S3 EP52 The Shift That Took Kyber Electric Beyond the Truck

SPEAKER_05 0:00

When I first started out, I was kind of charging, you know, what everybody else was charging. It just didn't seem like the money was really coming in the way that I wanted to. Like at the end of the month, the business is surviving, but is there enough money left to pay myself? Is there enough money for growth? I want to grow this business. I don't want it to just be me working in a truck, me on the tools the whole time. I am not charging nearly, nearly enough. It was scary when I saw the number I had to charge. I was like, I'm gonna go so broke doing this. And I changed my rate, did the plan, took a chance on it, and guess what? The work didn't stop coming.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

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_04 0:48

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 in a single service band.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Now it's time for sales. It's time for scale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another great episode of The Million Dollar Electrician. Today we've got a special treat, another client guest, peer interview, Kyle Gower Luck with Kyber Electric. Uh Kyle's super special today, Joe. There's a two-on-one uh for Canadians uh special you got going on. Uh Kyle's my homie from not too far away here in Salmon Arm. What is that? That's got to be, I think, three hours away, Kyle. Yeah, give or take, yeah. Three to four to Chilliwack. Uh, I'm just outside Vancouver, so yeah, we're pretty close. And you could tell that by some of the racks behind Kyle. Joe is giving him some uh props for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

But here's what to be excited for today, guys, with this episode. If you've ever started your business or thought about starting and you were taking a shot at, okay, let's just try to have a hundred K a year, 150 or 200k a year. Well, Kyle was one of those guys too, started his business just back in January. Uh, as of October 8th, time of this recording, already over 400k with some excellent recent uh maintenance contracts locked in. We're gonna explore this, talk to Kyle a bit about some of the things that he felt held him back, some of the fears that he had in starting, but how he's overcome those things, uh, your experience in night school and what's working for you recently to really build this thing up. So if you guys are into any of that, it's gonna be a great episode. If you feel like you're past that, it'll be a great one to brush up on and go, Oh, yeah, I remember that. Joe, do you remember when you were first starting out?

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Oh, yeah. It's uh still have the nightmares. What are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, absolutely, man. I lose sleep too. Uh, let's welcome Kyle. Kyle, welcome to the show. How are you doing today, brother?

SPEAKER_05 2:48

Hey guys, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I'm doing great today. Super excited to be here. Uh, been listening to this podcast since since day one for me. And uh man, what an honor to be sitting here with you guys talking on it.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

The honor is ours, brother. It really means the world to have you here, especially knowing that you're such a fan of the podcast and ended up where you are. Couldn't be prouder to have you with us.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, I appreciate the shout-out. Selfish question, where did you find the podcast, Kyle?

SPEAKER_05 3:13

So when I first started my business up, there's another guy in Salmon Arm here, probably has like I would say probably the biggest electrical company in the area. I think he's 10 or 11 guys now, branching out to all the different cities around us. And he just he reached out to me when I first started my business up and just welcomed me to the welcomed me to the new life that I was just starting and kind of wanted to give me a little bit of advice on how to, you know, mistakes that he had made and whatnot. And one of the things that he said was, yeah, I listened to the million dollar electrician podcast, and man, he's like, the the information you can get off of there will help you out greatly. So I definitely went on a little bit of a binge. If you know anything about being a contractor, you spend a lot of time in your truck. I probably consumed a couple hundred hours of your guys' information and really made me go, huh?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Am I charging enough to begin with? Uh yeah, special shoutout. What's that guy's name, if you don't mind? Uh his name's Dylan. Dylan. Well, shout out to Dylan, man. Not sure if we've worked with Dylan in the past, but appreciate that. If you guys know someone that you think should hear the podcast, of course, share it. That's why we uh make these things, especially in the beginning. We put so much of just like process direct interview driven with Joseph. Uh, more and more it's been client interviews, but thanks, Kyle. Please continue.

SPEAKER_05 4:42

Yeah, no, so that it was uh a great way to start because when I first started out, I was I was just kind of charging, you know, what everybody else was charging and everything like that. And man, it was tough. Like you have to, it just didn't seem like the money was really coming in the way that I wanted to. Like at the end of the months, it was like, oh man, like the the business is surviving, but I've like, is there enough money left to pay myself? Is there enough money for growth? And the biggest question for me was I want to grow this business. Um, I don't want it to just be me working in a truck, me on the tools the whole time. Hurt my back a few years ago, and I just I don't know how many years it's got in it of slaving away. So I want to grow, but I was looking at the the financials coming in and then making future projections. And I'm like, well, if I'm only billing my guys out at this rate, I have to have like four or five guys in the field before I can afford to pay myself a wage and continue to buy more vans, buy more tools, grow, and also have you know some money in a contingency fund because stuff's gonna get broken, it's gonna go sideways. Where's this coming from? And then that's when, yeah, talking with Dylan, he talked about like how to actually project what you should charge. Talking with you guys, joining the first cohort, and actually going through the list of like, okay, I need this percentage to grow, I need this percentage for tools a month because you got to buy tools, believe it or not, you leave them behind on jobs all the time, or you gotta bend a different size piece of pipe, you gotta cut a different size hole. Boom, there's two thousand dollars that month. So, how where's that tool money coming from? Where's the growth money coming from? Where's the CSR money coming from and all this stuff? And you know, and then you type it in, and I go, Oh, I am not charging nearly, nearly enough, but it was also man, it was scary when I saw the number I had to charge. I was like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go so broke doing this. And I changed my rate, did the plan, took a chance on it, and guess what? The work didn't stop coming.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

I love that. It you know, it almost sounds like like a mirror image of exactly what I was feeling. Like I thought people were gonna show up with like pitchforks and torches and catapults and like burn down my shop, but we kept raising the rate, and the work never slowed. I love that you got to experience that as well.

SPEAKER_05 7:12

We should go like we should go back to the video in the cohort where we for calculating our monthly amounts, and when I figure out my monthly amount, you'll probably see me go white in the face and exactly expect there to be pitchforks running down the fields and the field ablaze on fire. And no, it never went that way. And one of the beautiful things about that is with charging that amount, is it allows you to serve your customers better because like one thing my business seems to really build on referral and word of mouth, and I found when I was not charging enough, I had to overbook myself and just fully pump the schedule so full that I couldn't possibly keep up with it if something went wrong. And then you're paying playing the game of who do I want to make upset. Now you increase your rate, you can slow down because there is, you know, there's time built in there for being off the tools, cleaning up. If something goes wrong, there's time built into your rate for that. And then that way, now when people call and I'm too busy, I just tell them, Hey, I'm sorry. I cannot give you the service that you deserve because I'm too busy right now. I can't take this job on. Well, right there, people go, Whoa, you're giving that good of service. Well, when fit me in whenever, then. Right?

SPEAKER_04 8:28

I love it. Isn't it amazing how that works? When it's like you say, you know, because we're in such high demand, or because I want to survey at such a level that if I do anything less than that, I'm not gonna be comfortable. I won't be able to sleep at night. People are like, that's the guy I want to work with then. All right, what do you wait? April, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

I want to give you props, Kyle, because if I'm being honest, I can't tell if this is a commercial for us and what we teach or a podcast. And just so everyone's who's listening or watching this on YouTube, like Kyle and I, we haven't had video time since April. Right? Yeah, that was pretty much it. So we did night school. Uh, you were in the first cohort. Thank you again for trusting us with that. Clearly, you got some value from this, but man, the level of uh retention that you've had is incredible. I'm super proud of you. I did not expect you to uh be able to articulate that that well, honestly. So uh just a reminder, uh, you could be the best electrician ever, guys. If you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing me hold up your special little notepad here. Uh, you could be the best electrician ever and still go broke in business if you won't charge and be the best service in your area. And that's what Kyle was just speaking to. That was massive, man. So yeah, yeah. Tell us more. Like, have you seen people throw it back at you and thought at any point, like, oh, this isn't the way?

SPEAKER_05 9:43

Oh man, so it's so funny. So I was I have a um a lineman contractor I work with, him and I do all of our services together. He sets all my polls, guys. A rock star. Oh, love him to death. Funnest guy to have on a job site ever. And uh, we're talking one day, and he goes, Man, and I not just him, but I've heard it from a few people because it's lifetime workmanship guarantee. I have stickers that go on every panel. Kyberelectric lifetime guarantee on workmanship. And the amount of other people in this town that make fun of me for doing that, like, oh, good luck, you're never gonna make it with that. I'm like, just do good work, guys. Like, torque your connections down, you know, double check your connections are all tight. Do the work, have some QC sheets, follow up, have somebody go over your work afterwards, stand behind it. If you're not doing it to guarantee it for life, why the heck are you doing it anyways? And yeah, so I've had a few contractors who have uh they've made a little bit of fun at me, and good luck ever making it with that model. You'll be fixing stuff forever. Great. I hope the next owner of the house calls me up and wants me to fix something or has questions about it because of that sticker, because they probably need EV charging now or something like that. Just got a new customer.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

So basically, they're calling you a shitty electrician, and it's not because you are, it's because they are. Their personal reflection on industry is work is shit and customers are gonna call us back. We know how this goes, and that's because of the force you said earlier, which is everyone's charging too little to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

Yeah, exactly. And that's yeah, and like I have uh I have a contingency account in my business where you know a percentage of every invoice that comes in goes into that contingency account. Now, if we ever have rework, anything like that, it's not coming out of my bottom line. There's money there for it, it just comes out of that. That's what it's for. It's been budgeted for, it's been allocated for. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 11:45

It sounds like you're following the Profit First model, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, yeah, like this is crazy, right? We've had a couple interviews recently. Uh, Joe Miller was another one, basically a first year new area, and he's got money set aside. Why don't more of us have money set aside in our business to survive the storm? To be able to provide this level of service and know that your team can eat. You can eat. Everyone's fed. There's no urgency because you're taken care of. Kyle, you probably have some uh you're a hunter. Do you sled too?

SPEAKER_05 12:17

I do a bit of snowboarding, never got into the snowmobiling. All my friends do, and it just looks like uh it's a lot of fun. I go about once a year, but I'm like, man, when you're not riding those darn things, you're fixing them, and who's got time for that?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

That's right. Any motor sports, quads, dirt bikes, any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_05 12:35

No, I had uh I had a really bad mountain biking crash back when I was like early 20s. Yeah, uh seven my femoral artery, crash into a stump, and died a couple times from that. That could be a whole nother episode, but after that, um died a couple times.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Hold on, wait a second.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

Yeah, just non chance.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

Anyone pick up on that?

SPEAKER_05 12:56

Yeah, yeah. No, uh, it took like 90 units of blood to keep me alive because I was leaking it out faster than they could put it in, and a whole bunch of ducks in a row that I'm even here right now. And after that, I want to have a family now. I've got I've got too much of an adrenaline junkie side to me where I just I can't I can't turn it off like when I get on a mountain bike or a snowboard or something like that. It just I'm too accident prone, so I've given up a lot of a lot of that stuff. So um I took up golf and uh not very good at that. And yeah, I'm building uh building a project car right now. So sweet.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

It's it's cool how you started off with saying, like, I'm accident prone, but at the same time, you're an avid hunter. It's like I know what you I'm gonna go out in the middle of the woods with a firearm where I'm going through four feet of snow climbing a mountain all alone. That's fine, I'll be all right.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Oh, yeah, 100%. So circle back though, point being well, exactly that you had an incident. You are a bit of a journal and junkie. A lot of us are entrepreneurs, we like, we thrive in chaos, we want that, something to kick us up and get us going. And so, again, the importance of having this account on the side, having money set aside for the storm, that's exactly the reason for it. So, just again, man, super proud of you and and what you've been able to do already in half a year really is just remarkable. Yeah, yeah, incredible.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

And have another account, man. Every time an invoice comes in, guess what? Carney's coming. Yep. Yeah, they want uh you're gonna have to pay taxes at the end of the year, so start saving now for it. And yeah, take a chunk of that money, put it in a bank account, 15% off every invoice. Put that into your tax account at the end of the year if you got a surplus. That's a bonus, but it's better than looking for it.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, better looking at it than looking for it for sure. Yeah, for anyone that doesn't know Carney, that's just our uh our supreme government leader at the time. And uh taxes are uh are pretty heavy here in Canada. Uh I I saw a list recently, I couldn't quote it, but we're one of the most taxed nations. We're up there. It's up there, man. So it's a good life. We we have good health care, there's good social assistance, etc. Um, but there's problems with those systems. They are government-led and government fed, uh, which means they're taken from us to to pay for it, right? It's not cheap.

SPEAKER_05 15:23

No, exactly. It definitely is. Um that'll be um a big learning curve for me this year. Will be tax season coming along, and it'll be uh it'll be an interesting uh C to cross for the first time, that's for sure. But I'm hoping I'm well prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, yeah, get ahead, man. Uh, start looking right away. Have have someone be involved. That's the biggest problem with you know, we we sit here and we talk about electrician service all the time, but it's not just electricians. You guys know that, right? You probably see it now, Kyle, that you focus on your own service and a lifetime craftsmanship guarantee and try to keep your customers happy. Maybe you've even implemented the 100% satisfaction guarantee, which we recommend because that's really our goal anyway, right? Try to find that in an accountant, in a dentist, you know, like butcher, baker, candlestick maker, it doesn't matter the trade, right? Joe's, yeah, you got plenty of examples, arborists, landscapers. I mean, they're all making a mess of it.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

It's wonderful and at the terrible at the same time because those who learn how to deliver great customer service and thrive on giving a great experience find the lack of it everywhere. Because everyone used to meet, I want to have five-star experience. But unless they've been trained how to do it, how are they supposed to know it?

SPEAKER_05 16:35

Yeah, and that's the one thing is finding your good team that's gonna mind your business for you. You know, good old saying from Rich Dad Poor Dad there is find the team that minds your business and get that good accountant, get the good bookkeeper, get the people who are good at doing the things that you're not, and pay them well to do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah, I think the key there is like what makes a good accountant, you know? Anyone could do taxes. I shouldn't say anyone, any tax accountant could do taxes. I'm not interested personally, I'm sure you guys aren't either. But what makes a good accountant in my mind from all the negative we hear is like, well, my account won't get back to me. Oh, I asked them weeks ago for this thing, they won't even reply. Like, I don't know how to just call my accountant. That's not an acceptable practice where I am. In the inner loop, in our inner loop program, we work with uh Rachel Siegel of Go Figure Accounting. If you're in the US, Rachel's awesome. She takes calls to her personal phone from her clients. I mean, that's insane, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

You only have so much time in a day, but you got to appreciate that. She's that she never wears a suit. She'll show up in like the most casual clothes ever to our uh once a month, every Friday, we have her the first Friday of every month, said better. She'll come in and she says that outright. She's like, I'm not dressed to be better than you, that none of that matters. I'm equal to you guys. I just want to help you with my craft, right? Good luck. But I have a Canadian recommendation too. I don't know if you had someone you already trust, uh, but we have a fractional CFO, a longtime friend of mine, Donnie. I've known her since she was in school. She lives in Kelowna nowadays, so not too far from you. She's not a tax accountant. But if you wanted someone to like go to bat for you for a fair rate, that's like, put it this way, I don't deal with our tax accountants. She does. Like she's my middleman, and she's just like, you know, these guys are throwing us around a little bit. Let's fire them when tax season's like. She's that kind of person, always in my corner and handling it for me. So for a consult, might make a lot of sense for you, Kyle, at least to know that you got the right team.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

Well, that's a big thing, Max. That's one of my services that I offer is electrical consulting, which is actually how I ended up getting uh one of my big maintenance contracts. Is I had a previous relationship with them and they had hired me for consulting because they were looking at changing to a new service provider for their maintenance. And they had been trying to get me to work with them for a quite a while, but just because I'd used to work with them before, where I worked before, I'd always I'd always said no to them. Like I'm not here to take anybody's work from them, especially a company that I worked for. And so they hired me, they brought me in for some consulting services one day, and it was to help find a new person to uh work for them. And I was like, okay, well, if you guys were this, if you're this serious, then yes, I will I will gladly do that.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

I give you credit for the ethical move there, where you literally worked for the previous company, they asked you to consult for them, but because you didn't want to cross the ethical boundary, you didn't make any negative suggestions about them and said, I'm not even gonna step on their toes. That's an impressive move.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Yeah, well, hey, what is it? Uh we all we all win, or we all when we rise to the top, we all win.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Mm-hmm.

unknown 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah. Yeah, heard it in a few ways. Rising tide floats all boats.

unknown 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

That's a good one. We often say there's no cr uh competition, there's only creation. I gotta give a shout out to your your uh friend, our friend, mutual friend Dylan, there, I guess, and just say that's uh that's really appreciated when someone doesn't look at you, an early riser, as competition, but helps you up.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

Well, he was the guy who told me we all win when we rise to the top. So that that was him. That was him telling me on that first phone call. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Love it. Do you think he's feeling that way now? Or maybe he's seeing you and going, Man, I don't know if I should have helped this guy so much. He's crushing.

SPEAKER_05 20:37

No, no, we uh we have a lot of fun together. And uh no, we still chat quite regularly and bounce ideas off. Yeah, no, it's good. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Really good way to go about it. Uh, thanks again. Shout out to you, Dylan. Uh, that's awesome. Yeah, way to go, man. What else is standing out then? I mean, you've got this guarantee in place, you've got your pricing right. That doesn't seem to slow you down, it only just helped you up. What what was there anything else from the night school to stay selfish here for a moment that actually stood out and serves you today? Um, or was that really your primary focus so far?

SPEAKER_05 21:12

Well, I that was a big thing about it. Um, the pricing was a big thing, doing work right. And then also the other thing was just how you handle like your social media and stuff like that. Adding just adding a lot of people as friends, you know, talk commenting on community pages and not necessarily trying to sell yourself, but just being the um the authority on electrical service and who that's gonna be, you know, just posting stuff about hey, this is this is a job we just did, we just found this issue. The person wasn't aware of it, could have burnt their house down essentially, or something like that. And not even being like, call kyber electric for anything, just these are the things you should. Be watching for, and then next thing you know, you become the authority that people want to call when they have a problem. I love that. That was a big thing there, too. And just posting on your personal pages about electrical, what you're up to doing it, because then you start, you know, becoming friends with realtors, you start becoming friends with property managers, all this kinds of stuff. And then next thing you know, you're doing all the low voltage landscape lighting at one of the landscapers in town's projects forum. It's it's beautiful. Yeah, it works really well. Yeah. And just yeah, getting to places where there's professionals. This was something I did before I was um did night school, but I'm uh the president elect for the Salmon Arm Chamber of Commerce. Nice. So we do yeah, so we do a lot of work with local businesses in the areas, lots of networking events, training events, stuff like that. And you get to meet a lot of the other business people from the community. And that's one thing I'll say to anyone starting out new if you're looking to make some connections, go look up your local chamber of commerce, look up your local construction industry professionals event, find out when their networking events are, and just start going to those. Bring a couple business cards. Usually they're really relaxing things. You can usually have a glass of wine, have a beer, eat some food there, just be a human being, go make some connections with people. That's that's the best referral you'll have, is uh you just being a person.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah, you said a couple things here. I really want to uh just just crown a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Um, that Facebook strategy, you pointed out right away, and people need to hear this for sure. It's not about asking, it's actually more about giving. And if you treat your social media like a bank, there's equity, like another account. If you keep making withdrawals, you're gonna be on credit with people and they get sick of it, they get tired of seeing the ask over and over and over. We have to continue to give, and that should really be at like a two-thirds, one-third is a good practice, so that you always have a balance to withdraw from. Otherwise, they just see this authority figure that's trying to be the electrician that's always saying, Hey, call me now, hey, do this now, hey, do this. Every time you ask for someone to do something for you, it's like asking for a favor. At some point, they just get tired of it and they just tune you out. So, really good thinking with just sharing, hey, here's something we learned from this project, and that you could take away too. Not call me now for the takeaway, just you could take this away too. That value addition, that's huge, brother. Way to go.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

Prove yourself to them first, laws of reciprocity. You know, some guys are doing the Starbucks thing. Just start start giving. And I'm a I don't know if you guys are, but I'm a big fan of Alex or Mosey. And that's the one thing. How can you give how can you give more away? And the more you give away, you've built your authority up, you can charge more for it.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yep. I mean, that's what this whole podcast was built on. Yeah, our biggest challenge is I just can't get enough people to see it.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

That's the thing. I wish every electrician would just see this, know it exists, and have it in their back pocket, because I know there's guys suffering that could even just to hear this, Kyle, like we won't be able to get this in front of enough people. But your words, your story, doesn't even need to be us. We're just here to facilitate it. Your story could help hundred thousand electricians around North America, but it might reach 3,000. Yeah, we'll get there eventually, man. Yeah, what it is. One step at a time, right? So yeah, we're on uh three years, eight months of it. Yeah, podcasts to date.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

But man, like you look at the positive influence that you've had on people's lives. Like, you look at that Winspirations on your app, and here's a shameless plug for these guys. If you have not downloaded the Service Loop Electrical app yet, and you're listening to this podcast, do yourself a favor, go download it. It's gonna get you into a world, an ecosystem of like-minded individuals. They're not gonna be like the electricians at the counter where you work, where everyone's hush-hush and cut your throat behind your back, kind of thing. Everyone in that group wants to help you win. It is fantastic. You how many times a week does somebody have a question? Oh, something about bookkeeping. How would you guys pitch this offer? Anyone done this before? And then next thing you know, 10 people been there, done that. This is how I did it, this is where I learned, or I was been there, I've done that, and I screwed up big. Don't do it this way. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Kyle, should we send you like a uniform at this point? Because you're doing an amazing job just speaking to it. I mean, I appreciate you, and greatly. You honor us.

SPEAKER_05 26:50

No, it's uh it's it's a proven process and it works, but you have to be willing to put in the work yourself.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yep. Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about this yesterday, Joe. It's tough. It's tough because that's always the Achilles heel of coaching. And I said it to Joe simply. I mean, that's our job in this business business. We're coaches, not players, unfortunately. There's just only so much we can do for people. Uh, getting that recipe of motivation, accountability, and information just right is really a delicate recipe. Um, just like putting something in the oven. Uh, it doesn't always rise. Doesn't always rise. So yeah, but I love that shout out. Thank you so much for that. And yeah, the app at this point is called the SLE Pro app. Uh, there'll be a link below. Tony will link it so that you guys can just click below if you want to learn more. I think the page that we have that on for the sign-up currently has me telling you all about it, giving you a tour first. So, yeah, really great. Appreciate that, man. That's awesome. Yeah, no problem. No, it's uh it's it's worth a lot. So so tell me this then. You started out thinking 100k, that's our goal for this this year.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Last month, September, you did $130,000 in a single month. Yeah. Seems like not only have you surpassed that, you've done kind of something you couldn't even imagine possible, but you did it in a month, and these are signs of growth. So who knows what's at the end of the year? Who's who knows what's at the end of next January, whatever. Just tell us a bit about this journey and what leads to 130k month from a guy who was looking 100k for the year.

SPEAKER_05 28:33

Yeah, so a big thing is like I I owe a lot of this to the big guy upstairs too. Like my wife and I, we preach quite often for and having having faith, having uh faith in yourself. My wife is unbelievable. Like, I feel like that's one of the things that doesn't get talked about enough is your partner with this, your wife. I still remember the phone call that I or not the phone call, sorry, the drive that we were on when we decided that I was gonna quit my six-figure year job working for a great company and take this leap. And she has been the biggest support of me ever since I started it. And like she's just she's in my corner, she's my inspiration, she's an entrepreneur as well, like she's fantastic. So having that good support system because there's gonna be a lot of sleepless nights, there's gonna be a lot of times where you're stressed out, it's gonna be tough. You're going into this not knowing it, and just to have that person who can make your house a place of comfort and support you and isn't on your back. But why isn't this happening? Why aren't you doing this? And just having that person that's there to support you and just listen and give you good advice, huge. I think that's one of the biggest things. Having mentors and people in your corner that are at least say they're 10 steps ahead of you that you can just bang ideas off of, having a community like service loop, anywhere like that where you can get advice from people that are ahead of you, that have been there, done there, made the mistakes. Um picking the right team. Be slow to hire, be quick to fire. If somebody isn't like if they're not representing you how you want to be represented, that they're your company. You're like you are your company, but you're just the top of the hill. They're the people out in the field that are representing you. Make sure that they're what you want to do. Spend the time training them on how you want them to act. I believe it's Abraham Lincoln, I hope I'm getting it right. They asked him if you had to cut down a tree and you were given four hours to do it, how would you do it? He said he spent the first three hours sharpening the axe. Sharpen the axe, get your team on point, ready to go. And when you find those people that are your fit are willing to do it, treat them like gold.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

I love that.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

And also, like one thing I have a hard time with, I like I like things done my way, I like control. It's letting the guys that you've spent the time training, letting them do what you've trained them to do, and remembering they're only human. They're doing the best they can with the information they have, and you're the one who gave them the information, most likely. So when things go sideways, don't don't pass the buck to them. Use it as a learning experience. How can we move forward on this next time? And yeah, grow together, have a good team, and treat people right, treat your customers right. And yeah, to quote with the one car dealership in our town, uh, if you uh what is it, if you treat people right, word gets around.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

You know, something that you pointed out, I feel like a lot of electricians struggle with, which is when you say quick to hire, quick to fire. And yet we've met electricians that have a staff that they feel that isn't the best fit or doesn't fulfill their needs. What do you feel is a credential or a like a criteria for this guy's not the right fit? Because I'm sure a lot of people need to hear that and be like, okay, no, that sounds like my guy, and then take the action for it. You think you can help illuminate some other electricians out here?

SPEAKER_05 32:26

Yeah, well, I just think like this goes back to night school. What's the driveway test? When they pull up to the driveway, are their uh boots not tied up yet and their jeans are tucked inside their work boots? Um, do they have yesterday's lunch on their shirt? Possible, why aren't they wearing your company shirts? When they open up the van door, are there tools falling out on the ground or is everything put away? And are your guys able to keep that standard up? If they're not like also one thing I would say is you gotta have rules, you gotta have company policy and procedure that is the straight across the board. If you I've worked for companies before, no policy or procedure, but the policy and procedure changes every day to be whatever's convenient for the boss. So, you know, have those policy and procedure manuals in place with what's expected of an employee. And if they're not willing to uh follow those rules, man, they they can go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

I respect that. I really, really do. There's a lot of fear, and you know, if I fire my guy, I won't have another guy to run the job. So I like that you keep to your standards and live not in a place of fear but a place of abundance.

SPEAKER_05 33:40

Yeah, no, it's uh the the amount of headache that one bad person can can bring is uh quite a bit. Like I've I've got phone calls from people like, oh, like you know, we had a technician in and I think he said five F words before he'd even walk through the door and yeah, you know, I'm not I'm not super comfortable. We got young kids in the house. Like that's that's completely unacceptable. We're that's not what we're trying to be.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

I completely agree. I have had techs in those situations where they you know they burn out equipment, they don't make the connection the right way, or their quality and their attentiveness is not ideal. So yeah, I agree. There are definitely factors you got to consider.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

Yeah. I also think though, like, you know, if if you've got a tech who's been really good, and uh next thing you know, things start you know sliding downhill. It's you got we're all human. We have stuff that goes on, like you know, maybe the guy's just had a family member pass away, him and his wife are having some trouble at home or something like that. Like, you know, people are humans too. We gotta follow up, see what's going on, have honest conversations with people, and move forward from there. But I think like your team is your team's kind of your work family, you know, you're spending eight to ten hours with them a day and all trying to make a living together. So you gotta just respect everybody.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

It's funny. Before this show, we were we were joking how uh you guys are becoming best friends really quickly here.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

A couple underlying things happening, but uh as you're saying, you know, some of the top qualities to find and to answer Joe's question, you listed pretty much the entire uh pre-arrival process. And I'm sitting here thinking for most guys, the way to his heart is through his stomach. Uh for Joe, it's the pre-arrival process and making sure that you're actually ready to work and show up again. And so uh you must have been just singing there, Joe.

SPEAKER_04 35:33

I was, you know, one of the most critical things that I consider in any of the processes that we teach is the pre-arrival because those are the dumb things that we've all done that shoot our foot the moment we even walk in. And if we could just remove those dumb little reasons, we can show up like a 10, and then it's up to us to maintain that standard compared to being able to be say like, no, F this guy. He hasn't even made it to the door.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah, one of my favorite uh business mentors uh wrote a book. Uh Keith Cunningham, smart guy, owned many businesses over the years, just understands business and financials and dashboards at a really high level. But this book is one of my favorites around business, and it's called The Road Less Stupid. Okay. Yeah. And basically the whole premise is that we all have these uh few financially uh financial burdens that if we could go back and change, we would. And one of those things, if you're listening to this, that could be like, oh, I've been charging $95 an hour for my first three years in business and it's not changing anything. I'm not getting better, I'm not getting anywhere. Well, that's a decision that you keep holding on to that could have been fixed maybe earlier. Um and they go up from there, but it's an awesome book for that reason. It's taking a look at just what Joe's saying. Well, maybe if we do a few less of these stupid things, look what happens to the outcomes at the end. Just a massive difference in output. Superpower.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

No, there was also one thing, too, when um I did my initial phone call for the first cohort night school thing. I remember, I can't remember who it was who did that initial phone call with me, but I was getting to a place where I was on the tools, I was everybody, except for the bookkeeper and the account because I hired those right away because I don't know anything about that stuff. But um, it was a very good piece of advice. I didn't follow it the way you guys did, but I got said to, but I got there eventually because sometimes, as you know, this probably coaching students, you can teach me stuff. I gotta screw it up anyways first to see how you were right. That's just how I I gotta make my mistakes, I gotta screw it up and think, oh man, those guys were right. Okay, let's backtrack and do it that way. But I remember I was I was looking to hire a new person, and that's what I was asking about was how do you know when you're ready to hire a new person? Bring on some help because I'm swamp. You said hire a CSR first. Well, I thought that was a little silly. So uh so I hired an apprentice and um didn't listen to you guys. So I hired an apprentice and it backlogged things more because my phone's still ringing 20 times a day. I'm taking phone calls, I'm trying to work, I'm trying to coach an apprentice, but I'm on the phone half the time. Clients are like, wow, you sure are on the phone a lot. Well, now we're going back to I'm not giving them the service that they deserve. So I hired myself a CSR. Someone just to answer the phone, do my scheduling for me, take care of the basic day-to-day things. And this was such a win in a way that I didn't even foresee. Because what I was really worried about is so I hired my mother-in-law, and my biggest concern is she doesn't know anything about electrical. Nina, you're great. She knows how to turn on light switches, but that's probably about as far as it goes. And what I was really worried about is I would get these phone calls and be, hey, my stove stopped working. Hey, I'm wiring my basement up myself. I can't get this three-way to work. Well, here's Kyle. Oh, you probably just have the travelers and the switch leg wrong, right? Try this. Or have you tried flicking all the breakers on and off, stuff like that? And then boom, service call is solved over the phone. Income made zero. Nothing wrong with helping people out over the phone. There's nothing wrong with it. But so Nina started answering the phone. Somebody calls up. Hey, my stove's not working. Hey, I wired my house, my three-way is not working. She doesn't know how to solve problems over the phone. She can't talk you through wiring your three ways, checking your breakers for tightness and stuff like that. Well, what's she doing? She's booking appointments for every single one of these calls because she's not talking people through on how to fix it on the phone. Next thing you know, we're going to these silly service calls for a flipped breaker, which I generally have a rule of thumb, we do not charge little old ladies for flipping breakers for them. We don't do that, we just do it for free. But everybody else, we're going to their house, we're flipping breakers, fixing light switches, simple little repairs. Next thing you know, you walk into their house. Hey, how are you doing? I'm Kyle from Kyber Electric. Show me your place. What do you like about it? Where do you see yourselves going in the future? Oh, yeah, no, our stove's not working properly right now. Um, not that problem. But you know, we've got some other stuff with our house. Like, what do you know about EV charging? What do you know about like getting ready for an air conditioner and stuff like that? Okay, no problem. Well, when we look at your panel, let's see how big of a service you've got. Oh, you're running a hundred-amp service. Next thing you know, you can take that simple service call, present them with options, which is something that complete game changer that you guys taught me was doing options. And next thing you know, like I had one uh phone call which was literally can you guys just add a plug to the outside of my shed off of the panel that's right there? And that call, which would have been a couple hundred bucks, turned into a service upgrade, wiring a shop, adding a generator panel, getting ready for EVs, and $18,000 invoice later.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

That's what I'm talking about. Well, there's our win of the week. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

And just to be clear, you're also tying that back and saying that's a call that you may have tried to troubleshoot on the phone before. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Yeah, you know. I can relate with that. And the reason being is I remember being frustrated that my CSR wasn't an electrician at first, but that my mind got changed when she sent me to a GFCI call that tripped, and I'm complaining that there's nothing else to do, and ended up walking out with a generator sale. So, like the thing is you're right, you have all these small opportunities, but they're also abilities for you to showcase why you're better and why you should be trustworthy. Because even if you do just solve that little thing, now they know there's someone reliable that they can depend on. So when the big thing does happen, it's I already know Kyle. Yeah, he's the one who took care of that for me. He was a great guy. Let's give him a shot for this.

SPEAKER_05 42:11

Oh, yeah. And then old Kyle would have been like, oh man, like these people are gonna be so upset because now I'm in here, I'm you know, trying to sell them all this more expensive stuff. Well, I'm not trying to sell them stuff, like I've just had a conversation with them and they told me what their dream was for the future. I gave them the road map of how to get there, and it's not like every single person is gonna take all your options, but sometimes every now and then, man, you you win one. And when you win one, it's it sure feels good. That same customer referred me to his neighbor, and we just did, I think we're at like $30,000 in work for his neighbor.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

So you got one lead that turned into an $18,000 sale, but that wasn't enough. It's like, but wait, there's more, and then Billy Mays comes out of the room and says, actually, we're gonna give you another $30,000 next door from the neighbor. That is a huge win.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Yeah, and yes, there's a process for all of it.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

And you can find out more inside the SLE app.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Yeah, man. It's right, you can tell we're not even surprised. Kyle, we owe you more energy. It's just like it's so awesome. We're we're so proud of you, man. You've done so well to take these things and be able to turn uh turn around and teach them. Learn, do teach is one of my favorite expressions. It served me very well in this industry. Clearly, you've had that mentorship and that leadership that's making you someone like us who does learn, do, and then teach. How important has that been already for you to tell other people about this, to teach other people this way, so that it solidifies your own learning and your own importance in this structure?

SPEAKER_05 43:52

Oh man, yeah, it's been it's been big. And being able to tell people that there's a different way to go about things. Then charging, you know, the same amount that everybody else does in town, giving one option. You know, like I used the company I used to work for, I um I did sales and estimating for them, and I was averaging about 1.2 million in estimates a month that I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 44:18

And that was a thing I never did was a ton of options, breaking it down. And I remember when you guys were going over it, and you what you said one very important thing is you might not be getting the job. The reason you don't get the job might not be because of your pricing, it might not be because the person didn't like you. It's just that you didn't offer them the best option available to them, right? So you go to somebody's house and you, oh, you just want a new GFI put there. Okay, perfect, no problem, can do it. But if you sit and actually have a conversation with the person, take the time to figure out what their needs are, and then just put together. Sometimes it doesn't have to be 10 options, it can be three very simple options that you put together for them. You've covered things that maybe the next guy that comes covered and he got the job just because he saw a completely different way to do the job.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

You're so right. You know, it's also cool that options actually prevent a problem that we may not also expect. Because let's say you do go to a call and you notice because you're the only one who opens the panel when you get there and he knows there's a concern inside of it, right? And you give a quote and you've got your quote in mind, and no other electrician actually went to the panel. And as a result, one of your options is going to address it. When you go and sit down with that homeowner and they say, Well, did no one else tell you about this? It makes you stand out. But at the same time, it also gives you a definite uh different benefit where if the homeowner doesn't use you, someone else can't say, Didn't Kyle tell you about this problem? It's like, I know I did because I offered him the choices. So it covers you in both ways.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

Yeah, and like while you're there doing somebody's looking at somebody's uh house, giving them an estimate, just stop and ask them, like, hey, do you mind if we just if you can we take a quick walk and look at your electrical panel? Do you mind if I open it up for you and just test that all your connections are tight? Like most problems that I see in houses and near misses on fires are because there's a loose connection in the panel. When was the last time that you uh tightened all the connections in your panel? Nobody knows that you should probably re-tighten your connections in your panel, especially if you're running a stove and an air conditioner. I've been working overtime all summer, heating up and cooling down. All right, let's go inside your panel, let's torque it. Oh man, this guy really has my best interests at heart, and he didn't even charge me for it. And I learned a little bit. Well, now you laws of reciprocity. I'm gonna lecture. I do those too, man. You looked out for their best interests already, they they're gonna trust you now, and like also a big thing too is downsell sometimes, you know. People want stuff, offer them a package, and oh yeah, no, you've already got this, so why don't we just take this off the list? You you you don't need that. So, right there, they see that you're downselling, people trust you more as well.

SPEAKER_04 47:19

Interesting. So, when you say a downsell, like is it after they've already picked an option? Because that would make a lot of sense. Like, hey, are you sure you don't want just so you're on the same page, are you sure you want to go with this one? Because there were other cheaper options we can consider. Are you sure you didn't want to entertain those? Is that that more like what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_05 47:36

Um, like for a down sell. Um, I'm just trying to think of a a good situation that I have a comparable if you want, is another option here.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

I think he would he could also mean, and Kyle, you tell us if uh which side is almost like in the four watts where we do what's good. Sometimes that's like a downsell too, because like I don't need to do anything with this, you already have that and great status in your home. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, four what's yeah, yeah, it's important to do that, right? And a lot of people miss that. If all you do is come forward with things to fix, then they really start to get this feeling of eroded trust, like, oh, you are just trying to sell us stuff. And the reality is, I mean, honestly, most people don't see big picture the way I do, but I'll zoom out and just bring you guys to my level for a moment. If I think about, okay, what would the best electrician in Salmon Arm do ever? Well, we would use options like a roadmap, like you said, Kyle. And we wouldn't expect people to buy it now. I'd only expect them to uh give us a chance to offer what they're looking for currently and to give them a roadmap. And then I would keep that roadmap in my CRM in my system. And no matter if it's them or someone else at that address, I would always know and be able to come back and say, Well, actually, I know, I know your system. Thanks for calling the number that's on your panel on the sticker, like Kyle, you said you have, right? Uh, we have a lifetime craftsmanship guarantee on this home for the work we did. I have a record of the work we did, and I actually know quite a few things about your system still, because of this roadmap we made for the prior owners. Isn't that the top level of service that you could provide, not just to the homeowner, but to that home and keep that information on it so that you're always able to service it at that level. I mean, to me, that's like over the top best we could do, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 49:28

Yeah, like um we had a person I went to go do a service upgrade for them and give them the quote. And I usually for that kind of thing, I have I know how much service upgrade generally costs. Ask them a couple qualifying questions over the phone, get a good idea of where their panel's located according to their meter. I have a good idea of what things are gonna cost. So then when I go there, I've got a pretty well pre-done estimate already available with some generic options on it, like, oh, would you like to add a generator panel while we're doing this? Would you like to add surge protection? Would you like this, this, this? And I the one lady I went and like, I got there, she's already got a great surge protector working in her house. So, okay, you know what? You don't need this one, let's just cross that off. That'll save you 500 bucks. And then, oh, you were talking about a power generator. Well, you got rid of your hot tub. Well, you already now have a 60 amp feed going to the outside of your house. While we're in here, why don't we just make that hot tub feed into the new inlet? You have a travel trailer with a really big generator, you've already got all this pretty well all the ingredients you need. All you need is a little bit extra, and we can make this work. So now you just uncheck the box of the $20,000 standby generator, uncheck the box of the generator that you need to sell her and the inlet because she's already got that there. Now she's looking at you like, oh, you're actually here with my best interests at heart and want to save me money.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

I love that. First two things that I want to throw in is anytime you mention the word generator, I'm always gonna support you. Don't matter what style it is, give them backup power. Second thing was Clay, you actually said something that I think we can give some evidence for as well, which was you know, when you go to a home, save it on file, and then come back to it. I remember actually having a situation where that exact thing happened and ended up leading into a rewire where we went to a homeowner who was selling the house and we presented a bunch of options because she had a faulted low voltage relay cabinet, low voltage wire in the wall, failing switches, no grounding. And we presented all the choices, and she said, F that, I'm selling the house. Took the bottom option of just like a battery-controlled, like cap it off, debt it, put a battery light up there. And then we met the new homeowners, and they're we were able to say, Hey, we actually know the old homeowner, we were here, we actually have solutions we showed her. Do you want to see what those look like? And she ended up taking a $17,000 low voltage reconditioning.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Beauty.

SPEAKER_04 51:42

Yeah, so it works.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:45

It's just taking care of people. Makes sense. Yeah, one thing to do is say is if you are doing lifetime guarantee on your work, cover your buttons, make sure that you are keeping documentation of the paperwork of what you did there, what you installed, and take keep those records good because when somebody calls you up and says, Oh, I know you had lifetime warranty, this is going wrong with my house ten years from now, you want to be able to remember with pictures and everything like that exactly what you did. Because you never know when Jim Bob or whatever from down the street went into the transfer switch and thought he could make the generator pump out more power and manipulated something. So always always cover your butt.

SPEAKER_04 52:29

You mean you can't just add a bigger breaker? What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05 52:32

Well, you can, but it won't work all.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

I actually I started my day with a class and this came up, and it was again it's part of the four what's, so we might as well touch on this. Uh ties directly into what you're saying, Kyle. First, what is what they called for always. Second, what is what's directly connected, and this one's so important, right? We were just talking about the third what, which is what's good and being able to take things off the table so they can see this isn't just about selling you, but the second what, what's directly connected, if guys are messing this up, it can be really detrimental to the point Kyle just made, which means basically, even if it's a countertop GFCI that they call you for, what's directly connected? That goes all the way back even to the panel torques that Kyle was talking about and making sure because when I leave a home, at the very least, my lowest option, I'm claiming responsibility for an entire circuit, nothing less. How awkward is it to look at your lifetime craftsmanship guarantee or any warranty later and go, oh, well, we only touched the end of that circuit. We never touched the other devices on that circuit, we never looked into that. Like, that's a really awkward and argumentative piece to then go into a homeowner with a homeowner and say, Oh, well, we touched this piece, but not the rest of this circuit. So as a standard, we should really just look at the entire health of that circuit and everything that's related directly to it. The box, the glands, the wire type, the wire size, right? The neutral, the bonds. Is it a three-wire in the first place? Is it the right gauge? Is it copper or aluminum? Checking those connections if they're aluminum, making sure that there's proper NOAA locks. On and on and on this list goes, but these are all relevant technical concerns that are directly relative to that circuit that must be looked at, documented, corrected, in my opinion. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_05 54:29

Yeah, no, I agree. Like you go to that house, the person's got a 20 amp counter receptacle there that stopped working because it overheated. Well, did they wire it themselves and pull it in number 16 Christmas light extension core going all the way back to the panel with no ground wire attached to it? Because if they did and you just put a plug on that, well, guess what? You're liable for that whole circuit now. That was one thing I used to work for an electrical engineering firm, and quality control was huge. Like we have, I've got so many different quality control sheets. Like you hook up an electric motor, did you resistance test it? Did you mega test it before we did rotation test? How are the connections? Everything's signed off and checked by the tech. Junction boxes, terminations, we're checking it off. You were in a panel, okay. Here's the panel checklist. Let's make sure that we're leaving that panel as it should have been the day it was started off. If it's not, well, that's a conversation we have to have with the homeowner, but we can't leave it behind. And guess what? In our simple service rate, we've got enough for 50% extra hours there. So if we got to spend an extra 45 minutes working on that panel, we made the customer's day and we made it safer. They're happy. We didn't lose money.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

If I can swear on your podcast, Kyle, let me just say it's fucking backwards, man. We have to be ambassadors of our industry, and it's fucking backwards. Uh, I can't tell you, like 80% of the jobs that I've pulled permits for were never inspected. Yeah, they were signed off, right? I I also share this uh bit of industrial commercial level background where QAQC is how you finish a job. You have to sign it off. It has to be another person that looks at it. Like you can't do all the work, torque test, check everything, meter it out, continuity test, mega test something, and sign it off. That's a major red flag. But let's say, you know what, one man crew residential, at least have the checklist. At least have a walk around with the customer and an acceptance sign off. At least have these things in place because the inspector is not going to catch it. The home inspector and the electrical inspector are what homeowners are relying on, and they don't trust us for various reasons because of the sales aspect of it. There is a conflict of interest. There is. Unfortunately, there's no better way today to uh illuminate to bring someone up to speed on what's in their home. Like we say, home fax, it doesn't exist. There's car fax, right? That little investment, sure. Oh, heaven forbid, we'd get a lemon and that $18,000 car cost us another eight. What about your $800,000 house or million dollar house? What about the damage that could be done there? We have no idea. I think the responsibility has to fall on us because no one else is changing the industry. We have to, as the end user, uh homeowners end user, but as the provider to the end user, we're the last expert that touches it. So forgive my passion and swearing on this, but I'm like so, so, so convinced we're the only way to fix this.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

100,000 percent. And you know, it's funny how you're mentioning like they trust, they trust the inspector, but they don't trust us. But the inspector won't get on a ladder or even leave his van sometimes and paper airplanes the sticker into the house. And yet they trust him more than they trust up. It's you're right, backwards is the best way of saying it.

SPEAKER_05 58:01

Well, and like the one thing too is you know, you take like for me for like industrial jobs, it's usually 15% of hours. I when I'm like looking at how long a job's gonna take, say it takes a hundred hours, at least 15%. So 15 hours is getting added onto that for quality control time. We're dealing with transformers, you know, that are worth $50,000, $60,000 and big pieces of equipment. You blow one of those up, ooh, that's gonna hurt. But even like you take that same um attitude, take it to your residential service call with you, and just take, you know, if you're there for eight hours, spend 40 minutes, just go back over, double check everything's torqued in the panel, make sure all the cover plates are put back on, make sure the wires are done up, make sure you're not leaving tools behind, clean the floor up, make sure it's all good. Sometimes by taking that extra, you know, 40 minutes to just double check, make sure everything's done good, it saves you a callback. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 58:56

Yeah, and even better is like I love the fact you're talking about quality control because have you ever had a technician burn an appliance out or put the wrong wire connecting to something? You know, your quality control could keep you from blowing up the freezer and you because your tech mislanded in neutral or didn't tighten the breaker down. And you doing that quality control now prevents that concern, which keeps you from losing the customer and having to shell out money to fix that appliance.

SPEAKER_05 59:21

Oh yeah, you do a service upgrade, you forget to tighten the lug on one of the main lines coming in. Next thing you know, that burns the panel up. And now you've got to pay the hydro company, you know, twelve hundred bucks to come back out, disconnect, reconnect the power. You're bringing a generator out to keep their house back up and running while you're replacing all the burnt up electrical. Quality control sheet, torque checklist. Was it done? Mark initial done.

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Yeah, it doesn't take much to double check. Uh I've been doing pilot training, becoming a pilot, and it's just so everything's different when you're relying on uh aerodynamics and and the mechanics to keep you off. Oh, super cool. It's like, okay, what did I forget on the checklist? You take it really seriously, just like when you work on like a three-phase, 600 volt, 600 amp splitter. That's always been my fear, right? You can't hear it, you can't see it, you don't smell it. Like a good operating splitter has no signs that it's live, and you're just there, and it's fucking scary.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:21

Uh a stupid job to get into.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

Right? Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. Kyle, we did not properly congratulate you on also getting married during your biggest month ever. You got married in September, didn't you? I did, yes. Yes, I congratulations. Thanks for watching. You're gonna give him a proper welcome to the club? You're gonna give him a proper welcome to the Merry Band Club.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:42

Oh man, I was gonna say it could be one of two ways. Personally, I love it. There are other people who are all like, sorry, man. But no, honestly, being married to the right person is one of the greatest blessings in the entire world. I could not live at all without my spouse. And it looks like he found someone similar. So I couldn't be prouder of you and more happy for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:01

Alana, she's a wonderful woman. I love you, and thank you for supporting me through this wild journey and always being there with me.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

You know, there's one other aspect to it as well. And I'm sure I don't know if you've experienced this as well, but you know how we have to be strong like all the time in front of your customers and your technicians and like everyone else. Having the right spouse could give you the opportunity to let your shoulders down and actually be like, I need to talk to someone about something. Yeah, definitely. I married a therapist for a reason.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:29

Yeah, I married a massage therapist, so I can't. Oh, even better. I can I can really let my shoulders down. Yeah, no, it's uh you know, you gotta have that person you can be vulnerable with, and because trust me, you can only be tough for so long, you know. You can only put your guard up and act like you're the guy in control who knows everything that's going on on this project when you don't always, and to have that person that you can come home to that just makes your home that place of peace for you. That's that's the real win right there. And I just yeah, I just I'm so excited with how this business is going and just giving me the opportunity that you know I one day she's not gonna have to work anymore, she can be a stay-at-home mom and raise our kids. Oh, I'm just so excited for for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:16

I mean, God bless you always, man. It's a good thing you got.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

We played this game. Uh quick questions. Yeah, how many I've got on the tip of my tongue, but you ever hear this? See what you can uh just answer uh intuitively here. Kyle, uh best van or vehicle type. Ooh, something you can stand up in.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:36

Sprinters, okay, sweet.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:37

Yeah, yeah. I haven't got there yet, but I got an E250 and I got a pickup truck with a canopy on it right now. E250 over the pickup truck with the canopy, sprinter over that, anywhere that you don't have to crawl inside of, and you can carry stuff because man, when you're running out of pickup trucks and you're going to a service upgrade one day, so you got all your stuff in it, you come home back to the shop, residential finishing the next day, unload the truck, reload the truck, boom, hour gone in the afternoon. You got a van that's big enough that 90% of it just always lives in the van. How many hours a week more do you get to spend taking your dog for a walk, hanging out with your family, and doing stuff because you're not cleaning the damn truck every day?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Good perspective. Does it have to be Ford? Is Ford your uh brand?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:32

I I I do like my Fords, but I I won't judge you if you drive anything else. They're all good. Fair enough. Favorite supply house?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

Oh, EB Horseman and Sons. Okay. Interesting. Do you guys have that in the States, Joe? Eevee? No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:47

At least doesn't mean anything in my state. I'm not kidding.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Canadians are resonating right now, hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:51

Yeah, no, just E Horseman and Sons.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:53

I know what the Cam Oops branch, their team, they're absolutely fantastic. I get taken out for lunch regularly. They bring reps in that deal with the industries I'm in so that I can meet the people who are building the products and everything like that. They are absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

Love that. Love that. Uh you do backup power? I do a bit of it, yes. Favorite generator brand. This one's for Joe.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:18

I'm leaning. No way, I'm looking in here. Probably Kohler. That's the correct answer. Good for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

There's no wrong answers, but that is the correct answer.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:29

That is the correct answer. Yeah. If you're an automatic, Kohler's the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:32

I like uh Kohlers for dedicated uh standbys. Uh Hondas are you can't go wrong with a Honda for a portable.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:41

You know, I've noticed with the Hondas, they are phenomenally quiet. But the price difference of having a three to four thousand dollar portable generator compared to like going to like someone like Duramax who has generators built for that, and they're only a third or a quarter of the price, it's hard to argue with that.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:59

I I would love to try Duramax. I just CSA getting them up to Canada ain't a thing here yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:05

So makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:06

Yeah. Favorite meter? Uh, I really like FLIR. Okay. You get the FLIR meter with the built-in thermal camera. That thing's top notch. Checking why you don't have voltage or something's going wrong with the panel. You tested all your voltages, turned that thermal camera on, take a picture of it, boom, two tools in one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Love it. I didn't expect that. Most go fluke. It went FLIR. That's good. Okay. Uh hunting or fishing? Hunting. Obvious by the heads behind you.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

What do you love about hunting?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:34

So such a way to find peace. It's also a way to find hell and challenge yourself. I'm a big advocate of type two fun where I love to be miserable. Absolutely love. I love to be miserable. I love the punishment and the suck of it all. But then looking back on the stories of these guys and how much fun it was suffering to get them. I yeah, I just I really like it because it's a good teacher of self. It's gonna teach you. How tough you are, how enduring you are, and it's gonna reward you for your hard work, but it's never gonna lie to you and let you win.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

You know, the cool thing you said was that came to my mind was I go out hunting to find peace. It's like it nothing's more peaceful than going out with a gun in the woods to kill something, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

Yeah. Okay, last question for you. Uh, advice that every electrician needs. What do you need to take from this episode?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:23

Trust in your team. Have a good team, surround yourself with good people and find those people's strengths and let them grow on their strengths. Don't try to like take somebody's weakness and turn that into their strengths. You can coach them with it. But if you've got a guy who's really good at a particular task, let them shine. Have a good surround yourself with good people. And if you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room, and you should probably look in the mirror and really think about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

Good advice.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:56

Henry Ford advice.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Okay, I said last question, but I have just one little more one. This one's for you, brother. Where are you going and what do you need next?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:04

Kyber Electric, we are going to become the industrial facilities maintenance company of choice in the industrial park. We are focusing on not fixing you while you're broken. We are the downtime mitigation specialists. So we're creating an offer that's so good that facilities can't say no to just having us come in and take a look and find out where their downtime's hiding. So we're gonna be the guys who are going into your facilities, finding your downtime. We're gonna fix it for you. We're gonna be the trusted leader for industrial facilities maintenance in the area, and we're gonna grow. And I need to get better at getting my invoices out in time. That's where the weakness is. Yeah, I'm too busy feeding the machine and not getting fed. So invoicing help is what I need, but that's where kyber electric is growing going.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

Awesome stuff, man. If someone's listening to this, inspired by you, wants to reach out or be a part of that journey. What's the best way to reach out to you, Kyle?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:08

Uh, probably follow me on Instagram at Kyberelectric, I believe it is. Let me see here. Let me just double check. I had to make I made my handle smaller so that it was easier for people to find. Okay, sweet. That's fair. K Yber Electric. K-Y-B-E-R-E-L-E-C-R-I-C on Instagram or Kyle Gowerlock on Facebook. Or you can also uh message me on the S L E app. That's a good place too.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

Yeah, jump in. There we go. Yeah, that's awesome. Kyle, you've been great. We're so proud of uh the progress you've made this year. Uh how incredible to kind of 4X where you thought you'd be have an amazing month like September, get married. I mean, so much good stuff happening for you. Uh yeah, we just couldn't be happier for you, man. And thanks so much for your honest take and and your view of the world from Sam and Arm today. Uh Joe, anything to uh drop on Kyle here before we go?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

Yes, I'm gonna ask you to explain the kyber in kyber and uh kyber electric because one of us. Yeah, what where'd the kyber come from, Kyle?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:16

Yeah, so I'm a bit of a nerd. Um, I love Star Wars, and uh as you see.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:21

There we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:23

Yeah, so I didn't want to call my business Kyle Electric. I didn't want to be Salmon Arm Electric, Enderby Electric, and kyber crystals are what power everything in Star Wars. And I thought, how how fitting is that for a nerd like myself to be kyber electric? My vehicle unit number is red five. If you know, you know, if you don't, no watch the Star Wars. It's yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And no, it's great. I get a lot of people that call me up and they're like, is that a Star Wars reference? And I go, Yeah, it is. And they go, Okay, great, you're the only guy I want to work with. Yeah, so it's a it's a Star Wars reference. I'm a huge nerd.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:04

I love even more.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

Well, yeah, thanks so much, guys, uh, for tuning in. Uh, great wins today shared by Kyle. We had an 18K from a demand call he would have otherwise just said on the phone, maybe troubleshoot on the phone, which also led to a good neighbor, uh, maybe about 30,000 on top of it, did you say? Just incredible, incredible stuff happens when we put that CSR in front. We follow a process to serve more, serve better, serve longer, guys. We're looking forward to uh so much more next week. And we started doing lives on YouTube if you didn't know this. So you can join us Mondays. Uh, they're announced on the channel, they're planned there, uh, 10:30 a.m. Pacific, 1:30 a.m. Eastern. We may change the time at some point, but either way, guys, you can check that out. Joe and I go live, talk about a specific part of the process every Monday to motivate you to get you more wins through the week. So looking forward to seeing you there and on the next episode of the Million Dollar Electrician. Cheers.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:59

They're trying to be blessed. Cheers for Canada.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Maple threat shot. He's doing it. Oh my god. That was a full-on super troopers moment.