Andrew Sly shares his Electrical Story - Braking his back, A FREE TRIP to Hong Kong and finding that good employee! Part 1

Transcript

Auto-generated from the audio (4,215 words). Names, numbers and the odd Aussie-ism may be off — check the audio before quoting.

Hey guys, James West here from Marketing Secrets for Electricians and today I've got an interview with an electrician from Australia going to Victoria and if you've ever been there there's a place called Geelong and Andrew Sly owns an electrical business there and we're going to interview him and find out how he run basically Rainey's business with a broken back. He went on a trip overseas and his tips on what he found helpful for hiring or finding the or venting potential employees for your electrical business. So hope that helps. Enjoy the show. So here's what I hear a lot.

How do normal electricians like us who are properly trained and licensed who are not willing to cheat and take shortcuts and who are wanting to own a successful electrical business? How do we compete against the big guys who own the market share or the guys that charge peanuts for an electrical job? On top of that, we want to employ the best electricians so we can get off the tools and have plenty of time for other areas of life. That's the question. Join me and follow along as we search for the answers.

My name is James Rest and welcome to Marketing Secrets for Electricians. Andrew's here from Marketing Secrets for Electricians, and Andrew, thanks for jumping on, and even with all the technical difficulties, let's get into this. So we're looking at kind of how to run a successful electrical business. That's kind of the topic, and hopefully you can share some insight and stories as to what you've been doing, why you've been in electrical business. And yeah, so first off, share something about you, like so people know who you are, where you're from, that type of thing.

Oh, you've just cut out Is it working Okay, so you just shared like yeah, yeah, I just missed the end Yeah, just share where you like where your base because everyone from around the world essentially listens listen to this so share where you're based and Kind of you know a bit about your your background in the electrical industry or people your business or something like that Yeah, no, it's okay. So yeah, Andrew's right here from I'm the owner of that business and been operating since 2014 around Geelong area in Victoria, Australia. First off, I guess what led me to start my own business probably wasn't so much by choice. I was working for a large company on a project that had an end date and there was about 100 of us there. We all knew it had an end date.

and it came to an end I got redundant. And at the same time, there were a couple of industrial sectors that got shut down around Geelong, one being Ford factory, the other was Alcala and aluminium smelter. So I was, you know, I was up against people who, other electricians who were predominantly in the industrial sector, but all these people were out of work. And the way I saw it the fastest way for me to get some work would be to invest a little bit of that redundancy money into starting my own business. And I did that.

I mean, it took a long time for me to get traction. It actually took a very long time for me to even realize what I was wanting to do or even what I was doing. The first thing I found was found there was a contract to install the nbn so i just went yep there's some regular work i'll grab that run with it see what i can sort of make of it um so that got you going that kind of that was the contract that kicked me off yeah got me going it was a good little stepping stone learning curve got my name out there a bit um as well just sort of around the local area so it was sort of i was used to traveling all over the state for probably five years prior to that. - Okay. - We were working on one of the power networks for upgrading all their electricity meters.

So yeah, from pretty much fresh out of my apprenticeship till that project ended, I was sort of changing electricity meters and kind of working my way up young, got to learn a lot about how to deal with people. - An important factor. especially running your own business. - Definitely, so I've got that to thank. I think the network being PowerCall, Google after Western Victoria and the city power.

They're both the one under the one umbrella. They had really good training and customer service skill training and that sort of thing. So I really feel that that stuck with me from a young age and it's something that I use every day. and I think that's one absolute like mark if you are to run a successful business, you need to be good with people to a certain degree at least. and they're forced to come back, maybe Telstra is a good example.

They don't have the best customer service, and yet because they have the coverage, you have to keep going back. - That's right. Our little meeting here might be proof that someone's got a better network. - For sure. - But yeah.

- Yeah, that's how it works. like start like a deeper question maybe, why do you do what you do? Is there like an underlining reason why you became an electrician or do the start of the business? Like you kind of were forced to go that way, but is there a deeper reason? - I think if I look back to my primary school days, there's those questions in grade one or something of what do you want to see when you grow up?

I think I was seven when I said I wanted to be an electrician because I was watching during these little toy cars but you know then after that I wasn't sure. I knew I'd be hands-on sort of probably from early high school like I thought I wouldn't mind being a tradesman of some sort, some sort. A builder was probably what I went to the most. But saying that I always had a bit of an interest in in electronic sort of things. I was always messing around with the walkie talkies and stuff, and I was a young tacker.

Just playing with things. - Indescribating. - And control cows apart. Yeah, just that sort of thing. But I think it probably didn't become an actual setting stone, what I really wanted to do until I was into probably year 10 at high school and trying to decide whether I wanted to do VCE or sort of look down the trade path.

I think early year 10 was when I sort of said just to keep that open because I thought it was all right. It was okay. It was not too bad at maths and I knew you had to be good at maths to become a Sparky. So I sort of had that in the back of my mind. And then it wasn't long into year 11 I started doing work placements of one day a week, sort of every Friday with it.

I had 12 blokes working for all of them and they mainly did sort of new domestic, some bigger, nicer domestic stuff. A lot of it was the volume build. We had a good variety. of things though but it was mainly new builds. I got to learn a lot quick.

And then at the end of that year 11, I got off an apprenticeship and I just stuck it out. The boss wasn't the best of the best. I think also guys that I worked with back then, everyone that worked at that company was great. I didn't know how to treat people. - That was my question.

What made him a bad boss? - He didn't have the best people skills. He could talk, but I just see him swearing. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't aggressive or anything like that towards people, but I saw him treat people pretty badly. I just looked at him and thought, doing, mate.

You know, he was pretty racist and that was a massive thing for me. You don't do that. You can't say that from, you know, and he'd kind of, I don't know, I think he just bit the hand that fed him too many times. Yeah. But the funny thing is everyone who saw him.

Was that to customers or was that to employees or both or just everybody? Both. So employees, I saw more of the way he treated them. You know, it'd get a bit aggro over little things. I mean, I can understand being stressed.

I know that now. I know that there's definitely some stress, especially with big, you know, because when I was there, there was always at least 10, 10 employees that were, you know, apprentices or tradesmen. Sometimes 15-odd, maybe. And they're all great people. I can't say he was a, the off the back of just not kind of almost taking the piss so what I'd say he would say the boss of this big big building company wanted us to do work at his house I think he charged him you know just like way more than than fair or whatever I don't know and he I don't know - But the main thing like to distinguish like he was being a boss and the way I say being a boss is like you're like telling people off and you're like you kind of demand and treat people like shit whereas a leader is more like someone who encourages you and works even every business is gonna have problems yeah you're gonna run into problems full stop so that if you want to treat people like shit problems or you want to work with them through the problems there's a different energy different you know relationship that develops from that and people will follow you as a leader or as a boss, they'll be like, "Oh, you're an idiot." Exactly.

That's right. And I can take that right till right this moment. And I know that my two employees, they look at, I know they've got a lot of respect for me because I don't boss them around. I leave or I help, I'm there to, and treating them that way, that you're only going to get it back in return. term where they're going to they're going to want to come to work.

They love the job. They say to it like they say it to my face every day, like I've got the best job or like, you know, having a bit of a laugh or whatever. But when, you know, when things need to get done, like, you know, you can rely upon them because exactly. And with your customers, if you're treating them good, like if you're treating your employees good, they're going to that's going to flow through to your customers, too, because they're at you know, there in front of your customers. - Yeah, exactly.

And I mean, I reckon based on my customer service, and I can't exactly take credit for every single good review, but I've taught that to my team, and they kind of bring that part of the business into that customer's home, where I might not have much to do with that person, that particular maybe one-off customer. And it might turn out a five-star Google review and they'll call me back, you know, the next day and say, like, have good of a job. I'll still follow up some of the time, but, you know, I just feel that, you know, a good leader, your principles and your laurels can shine through your employees if you treat them the right way. And, you know, they give you the respect. and they take seriously at the same time like you kind of you got to find the balance yeah you need both you also can't you can't be that good of buddies with them that they don't listen to you yeah exactly so you still draw the line somewhere like do this okay like i mean yeah i was like this morning for example i sort of had a few quotes to get on top of and i She's the client.

I haven't met her yet, but I just said, "Hey, Kate, I'm going to have to take an hour or two to myself this morning." My electrician, Zach, and apprentice Luca, they'll be taking care of the job to start with, and I'll pop past later on. She was wrapped, but I let her know. When I got there, she was wrapped because wanting me to quote some additional works as well on site. And yeah, she said how good of a job I did and she couldn't be happier and all that stuff. So yeah, I think that's the proof right there.

Like you can instill all your sort of what you stand for as a business or as a person even in the people that work for you. for you because if you do it the right way, but if you're treating them bad, then they're just gonna resist. - Also, they're not gonna stick around. - Yeah, they're gonna be saying, "How do we find a way out of here?" I'm sick of this. - Yeah.

- Which, yeah, when I was in the hiring process, I could tell a few blokes the like that called about the job. - Yeah, definitely. I don't want to be that busy. - That's, yeah, so you want to be the business where your electricians want to hang around and want to stay for the long term. And when I was doing it, I had a couple guys who were there and they were good, but they were that good that they wanted to start their own business.

And they went on to do that, which was good. So it's also, they were with me for a year or so, but it was also good to see them do their own thing. that bad as well, because it's like, oh, there goes my good employee. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that.

I feel that definitely. I've already said that. I'd be, you know, I'd be happy for him, but I'd be sort of like Dan, you know, there goes a damn good employee. Yeah. And that's, I guess it's some people, some people like maybe have that more entrepreneurial, you know, Wanting or longing and then there's other people who don't want that like they don't have that dry They're just like I want to be a good employee and maybe that's something I don't know how but maybe you could filter that out just thinking out loud Yeah, you could filter that out somehow in the process of like hey, what do you want to do?

Do you want to start your own business? Not asking them directly maybe but just hey you want to start your own business or you're just looking to you know You enjoy your trade and we want to focus you and train you up and teach you technical stuff And if they're leaning toward technical stuff, maybe they're more gonna stay longer you know, just a theory. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I've sort of been giving tips from a few different people who like to ask them sort of left a few questions when you're in that interview process.

Yep. And one of them, one of them I like, you know, you ask if you want a million dollars more, what would you do with it? I think that's a really good way to read a character. I asked that and straight away it was sort of oh you know you can see them start to sink and they go I'd probably you know buy a property and you know I'd give some to my mum. You can see the value they have.

read them off a question like that. You know, whether they'd blow it all on something or they'd do something kind of smart with it. And that's a good character test, I think. And that was thanks to Greg Allen from the Electricity Institute. I mean, that was something he, I mean, he sort of, that's what he recommended we do.

And yeah, I thought that was great. Definitely. If you can find the right questions to disqualify them before you hire them, you'll save yourself a lot of headache. That's for sure. So what's your goal?

So like where you are now, where do you want to go? What's your kind of goal for your business? more so I'm still looking for a bit more growth but I don't want it to get out of hand where it loses that personal touch where you know if there was 50 employees not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with a company like that but I just think that that to me it would it would I'm sure if I was if I was about the right way if I had a big big business I could instill the value in all the employees, but I think I want a good business, I don't want a huge business. I just want a business that works, but one that works for me as a person. - One that fits into you.

- That's right, yeah. - But it's also like what I see is the bigger business, the bigger you go, the more structure you need. So like right now you're like one on two or one on three, one on four, one on five, that kind of structure is okay, but if you go over, I don't know, a certain limit, then you need more rules because you step further back. And as you step further back, you need more rules so people know what to do because you no longer have that direct contact, especially the, like, you know, you've got a team of managers and then a team of, like, electricians and whatever. It's like those supervisors are managing whatever they need to instill your values instead of you.

So it's a different ball game, different set of, skills, really. But yeah, you're right. But I mean, I'd like to be, you know, I'd like to, you know, because it's probably only the last probably a couple of years that I've started to really see some good positive growth in my business where, you know, before I was honed in on what I'm doing right now, which is, you know, a general electrical contractor in my local area. Prior to that I was hopping around from contract to contract and filling in the gaps with little the medium sized jobs for a one end business for local customers. But yeah, I think a lot of the early days of my business it was like I don't just rely on the phone ringing track and description to fall back on that's how I felt because I think I was a bit a bit um afraid of like the risk involved in waiting for the phone to ring and spending big dollars in advertising and it might not work you know there's all those things all those those um probably hang ups that I had thinking the worst that So what got you over those hang-ups?

'Cause they're good points. Everyone starting a business or in business is kind of probably thinking the same thing. What helped you get over that? - Well, I think it was probably one contract went belly up and we were told the two days notice that there's no more work until early next year. And this is the middle of the year.

I actually went from... from down in Victoria or me and a mate who at the time was doing similar things like just contracting. We went to Sydney for six months on a project and that project, the funding got cut sort of and we were told with two days that yeah, pack up and they sort of said there's enough work maybe for a couple of days a week but all the other blokes lived in that area. Like we were sort of doing a bit of a We were kind of doing a balancing act. We were working away and we both had, you know, a wife and kids at home in Victoria.

And yeah, we were flying home nearly every weekend to see the family or we'd stay for a couple of weeks at a time and go home for a few more days, like, you know, four or five days or something like that and go back and do it again. But I think when that happened, I just thought I've had enough of this. I've had enough of basically being a glorified employee, but I'm working for myself and pay my own tax, paying my super. I mean, I'm not saying the money wasn't good. I believe that it's probably a really good place to start if you're looking to start your own business.

If you can find a contract of some description, even if you work on it three days a week and target. - Yeah, it's like that midpoint, so you still got something coming in and you can start testing with your marketing and stuff for your own business. - Yeah. Like I think for me, it was a safe, it was playing it safe. It was, you know, I felt if I get a contract, if I start this project with this, you know, bigger company that are looking for contractors or whatever, then I don't have to chase work and all that sort of stuff and it's not gonna be quite as stressful where you just, you know, I probably think, I think now looking back, It was probably more stressful, but just in a different way.

- Okay. Well, especially because you had one job and if they cut the job, you're left with nothing. Whereas now you've got multiple jobs and one project fails or says, no, you've still got others, so you don't, you're literally not scrambling and have no work whatsoever. - Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think, yeah, that's what pushed me to to just go, "No, I've had enough of this.

I'm going home. I'm going to basically start all over again." This happened in the second half of 2017, so probably mid to late July. It wouldn't have been until then, until I started actually looking for work all year again. I dropped into people I knew like the local mechanic, You know, always looked after that, his workshop and his house and, you know, got some good, good private customers around my local area. So, you know, I just put the word out that I was back and I was looking for work and, you know, I stubby to another, another local Sparky for a bit just to help, you know, help fill in the gaps.

And it wasn't long until I kind of just built on basically the basics. And that is a good friendly manner, a good polite tone of voice, approachable, flexible, offer solutions to the client as a person. I show interest in them as a person because I think that's huge. No, they're not and that's what I like to I like to make a customer feel like that because In reality, they aren't just a dollar. They're my backbone.

There's a bit there the backbone of my business because I wouldn't have a big Yeah, they add up definitely and and on top of that they definitely do they share and Talk about if you do a good job you treat them like a person, you know, I'll go hey their friend needs electricians, they'll recommend seeing that numerous times. - Exactly, exactly. And that happens a lot. And it's just the easy thing. (upbeat music) - Let's get this show on the road and start marketing our electrical businesses and finding customers to serve that need a reliable electrician.

I'm trying to change the industry and I'm building funnels for electricians to help do that. If you want to see the first funnel we're building, it's called, or you can visit it, at findelectriciancme.com. And this is the start of our client acquisition funnel, where we're going to be connecting with customers that need electricians. And when we do, we're going to need electricians to do that. I don't plan personally to go do these jobs.

I'm going to give them to electricians that want to work with me to help serve these customers. So if you're interested in this, please go to findelectriciancme.com and check it out, and we'll talk soon. (upbeat music)