Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Planning and Making Intentional Decisions in the Elevator Trade | John Mezzo

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Planning and Making Intentional Decisions in the Elevator Trade | John Mezzo · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Really think about it and plan it out and just don't do any, don't make any drastic, you know, last minute decisions.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't uh have a bad day at the office and then just say, Oh, the heck with it, I'm out of here.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's it took a lot of thought, uh, a lot of internals of planning in my head.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: How am I gonna do this?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are we gonna do?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we gonna focus things on?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what kind of jobs we want to get.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just make smart decisions.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: To inform building upon the foundation, vertical found four, to inspire the next number, 245, 44, 44, 44, 15, 45, 15, 40, 50, 15, 124, 44, 45, 44.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love the other.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: John, welcome to the show.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Matt.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to good to see you.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you mentioned you're you're dressed up because you got some some big movies coming up, but it's uh it's a privilege to have you on on with me today.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no problem.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's the holiday season.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: So after this, I got customers and then we're doing our company holiday party tonight.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great season.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, I just wanted to get uh, I guess, you know, to the beginning, and and how did you get started in the elevator industry?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so what a story that is.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I was going to college at the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut, and I was getting a degree in mechanical engineering, and my plan in life was to go to do aerodynamics for Ferrari.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I did my whole senior design on aerodynamics.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was in my head, that's where I was going.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was taking class with a gentleman who was showing up in a suit all the time, and uh I got along with him very well.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, come to find out he was an area vice president at Otis, and since we got together, uh we got along well.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up helping me get an internship.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So Otis hired me for an internship in their Bloomington, Indiana facility uh as a test engineer, which was great.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I got to work on elevators, changing parts out, testing them, analyzing the data, redesigning them, things.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was a great job.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I did that, and then I went back to my last year of college.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I finished that, and then Otis hired me right away uh to work in their world headquarters as a mechanical engineer.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So while I was doing that, I kept in touch with the guy that helped me get in, and he was telling me, like, hey, go in engineering, learn the product, go in the field, learn the business.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, so it's actually pretty funny.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was in engineering for about three years, and then I was 25 uh at the time, and I went online and I said, Let me start looking at the job postings.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was still living in Hartford, and they had three positions open in Las Vegas.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the excited 25-year-old that I was at the time was like, Hey, I could do that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was literally my thought process.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I applied for all three of them, and then uh had an interview right away.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: They offered me a job on the spot.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I packed up and uh I moved to Vegas.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what kind of job did you move to?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So when they brought me out there, the initial position was supposed to be new equipment sales for just hydros because the office there they had two new equipment sales reps, and they were so busy uh with all the big, you know, the casinos and you know construction out there is wild.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they needed somebody to focus on a low-hanging fruit and just sell hydros.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I went out there, you know, no idea what an elevator costs, not much of an idea of what it takes to build them and stuff.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew it more at a component level.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So as soon as I got there, my boss was like, I don't want to see you for three months.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he hooked me up with a couple of the new construction teams, and I just went from job site to job site every day working with the guys a little bit and you know, getting the feel for it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was great.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was also in 2008.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we were on the cusp of you know the recession that the majority of the people in Las Vegas that live there are construction workers, you know, there was city center was being built for MGM, there's thousands of people that were working there, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So as city center was winding down and the economy was crashing, a lot of people were just kind of foreclosing on their houses and leaving the air.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that had a significant impact on the elevator.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I came back in and then I was starting to drum up some quotes, but there was already two season sales reps there that had a lot of the contacts.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they were like, Well, hey, all there is is hydros.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you know we can't just give up our clients, which is totally understandable, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they had these customers for a long time, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: My role kind of morphed into new equipment business development.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just running around looking for general contractors that have not been buying Otis elevators and trying to get them to buy Otis elevators.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was tough because the way the economy was going, the little guys that weren't really buying from Otis, you know, didn't really have much work going on.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I drummed up a bunch of leads, I got a bunch of new contacts and stuff, and then while I was doing that, there was a dedicated sales rep in the office who managed the service portfolio for the MGM corporate account.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like MGM, Loloxor, Circus Circus, Man Lake Bay, etc.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was transferred, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So he got an open position there.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I literally just walked over into the service side of the office and said, you know, hey, I think I could do that job.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, and uh I had a long conversation with the hiring manager, and I shadowed the guy that was leaving for a week or two, and uh I did pretty good, so they they you know they took a chance and they gave me that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that was uh great, and that was where I met my mentor.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a gentleman out there, and I'll give him a shout-out.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, he sees this.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: His name was Bob Lindley, and he was the service supervisor for the MGM.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I came on with him as the sales rep, and he taught me a tremendous amount of stuff.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I still talk to him to this day from time to time because he's he's really a great personal friend at this point.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But we kind of tag teamed it and he showed me how the service business works, and I just hit the ground running, and I got very into it.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I like entertaining customers, meeting new people, uh, specifically like eating in restaurants things.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's you know, way better than that, right?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that was good, and I did that for a while, but I was kind of always aspiring to the next step.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that office was structured um was a little bit different than some of the ones I've been in since.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the sales reps had cubicles, the managers, the general manager, the sales managers, and the supervisors, service groups all had offices.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was always kind of aspiring to that because it made sense, right?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those guys they all manage people, so sometimes you have to have those uh you know performance-related conversations, and you need to close the door when you're doing that, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of aspiring, you know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I know how to sell stuff now.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let me do the supervisory part of it.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up getting promoted, and Otis moved me up to Reno, um, where I was basically doing a little bit of everything up there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was a modernization superintendent, I was a service superintendent.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was only one other super in the office.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is that like a territory manager?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the title?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what they called it.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was a territory manager, but it was more than just like a service thing.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing all the mod for the office, plus some of the service and things.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a smaller office, so everybody kind of wears every hat there.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was fun, you know.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was a good place.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Lake Tahoe was right there and stuff like that.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then after a while, um it just kind of stagnated for me there a little bit.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I talked to them and said, Hey, you know, I'd like to get on to the next thing, whatever that might be.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I need that high pressure, the higher end customers, you know, I was so nervous all the time, like, well, we have a shutdown overnight, and I call a customer, you know, freaking out, they're gonna get mad, you know.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to Reno, I'm like, hey, you know, the elevator's gonna be out, you know, for a day or two.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have to get whatever it was.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they'd be like, Yeah, okay, no problem.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: A little more low-key.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a completely different experience for me, but it was nice.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I liked it a lot.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I snowboard, so you know, like skiing was great.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Me and my wife went every weekend from open to close one year.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I went through that and then I ended up getting a transfer.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I got a transfer to be a major project manager for Otis in Manhattan, uh, which was great because I was getting engaged at the time, and I had another opportunity to go to San Francisco, which I was considering, but I didn't know anybody in San Francisco.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have any family in San Francisco, and we were talking about having kids and stuff.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the transfer to come back to New York, where at least my family is, uh, was kind of a blessing in disguise.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we packed up together, you know, we actually met in Vegas and then we moved to Reno together, and then we moved to Manhattan together.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I was at Otis here for about a year and a half working in the Manhattan office, and then Schindler um approached me and they wanted me to run uh the NYU service portfolio.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah, okay, I I could do that.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was at Otis, I was just doing the big mods, and I kind of missed the service side of it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit, you know, mod construction.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have small problems, you have big problems.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: The GC is not ready and your team is on site, or you know, some major component got you know lost in the ordering process.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have the controller, but you're you know, you're in the middle of it's service, it's small problems.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: A relay blows, a board blows, it's you need a new door edge.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of like that a little bit better, selfishly.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up going over to Schimmler and doing that, and I did that for about six years, and then things were going great.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I did notice that in the big companies, you know, they have different departments, and there's limited roles uh up above them, uh, which limits my ability to be more involved across the board rather than just in my one department.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it looked like, I mean, from what I'm hearing, you you you moved pretty quickly through a lot of these different jobs and almost like you had a a goal.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have you had a goal from the beginning of hey, here's where I want to, where I want to be?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was probably somewhere around when I came to New York, I was like, you know, I've been pretty good at what I've been doing.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've been getting all the awards and stuff.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm confident in my abilities, and you know, I could see the margins and everything in the industry, and I just said, hey, you know, maybe one day I should do my own thing.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when I got here, I started thinking about that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: But in New York, uh, it's very difficult.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have an elevator agency director's license.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: To do that is is is an unbelievable process in and of itself, and you have to have 10 years experience, uh relevant experience within the last 15.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and typically it's they want people that were working on testing and installing elevators, but you can also be supervising uh as well.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So after a while, when I but I got towards the tail end of Schimler, I just said, you know, let me get my director's license.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I took that on as kind of a personal challenge for myself.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I did that on my own, you know.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I took a vacation day to take the test, I paid for it out of pocket and whatnot.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because I really just wanted to see if I could do it.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I studied, I took a class and all this stuff, and and I got it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, all right, nice.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay, well, I got a director's license, you know, maybe one day I'll do something like that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we were going and going, and then COVID hit, which was a uh, you know, completely different time for everybody.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I got through that, and then I just felt, you know, I think it was the time in my life for a new challenge.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I just uh decided to uh take off and I was gonna start my own company.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I uh ended up meeting with a couple of guys that were looking for a director's license.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I had the license and they're four guys, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we got together and just said, hey, you know, let's do it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So then you know, dynamic elevator is what I do now.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm one of the owners of the company, I'm the current sitting president and CEO.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I've been on board here for about a year and a half, and we are busy.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have about 400 units on service, we've got tons of work in the backlog.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just this morning we were talking about hiring another team.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's going good.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So so you said COVID hit.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you actually started kind of either during COVID or or right on the tail end of the the lockdowns.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the my partner that I did this with, he started it right before.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then COVID hit, and um, they got through it and then met me as COVID was kind of coming out.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So on the tail end of it, I was like, hmm, and then you know, COVID was starting to come out, and I was like, you know, I just I think the time is right.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunity coming out of this.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so let's jump on it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we were able to be price competitive, and when you have all the way businesses were impacted negatively through COVID, I said everybody's gonna be looking for savings.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if we can be the competitive price-wise, we should be able to get a lot of work.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and we are that sounds yeah, it sounds like you're you're definitely, I mean, in just a year and a half, you know, to be building and adding is that's awesome.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to have to be the size we are and have everything we have, it's it's some days I have to pinch myself, you know.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious, I want to step back for just a minute when you talked about your dream of going into aerospace.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think you said, and maybe working for for Ferrari and you know what um after the internship or or maybe even I I'm just curious at what point did did you realize that that you had you know something for elevators, right?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that that was gonna be the new dream, if you will.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, man, why did I stick with them?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, because that's a great question.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think this is a very niche industry, and when you walk around, uh there's not a lot of people like lining up to be working on elevators, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's most people that get into it, it's either a family member or a friend.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what I did notice is the people that did get into it for whatever reason, everybody stayed.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um I just liked it, you know.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: That I I like to work with my hands.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so being an engineering in the start, you know, that was nice.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got out to the selling thing, um, I just kind of had a natural knack for that.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just liked it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just was so focused on you know being the best at what I was doing that I I kind of lost sight of everything else.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you never even thought about going back and working in automotive.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, it never even uh never even crossed my mind.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, candidly too, um salaries for engineering people starting are typically a little bit higher than salespeople starting.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I I played my cards right in the path that I went from a personal financial standpoint.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had a good strong salary going when I went to Vegas, I didn't even get a raise because I was getting uh you know a solid salary relative to a typical brand new sales rep.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and so I just you know I went within and then you know you start selling and the commissions were very motivating.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I found, you know, like hey, engineering, I didn't have that.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there I'm like, hey, you know, you land a big sale and you get a bonus.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Big deal, yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Big deal.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that that I think was probably one of the biggest hooks.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've never forget the first six-figure job I sold was 114,500 bucks.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even remember what it was, but I remember the dollar now.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, but it's that you get that little bit of a sales high when you when you land a job as a salesperson.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I I guess the impression I'm getting is that you know, you you were able to kind of take the school the the the schooling, the tools that you already had as an engineer and start to apply it in a in an industry where where you could really kind of write your own ticket, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You could you know, you succeed here, you succeed here, you you you could kind of just build build a career, you know, build a yeah, 100%.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of the biggest successes I've had were not, you know, walking in a room dressed like this, but we're walking into a you know, a vice president of whatever's office, you know, with safety boots on, dirt on my hands, and a hard hat hanging off my bag.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And listen, you know, I was just on your top of your elevator and I looked at all this stuff, and here's what the problems are, and this is what we can do to make it better.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you get a lot of credibility that way.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's that's awesome.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um what what would you say is kind of the you know the the goal as you as you move forward um with with your new business?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And right now, I just you know I want to get big.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I want to keep going.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there is a ceiling at some point, you know.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be worldwide or anything, um, but I am looking at going through different uh, you know, I would like to be in a few more cities and stuff.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Florida's booming right now.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for some opportunities down there.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've had some you know conversations and things come up, but um yeah, right now it's like let's get this place, this city, New York, functioning and rolling, and we'll get some more people on board so we can have more time to do other stuff and just see where it goes.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say are some of the biggest issues facing the industry?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of code changes are not necessarily an issue, but the timing in which they come into effect, like draw out monitoring, for instance, when that first came out in New York, that was a little bit um challenging to nobody really knew what was going on with it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, the deadline is here, and it was like a mass scramble to uh to get that done.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do think that manpower is is an issue.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big uh age gap, uh, I think at the unions, um, or the union I should say, but um I think that'll be good.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I know there's a lot of job fairs and things.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of my competitors, as well as myself, we do a lot and everything we can to promote uh more people.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but as you, you know, the construction work really drives everything.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you have right now, just in New York, you know, a couple of big construction jobs finished.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, unfortunately, that meant a whole bunch of people got laid off, which means right now there's a bunch of people on the bench.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's you know, we got to get the bench cleared before we can start hiring some of the next generation of people.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's gonna be a challenge, but I think that's definitely a solvable one.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um the union does a great job with the job fairs and stuff.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the NEEP schooling program that IUEC does is great.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually going through that myself.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's exciting as well.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: What what are some things that that you either do or are looking to do as you grow your business to to kind of create the culture where people want to stay and want to come, you know, work for you versus, you know, versus the churn that sometimes you see in certain companies?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um a couple of things.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: One in terms of um office staff right now, you know, I am and we are big on experience.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I notice that big companies, you get a lot of uh supervisors and things that are it's like kind of their first job, and they're you know, kind of learning as they go.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um for me, I want the most experienced people I can get in those roles.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you're gonna be a superintendent, that's great, but you have to have some solid technical elevator knowledge, whether it's from engineering or whether it's from working in the field.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to get you know, top-notch mechanics foremen to come in and be supervisors, but that that never happens, you know, with the overtime they can make as well as the benefits and stuff in the union.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's I've only seen two people in my whole career, all 17 years of it, right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Go from the field, give up their card and come into the office.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which is which which is understandable.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we're kind of you know, we run a little bit of a different model.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our you know, the guys running the jobs here, our union members too.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they're four men, but we work as well, you know, it's whatever has to get done, kind of we just we go where we got to go.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty good, but that's the biggest thing is experience.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I push for that and uh we do what we can to develop people.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's uh project executive in our office.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: She's not looking to get a QEI right now, but she's looking to be more technical.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a QEI training class, you know, for people to get their credits and things.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we sent her to that.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to go, we said, go for it, you know.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Personal development.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is is big and you know I'm never gonna tell someone no, you can't go learn something.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: He learns a little bit about uh whatever, uh, I don't know, a soft starter and then goes and sells one and boom, we paid for the class with that one thing, and everybody's happy.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's awesome.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, what would you what kind of advice would you give somebody who maybe they want to come into the industry um and uh you know just start out fresh?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to them?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I mean there's two avenues, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can go the field route or you can go the office route.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're gonna go the office route, which is to be frank, probably the fastest, uh, because everybody's hiring.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I would say go in as a sales rep, spend a lot of time with your supervisor, spend a lot of time with your mechanics, get a good relationship going with them, uh, and just try to learn as much as you can.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't just focus on that sale or how to sell.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know that, but you also got to know what you're selling.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when you go in there and you're trying to sell whatever, if you can't speak, you know, A to Z about it, then the customer is gonna kind of look at you and say, you know, if you don't know what you're talking about, why should I spend, you know, however much money on this?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, elevators are not the cheapest, uh cheapest things on the street.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm and I'm glad you said that because it as soon as you said, you know, spend time with your mechanics and your supervisor, superintendent, whatever, it uh automatically I was thinking, you know, that that is kind of a trade-off, right?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to be kind of pursuing the next commission or do I want to be learning and and really investing in myself so I can be more effective?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I was and I still am, you know, seven days a week.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I do whatever's got to get done with the customers, the field, whatever, during business hours, and then at night is when I when I do all my catch up stuff.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now with my current situation, I live, I have an hour, about an hour and 10 minute train ride in and out of the city.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I use that time typically on my laptop, you know, doing emails, getting quotes out, approving payroll, whatever the case may be, going through the vacation schedule and stuff.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you got to kind of make the best of it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I utilize I manage to utilize my commuting time by taking the train as productive work time, which allows me to do what I got to get done during the day, too.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: That uh that makes a lot of sense.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of some of us who don't live in New York kind of envy the trains because it's like, you know, I can't do anything while I'm driving.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for exactly.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: For a while, I was driving because at Schumler I had a company vehicle, and you know, can't believe didn't cost me anything to drive.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was just it was too, you know, my phone would be going off, my emails would be going crazy, and uh, when you're driving, that's what you're doing, you know.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a phone call or two or whatever, but you can't do emails, you can't approve payroll, there's a lot of stuff.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I just said, you know, and then the traffic too, you know, around here is some days I'd get home in an hour, some days it'd be two and a half.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't I can't deal with it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: The train is consistent, pretty consistent, exactly.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds good, yeah, yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm curious if there were uh if you were to you know wave a magic wand and and change any one thing uh anywhere in the industry or or whatever the economy, what what what would you uh what would you want to adjust or modify?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would like uh lower insurance rates.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the insurance for our industry is very uh that's you know our biggest expense for the most part, but um that's a good question on a more serious note.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean how are we looking at people's attitudes and getting people to adapt um relative to it's kind of everybody, but you know, a lot of guys out there in the field, as well as some of the supers and stuff, you know, this is how we do it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've done things this way a bunch of times, right?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so how do you get people to look at things a little differently and say, hey, look, you know, why don't we try this?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be a little bit more efficient.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And well, we don't do it that way.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you gotta change sometime, you know.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we go go with time, elevators and now we have MRLs.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a system coming out with two elevators and one shaft, there's emergency access and stuff.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of change coming, and we just kind of gotta work on getting everybody to adapt uh change.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's interesting to hear you say that because you're right.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that like with the one constant is is probably change in in technology and software and in like you say, just different uh configurations and and so for uh for a people to be the the resistor that say no no no we we want to do it the same way we did it 40 years ago is really not gonna work it's a challenge and you know we gotta we gotta adopt at the times and it just is what it is, you know.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, even though it's hard to sometimes it's hard to learn a new skill, it's hard to think of a problem in a different way, but um that's awesome.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we're we're getting kind of close on our time.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess the the last question I want to ask you is um if you were to give advice to either new you know business owners like yourself or or somebody who maybe wants to take that leap and and start their own, what would you say to them?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh think about it hard.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um make sure you're in a position to be able to do that.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm fortunate in that.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I know tons and tons of people, so I had a lot of contacts.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to you know get a lot of work rapidly because I had a network of people going into it.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I would just say, you know, really think about it and plan it out and just don't do any, don't make any drastic, you know, last-minute decisions.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't uh have a bad day at the office and then just say, oh, the heck with it, I'm out of here.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's if it took a lot of thought, uh, a lot of internal planning in my head, how am I gonna do this?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are we gonna do?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we gonna focus things on?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what kind of jobs we want to get.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just make smart decisions.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're confident in your abilities and you think you can do it, you know, there's like I told other people in New York City, there's 82,000 elevators, I think.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I just want to carve out 2,000, something like that.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's enough sand in the sandbox for everybody.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's really great too, where we're getting to the point now where we're starting to get service customers and things uh off of referrals and word of mouth.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_05: Cool.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody called the other day and said, Hey, you know, I someone referred me to you guys.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh can you come check out my building?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a good day for me because you know, we've been grinding it out, running around.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so now that it's like finally some organicness come into it was kind of coming back to you.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was coming back, and it was just nice, it was a good feeling because it said, Hey, all the marketing, all the branding, all the you know, the events that we go to, all the stuff, it's gotten us out there and it's finally starting to pay back.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was a good feeling.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is awesome.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is awesome.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: John, is there anything else you wanted to share or anything on your heart and mind as we kind of wrap this up?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, just thank you very much for the time.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: This was fun.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate having you here and uh appreciate your your thoughts, your words of wisdom, and I wish you the very best as you continue to build the business.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it, man.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers podcast.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please subscribe, and until next time, stay safe.