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How To Build A Six-Figure HVAC Business With No Experience (Step-by-Step Blueprint) 🚨 · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I made three thousand clear without doing any work.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: This trade will.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Make you catch up to your friends to no matter
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: what they're doing.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: What's the first step to become an h VAC tech?
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: If you want to get into the trade and you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: don't have much money, you could take and practice for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your EPA examination. This is how my business got started.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: What type of jobs are going to be the ones
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: that I'm going to go to first?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In h track you make your most money off your
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: lowest cost parts. If a tech comes to your house
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and your transformers blown, you're looking at at least maybe
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: five hundred and six hundred bucks.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: What do you have to do to become an entrepreneur? Like,
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: what's the first step for that?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Most black men's problem is how do you make a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: lot of money legally?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The main problem is getting the work.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: The summer will make you think that your con righteous
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: man on earth. It's like the gold brush. People just
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: cannot live without ac. When it's high, I don't even
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: want to go to sleep because I'm scared I may
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: not wake up in the morning.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Because I have so much money to make the next day.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: How do you know how to price You can't be.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Too high and you can't be too low.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: You could sell yourself to a point where people want
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to be involved with you. If you just hone in
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: on one thing for one time, I guarantee that it
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: will change your life.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, welcome back.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: Special live episode how To series has returned.
• 1:16
  Speaker 6: Spent a minute.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did this last year. We did a bunch
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: of them. Last year.
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: We did real estate, did social intelligence investing, you know
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: with Keanu Watson is Keanu Watson as far as all
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: of the things that you need to know about buying
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: a home outside of just the regular home purchasing. So
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: these these how two episodes are like the hybrid interviews
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: because they're like really really just meant to get as
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: much information as possible, and so much over the last
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: year own so much conversation about trades, and that's something
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: that we never really covered on Earn Your Leisure. We
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: never really had an in depth conversation on trades. And
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: when you hear you know, black Rock investing in the trades,
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: and you know, you you hear people like billionaires talking
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: about this is going to be the gateway to the future,
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: and Jeff Bezos and so many different people with the
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: age of artificial intelligence, saying that one of the few
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: things that actually look promising are trades because there's a
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: deficit in the amount of people that we have as
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: far as plumbers, electricians and you know, painters and different
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: things at that nature. And as more homes are going
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: to be needed, more data centers are going to be needed,
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: more you know, residential commercial buildings are going to be built,
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: these skills are going to become more and more and
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: more valuable. And this is something especially in the educational realm.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: It's a different form of education. You don't necessarily have
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: to go to college, you don't have to have a
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: master's degree. Sometimes, you know, people are trying to figure
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: it out, whether they're young or they're even older, and
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: trying to figure out a second career or a new
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: career pathway entrepreneurship for sure, because you know all of
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: these traits business owners. One thing is to actually learn
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: this skill. Another thing is to actually be a business
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: owner that can do both that. You know, you have
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: this skill, but then you also have your own business.
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: So I say that to say, started going down the
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: rabbit hole. I'm actually building a home right now. And
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: I actually asked my my contract I said, looks the
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: what's like the fastest way. What's the fastest trait that
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: a person could get into right now? Like, what's the
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: fastest one? Because he was like, well, electrician is hard
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: because that's like four years of apprentice and you got
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: to do another four years. He's like, that's really hard.
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: He's like, plumber is kind of difficult too. He said, honestly,
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: the fastest way and the thing that I would recommend
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: the most is HVAC. He was like, you know, obviously
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: it's not easy, but that's something a couple of years
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: you can get up and running. You can get the apprentice.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: Like he was like, that would be my record mandation. Oh,
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: I know, she's just as fate would have it. We
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: actually know HVAC entrepreneur. I want to tell the backstory.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: But somebody from our neighborhood, somebody that's been an HVAC
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: entrepreneur for a very long period of time, somebody that
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: was actually a client of mind when I was a
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: financial planner. I actually, you know, put together some plans
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: for him when he was an age was an HVAC
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: entrepreneur still is. So it's like you know what early Alesia,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: we always talked about the stock market, investing in real estate,
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: you know, all of these different industries. I think it's
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: time that we covered the blue collar industries. We should
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: start with the industry the trade that, you know, what
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: was told is probably the quickest to get up and running.
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: And somebody that we already had a relationship with.
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's important.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: When we grew up in the neighborhood where we were
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: in high school, they had trade schools.
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: We have vocational schools, and that's kind of going away.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: So being able to give a platform to that, giving
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: people an opportunity to see that in real life from
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: people we actually you know, I.
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: Think it's incredible. So we're in for a tree.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: So let's do it without further ado. Let's bring our
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: guests up. What's the deal, my brother.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Hey, how's it going, guys?
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: What's the deal?
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Man? Good? Good?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Happy to be here, man, happy to be here and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: talk about some h back, you know, talk.
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: About age back.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: We were remiss to leave out the part that you
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: are also Jamaican, so we're going to support that.
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: My god, evinced what's going on?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Nothing much, man, Just glad to be here, you know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and just to give this wealth of information out to everybody,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: So all right, so Vincent Taylor, right, as I said,
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: from our neighborhood, we actually have a relationship for me
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: being a financial advisor.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: That was probably over ten years ago, maybe longer.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: About twenty or so.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: It's been a minute, no ages, man, and I can't.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: And I came to your house then, and it was
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: like one of these things, you know, as a financial advisor,
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: you just networking, meeting people, getting referrals, and like, yo,
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: you talk to Vinnie Man, he's doing this thing. You
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: got an HVAC company and at the time, I didn't
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: even know what HVAC was.
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: And I came.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I remember that that day clearly.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do too.
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: I came set in your house, talked and you you
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: were telling me about your company and the different jobs
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: that you got, and you know, the vans. I think
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: you had the vans on the road and you were
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: sending workers at different places. So you know, fast forward,
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: when it was taught when it's time to do this,
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: you still you're still an entrepreneur to this day. So
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: I want you to We're gonna talk. We're gonna this episode.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: We're going to tell people how to become an HVAC entrepreneur.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: But before we even get into that, what is your journey?
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: How did how did you become an HVAC entrepreneur?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Well, basically, my journey was a little bit uncanny and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: very different from the normal process. You know, first of all,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: my parents were immigrants from Jamaica, and my mother was
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a nurse and my father was an h FACT tech
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: but he was an oil burner technician for a commercial
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: industrial And you know, we never really knew what my
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: father did. You know, it just come home in a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: blue uniform. And but we knew my mom was a nurse.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So you know, I never was a mechanical person. I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: never was fixing my cars. I was never that type
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of person growing up. But you know, I worked on
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: my bikes and things like that growing up. But as
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I got older, now I really had to figure out
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: my life. Like life started hitting me at like twenty eight,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: twenty nine, I was getting married, I was, you know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: about to buy a house. I was going through all
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: these stages, and I knew that what I did in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: high school wasn't enough to make me really progress in college.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So I knew that I had to create.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I've always created my own lane and my own jobs.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: When I wanted to be an executive, I made myself
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: an executive. I only applied for executive jobs, so I
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: knew I had to do something, but I didn't know
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: what path to really choose. But I knew that my
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: father always gave us a good life growing up because
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: he made more money than my mom. We always knew
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: he was the bretherwinner of the family. So I said,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, let me try to take a step
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: into that path because I just know that I'm living
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in a good neighborhood. I'm going to good schools. We
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: were in the middle class section growing up, so I
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: knew that growing up. So I was like, you know what,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: let me just try to do what he does. But
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I knew I didn't have the mental capacity for it,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: so I took the path of just really.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Like when they say.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Obama had the book the Audacity of Hope, I had
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the audacity to have the audacity of hope because there
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: was no one around. There was no Internet. I was
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: using map Quest to get the job. There was no
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: other black entrepreneur guy in the neighborhood who had his
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: own company. There was no one to really look up to.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: So what I did was around twenty eight, twenty nine
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: years old. I realized I did not want to be
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: broken thirty. I just it was just gave me the chills,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: literally like bagging said. So I said, what am I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: going to do? I had about thirty thousand dollars left
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to my name, to my entire existence, and I thought
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: for months, I do a food, restaurant, clothing company, open
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: up a store. I was thinking of all these things,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: but I knew that they could have a very big loss,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: especially restaurants, you know that has like a seventy percent
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: failure rate. So I was researching all these things, and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I was like, what am I going to do that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: is really going to support a family? And you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: have a big ticket item. And I don't want to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: make little money.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: You know. I was used to kind of.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Making a big portion of money in the streets. So
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, what can I do to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: make real money but legally? And that I believe is
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: most black men's problem is how do you make a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: lot of money eagerly?
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And that was the whole issue back then. So I
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: pondered on it. I grabbed my cousin, who was a female.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I knew she had a clean record, she was a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: school teacher, and she was smart. She could email do
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: all these things. I grabbed her. I said, listen, I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: got the money. You're going to be the front person.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And I had to learn the business side first. I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: didn't know anything mechanical, so I said, okay, I'm going
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to learn the business side. I grabbed my cousin. I
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: did some research. I knew a girl who worked at
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a plumbing company, and literally, me and my cousin we
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: went out. We bought her a Louis Vuitton bag with
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the cherries on it. I went to her job one
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: day after work. This is the true story. She was
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: from Yonkers. I went to her job one day after work.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It's like a two thousand dollars bag at the time.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I gave her the bag and I said, please, can
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you just show me and open up the books to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: me and how do I do this?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: She gave me the.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Insurance companies to sign up too. She gave me sears
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: how to sign up to them to be a tractors.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: She gave me the general liability information. She gave me
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: just the blueprint for the office part, and I took
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that office part, and I got with my cousin and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: we started to slowly figure out how to start an
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: HVAC company. You know, how to go and get a
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: soul proprietorship or just take or get your bank account
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to get certified, to get the whole process started. But
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: before I did that, we had a thing in the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: neighborhood to call the Penny Savers. I don't know if
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: you guys are member.
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, man, yeah, we'll deliver to your house every Saturday.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So I told my cousin, I said, listen, she was
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a school teacher. She really didn't like teaching high school,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and she was trying to venture out on her own.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And I had no purpose in you know what I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: was going to do. So I said, you know what,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to flip a coin. I'm going to run
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: add into Penny Savers. If we get an ad or
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a job, we'll continue. If we don't, we just don't
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: want to waste our money and don't want to waste
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: our time. I flipped the coin. It landed on heads.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I ran a three hundred dollars ad. It took me
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: two weeks. I ran a three hundred dollars ad. And
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: then somebody called me literally from that PennySaver ad. They said,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: come to our house in Yonkers. We want to put
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: in a boiler. I didn't know what a boiler was.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything of what to do. I went
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to the house with my cousin. The guy said, can
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you put in a boiler? I said yes, I can,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: because I knew my father could do the work. So
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I basically was starting my company around my father and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: my uncles that were already in the trade. I said, yeah,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I can put in a boiler. He came out from
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the back room. He gave my cousin six thousand dollars cash.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: She was fumbling with the money because she wasn't getting scared.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So I grabbed the money from her and I said
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I wasn't even counting and I was just going through.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I said, yep, it's all there. And he said when
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: can you put it in? I said, I do it
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: this week. This is when I learned, guys, this is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: when the magic happened. I called up an HVAC supply house.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I said, how much is a boiler? They were like, well,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the boilers around like sixteen hundred or so so I said, okay, hundred.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I gave my father a thousand dollars to put the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: boiler in. That was twenty six hundred. I bought about
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: three hundred dollars in parts and fittings. So I was like, wow,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: we made three thousand dollars in one day. That's when
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: it just like we could just never go back to work.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: It just didn't make any sense. It literally made no sense.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And my father did the job with his friend like
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the next day after work, and they put in the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: boiler and I made three thousand, clear like without doing
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: any work. Like literally I didn't lift the screwdriver. I
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't a helper back then. I couldn't really do anything.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: That's when the light bulb went off. I was like,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: we are worth so much more like I And then
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: from there we signed up to Seers. I started doing
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: contracting with Seers. I started doing so many things, and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: then I started realizing that, you know, basically.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: You can make whatever you want.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I went per day, and then I started telling all
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: my friends like listen, guys, I found a way, like
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do this on the streets anymore.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You can make five, ten, fifteen thousand, dollars away, like
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I found a loophole. Some people listened and some people didn't,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: so I took the ones that listened. We went to school,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I you know, and then it just became
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: like a snowball effect, you know, me and my cousin.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: That's when we had first bought our house for Shah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: After that, we ran our company for like two years
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: or so three years. Then we say, hey, you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: let's start buying some property. I bought a house. She
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: bought a house. She never went back to teaching ever,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: and she was a female. She wind up marrying an
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: h VAC tech So then they just started their own company.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And then that's when I branched out on my own.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: But it was a tough journey, you know. I had
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to hire guys where I knew nothing. I had to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: depend on guys, and then I just learned from all
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the top texts that I hired. But then eventually I
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: had to go back to school, you know, because I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was paying guys like one hundred dollars just to put
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: two wires together because I didn't know any better. So
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: when I went back to school, I went to BOC's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and I took every class one by one. I went
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to night school because I was running a company making
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: more money than the teacher in the class. My teacher
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: in Bosis would always tell me, Vince, you could leave
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the class whenever you want.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: You can take so just just people. I don't know.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Boss is a trade school?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so question.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: So you were an entrepreneur.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: You had a company up and running because you had
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: your dad, but you didn't you didn't actually know the
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: skill set yourself. So you so you went to trade
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: school to learn HVAC while actually owning an av company.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: While I was in class, I had three trucks on
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the road.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes even the teacher in class would
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: be telling us stuff and I'd be like, well, that's
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: not exactly true because I just did that job yesterday.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: He'd say, Vince, will talk after class.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: There's real quick, real quick, because your dad is doing
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: the jobs two parts like West Indian family obviously is
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: that proud when you start going into HVAC and the
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: other parties? When does he catch on that he's hiring
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: me for jobs and I'm actually working for my son.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he caught onto that.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: You know. He wind up retiring after like a forty
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: plus year career, and he was like the Michael Jordan
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of oil, Like literally, you know, he was the best.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, if anybody out there knows he did Cleveland
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Brooks boilers strictly hotels, hospital industrial things. So I mean
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he once he started realizing the money that I was
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: paying him, he always told me he was like if
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I would have did this years ago, but nobody but
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: first Jamaican generation coming from Jamaica at that time, See,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: that was the thing.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Nobody thought they could own a company.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And when I did that, it was just like a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: shockwave because it was like, how does Vincent Taylor own
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a company?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: How did he buy a house? And he said, this
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: is what I want to tell everybody, is so much
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: in the trade.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: This trade will make you catch up to your friends,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: no matter what they're doing, within a five year to
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: eight or ten year period of time.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Because what I did was okay.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: First of all, I knew that in high school that
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: everything that I was learning at that time wasn't going
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to help me. I knew this way before my time.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The Boston tea party, the jet job, I just knew
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't going to help me. So I paid
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: no but I graduated high school with a sixty five
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: point grade average. Vashad's mom, I took her class three
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: times in a row. He loved me to that, she said, Vnced,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I like you a lot and everything.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: But so you know, Vince, you remember what you did
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: to me right Halloween. You remember that?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this guy second we do that for the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: other side.
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: Record we all graduated from that high school.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I learned.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I learned that basically.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I knew those skills weren't going to help me,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: so I never really concentrated. Now, look, everybody that was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in regents, gifted and talented, all those special classes. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: know they are not making as much money as me.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It's impossible. It's impossible, you know. And then I learned
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the light bulb went off. I was like, Okay, you
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: just have to learn something specific and hone in on that,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and then you will make the money.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: That's what college was supposed to be, like, you go
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: there and learn something specific and get a job with that.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: But then all my friends came home from college and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: got jobs with nothing that they went to college for.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: That's when I knew I had a chance. So I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: was able to make the money.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, my first year as a business owner by myself,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: with just a computer and a three and one fax machine.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I probably did like one hundred eighty thousand. Me and
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: my first year. So we thought we were on our way,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: you know, on the road to the riches. Get me
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a water, you know. So my second year, you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: we went up. We were going up to like two eighties,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: three eighties.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I never reached a five hundred thousand dollars mark, you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: so I never really got out of that bubble.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I got stuck in the middle class section.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But coming from where I was coming from, that was
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: like Hollywood, you know, so I was happy to be there.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: My wife never worked for eighteen years.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: She was a stay at home mom. My kids, you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: went to school. My daughter just graduated from Spelman this year,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know, thank you. So, you know, she was able
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to live the soccer mom life, you know, for an
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: African American woman, and at the time that felt good
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: coming from a guy like me, coming from just media.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: My wife has a master's degree college. She graduated from school.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: She had all the degrees. I only had a sixty
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: five point grade average from high school. But I made
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the most money using what the trade brought me. This
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: trade is just so wonderful. Like sometimes I don't even
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: want to go to sleep because I'm scared I may
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: not wake up in the morning because I have so
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: much money to make the next day when I leave here.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Now I have at least three to five thousand dollars
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to make literally.
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: Well, it's also it's interesting because the circle, like you
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: talked about the school, but now you're actually teaching.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: You're a teacher.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, I just got a job with westter Community College.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I just got a professor adjunct professor position for ah
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: track which now, as you guys know, Westerester Community College
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: has never had a vocational program. They said demand is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: so high the classes are booked for a semester's coming up.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: You know, thank you.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I also I spoke with the director of Mike Jones,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: who runs the Southern Westchester Bose's program. He said, the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: vocational program is so booked, the classes are packed, they
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: don't have enough room for students. The fall class coming
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: up for this winter is already jamm packed and booked.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. If HVACT is just something right now, that
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: is just I have my guy I took out APEX.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm affiliated with APEX, Lincoln Tech, and Bosey's. I'm normally
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: on the advisory board for those schools. I took my
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: apprentice now, he was eighteen years old. I took him
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: out of APEX. He came straight from Jamaica. The first
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: thing he did was sign up to trade schools. I
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: went to APEX, I said, who's the best student here?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: They pointed him out.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I took him from eighteen years old. He's now twenty
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: one years old.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: He's making at least one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a week, or he could make more if he wants.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: At twenty one years old, like, and he's learned so
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: much he can almost go on now to do his
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: own thing if he wanted.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: You know, So if you want to catch up, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: know guys.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That are eighteen to twenty one, twenty five that are
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: making more money than their parents.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You will make more money than your parents if you're
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: in this trade.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: So Ben, we gotta break this down, right, So ahvac heating, ventilation.
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: Air conditioning.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Right, you go to trade school and again shout out
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: to bo sees that that program is amazed. I actually
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: used to work for Southernwests for like six years. Talk
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: about how long did it take you to actually grasp
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: the skill? Obviously you are in the job training because
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: you're watching it, right, that's like not theory anymore, you're
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: actually putting those things that How long did it get
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: to you?
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: Like, all right, I'm comfortable, I learned these skills. What's
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: the timeframe?
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, still have fun?
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: How long does it take the average time they say
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: for you to be a confident tech to say, okay,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I can go out there and you know, be on
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: my own and handle myself. That's gonna take you about
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: three to five years, depending on how many jobs you're
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: really going out there and doing. See me being a
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: company owner, I was just going on jobs day and night,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: every single day, Sunday, Saturday, Holidays, Christmas, New Year's, super Bowl.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I was on jobs every single day. So the more
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: jobs you do, that's how you're really gonna build yourself up.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But in three to five years you could be a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: solid tech. You could almost say I could start to
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: go out on my own. Now in about five years
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: it should be good.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: So now we're going to get into the how to
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: session so we're gonna ask you like direct questions and
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: then you just give us the answers as far as like,
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: you know, really like how to write. So the first is, Okay,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: I just got out of college, but I can't find
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: a job. I changed my mind. Now I want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: become h vac Right, what do I do? Like, what's
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: the first step to become an age vac tech? What's
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: the first step to become an h VAC tech?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, just coming out of college and you want
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to switch roles and go into something else.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: First thing you do is try to apply to a
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: trade school.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: If you can, you get into a trade school that's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: going to take you maybe bout a year, depending and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: then from there you would have to get into your
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: first company. But you see, the problem is sometimes a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: lot of companies don't want to hire guys with no experience.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: That's where guys and people meet the roadblock. But then
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: how do you get experienced if you don't get a job.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: So you know, you've got to really apply yourself. But
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: there's a ton of positions that are open. There are
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of avenues. You could work in a supply house,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you could be a technician, you could be a product rep.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: There's so many different roles out there. But if you
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: want to be a technician and get into the field,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to go through some sort of training.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: You know, it's formal school training.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: And you try to get your first job, or if
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: you get lucky for a company just to take you
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on and just say all right, come on in.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: And those guys seem to me to be worked out
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: You know, it works out very well because I've taken females,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I've taken males, people who don't speak English. I've had
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: all walks and forms of life that I've trained. That's
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: why I've become good at the training. Because if I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: could train you and you don't speak much English and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: then you understand it, or you know, I started to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: figure out a pattern of how to sync this into people.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: But that would be your normal process. I mean, it's
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: going to take you about.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: A year or two, a couple of years to kind
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of get used to the verbage and the language and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the tools.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: It's a lot to get into.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: That's why if you're not really honed in, and you're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: not really zoned in, it's not going to work for you.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: That's why people that go to school it kind of
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: works because they've already spent twenty thousand dollars to go
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to school or sixteen to eighteen, twenty thousand dollars sometimes
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: could be more. So they want to get their investment back.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But if you will get that investment back very fast,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: if you apply yourself. You know, I've never heard of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a broke plumber, or a broke electrician or a broke
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: he tract.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: I just haven't heard of it, he said, honed in
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: and zoned in. And this is not just theory, right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Shout out to my fam Randy. I know he was
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: working with you, but you talked.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: About talk about it. I started his company too and
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: trained him.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: I'm proud of him. I'm proud of him. If you
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: talked about being an apprentice, and that's important too. Right
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: after I go to the vocational school, we call it mentorship.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Some people call it internship, and I know in this
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: space we call it apprenticeship. How does one go about that? Like,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: how do you know the person that you should be
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: seeking mentorship?
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Well, that's true, you got to really do your research.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I know Brunie and Campc used to have a mentorship
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: thing where they would hire text you know, I ran
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: my own program. What I did was, you know, I
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: had a program where I charged six thousand dollars and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I would get you EPA certified. I would train you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and being that I have a company, I would take
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you out on jobs every single day so you get
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: on the job training. And I would also pay them
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: as well well for that. So that program worked really well.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You've got to try to get into a company. You
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: got to fight your way in. You got to knock
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: on the door, show them that that you're hungry, you know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: say hey, I'm here, I want to work. Most companies
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: really will take guys if they see the hunger.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: You're coming in on time every day. You really want it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: You have to have that hunger and you have to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: have that drive in you, and they will take you
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and mold you into what you will. You know, they
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: want you to be, you know, because they're going to
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: make an investment into you. You know, they'll send you
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to school. So I know guys that didn't have any
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: EPA certifications, but they were just so good.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: At what they do, companies would hire them.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I know guys that worked for Electrical companies that were
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: illegal immigrants, but the boss just knew that they were
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: so good at what they do.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: They ran the whole electrical jobs.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: So, you know, companies just really want people that can
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: sell good workers and you know things that can you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: help them to get through. Most of the electricians and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: plumbers that are licenses don't really do the hard work.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: You know, they're there for the for the permits and
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: to get everything set up.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so you mentioned the EPA certification. That's for the
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: other certification that they need to have.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, now this is good you said that. Now this
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: is what could really help people out there. If you
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: want to get into the trade and you don't have
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: much money and your discourage, if you're smart enough and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: you're a good person that could comprehend things, read things
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and comprehend and then answer questions, you could go to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Mainstream Engineering six so eight and you could take and
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: practice for your EPA examination. The EPA is about one
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: hundred questions. It's twenty five questions in each section. I
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: believe it's four sections. There's a type one, Type two,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and then there's the universal certification. So once you get
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: your e it's basically, that's your air conditioning license. So
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: let's just say, like you guys right now, you could
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: take two or three weeks out and you could say,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna study this pamphlet and take my
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: EPA test. You can get certified and just get your EPA.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Not know any air conditioning, just take the test. This
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: is how my business got started. My cousin bought the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: EPA test on a Friday. She studied it. She was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: a school teacher. She took it on a Monday, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: she just barely passed it. And that's how we started
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: our company. Because she passed her EPA test. She knew
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: nothing about air conditioning. Now that EPA certification lasts for
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life, there's no renewing it, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that allows you to buy air conditioning equipment. You can
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: shop in the supply house like you guys do a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: lot of building and stuff like that. You get your EPA,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you can say, all right, guys, I'll buy all the equipment.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Just give me the the list. You guys, buy all
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the equipment at the cost, make them do the labor.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: That's one way you could just say by just having
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: your EPA, I made my sister get her EPA. I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: made everybody around me get the EPA because you never
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: know when you might need to go to a supply house,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: buy a water heater, buy a furnace. You can actually
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: buy it and make your person come and put it in.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So that's a very simple process. You don't need to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: go spend twenty thousand dollars and stay a year in
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: school because at the end of the process, it's to
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: get that EPA, which once you get that piece of paper,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it's pretty much you can do what you want as
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: long as you understand the practices of air conditioning and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the rules and regulations of what the.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: EPA is providing.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're driving in your truck, canisters have
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to be in an upright position. You know, gases have
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: to be labeled. Once you learn all those thing that's
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: really what the EPA is about. The Environmental Protection Association
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: wants you to do good air conditioning practices.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: But even when you.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Get your EPA, that doesn't mean that Rashad could call
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: you and say, hey, come fix my air conditioning, because
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you don't really know any practical skills.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: You just know what the Montreal Protocol wants you to
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: know and things like that.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: But that certification will get you into any supply house
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: order anything, and companies will hire you. They will hire
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you and say, all right, he took the liberty of
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: getting the EPA because you technically can't work around any
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: refrigerants or gases unless you understand the laws of safety
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and what to do. But that's very good because once
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you get that, you can skip a lot of the process.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: You know, So talk about the low voltage wiring basics, Like,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: what's the basics?
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Well, basically with low voltage wiring, everyone has a thermostat
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in your house and stuff. So if you pop your
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: thermostat off the wall and you look at the wires
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: behind it, you're basically going to always see these terminals
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: are why the common w and then I have an
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: O slash B here terminal. These terminals are in every thermostat,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: no matter what you have. So R represents power, that's
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: twenty four volts, So R would be twenty four volts
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: of power.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Why represents AC that's for cooling.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: The G terminal would represent the fan, that's what brings
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: your blower motor on your fan. On the C why
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: would represent common and that's a twenty four volt terminal
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: as well the W terminal that's for your heat that's
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: always going to make heat.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: So these wires go from here to your inside control board.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: This here is a control board that would be in
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: every single house, or some type of control board like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: this that would go from your thermostat to your control board.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: So here are the wires here that are on the board, Y,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: WG in COMMON. So these same wires go to your
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: inside unit whatever you have, an ear handler or a boiler,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: and this would turn on the indoor unit, and then
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: it would also turn on the outdoor unit. So basically
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: R would connect to R, Why would connect to Y,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the G terminal would connect to G. Common would go
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to COMMON, W would go to W, and then for
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: air conditioning, why would go outside to the condenser, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Common would also come outside to the condenser to bring
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: twenty four volts to the contact or to start up
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: your outdoor unit.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: So that in a layman's terms, that's just how your
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: low voltage would work.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: But then you would say, what powers up your control
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: board to make your low voltage work would be your transformer.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: And in this trade we work with step down transformers.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Only can you guys still las see me. H yeah, okay.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: So basically with transform with everyone has this in your
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: house or your buildings or whatever you're doing, you have
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: to have a transformer. So these two wires, the black
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and the red. I could connect one hundred and twenty
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: volts to these two wires and it would step it
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: down to twenty four voltes on this side. This side
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: always stays with twenty four volts. If I had a
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: air handler, that was two hundred and eight volts. This
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: white wire if you guys can't see on here, but
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the common wire is the white wire. This wire is
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: always used with another wire, so white and orange. You
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: could use two eight volts. The two hundred and eight
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: volts would come here. The transformer steps it down to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: twenty four votes. On the other side, this twenty four
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: volts goes into your control board and that's what illuminates
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the lights on your board or the LED lights, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: that's what gives the terminal's power here. So like I
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: taught in the EYL class, never ever look to the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: wires for the power. Yes, you could test the wires
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: for power, but it's the terminals that are giving the
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: wire power. Now by code the Y terminal, which is
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: for AC, that would be a yellow wire by code.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: The white wire would be for w for heating by code,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the green wire would be for the fan by code,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and blue or brown would normally be used for common.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: But you can never watch the color of the wires.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: You have to watch where the wire is going to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the terminal because somebody could use a red wire for
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: air conditioning for Y. But as long as it's going
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to the WYE terminal, it's doing what it has to do.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So never look at the colors of the wires. Always
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: look at the terminal where the wires going. But as
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: long as they're going to the right terminals, you're okay.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And you so basically, if R is getting twenty four volts,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: let's just say it's Christmas Eve in your house, Troy,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and the heat goes out, and for some reason you
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: think it's the thermostat.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: You want to override the thermostat.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Now, you could take off your thermostat and take the
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: R wire and put it together with the wire, and
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that would override your thermostat and make.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Your heat come on. So when R and W make
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: your heat comes on. When R and Y and G
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: make your air conditioning system comes on.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So R is like the twenty four voltes that is
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: connecting with all these terminals that connect with your control board,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and that will bring on your condenser. So if you
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: put the RY and G together, the air conditioning would
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: come on and the fan would come on.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to test your heat to see is
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: my heat working, you could put the R wire with
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: the wire. These are just twenty four voltes.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: But I would tell you this, never ever jump and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: are in common, because then you will blow the transformer.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: You have twenty four votes going.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Together getting a good so you never ever jump are
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: in common, but you could jump R with all the
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: other terminals.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: That's also very good to know for a lot of
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: safety reasons.
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: That's that's big man. Just completed a house.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: You're talking about that circuit boards, getting back to the transformers.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: It's all in line, man, it's all a line. I
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: wonder when you're talking about heating, ventilation AC. When I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: starting with what type of jobs are going to be
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: the ones that I'm going to go to first? Right,
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Like I wouldn't imagine is it heating first? Is it
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: AC first?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: What it is?
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: What's the most more practical to start, well, every.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Home is built with heating. You have to have heating
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: in your house. Air Conditioning is a luxury. If you
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: have air conditioning, that's pretty much a luxury that you
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: have in your house. But you have to build a
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: house with heating.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: It's see, what I've noticed is in this trade is
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: that if a company hires you, they're going to put
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you where they want to. You may want to be
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a service tech, but you may get thrown on the
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: install team, so you don't really have a choice.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Sometimes when you're first coming and you just kind of
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: go with the flow.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: So I might come out of school and get hired
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: somewhere and they might tell me on the install team.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I might be an installer for three years, or I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: might be an installer forever, or I may want to
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: get out of installing and try to go to service.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: So either one is good. You're going to make good
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: money on either side. But it's what do you like
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Like, installers are like mostly heavy, more brutal type of work.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: The service work is a lot more with your brain
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot more you know it, regular hand tools
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and using your brain. But installing you have to use
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: your brain too, but it's more heavy lifting. More you're
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: kind of in the brutal combat, you know. So if
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you're a rough and tough guy and you like lifting
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and you know, working with ducks and a lot of
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: heavy machinery, then you know, installs for you. But if
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you want to be a service tech and go from
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: house to house and fix things and keep your day
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: moving like that, then you know you kind of want
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: to be a service tech, you know. And just also
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I wanted to show you guys something. This transformer in
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: h track. You make your most money off your lowest
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: cost parts. This transformer costs about maybe sixteen to thirty
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: dollars the most.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Now, if a tech comes to your house and your transformer.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Is blown, I mean you're looking at at least maybe
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: five hundred to six hundred bucks to complete that call,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: you know, with just labor and parts.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: You know, So if you can.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Understand a lot of these small parts, it's very good
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: for you. A thermostat. To change a thermostat, I just
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: changed two thermostats yesterday, I charge a customer eight hundred dollars,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and you know, thermostats can range between one
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: hundred to four hundred dollars or you know, but that's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: from fifteen to thirty minutes worth of work.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: It's not even really like a full hour, you know.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: So you could almost make your own price.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: You can charge with your worth, and you can make
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: like once I learned how to change the thermostat, I
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: went to every job and change a thermostat.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: You know, I was because I just saw the extra
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: money in it.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you can buy a thermostat for one hundred
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: bucks make an extra two fifty and fifteen minutes.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: It's not bad money.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: You know. There are people that are working hours thirty
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: dollars an hour forty dollars, and that they have to
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: work hours and hours after taxes to get to like
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a three hundred dollars for the day or four hundred,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: So if you can make that very very quickly, that's
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: what I love about.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: There are trade It's like, you know, you can just
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: make so much in a very little bit of space
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: of time.
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: As you were saying it, I'm thinking about the thermostats.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: I got an echob so yeah, more than thirty dollars,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: but no, yourr that's going to be.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: More because it's a Wi Fi and remalia. You need
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that common wire to operate your thermostat. That's what illuminates
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: your thermostat because there's no batteries in there, right right right.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking from a safety standpoint, what are someone like
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: the procedures and protocols when going into a job because
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: you're dealing with electric which can be you know, extremely dangerous.
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: Well, what are the things you tell people before going
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: into a job.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Basically, when I train all my guys, I do a
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: lot of safety training as well as you know, we
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: go into the house, you got to come correct uniform booties.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Always turn off the power if you're not sure what
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with, troubleshoot from there. Sometimes we have to
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: troubleshoot with the power live, but always you know, go
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to your practices, you know, start with the basics, but
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you definitely have to use all safety procedures. You know,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: going in there's no reason, there's no way to really
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: tell what to do because every house is different. You
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: really got to have to use your judgment and use
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: all your training. That's where your training really.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Comes in at, you know.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: So let's get into the entrepreneur aspect of it, because
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: that's what earn your leasure. That's what people they want
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: to know how to become you know, h VAC tech.
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: But I'm sure they probably want to know how to
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: how to own a company, how to navigate that.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: So what's the stuff?
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Okay, so you got your HVAC certification, you got you know,
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: you got in with a company, you worked a couple
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: of years as a as a worker, you got your
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: feet wet, you saved up some money. Now you want
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: to become an entrepreneur. What do you have to do
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: to become an entrepreneur? Like, what's the first TEP for that?
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: What's the licensing? What's what's how do you become? Do
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: you own a company?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: This is this is very good question because I've done
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: this for so many people to help them start businesses.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, what I recommend is this.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: If you don't have much money and you want to
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: get things going, the first thing you could do is
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: go to municipality. For us, it was in white planes,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: and you could go and get either an LLC or
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: a sole proprietorship. A sole proprietorship is a lot easier
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: sometimes if you don't have the money for the insurances
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: for the LLC, get your sole proprietorship. You go to
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that building, you pick out your company name. You got
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to pick out like five different names. They're going to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: put it in the computer. See if the name's available.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: You pay, literally it's thirty five dollars to get your
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: business license. That is why I don't understand the people sometimes.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: But you pay your thirty five dollars, you get your
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: business name, they stamp it. Now you take that business
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: name license and you bring that to the bank. The
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: bank takes that. You open up a bank account with
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: your business name. Sometimes the bank will give you your
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: EI in numbers. Sometimes you could apply for that. Once
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: you get your business name and you get your bank account.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: From there, you just need general liability insurance, which is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: not really that much.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: You get I mean a million dollar policy or a
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: two million dollar policy.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: You know you could pay maybe a couple of hundred
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: dollars a month, and you know you'll need an auto
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: policy if you have a van.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: From there, the main problem is getting the work. That's
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: where the hidden.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Mystery, the gray area is for everyone, you know, because
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: people can almost buy a van and get this process started.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: But it's getting the work that's the whole real ball
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: of whax so that you have to do everything. You've
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: got to pay for leads you got. I'm a minority
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: business owner. Most of my partners are females, so they
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: are double minority business owners. I've used government contract and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I've had I've done all the military basis in New York.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I had a great government contract for a couple of years.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Those are great. If you get a government contract, that's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: a great way. You've got to look for developers, real
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: estate develop orus, people like that big whales who are
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: building in New York City or anywhere in your area.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: To look for those type of people. Other contractors you
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: can link up with. Now, there's so many AI things
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: with generating leads. But what I did this is very important.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: What I did.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I realized this was going to happen a while back
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: when I was paying for leads and trying to figure
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: out how to get business. So what I did was
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I started businesses for all of my friends and people
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that were serious, so in case my business didn't do
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: good and they were better at other things in business
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: than me, if their companies are doing good. Now I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: get work from the community that I built within my
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: own community. Like my friend called me today. Shout out
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: to markets and Platinum kids. He called me today, he said, vinced,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I need help. I literally have over ten installs that
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: I cannot do. So I was like, okay, I'll do
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: one install a day for you. Now, this is a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: friend who I started a company for, whose company is
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: just growing so big that now he's giving back work
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: So I figured out that this is the best way
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: for me.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Instead of paying for leads or doing other things, I
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: get jobs from all my techs who I started companies
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: for who I trained. So we kind of have built
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: our own community within our community to help generate work
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: for each other. So that's one thing that I would
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: tell people to start doing, you know, building with your
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: friends and your community because everyone has a different type
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: of luck and everyone has a different situation, and then
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: they could bring it back to the table, you know.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: So COVID, I believe, really woke up a lot of
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: people in that realizing when the world stopped, I was
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: still working. I never stopped working a day through COVID.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You know, people would leave the money on the floor,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: but I would still pick it up, you know. So
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it it's just a wonderful thing. So now I have
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a community of people were hey, evinced I got a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: job here, I got a job here. I'm calling people, Hey,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: you go do this, do that, So we're all kind
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: of working together.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: I think that's the best way to build it.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: But you have to use every avenue, leads, minority businesses,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: government contracts, go door to door.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: See.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: One thing about me was my process was different because
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I spent ten years in sales before I became HVAC tech,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: so I had mastered.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: The sales game.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I took all the sales training from all the companies
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I worked for. I let that all develop in me,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: you know, and I was the number one sales rep
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: at mostly all my companies, so I had a great
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: rapport with customers. I knew how to talk to people.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I could go into a racist house and by the
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: time I come out work, we're best friends. So I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: knew how to take rejection and you know, channel all
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: these things to make them positive.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: So that kind of helped me out too.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: So anybody with a sales background would be great in
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: h fact, because you're selling all day long.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: That's really no matter how great of a tech you are.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: I just wanted to follow up with that because what
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: you just said at the end, that was what I
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: was thinking about the whole time as far as sales,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: because that's everything that you said. It reminded me a
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: lot of me being a financial advisor, like what we
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: used to call a circle of influence, so like we
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: would work with accountants and lawyers because their clients needed
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: financial services. So like you, circle of influence would be
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: a general contractor, right, because as they build a home,
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: they're going to need to refer the work.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: And then, like you said, the door to door.
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: We used to call that like cold calling, where you
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: just randomly call a business, so just walk into a business,
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: so cold cold canvassing was actually walking into it. Yeah yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: and then referrals. But that's brilliant as far as so
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: it all connects, It all connects. But that's something that
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: I think any business, but especially it sounds like in
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: this business for sure, you don't just do one thing
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: and say I'm gonna do this to get lead, right,
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: like you got to do everything Facebook ads, Instagram ads, whatever.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Even your truck being written up. And let me tell
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you guys something too.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Instagram is so great because look I got my West
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Sinster Community College job from somebody that saw me on
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Instagram and said, hey, bro, I see how you're teaching
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: these kids out here.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: You'd be perfect for this job. I went there and
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: got the job.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I get so many jobs from text that called me
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: every day, Hey, Vince, can you come help me with
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: this job?
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I go there, they pay me.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So it's just like you got to really just put
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: yourself out there and show people what you do and
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: they will slowly gravitate to you. I get a lot
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of work from social media, you know, and
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: it builds a brotherhood and a friendship, you know.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I have so many people.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: When I started posting ah trac posts, really I gained
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I had two thousand followers. I gained five thousand followers
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: in like a month and a half. Two months, literally
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: like every day I was just gaining like three hundred
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and five hundred followers. So I saw the algorithm and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: what was happening. I was putting up a post, I
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: would get like a couple hundred thousand views on it
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: or something like that. So I was like, Wow, people
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: are really interested in age racing. There's a very, very
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: big community. I have two business partners right now that
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: are females. They both have their EPA and they run
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the offices, ones in Florida and ones down here. They
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: have never went back to work for about three years now.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: They've been living off of this. So even for females,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: if you are a female and you want a supplemental income,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do the work, but you could
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: run the office and have everything else set up.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Because most guys need a back office. They're not good
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: with it. Most blue collar guys were doing ahe racking.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: They always have either their white life or someone in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: the back office doing the work, or the business is
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: really in their name a lot of the times, you know.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of females that you could work
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: from home. You don't have to quit your regular day job.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: All you need is a computer and the phone. Just
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: do the scheduling and do the billing and that's it.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: That have the guys go out and do the work,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: and you will make a large profit.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: I need you're bringing up a I mean, that's a system, right,
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: like that's everybody all in something we know a bit about.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering when you talked about the truck number one,
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: how expensive it is it to get the truck because
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: I'm starting the business and when I show up, what
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: are the tools that I need?
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: Like, I'm not just showing up to the job with
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: the empty van. I see my electrician comes, my age vactine.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: That truck is loaded with things. I'm like, how do
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: they know exactly what to get and what should be
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: inside that truck?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean I'm definitely I can't.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I could say I'm a tool fanatic, like I like
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: to buy everything that makes the job easier. Now, for HVAC,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: hand tools can be very expensive. Toolbags. I mean I
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: use veto Propack. They're out of Connecticut. They're great company,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: great bags. Those bags go from two hundred dollars to
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: six hundred dollars just for a toolbag. You know, good
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: hand tools. You're gonna spend maybe a grand or two
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: on just good hand tools. But good gauges are going
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: now from six hundred to fifteen hundred dollars for gauges.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: We were doing a lot of soldering and a lot
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: of braizing in the past, but now everyone's using pro press.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: You know, you'll see that going on now probably for
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: some of your homes and things. You know, they're using propress,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: which cuts out the time and a lot of material.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: You just like, like you guys could put in a
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: water heater so easily. You just put a pipe in
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: a coupling, you put a machine on it, you press it,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: it's done, it's sealed. So they're making things so much
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: easier now where you know you have to have these
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I would say the average.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Truck probably has about.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, as an HVACT Tech you probably got about
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars and thirty thousand dollars worth of tools
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: could be on your truck at any time. A plumber
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: could have anywhere from sixty grand worth of tools on
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: up in their truck at any time. You know, So
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: you definitely need your tools. And that's what goes into
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: the whole job. When you're charging, it's your your truck
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: has to carry the tools to the job. You got
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: to get to the job, you know, So all that
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: plays a factor in what you're being charged to at
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: the end of the day.
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, talk about the seasonality of your job. For
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: entrepreneurs like this, this yeah might be like the summer
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: is a great season.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: This summer, the summer is the time, baby, This summer
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: will make you think that you're like the richest man
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: on earth, but it will end.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, but some is so great.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, just as a small contractor, not even a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: major company's as a small contractor, you could easily do
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: like eighty ninety grand in the summer, you know, just
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: one hundred grand in the summer, which if you don't
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: want to, then you don't have to work in the winter.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: You know, you can budget yourself out. It's all how
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you want to live. But the summer is the absolute
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: best time for an HVACT type. And the reason why
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: is we sell free on. Freeon is like the dream.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: It's like the gold, the gold you guys were finding
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: on the streets. That's the gold. R twenty two is
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: a free on that that's been phased out. That freeon
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you could sell anywhere from two to three hundred dollars
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: per pound. So we're selling gas every day per pound.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And it's the most beautiful thing. Like your air conditioning system,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: you're gonna need five or six pounds of free on
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: in it. So even if I fix it, then you
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: still have to pay for the free on. If you
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: need gas. That's another thousand dollars right there. So It's
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: imagine going to every house and they need free on,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: and it's like one thousand dollars every house, two thousand dollars.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: You know. Our four ten A was another free on
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: that was new. That's about one point fifty maybe two
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars per pound. The new gases out now, like
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: for your guys's homes and stuff, would be R thirty
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: two or our four to fifty four B.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Those are the two newest gases out now.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: What we were using in the past was R twenty two,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: which has been out for the last twenty or thirty years.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: We were using that.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: That got phased out because they said it had too
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: much chlorine in it and that was depleting the ozone faster.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: So we went from R twenty two to our four
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: ten A now to R thirty two and R four
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: to fifty four B.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: But the gas, okay, I mean.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Just this week alone, I probably made like three or
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: four thousand dollars just off of free on.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'll put into perspective.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: A can of four ten a cost about two hundred
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: dollars to fifty Let's say that's for a thirty pound
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: can and if you're selling one pound for two hundred
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: dollars or one hundred and fifty dollars, I mean, it's
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: it's like the Golden eras back. It's like it's like
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: the gold Rush. In the summer, it's literally you cannot
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: stop making money.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes. I almost feel guilty sometimes, Like me.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And my brothers, we used to have a contest every
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: day to see who could get to five grand the fastest.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And then we get to five grand, we'd chill out
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: for the day.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: You know, by that time it's about ten o'clock at night,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: but you know, or eight o'clock at night.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: So it's just the summertime. It's just the best.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: If you're gonna get into this trade and you want
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: to make money, you start in the summertime, and I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: guarantee you you'll never turn back. Winter's a little bit harder.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: You can make a lot of money in the winter,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: don't despite the winter. Oil We make a lot of
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: money with oil gas forced air heating boilers. It's a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: lot of money, you know. But the summertime, for me,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: it just seems like people just cannot live without ac
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: When it's high, when it's cold, people kind of tend
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to try to get warmer. They'll snuggle up, they'll get
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: an extra blanket, they'll live for a day or two.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people who have health conditions, a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: lot of elderly people. I just worked for a lady yesterday.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: She had a hard condition and there's no way she
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: could live without air conditioning. There's just no way. So
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you know you're wanted. It's a great trade, you're respected.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: You take pride in fixing things. As a young black
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: person or anyone of color, it's a respectful job.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: You could feed your family with it.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it has just brought so much joy to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: my life that I'm just overwhelmed, you know. With I
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: try to just bring as much forth to everyone that
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I can with it, because it can change your life.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: If you just hone in on one thing for one time,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you it'll change your life.
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: You definitely are an essential worker.
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: You talk about the amount of income that you can
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: make the five thousand dollars race with you and your brother.
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: I wonder, as an entrepreneur, how are you managing money right?
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: Like you've been doing this for a while now. How
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: have you when you get money for the first time,
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: it's okay, But you've been doing it for a while.
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: How has that process been for you?
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what, that's a very good question because.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: For a while, coming from where I came from with
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the streets and then going into the business world, I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: always thought it was just the fact that just stacking money,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: you know, just stack up as much money as you
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: can and this and that.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Until you guys really came around.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: We didn't really know about like financing and investing when
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Rashad first came to my house. The reason why we
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: went with Rashad because we were just blown away, like
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: he was just so meticulous and on point. To be
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: honest with shot, I didn't understand a lot what she
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: was saying, but my wife understood the mutuals and but
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: we were just so blown away, were like how is
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: this guy so young and just so militant and like,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, you were just so on point that it
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: was just like raisor sharp.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: So you know, that's just one credit to you. But
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: what was the question you were saying in how.
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: You manage your money?
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, so we didn't really know. I didn't really
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: know how to manage money.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: This is one thing that I'm kind of upset about
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: because I got kind of house stuck, you know, three
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: four thousand dollars mortgage, kids, college businesses. I was just
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: so happy just to be maintaining on a certain level
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: that I never really got into that point of investing,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: and then we didn't know how.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: We didn't know.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know, if you take twenty grant and put
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: it here, it's gonna matriculate and it's gonna We didn't.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that concept. So I didn't really manage
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of money well. But I lived a good
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: life and I went through I learned now you know
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: on what to do. But if you're in this trade,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: like I know, a lot of plumbers and guys are
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: in this trade that I'm doing very well in the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: stock market because they're able to just do a job
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: for thirty grand and just shove that in the market
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: and then make it back tomorrow or make it back
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: next week, so it doesn't really hurt. So for guys
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in this trade, it is good, you know, once you
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: understand it to do a lot of investing because you
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: can make the money so fast, you can make it
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: right back.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: How old you got to be, though, like I'm thinking now,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: the first deal you got was cash. How often I mean,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure now is billing in its electronics and
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: payment processing. Yeah, having that back how important is having
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: a structure.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: But you got to have your team.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: You know, you got to have a good accountant, You
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: got to have your back office. You know, I'm not
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: that computer literate, so I really depend on my back off.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: It's a lot and you start to realize things like
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: like when I got my first military contract, I was,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: you know, psyched up, oh five grand, ten grand a week,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: twenty But then when the taxes came on it, I
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: realized like, oh, I might have been paying these guys
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: too much, Like I could have cut back because nobody
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: sees that part at the end, you know, it's taxes.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: So you got to really you got to really stay organized.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: You got to have a focused team. You can't do
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: everything yourself. Once you get to a certain point, you've
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: got to really pay to put the right people in,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: you know, in areas to help you.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: And you know I used to. I think I used
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: to use ADP.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: For payroll sometimes it's good to I think they're a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: good company that used to organize.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Our payroll for us.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember even T T was there helping
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: us a few times. You know, office was crazy, you know.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: So you've got to have a good office crew. You
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: got to have people that are smarter than you, you know,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: around you to really handle a lot of this business
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: for you, because you know you're out in the field.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: It's hard to manage both. You really can't do both
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: be in the field and be doing everything. No matter
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: what programs you get or things to help you. You
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: need an actual person that you know you can guide to,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: you know, help you guide you through the process, you know.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: So I'm glad you mentioned about the women because you know,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: I'm building a home right now and my whole painting
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: crew is women.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: And I was talking to the boss yesterday. She's a woman.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: And yeah, definitely play attention to detail, for sure, but
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: usually you wouldn't expect that from laborers. You wouldn't expect
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: to see female laborers. So I'm glad you said that
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: because there is a space in these trades for women.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: And that brings me to my question as far as
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: one of the most I guess the most important thing
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: is hiring employees, right, So how do you go about
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: hiring employees. Are they seasonal workers? Is it like per job?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Are you have them year round?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: How's that?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Well, to be honest with you, guys, this is what
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: happens in the age fact trade because I've been hiring
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: people from about twenty eight years old till I'm fifty
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: two now, so I mean I've been hiring firing all
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: walks of life, Black, white, Asian, grown men, young men.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: So what I've learned is this.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: They're going to It's hard with age fact because when
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: you hire somebody, you have to almost really look into
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: their soul as far as integrity, because when you're going
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: from every house making a couple thousand dollars at every
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: house you go to, it's very hard for another person
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: to look at that, and a technician to look at that,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: and then that's when the resentment comes in and that's
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: when the problems started. So me personally, at this stage
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: in the game, I don't like to hire anybody really
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: over twenty five years old. I hire guys from eighteen
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: to twenty five because a guy from eighteen to twenty
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: five making a thousand to two thousand week, they're on
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: top of the world. But once you get to thirty
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: and into your forties and you start having real life bills, mortgages,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: kids could be getting married, divorced, whatever it is. That's
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: when you really need to start making your own money
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: as far as whatever you feel you deserve, because I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: can only pay you but so much, and you're going
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: to watch me make so much and it's not going
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to make much sense to you after a while, and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: then that resentment starts to go into the work, and
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: then you're not as nice to customers.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: It starts to just bleed out into the situation.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: So I like to stay between that range because a
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: lot of grown men in certain things that you have
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: your grown man problems, but I can't solve them all
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: from my company. I can just pay you what I can.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I can't you make all your problems go away. So
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: I noticed that the resentment comes in if we're the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: same age and you're working for me, and you know,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's very hard that I've learned a lot of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: people can't really, you know, take it to just stay
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: in their positions, stay in their laning and grow as
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: you can, you know. So I like to stay in
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: that range. But you got to look for guys. I mean,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: I've been through it all. I have guys that were
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: coming on time and just bs all day. I would
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: have guys that would come in late. But there are
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: some of my hardest workers.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: You just got to kind of look at people and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: look at their integrity and see like are they loyal,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: are they honest?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd just rather have a loyal and honest person.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: If you got to collect three thousand dollars in cash
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: and you have my truck van, my keys, my company card, like,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: I have to be able to trust you with the
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: wide variety of things. We have to almost be a family.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: I don't like to just hire workers. Once you're working
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: for me, you're in my family. You're coming to Thanksgiving dinner,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: you're there at Christmas. This is a family thing. So
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: I've seen many different techniques and things with hiring people
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: and friends, strangers.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Some people want to just come to work just for
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: that day, just to make some money. They're not really
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: into the job. You have those types that just need
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: to just make some money. You have some types that
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: are coming just to infiltrade to figure out how are
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: you getting jobs? You know, and then they'll work for
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: you for a little while, and then you know you
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: won't see them again, you know. So there's all different
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: types and you just have to really look at a
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: person and just see. You know, sometimes you'll hire a
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: person and they have too much problems in their life,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: too much desperation, or you know, they always got an excuse.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: You know, let me let me ask you this, because
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: this is something that's relevant to the times that we're in.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: Because even though I'm building a home, none of my
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: workers are American. Do the workers that you see that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: you're hiring or you see from the hiring pool, what's
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: the percentage of them?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: That's actually great question, I said.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Say right now, because you know, this trade for a
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: while was locked down with Irish, Italian and Germans.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: They had it on lock.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: So right now, the Caribbean people are heavy, heavy in
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: the trades right now, and they're unstoppable and they're really
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: great Latinos and Hispanic people. You got to understand all
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: the immigrants are already coming to America with the trades
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: sheep rocking.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: I mean they've been.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Doing this since twelve years old. Thirteen years old, so electrical,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: you know, they've been doing it for so long that
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: they're just no, see they're bred with hard work.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Over here, even though we're hard workers, we don't really
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: understand hard life, you know. So people that can endure
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: a hard life waking up having to go and to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: the river to get water or do this that, and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: they endure that life and they come here, they look
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: at our hard work as like it's kind of a
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: joke to them, you know what I mean, because the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: tools and the things that they have to do their
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: work with, we're just so far advanced. It's just like
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: we're you know, so I see that the immigrants are
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: are really they're going hard with it. You know, they're
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: really their work ethic is just so great. You know,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: they don't want to take breaks. They want to get
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: the job done. You see the progress going on. But
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: definitely Caribbean people, men and women, Latinos, just everyone right
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: now into the into the trades.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: Or what about black? What about black people in America?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: How black? What's the percentage you think.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Of in the in the trade?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a there's a large.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Group of black I would say a percentage wise in
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the trade right now, there's probably about thirty or forty percent,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: you know, fifty percent coming in. There's a lot of
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: black and people of color in the trade. It's just
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people aren't going to the ownership position.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: They're just stick really, you know, they want to get
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: in the union, work for the union for twenty eight
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: years and get off easy or this or that. No
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: one thinks that they could do the ownership position because
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: of them being an HVACT ticker, being black.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: I never looked at it like.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: That because, see, I was so used to doing big
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: deals with the Ginsburg brothers and developers and things for
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: my sales jobs that you know, I never had that fear.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have fear of owning a company
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: because they're going to be looked at as less than
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: or I can't go charge someone fifty thousand dollars, you know,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: they're gonna look at me like I'm just some. But
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I've never had that perspective, so that that never bothered me,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: you know. But there's a lot of people that the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: market is flooded right now with. If you go into
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: the supply houses and the companies now you're seeing more
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: and more and more black and Latino people in there.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Now more than ever. Like and if this was nineteen
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: sixties or seventies, we would you know, there wasn't really
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: much out there. Into the seventies eighties, a few people
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: were here, but no one was owning companies. I can't
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: think of one black company owner in Westchester. Well, now
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: there's all self bau. He's a contract But that's just
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: up until lately, Like growing up, there wasn't there.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: There wasn't anyone.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: But now there are a lot more people coming into
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the contracting and plumbing. There's a lot of black plumbers
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that are emerging now, a lot of black plumbers, and
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: they're doing very well. And you know, h tract as well.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: A lot of electricians too, now, you know, because that's
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: what it is. The plumbing and the electrician license is
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: a big license. It's a little bit bigger than the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: h fact situation. That's why they walk around like they're
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: the big dogs in the room and you can't tell
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: them nothing and where they.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Say it goes and I know because they have the license.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: They went to school for a certain amount of time
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: and they paid like three or four grand just to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: take that test. You know, depending on what type of
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: plumber or electrician you are, so they're kind of like
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: the heavyweights. But yeah, for the most part, to be honest,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love my I'm not you know, I
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: love my race and everything. But I haven't had too
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: many black just regular American employees, just really, you know,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: one in few. You know, it's just something. I don't
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: know if it's the work ethic or how they were
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: brought up. But Okay, my guy, now I took him
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: from eighteen, he already had the mentality of a thirty
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: year old the way that he was brought up.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: I give him the truck.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: He's not joy riding, he has a company car, he
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't spend any extra money. He comes to work on
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: time every day. He's helping out his family, He's helping
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: out everyone. He already has the mentality. He doesn't go out,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't do anything.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: He doesn't want to party. He has the mentality of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: like a grown man. You know, at eighteen twenty, you know,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: years old. So it's all where you. You know, your
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: mentality is in your perspective.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: I think with it. But a lot of.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: People of color are coming into the trade, and you know,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people are happy about it, but
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: we're here now. You know, it's nothing you could really
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: do about it. Now you know everyone's in the game. Now,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: it's like fair game right now.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: When you speak, I hear the experience when you're talking
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: about guys with joy riding, when you're talking about the
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: the idea of hiring from a certain age demographic, there's
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: a lot of experiences there. Talk about some of the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: things that you've seen that you want people to avoid
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: so they don't make the same mistakes, right like your
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: experiences don't have to be relived.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 6: What are some of the things to avoid if you're
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: in this space.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: You know, when you're hiring someone. Definitely, if you get
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: those guys that aren't humble and they're telling you I
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: could do everything I can, I'm the best and it's
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: the best of that, be very careful with that until
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: you've actually seen them do something. You know, that's a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: lot of mistakes that I made. You know, I used
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to talk to guys and they used to tell me
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: how great they were, and I never really saw anything,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: and I used to go off of that. So definitely,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: if someone is telling you how great they are, you know,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: try to see a couple of jobs or a couple
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: of things. I think just sometimes over investing into certain
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: employees or certain things, and then they're having hidden agendas
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: or things like that.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: You know, I would say, you know, just things like that.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've done so many different tricks within the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: company to get money. I mean, I can tell you
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: a story. Once I had a tech and he had
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend. He was African American tech. He had a
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: white female girlfriend and she had no job. And I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: hired her and I did a marketing scheme. What I
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: did was I sent her out there with him and
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I told her, I said, listen, every house you go
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: to tell them that your father owns the company. And
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: then I ran a contest every week to see who
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: would sell the most maintenances every week. She brought in
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: thirty five hundred dollars every week from just telling going
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to a house and saying, my father owns the company.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: You know, this tech is here to fix your job.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: She sold three. I ran a contest every week. I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: had to bother champagne. I had money, three trucks on
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the road. Nobody could ever beat her, and she had
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: no HVAC experience.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: You know, so.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you got to mix it up. Sometimes you got
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: to do different things. You know, you don't have to
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: run around like I'm the boss, I'm the owner, you know.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: I like me, I never do that. I'd never tell
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: anyone that I own the company.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: Sometimes customers are like, you know, you're just working too much,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: like you're sure you own the company. I'm like, you
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: think i'd be out here if I own the company,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: like you know, so I always play the humble role.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I always try to just stay in that worker's position
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: and stay humble. But you can mix it up. You
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: can do different things, Like you don't have to be
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: the face of your company. You can make somebody else
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: project that image for you, and you know, you could
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: still be in the background. Like me and my brother,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: we would have it set up in our phones. I
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: would have his number as my boss in my phone
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: and he would put me in his. So whenever they
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: would say, hey, call your boss, I would just call
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: my brother. He would pick up and then he would
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: already know what to tell the customer. So, you know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: we never acted like we were the bosses of anything.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: You know, and you'll never get a tip.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: So and that's insightful, especially with the white girl to
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: the job that she said around.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Five hundred every week and to the point where the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: guys were like, Vince, you can't beat her like I
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: think they beat her one time.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: And that was a great way for me to pay
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: the payroll because my payroll was like five grand a
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: week or more. So if I put a contest up
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: for them to just sell maintenances where it sells the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: most maintenances gets a big surprise.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: That helped me just to pay payroll too.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: So that was a good method of just trying to
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: make payroll every week, which I took pride in always
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: making payroll every week, you know.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: So that was very important to me.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: Talk about government contract, can you say, you like explain
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 5: that process of like what you went through, what you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: had to do, you know, the RFP, talk about that
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: whole thing.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, the government contract, to be honest, came at
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: a point in my life where I was really going
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: through a lot of family wise and just financially wise,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: and to be honest with you, I really came to
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: a point where I just got on my knees and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: I just prayed to God. I was like God please
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: like help me find a way, like I don't know
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: what to do anymore, like you know, and to.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: Believe it or not.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: A couple of days later, I got a phone call
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: from a weird number and it was a company that
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: had the contract for all the military bases in New York,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, New Jersey, everywhere.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: They asked me.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: They said, hey, would you think about doing the maintenance
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: for us? And I was like yeah, And there was
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: like how many units? They were like, well, it's like
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: eleven hundred units will give you, Like I think it
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: was like one sixty per unit. And I just like
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: jumped on it from there and that lasted for a
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: couple of years. It was great money. And then from
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: there I looked into getting my cage number. I got
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: everything certified.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Federally cage number.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 6: What is that cage is?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Like it's like a number that can give you access
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: to like government contracts and things like that, you know.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I got my minority business license with that also helped,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: and I just started I would have my office just
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: go through every certification for government contracting, federal contracting on
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the city level, and we just started going through everything.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I got connetison certifications, contetison certified.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: So the more certifications and things really helped.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: But government contracts are so good because they really pay
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: on time, Like Uncle Sam pays on time every week.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: That money's there like guaranteed, you know.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: So that was a really good way of it helped
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: to uplift me back up, just making like a couple
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: like one hundred thousand or so just off of maintenance.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: We weren't fixing anything. We were just doing maintenance. And
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: that's another big thing is that maintenance is a big
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: part of the industry. You don't have to fix anything
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: to actually make money. We make money off of maintenance
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: every single day. You know. I just did a condenser
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: cleaning yesterday for four hundred dollars, you know, to wash
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: and clean the condenser. You know, that was a great
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: money you know. So maintenance is something that I mean
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: you have to do in your home. You have to
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: do periodically to keep your equipment up. So like especially
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: free for you guys, Like mainance is going to be
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: a really big key to preventative maintenance for you to
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: stop a lot of uncostly cost you know, you have
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: to do preventative maintenance, changing filters, washing units, whether it's
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: winter or ac it plays a very vital part that
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: could save you a lot. So I, you know, I
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: made a lot of money off of maintenance contracts with them.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't really haven't got anything.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Another great thing to get with the government contract is
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: your eight A certification. If you can get your eight
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: A certification, which und just a couple of tax forms.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: Away from that is when the government gives you contracts
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: for no bidding, you will get I think it's two
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: or four million dollar contracts automatically. So if anyone out
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: there is listening, if you can get your eight A
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: certification for h TRACK, that's.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: When you're on your way.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: Is that the minority business.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: No, that's the minority business is the mb MMBE and
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and you have the minority Women's Minority Business.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: THEA certification is a is a government certification that certifies
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: you to get these big government jobs.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: But it's no bidding. It's no bidding like, oh you
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: got to put in a bid.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: They will award you a contract for a certain amount
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: of millions, three or four million dollars and it's whether
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: you could do the work or not, you know, so
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: you have to put in a lot of paperwork.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: So this is another thing. Guys.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: While you have to have a back office and you
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: have to have females involved, you have to have someone
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: that can do paperwork. I have people that do extensive
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: paperwork that I just cannot fill out, you know, And
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: once you have someone that can master these these PaperWorks,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: then you can get in. They're trying to stop you
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: with the paperwork, you know, they're like, Okay, you have
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: a chance of an eighta government contract, but you got
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: to do this much paperwork.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: But if you get it done, then you're in the game.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: So it's just really doing that paperwork sometimes, sending in
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: your tax forms, sending in all your stuff that you.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: Have to give them, and stay on top of it
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: and it will work.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: I mean the other day I got a job from
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: the minority business website. A guy called me up. He said,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I only want to deal with black businesses, and I
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: went to Brooklyn. I did a big job for him.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: It was cool. So these things do work.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: You have to One thing that they set in sales
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: is if you throw enough shit against the wall, something's
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: going to stick. So you have to just put yourself
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: out there, like you got to plaster yourself in your neighborhood,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: like right now, my neighborhood in Greenberg, I should have
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: my entire neighborhood on lock, like literally, But I didn't
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: really market my neighborhood because I was trying to go
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: to so many bigger affluent areas, you know, the Scarsdale's,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: the Jerseys, the big areas, you know, because that's really
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: where we make most of my money is and the
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: more affluent areas where you don't really have too much problems.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: But had I concentrated on my residential, middle class area here,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: I probably could have did a lot better, to which
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: I still am. I still am going to do that.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's just a great time for the trade.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: Man. It's just great man.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: If you're a female male, you know, it's the time
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for a second career, if you're looking
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: to retire and you just want to get into the
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: trade and just work on your own, you know, do
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: one job a day, two jobs a day.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: You're still going to make what you were going to
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: make for the week on a.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: Regular I actually evince obviously going through the home building
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: process and purchasing a lot of the equipment that goes
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: inside that home. What are some of the best systems. Example,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: we were trying to figure out the water heater situation.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: I call one of my boys, He's like, Navian is
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: a great company, so we went that for the water heater.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 6: What are some of the best systems that you're seeing
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 6: that you're.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: Navion and you have Renigh. This is what I've learned
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: over time and a lot of time in the industry.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: I've installed all of them, Train, Carrier, good Men, all
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: the brands. Now, Carrier started the air conditioning business pretty
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: much that was like the only company at the time.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: So Carrier is very big.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: The high end brands are Carrier, Train, what was you say, Carrier, Train, Lennox.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Lennox is very big, and all these companies are right
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: here in Westchester too, in Elmsford. So but what I
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: notice is this a lot of the high end brands
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: you could buy, which is great, But if a tech
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: comes to your house and doesn't really have those parts,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: they're going to be hard to source. They're going to
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: be very expensive and you're going to pay double. A
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: regular brand like a Goodman, which is an American made brand,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: it's a very strong brand. It's all how the equipment
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: is installed and how it's maintained. You know, you don't
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: want to go too low and some you don't have
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: to go too high. It's almost like clothing, like sneakers.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: It's almost like Nike Reebok and they're all sneakers and
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: you could wear them and get to the same places.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: But what do you feel really comfortable in? You know,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's really hard. I would say
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: to stick with a good mid level brand and just
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: take care of your equipment. But if you come to
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: me and I say, well, Rashod Troy, this is the
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: carrier set up for you.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: Guys.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Carriers the top brand, they're the top level. This is
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: the price for that, And I say, well, this is goodman.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: It's the same size, the same tonnage, the same bt us.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: It's just a different name, you know. And the parts
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: are on the higher end brands, they're definitely gonna cost
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: you more, and they may not have them readily on
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: your truck.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: You want to get a brand that everyone is.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: Comfortable with and parts are easily ready avail ball and
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: they're able to source. You know, a lot of customers
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: go into really high tech German boilers, bagarius boilers and
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: very high tech stuff. And the more high tech you
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: get is the more chances for things to go wrong.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: If you're gonna buy a washing machine right now, it's
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: better you buy a washing machine with all that computer
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: stuff out of there and get you the one with
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the turn knob and the knobs that turn, and that
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: one's gonna last you longer than the ones with all
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: the computers in them.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: So okay, before we I got this is an important question.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: How do you know how to price?
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 5: Because even for me, like you know, we big different contractors,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 5: and a lot of times, honestly, it's like who has
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: the best price in full transparency, Like it'll be like
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: somebody putting in glass and it's like, if this one
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: person is seven thousand dollars cheaper than another person, that's
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 5: the determined if fact of what I'm going to use.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: But that doesn't necessarily always mean that that's the best.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 5: So I know, as a business owner, you don't want
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: to race to the bottom, but you also don't want
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 5: to price yourself out right because there's always going to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 5: somebody that's going to be cheaper. So you, as a
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 5: business owner, how do you know this is the right
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 5: price to charge. And I'm gonna stand on this or
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 5: I might negotiate. If somebody wants to negotiate, I might
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: lower it. How do you how do you determine that?
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: Well, there's so many deciding factors. You almost got to
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: be able to read your customer right away. You've got
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: to be able to read the whole situation. You got
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: to be able to read the room, like very very quickly.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: Me personally.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, normally we charge one thirty five an hour
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: to show up, you know, for the hour.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: My pricing.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: Let me see, Like, let's say it's a water heater, right,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: and it's a water heater job. Water heater costs twelve
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks or one thousand dollars, And you're saying, I like,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I want to.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: Charge you now to do this water heater job.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: I want to charge you twenty five hundred or close
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: to three grand, you know, And you're like, well, Evince,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: I can get it for two grand.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: I think at that point, once I talk to you
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: and I explain to you the situation, and I.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: Give you the knowledge and the education part side of me,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: where you see that you're getting a vast amount of
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: information and knowledge to where you just start to get
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: so interested in trusting me that I don't think my
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: price is really going to matter at that point. But
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: like certain things, I stand on, like just because at
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: this point, like let's say a boiler cleaning, if you
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: say cleanness for two hundred dollars, I may not do
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: that anymore because I know that for four hundred dollars
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: and six hundred dollars you're going to get the full deal.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: You know, you kind of almost get what you pay
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: for in this trade. But I do stand on my
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: Okay prime example. You just asked that I finally met
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: my first big whale a developer.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: Recently.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: I finally met my first big guy and he asked
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: me to give him a bid for a big, swanky
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: Manhattan apartment in the village.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: It's not even an apartment. They owned the whole floor.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: Like every apartment owns their own floor, third floor owns
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: one person owns the whole third floor another person. So
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: he asked me to give him a bid. He had
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: seven bids. I gave him a bid on two water
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: cool units. I gave him a bid for forty six thousand.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: He called me back. This guy's been in the business
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: for forty something years. Big Russian developer, big guy. He
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: builds bills in Times square everything. He said, Vince, I'm
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: gonna tell you something. He said, I've been doing this
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: for a long time. He said, I had seven bids.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody came in at fifty eight thousand, fifty seven thousand,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: and fifty six.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: You came in at forty six thousand. He said.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: There was another bid that came in for forty one thousand.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: I said, why didn't you go with the bid for
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: forty one thousand? And he said, personally, I could look
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: at people and I could tell whether you know what
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: you're doing or you don't know what you're doing. He said,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: the bid for forty one thousand came in. They were
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: cheaper than you, But he said, I don't trust in
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: my heart that they really know what they're doing. He said,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: I would rather pay you more because I just trust
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and know that you're going to do the right thing.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: So that's when I learned really the art of value selling.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: You could sell yourself to a point where it doesn't
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: matter anymore of what the price is or what everything is.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: People want to be involved with you and they know
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: that you're going to see the project through. So that
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: taught me a valuable lesson just recently that you can't
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: be too high and you can't be too low, but
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: you've got to also sell yourself with that price. So
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: the guy with the glass who's seven thousand, he might
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: you got to go with your heart reaction. He may
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: not have giving you that feel that he's really there.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: But the guy for nine thousand, you might see their
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: setup and be like, nah, you know, they look official
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: and they seem right, and you know, you know, but
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: when you're just concentrating on just trying to get the
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: cheapest thing, then you're going to get the cheapest thing,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: So that even taught me a lesson recently.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad I came in just at the right price,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: and moreover, he saw the value in me, you know.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: So I think once you really sell yourself as a
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: person and what you can do, and you're talking the
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: right things, you're able to connect with people.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: One thing I used to always get teased that growing
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: up in high schools was the way that I talked,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: because I talked very proper and growing up around a
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: lot of my friends and stuff, I used to always
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: get teased. But it has helped me out in the
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: business world to pronunciate and enunciate and to talk with
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: a proper you know, uh.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah vernacular, you know. So you know that
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: has helped me a lot too.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: Also when I call customers on the phone, when I
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: get to the house, they're like, are you the same
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: guy that's on the phone, And I'm like, yeah, you know,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: it's me. They're like, you sound you know. But I
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: think that I think everything plays a part. How you look,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: how you act, your walk, your talk. Your customers can
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: smell fear, you know, and once they smell that fear,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: you're over with. So you have to have that that
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: you know, that aura about you that you know, that
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: savoy fair, you know that.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 6: A little swag, that swag with you.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 5: Well, evince Man greatly appreciate it. I think that this
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 5: was extremely insightful conversation.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 5: You know, it's one of these things, like I said,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 5: it was long overdue as far as for us to
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 5: have a conversation with somebody in the trades, and I'm
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 5: glad that we was able to have the conversation.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: Or you did a great job for you boy University.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: So that was that was like the testing ground to see,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: like you know, for the big shells the report.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: Now you made well I didn't come dressed for the
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: drip report.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 5: But you no, no, you actually trussed exactly how you
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 5: That's actually if you were to ask me, that's how
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 5: because that's what we're portraying, right, Like you you got
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 5: the uniform on. That's smart, So you actually dressed. I
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 5: was actually just thinking that, like you, you dressed exactly
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 5: how you were supposed to dress for the conversation, because
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: that's the conversation that we're having, right and there's there's
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 5: millions of people that's trying to figure it out, that
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 5: might not have went to college, that's struggling, that's trying
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 5: to and it's like there's opportunities out here. And like
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 5: I said, this isn't just us saying it is a
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: billionaires and corporations. They're saying, like in the age of AI,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 5: one thing that's still going to be here and still
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 5: going to be thriving is trades.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a huge report with Dario who's the
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 4: CEO of Anthropic, and they asked him the skills that
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: his company are not going to the road and HVAC
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 4: was one of them, plumbing was one of them, Nursing
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 4: was one of these. Are in high demand professions that
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: are going to pay well. A lot of the ones
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: that are going to be disrupted and interrupted with high
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 4: degree professionals. Lawyers, some doctors, some health professionals. So this
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: is a spot on and the fact that we know
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 4: somebody that's from our neighborhood. This is not like, oh
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 4: I can't see it. We've seen it happen in our neighborhood.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 4: So kudos to you.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Man. I appreciate that.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 5: And I'll just you know, I actually so I had
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 5: this whole thing planned out because I wanted to see
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 5: how you did on UU University. That's because somebody is
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 5: good at what they do, that's what I learned. That
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 5: doesn't mean they can communicate what they do. Yeah, and
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 5: that's two different things. And that's not wrong with that.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 5: Everybody's not made to actually communicate publicly. That's fine, but
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 5: it's always great when you can communicate publicly and false.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: So wanted to see what you did on U I University.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 5: You passed that test and then and then that was
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 5: like the gateway to earn your Lesia. But I did
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: say a spot if you're interested this year for invest Fest,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 5: definitely want to have a conversation about the trades.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: So if you're interested, you know, we'll love to have
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: you there.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: I ask you just to say, you know, invest Fest
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: needs a little blue collar action. You know, absolutely, you
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: don't want to scare away the blue collar guys because
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: you know they think, you know, it's big business this,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: but you know we're here.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: You know, we need to have them feel comfortable, especially
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta. Man. I mean all the h fact guys
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: and the trade guys.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: That are out there, carpenters, just construction guys, everybody like
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: you know, they would like to feel a little bit
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: warm there too. You know, not the big stage, the
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: big stage, but you know, if we can get on
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: any you know, little small stages, that's.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: You know, small stages. There's no small stages here. Okay,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 4: there's only big stage. And that's why it's the point.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 4: So what I'm saying is now is like once they
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: see this episode and they see you, I just hope
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 4: you prepared for NonStop questioning because people are going to
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: be so inquisitive because now they see somebody that looks
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: like them, especially so in the what's indias, and yeah,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: we need to see somebody that's doing it at a
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: high level.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 6: Man. So again, super proudly love.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: To be there. Man, just let me know.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: I'll be there and I would love to talk to them,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: and I would love to inspire the next person, because
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: someone's going to get inspired and someone's going to do it.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Someone's going to say, Okay, I'm going to follow the
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: process and get it done. And if they need help,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: I'm here. You know, I'm in the helping process of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: my stage with my career. It's not that much. So
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I just want to see somebody else do it.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody else like the black sheep of the family,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: the people who've been in jail or drug abuse, that
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: you've had the checkered past. I want those people to
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: just hone in and just say I'm going to show everybody.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be that person that's going to break
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: the mold. And you know, I'm going to show them
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: that I could do. I could buy a house, I
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: could do, I could live that American dream. You know,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: I know it's there for everybody. It's just finding that
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: path to the income.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 5: You know, So what what's your what's what's your Instagram?
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 5: What's the website? What's all of that information?
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: My Instagram is Vincent underscored, Taylor Underscore HVAC Services. You'll
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: see me under basically Vincent Taylor HVAC Services. I'm on
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: there on Instagram. That's pretty much mostly what I use.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: I don't really use too much websites or anything, but
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram mostly.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: You can see me on Facebook too as well.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: And what what if somebody wants to hire you, Like,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: what's the area that you cover?
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm licensed for New Jersey and Westchester. I also
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: have some licensing in Connecticut. I pretty much cover everywhere
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: that you know I can go to to help you
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: or if you have licenses for that area area yeah,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: Tri State area, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, you know yeah,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: Tri State area.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 6: We got to make sure you locked down Greenberg.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: Now do you want me to tell the Halloween story
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: or no?
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 7: Man, Rasha, this guy? Can we have a positive note?
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 7: I don't know what happened with that Halloween thing, but brooding,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 7: it's all love.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: But a good a good see you doing great? And
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: you know what I want to say? Congratulations on the
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: green jackets. It was actually two So Troy, I'm telling
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: you this, Rashad. There's a Jamaican saying good friends are
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: better than pocket money. And you got a good friend
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: right there, so you know, definitely, I just look at
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: a jeans jacket, but I'm trying.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: We don't get you.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 6: We don't get you there.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna get the green jacket. What jean jacket in Oh,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: the jean jacket is just a blue collar jacket.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: I'm still a blue collar. But I'm getting there.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 6: All perfect, perfect, get my green now.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: I appreciate it, man, Definitely insightful conversation. I'm glad that
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 5: you know, we had the conversation. And yeah, man, see
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 5: you at investments.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: Definitely all right, bro, appreciate all right.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 6: Gosh, well number one that was.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: That's been real. Okay, we'll see you guys next week, please,