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Staying in your electrical lane | 117 · Simplified Sparky Marketing

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Check twice for bikes before you merge a lane, except for the Uber Eats driver.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: He partially deserved that little clip.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Simplify Sparky Marketing.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Changing lanes and sticking in your own lane is going to be today's podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have told this story a few podcasts ago about one of the biggest fuck-ups I did in electrical, more so mentally.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't I wouldn't say it's the biggest fuck-up I made, but more so something that hit me hard in regards to sticking to what you know, sticking to what you do.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when I told this story, it was of blind automations.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: The client engaged me to do some electrical work in their house, and there was a load of bits and pieces to do.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the tasks that they wanted to do was installing or fixing, should I say, their smart blinds.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So at the time they had clipsal visors throughout their home, so they had bell push buttons in the bedrooms for their dimmers, switches, all that kind of stuff was rigged up with smart clips of visor.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I got there, and I don't know much about clips of Wiser.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is staying in your lane.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more of a pixie kind of person because it's simple and I just it's easy to rig up.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what I suggested was let's not mess with that, let's just put in an independent pixie system on these blinds.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: As you walked to the back room, it was like a kitchen living, it was kind of a small little house, and it walked out onto a deck, and then you had a little bit of a little bit of a lawn outside.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there was like these four French style doors with blind over there.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was two windows to the left hand side, and there was a blind on each one of those windows.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So sorry, there was actually three blinds, three windows along there, and three blinds on that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the way the blinds that were rigged up was there was a switch on the windows to the left, and there was a switch on the blinds in front of the doors.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I got the smart controllers, the pixie smart controllers, which I thought would be the bee's knees.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I suggested that to the client, ran them through of how great these Pixie Smart controllers were, rigged it all up, went to test it, and for whatever reason, the blinds started going funky and all different angles, so like all different heights.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when that happened, I was like, oh fuck, I'll just have to individually unplug them, re-jig them around, and get them to the correct height again.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So individually had to go around, unclip them, um, leave one plugged in, then adjust it, unplug that one, go back to the other one, adjusted, so on and so forth.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that, and then I re-powered up again, and the same thing happened again.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started to panic of like, fuck, I don't know much about these blinds.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do here?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's going on?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up messing around with that for probably at least an hour and a half to two hours of just trying to get them sorted normally.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So then I ended up making an executive decision to ditch the smart controller and trying to fix these again.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of that, because the blinds were going up and down so much, I didn't know this, but the blinds stopped working, like two of the blinds stopped working because I was going up and down with them so much.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was a panic for about, I reckon, about a minute, and then I kind of came to my senses.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, maybe there's like a heat element overload where this has stopped at working, it'll kick in shortly again.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And thankfully it was.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where my brain went or how I figured that out, but I was like, hopefully it will kick back in again.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I left it for like 15 minutes, and sure enough, it kicked in again.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I panicked, and then I rang great friend of the podcast, Mr.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Robot, for his advice on smart stuff because he's my go-to guy for smart homes.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I called him and he gave me some excellent advice.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, up top on the blinds, there's this tiny little hole for an Allen key.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can put it in there, wind it up, wind it down, and it will essentially do the setting for you.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I reset them all with that key, and I ended up removing the smart controller, talking the client out of it, and just leaving the blinds the way they were.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I spent about probably three to four hours all up on this, and it fucking it literally broke me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was a broken man walking away from that job.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I sat into the van feeling useless, feeling miserable at the end of the day, feeling like a fucking idiot.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: A few months later, I didn't think I would ever ever hear from that client again.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: They called up because they had an issue with their hot water, it wasn't working.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what it was was a gas hot water system.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't even realize the powerpoints weren't working.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was tapped off a PowerPoint, but where the house is, there was damp wall next to it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it had caused one of the PowerPoints to basically just rust and cause earth leakage, causing the RCD to trip.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I found that pretty rapidly, got them up and sorted again.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we hit reset essentially with our relationship and just where it was.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as well, we get in our heads a lot of what does the client think of me?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do they think I'm a fucking idiot?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do they think I'm the best in the world?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that was just one of those days where I wish I stuck in my lane.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was dabbling with something I didn't know much about.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was going to be a piece of piss and it backfired on me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I'm going to get into is sticking in your own lane before you you merge it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I see a lot of, and a prime example of this, is here in Sydney and New South Wales, you to become an ASP provider, like a level two, you have got to sit a level two accreditation.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what you need to do is I don't know how long it is.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to say it's something like a four or five-day course where you go to the likes of Niker, something will have a week where you go in, you learn the ropes of level two, you go through some exams, you jump up a practice poll, you do some connections, and you will then get your level two accreditation.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've got to go off, buy all the equipment, get it tested, and so on and so forth.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, for instance, the training just off the top of my head, let's just say it's$5,000, it's probably a lot more than that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got the four or five days of training.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're self-employed, this is going to hit you hard in the pocket.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an employee and you're getting this training, you're laughing.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's probably going to cost you, let's say hypothetically, you classify your day's earning as$1,500 to$2,000.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just call it two grand.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So over the five days that you're training, not only did you pay the five grand for the level two accreditation, you have now missed out on 10 grand's worth of earnings because you've done the level two training.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that should be taken into consideration of the total cost.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now you go off, you buy the equipment.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a clue what the equipment costs.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say it's another 10 grand.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just say hypothetically we're up for 25 grand of an investment into level two, but you're like, I don't care about the investment because I'm going to make that money back.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is you go back doing your usual work, and then you realize you're not actually doing that much level two work, if at all.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might do one or two jobs a year.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You might be incompetent with those jobs, that you stay away from those ones that are quite dangerous.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That you're like, I don't have the experience, so I'm not going to do it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is the level two accreditation turns into a gym membership where you put it on the shelf, it comes around for renewal.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, fuck, do I want to take a day off training again and then get it renewed and pay the money?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens is you end up not renewing it and it just expires, and you were once a level two for a few months, and now you've got appliers with your fancy stamp number on it that now isn't worth the shit.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I'm talking about like being secure before you actually decide to go down different avenues.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: The same can be said for aircon, for solar.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You see the bright shiny object in front of you, and you're like, if I get solar, if I do aircon, if I do level two, if I do AV, if I do smart home, I'll have so much work I won't know what to do with myself.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that as well is where we get up, we we just get caught up in shiny objects and we chase them.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my job for you listening to the podcast is next time you have a fucking shiny object incident where you're like, I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that, say, would Alan approve of this?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't, most likely.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Unless, unless, and that's where I'm gonna go with this, is unless your business is extremely dialed in, you've got a sector that you niche in that you're an expert in.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I will then approve it and be like, you know what, you've nailed this down, you're making revenue, and most importantly, you're making profit.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is now time to pass the baton on and plug in another service into your business.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But where this is where this goes wrong as well is particularly newbie businesses, predominantly newbie businesses, is somebody gets in their ear, most likely their mum, something like that, and says, builders do loads of work.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you work with a builder?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then you go out, you seek out builders, and you find a few, be it commercial builders that do electrical fit-outs, be it residential builders that either do renovations, they might just do bathrooms, kitchens on their own, or maybe it's complete construction from ground up.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what can happen is A, you either go in, you underquote the job, and you lose your balls on it, and you're like, that was shit.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing builder work again, or you go in there too high and you don't win the job, and next thing you're going to get, you're going to quote another job, you go lower, lower, lower, you get the job, and then you don't really know your ins and outs, and you end up losing money again.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where this stands to the season pros is the guys that work with builders, their quotes might actually be a bit cheaper than yours.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens with them is their experience, they know if they go in at whatever amount, they know from experience that halfway through the job, this is gonna pop up, that's gonna pop up, that's gonna change, it'll be a variation.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And next thing you know, they could be working off double your initial quote, but because they've got the experience in that, they've they've put the yards in, they now know how to play the game with builders.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like the builder probably knows it's gonna happen as well, and it's not their problem, it's on the client, and this is the joys of variations and stuff.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you're actually trying to be too thorough to go, hey, I've seen this, I can actually foresee that this is going to be an issue and it's not included in the quote, and then you jack up your price, then you may not get the job either.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the thing of it, depends where you find your builders.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to a builder and you say to them, I'd like to quote your work, and they say to you, No, I've got a really good electrician, I don't need I don't need another electrician on my books, I have the utmost respect for that kind of builder because they're loyal to their subcontractors.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a builder that I respect.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you go to a builder and they're keen to get you to quote again, look, they might be they might be sick of their electrician, they might be looking for a price reference, who knows?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're trying to do construction, residential electrical builders, if you're trying to do commercial builders, if you're trying to do residential maintenance, if you're trying to do solar, all of these little things are pulling you in every which way direction instead of going in a straight line.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's the light that I seen in my business is I was doing, I was dabbling in a lot of things, and I just decided to go all in in residential service and maintenance.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And mainly because I wasn't doing it correctly, I was fucking not doing it correctly.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: What am I talking about?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: The first few years of business, I was I was doing these jobs and I was like, I'm not making that much money.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I educated myself, I got training, and I was realized like how lucrative it can be when you play the game correctly, and you just you you implement systems, you follow systems, you follow process, and you you nail these things down.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the other things as well, or the ultimate shiny object is wanting to start a totally separate trade division.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is absolutely unless you again have your business nailed down.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have your electrical business nailed down, you have got let's just say five to ten staff, and you're making profit, you're getting jobs in, everything's running streamlined.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're so confident with that electrical business that you're like, shit, if we plug this into a plumbing business, it's basically the same thing.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: We just need someone in the plumbing driver's seat that can guide us and get their license to use.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm seeing is again, just people more so with an ego boost, something telling them as like, I want to take over the world, I want to take over Sydney and have these divisions.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And by all means, do it.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Go nuts, go like start a plumbing division, start an aircon division, start whatever divisions you want, a cleaning business, whatnot.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But make sure that number one, that your business is actually humming along and the systems are in place, and you it's it's bulletproof that if something goes wrong, you've got a system to solve that.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if your business is leaking money, you can't retain staff, you don't have you don't have proper systems, proper stuff dialed in, your backend, your job management software, your financial systems, all of that, you should not be looking at another division like a plumbing business.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, as I said, a lot of this is an ego thing, and it's a distraction, is what it is as well.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is if your electrical business is pretty sketchy, or it's like you're doing okay, but it's a bit sketchy, and you think you're making money, but you're a bit uncertain because you're afraid to look at your numbers, it's a distraction to go, why don't we start a plumbing division?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where we're gonna make money as well.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it'll kind of compensate.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally the wrong thing to do.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important to have the systems in place, nail it down, profit from it, and then decide what lane you're gonna move into.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's no points in pretending that your engine's humming along when you're actually leaking oil, and that's not a good thing because the engine's gonna blow up when it runs out of oil.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Systemize what you already do today, make sure you're making profit from it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then, maybe then move across into the next lane, look at the next avenue or venture you're gonna nail down, move into it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: But don't pretend you're ready to do it when your engine's leaking oil.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in the simplified sparking mentorship, there is links in the description.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to start implementing systems into your electrical business, chat to you next week.