little bit so that I can run opportunity calls so I can feel it because I can't teach what I don't know personally. And so to my guys, I have to feel what they feel. I have to go put myself in their shoes. I have to learn to overcome the objections, I have to, you know, handle everything. I have to learn as my van parked is okay where it's at. How do I knock on the door, step back, hands exposed, smiling, walk in, you know, shoe protectors, everything, the whole plate, everything. I have to do this. So I don't know if I got off track what you asked me, but that's where my mind was.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Great start. No, you you killed it, man. That's uh shows that you already have memory for the process. You just named uh several of the key elements in the beginning, and that was stuff that was covered last night in the workshop, too. Uh so you've had a recent refresher, Scott, but ultimately, man, I believe you can do this, and I believe it's a really strong move. Uh, we see there's there's actually to step away from the bronze silver gold logic and see the four stages of service um is really Spark Pro, Masters, and Elite levels. And what we see is that Spark is that first zero to 30k doing too much. The leads are on me, the sales are on me, the installs are on me. I'm like a grounded XO point on a Y uh transformer, let's say, right? Everything runs through me, it's too much. After 30k, you kind of you have your CSR and you start to be able to let go of some of the leads and the appointment settings so you can just focus on customers, but you're still sales, still install. And as you progress up that pro level, you get your installer, you get that great person that can do that for you. And then you're just really a ground point on the sales sector of this whole thing. And what we're really trying to do is uh trying to explain this on a podcast this tough. You guys will see this on the new series RTFM and on the million-dollar plan, but we're kind of trying to go from a Y formation to a Delta formation in each of these three areas where we have systems and people doing it for us, so we don't have to. The reason I bring this up, Scott, is because right in around this million-dollar mark, you're approaching that master's level, and it's a challenge because there's a horizontal shift that has to happen. And in my opinion, the only way this transition can happen is the owner has to have that sales process, even if it's new to you guys, even if it means a step backwards a bit, it feels like you have to go in the field and be able to pull this string, as the metaphor says. Because so long as you don't fully have it dialed in, so long as you won't get uncomfortable doing the stuff that they're uncomfortable with, as you said, you'll have trouble pushing that string across the table. And when you push a string, what happens? Just folds back over itself, right? So ironically, it's that move, and it feels like a setback, but it's a shift over. And if you've ever seen this drawing, it's actually a lightning bolt. So it goes from Spark to Pro and then goes over, where then we can grow again into that elite level. That only happens if you can fully delegate, train, and lead your sales. So it's a big move, brother, but I fully, fully commend it. Joe, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 54:33

You know, it's one of the things, it's very refreshing, and I love the fact that you actually even put it into the electrical theory mess of going into Y into deltas. It's so refreshing as an electrician hearing that. But it also, I feel like it speaks to the specific struggle that everyone has at that place. Because if they're in a moment, and like I I remember it where we're like we were doing install and sales, and it burns you out because it's a hard thing shifting mentalities. Like if you were saying, I'm gonna show up as install mode, like Scott, think of it. I'm focused on efficiency, I'm focused on the quality, I'm focused on the overall, I'm focused on the customer experience, but you're not thinking about the sales opportunities that are there or the additional conversations you can have or running the additional inspection plays, and you're not focusing on the follow-up that's gonna come from that thing. So being able to expand and grow your department and also delegate yourself out of it while also putting yourself into things that matter, I don't think I think it's absolutely wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 55:24

Really good.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Yeah, yeah, smart stuff. Yeah, and I love your intuition around the emailing. Um, if you can do less, this reminds me of Mike. Gosh, what was his last name? Joe, of course, I don't know how many calls you run in a day, but this guy came in, he was doing 10 to 12 calls a day. Yeah, spray and pray, absolute, email it over. Yep, and he was actually doing about one point, he was doing about what Joe did 1.2, 1.3 million from this, but he was burning so many leads. The conversion was only like 20 to 30 percent to do that. And when we asked him to do two coas and just three to four calls a day, he was so against it, but I got to give him all the props in the world because he did that thing, and then he had the biggest month he's ever had about two months into it. I think it was around 60, 40 to 60 days, right? And there he had his first 158k month from a third of the calls that he used to run. So that was a really important dynamic shift. What if we just like you said, Scott, instead of being everyone's electrician or trying to be so many people's answer, what if we focused on those that we got the best signals from? What would happen then and just try to be their electrician?

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Yeah, well, we could be more profitable with less work, we wouldn't have to kill ourselves working seven days a week. You know, we could choose to work seven days a week if we wanted to, if we wanted to work after hours for our club members or what have you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

You know what's interesting about this? I only ever see this in companies that seem to not have a marketing problem. Like you mentioned, oh, we've never really spent on ads, we've been all organic, and because of that flow, it's really hard to turn people away or begin, as we say, like lead scoring and only serving the choice customers. And maybe you're not there yet, but it seems to be a problem that comes with that style of business. In fact, Dan Totten, when he came back, that was his number one thing. He said, Joe, I need to learn what to do with all these leads because I can't serve everyone. And we seem to be doing less with more. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 57:25

No, I honestly think that's one of the best benefits of offering the first class pass because you don't have to say no, you can say yes, and then allow them to choose whether they want to pursue that level of service or not. So it's yeah, I'm happy to come out. I may be booked out, but if you'd like, I you want to go this particular route, I can still come out and take care of you and prioritize you. And if that's not something you're currently open to doing, okay, no worries. My next availability is this. I'd like to proceed.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really good stuff. Scott, thanks for being vulnerable in that stuff. We have just maybe five minutes here left. I'd love to hear from you then. It sounds like you're pretty focused on what to do next. What was, just for clarity, what was the big difference last month for you guys? What changed? Was it just a little luck behind you? Was were the leads better? Were sales better? Was there a couple big projects? What doubled up for you?

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Well, like I said, first of all, we got ourselves priced better. I hate to say it like this, but you know, if you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it's gonna stick. We don't have a lead issue over here. We have a conversion issue. We could have done probably way better. We actually, I feel we should have been over half a million already this year with the amount of opportunities we've been given. Now, what I wanted to comment on was everything organic. Let me let me just say that I am a professional networking company disguised as an electrician that happens to do electrical work. Okay. I network more than probably anybody you'll ever meet. I know thousands and thousands of acquaintances, people. I I had a guy teach me a long time ago that Scott, there are groups of people meeting somewhere every day, every night, B I meetings, BABR meeting, all these different meetings. And so I put myself in a position to win. Just this week I did a big chamber event where they were uh the Chamber of Commerce, it was a business expo and job fair. So I set up like I was hiring. I said, Yeah, I'm always hiring. So um I had several great candidates show up and say they only came there because they heard we were hiring. But anyway, what made the shift last month? Let's get back on task. Man, we did pick up a couple of big house rewired. It's like all of a sudden we got all these rewired jobs at the same time, and so we had some pretty good, profitable, pretty good uh high-ticket, big ticket jobs all hit at the same time. And it actually caused us to have to work some overtime to pull it off. Uh, we did we did kind of like Scott picked up the uh the dog park. If y'all heard his story about getting the dog park, incredible. I picked we picked up three pickleball courts for uh what y'all would know as a county we call parish down here. Uh in a parish, they were building three pickleball courts, and that was a pretty good hit for us. Wow. Um it was over 60,000 just in just in that one little job, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:11

Beauty.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

So that was part of it, but it was just uh that and the girls staying focused, us collecting on the job now, instead of invoicing and billing and waiting and all that kind of stuff that we've we've just been guilty of doing. We're getting better about collecting now. Yeah, and so uh it's really good. And then just me learning more how to spend more time to explain things to people so that I can move job. Even when my estimator sells a job, if I go there, I still have the ability to upgrade that. I don't want to upsell, but upgrade things that he missed. I did it at a body shop this week that we were going to change just a meter can. Well, I said, man, I started looking at what he had. I said, You need a meter combo because you have these two air compressors that's going through the wall, feed in this panel, you're overloading this panel. We need to take some load off of that, put it here, it's gonna shorten this up, it's gonna open some room in your panel. I mean, all the things. This guy wrote a review this long yesterday with a five-star. I'm gonna share it on that. The the review that he wrote was just amazing. How I took the time to walk him through why those tandem breakers in the top of that panel in a 3048 don't belong up there. They broke the rejection clip out of the breaker to make it fit there. They had number six wire on a 100-amp breaker feeding his paint booth, a very expensive piece of equipment. People did this to him, he didn't know. He's he works a body shop, yeah. And so, um, anyway, we got a customer for life. Here's the great Joe, you really love this. When I got to the call, he called five other electricians. We were able to get there right away. I took it myself. I went and looked at it myself until I could get somebody there. When I walked in, we're walking around, we're looking, you know, tell me some other things. What happened when this happened? What were you using? What was going on? And we happened to walk in and he looks over and he mentions, man, my fish are dying. And I looked at his fish tank and his fish are upside down. And I said, No, man, the fish can't die. Time out. I had a guy with my portable generator, one of those little portable carry generators, like little inverter one five minutes away, a little small one, a little uh 2620, 2600 watt. I ran and got the generator, came back, plugged it in, got his fish oxygen going, saved his fish. I told the little guy that was with me, I said, Who do you think's getting this job? I said, That's how you serve a customer, man. You find a need and you feel it, and you serve them before you even ask for anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:43

I love that. I absolutely love it because so many people miss the emotional connection in the bond that causes them to choose who they want. It's not who presents the best price or all the things that come with it. It's I'm working with people and I can trust this person because I know he cares about me. I think that's great. I'm really proud of you for pulling that off.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

With that story, I I look forward to coming back to y'all in the very near future because when I walked him through the building and looked at some of the needs he had for three-phase power that he does not have in his building, I've already started to design a whole new system to get three-phase power to his building. And when I told him, I said, now I want you to know this is going to be an investment. This is gonna be costly up front to do this, but it's gonna solve a lot of your problems. You're not gonna worry about blowing up meters. The meter blew off of his side of his building. I said, You're you're overloading this place, it wasn't built to do what you're doing. And uh so he says, What do you think it's gonna cost? Like $20,000, $30,000? And I said, easy. He said, Oh, I thought you were gonna say a hundred thousand. So I don't know, man. I'm I'm thinking we not that I'm taking advantage by no means, but I think we're gonna be able to, I think he's open to designing an electrical system that's gonna serve him for years and years to come in a body shop to where he can add new equipment and run his equipment more efficiently.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:08

You said something that is a lightning bolt, and it's one of the reasons why we include it in the process. So, whenever we go and as you know, when we give a price, and just before we're about to reveal the top options, like, hey, my hands are off the presentation. Obviously, you see, I'm not gonna change it. If you had to take a guess, where do you think we're at, what do you think it would be? And the cool thing about that is if you had asked this customer that question, he would have said, What is it, around $100,000? And you would have been like, Hey, I wish I could have done it for $100,000. I truly wish I could. But the best price I can give you is even if it was $40,000, you know, you're thinking $20, 30, he's thinking $100. And now the value presented is phenomenal. And now he sees a huge price drop in his mind, and you know you built immense value. So it's great feedback and customer gauging.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

Yeah, really good story, guys. Uh, we are out of time. We could do like five of these, Scott. I knew this was gonna happen. We could keep going with you forever, guys. If you're watching, especially on YouTube again, comment below if you'd like to see Scott uh episode two. I wouldn't blame you if you did, Scott. I think we should be doing these every every now and again, every quarter, maybe. Heck, we could do a ton. There we go. Tony says, Scott, episode two, she's pumped up for it already in the background. Uh super excited. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing. Usually I would ask where people get a hold of you, Scott, but I actually want to do a bit of a shameless plug if I can. Best place to learn more from Scott, if you're interested in any of the discussions here, you want to work with Scott personally every Wednesday night in the app on the round table. Man, Scott, thank you again for putting those on. Scott's doing uh what you're usually interviewing, uh discussing uh deep dive in some topic that's either influenced you or someone else, sharing wins and challenges in real time, uh, that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

Yes. So we've been starting off with wins first. We go around the horn, see who's got a win, and then we just open up to anybody that has a quick question that maybe we can all. Try to solve together. And uh, and then sometimes whenever man, it just you know, it sometimes the round table, if you if you come on and you don't stay on more than about five minutes, if you don't think it's for you, you're missing out because sometimes it takes us a minute to get some traction on a good topic. And man, we get into some really good topics from growing your business to hiring employees to marketing to ads to fixing electrical problems. Uh, we troubleshoot together. Scott came with a great electrical issue with some uh smart module management modules for generact generators that he was having trouble with and arcfall breakers that were tripping due to some changes made in the smart module. And uh man, we we got deep, you know. You could tell everybody's like Joe, we were lighting up, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

He's a generator, man. That's it. That's all you gotta do. It's like Pavlov's dog. I'm I'm salivating. What do you got?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

If you guys aren't already on the app, uh here's how to do it go to service loopelectrical.com forward slash pro-app. That's pro dash app. And uh that takes you to a little page. There's a video, there's a bunch of information. Easy to sign up there and uh join. And in the welcome section, there's some events. You're gonna get webinar workshop replays like last night's sales and objection workshop, like the pricing workshop before, like the leads workshop before that, all these replays, all this value guys sitting there waiting for you, as well as a ton of value pieces like the Facebook cheat sheet that Scott mentioned today. So if you want more, Scott, if you want more of that stuff to help you on your million-dollar journey, again, that's what it's there for. That's what we're doing here every single week. And with a little disclaimer, only 5% ever make it to that, guys. Chances are that's not you, but these are real stories. This is Scott's real journey, and these are real things that are helping guys like Scott get way beyond that seven figures that they dream of. Scott, thanks so much for sharing your vision today, your plan. And just before we pass here, man, uh, what's a piece of advice that you would give your younger self or someone in shoes like you're in uh to help them maybe get there a little bit faster?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

The first thing I'd have done to my younger self is say, follow your instinct to be an entrepreneur much earlier, faster. Um, however, I'm at a season in life now that I think I was ready for this. I think everything that's happened in my life has brought me to where I am today, uh, obviously. Um my younger self, I would have, if I my younger self in being a business owner, I would have, I would have, man, we used to just go there and fix the thing, high-five the customer, collect a check, send them an invoice, leave. We were not serving the customer to the best of our ability, man. And I always wanted to, and that's that's what I'm saying, man. So now I got guys, when they cross the threshold of that house, my children are sleeping here tonight. What's gonna hurt them? And we go directly, you know, we build the rapport, we go to the panel, we look at, we look at the control system, we we evaluate everything, and then we build our options, we build our assessment, um, and go from there. So I would just get into that a lot faster, man, because part of what changed us is we've we've increased our average ticket. Man, we went from an average ticket of probably being about four, five, six hundred dollars to now in the two thousands. Okay, so and not taking advantage of people, guys. If you listen to this and you think, no, we are serving these people to the highest level that you could possibly serve them, and we're giving them options and we let them know that we had a cheaper option. Why didn't you choose that one?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:28

My heart. You just hit Joe right in the fields.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:33

Well, I learned it from him. Yeah, you're literally quoting the process, man. It makes me so happy to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Yeah, it's a great program you guys have, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

Thank you so much. Tony says mic drop in the background. I couldn't agree more. Stick around more great stuff next week with uh Joe's new show, More to Give. You could be checking that out on YouTube. He's going through all the best options, all the latest technology, helping you with the presentations of it, even so that you could, just like Scott said, give more. And my Friday show, RTFM, stands for read the fucking manual. Ode to my first year electrical teacher. I absolutely am going to enjoy making this simple for you. Simple bite sized chunks. How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Let's do it together every Friday, guys. We'll see you next week on the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast. Cheers to your success.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:18

Be blessed, my friends. See you soon.