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Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Rewiring Our Mission: (Electricpreneur Secrets)
Helping Electricians Achieve the $1M Service Van so they can experience ultimate control over their futures.
Join Clay Neumeyer & Joseph Lucanie for a new electrifying episode & High-amperage action item each week to spark up your service van sales to $50K, $70K, $100K, $150K months, and beyond!
Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Ep 14 - Scaling a 7-Figure culture with David Naples
Imagine scaling your electrical business to generate $3.7 million a year with just 10 service vans. In our latest episode, we sit down with David Naples, a seasoned electrician and the visionary owner of Expert Wire in Delaware, who shares how he turned a childhood trauma into a thriving company focused on safety and satisfaction. Learn how a remarkable team culture, highlighted through an AI-crafted music video, doubles as a powerful marketing tool, showcasing the camaraderie and innovative spirit of his team.
Immerse yourself in the strategies that revolutionized David's operations, from ride-along training for apprentices to embracing technology with a cutting-edge app-based material ordering system. Discover how efficient material management and custom van shelving have drastically improved storage space and productivity, setting a new standard for service businesses. By fostering an environment where team feedback is not just welcomed but essential, David has created a workplace where innovation and collaboration flourish, attracting top talent in an evolving industry.
We also explore the transformative role of gratitude and personal development in achieving both personal and professional growth. Inspired by influential figures like Tony Robbins, David shares how starting each day with gratitude and ending with affirmations can enhance a positive mindset. Drawing on concepts from Dan Sullivan's "The Gap and the Gain," we focus on celebrating progress over perfection, helping you foster a cycle of continuous growth and positivity in your own life.
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician podcast, where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.
Speaker 2:I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeier, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service van.
Speaker 1:Now it's time for sales, it's time for scale, it's time to become a million dollar electrician. Hello and welcome back Again. We've got a great guest with us in David Naples. David's been doing some magnificent stuff over on the east side of the world, the us. David, where are you again, brother?
Speaker 3:delaware delaware.
Speaker 1:I love delaware. I haven't been. Joe, have you been to delaware?
Speaker 2:can't say that I have, but it's right near where I am in new york here's what I love about delaware expert wires.
Speaker 1:There, david, how long have you been doing the expert wire thing now? Uh 21 years david brings some incredible experience, guys. We're super excited to talk to him and unpack some stuff, currently doing about 3.7 million a year out of uh, roughly 10 vans in the field. Is that right, david? Correct, awesome, and what most intrigued me to have you on this show. Honestly, man, can I be honest for a moment, guys?
Speaker 2:I would hope you would be.
Speaker 1:If you found David Naples on Facebook right now, you're also going to find a cover photo of him with some of his staff, and they did a music video. I love this story, dave.
Speaker 3:Will you tell us a bit about how this came together and why you decided to do a music video with your team? You try to make little videos for social media all the time, but we also take the video and use it for B-roll for television commercials. And my marketing expert his name is Mark he came to me with an idea and said, hey, what if we took this video and plugged it into AI and created a song? And so he actually did all of that on his own, did all the backend work, came back to me and presented me with a song, and I mean, ai wrote the lyrics, ai wrote the music, made the sound. It was 100% AI. He turned it over to me and said I think you should make a music video. And so I turned around and asked some of our team members if they would participate in that. And, and luckily we got some people who were, who were all about it, and and we did it and it was a blast.
Speaker 1:So and that's the piece, if I can say that's not AI like. Your team willingly participated in this and I mentioned before before, before the podcast, we literally I brought this up in class, I think twice now and I've showed that picture where culture comes up and people talk about recruitment and retention right attrition the opposite of that, obviously the deep, dark word there. But ultimately my question to them was like okay, imagine this is you. You're doing a music video with your team. What would your culture have to be like? What would their commitment have to be like? What would that trust and that friendship have to look like for them to want to be in a music video and be plastered on your marketing for that effort? And so I wanted to acknowledge that man and congratulate you on building such a strong culture.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, it's, it's, it's definitely a team like and that, and that's probably goes into why why you know why we were able to do that is because it's it's definitely a contribution of of all of our people working together to do that.
Speaker 1:So Awesome man, awesome, really strong Joe, I feel like I haven't included you yet much. Man, I'm so sorry. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. I'm just sitting back appreciating David's awesome Chromedome. What can I say?
Speaker 1:It just happened, yesterday too it did?
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? I got a fresh shave. I thought I was going to be better, but no, it looked like he came more prepared than I did. So what can I say?
Speaker 1:When we fresh shave, I thought I was going to be better, but no, it looked like he came more prepared than I did. So what can I say? When we interviewed josh he used? What did he say? He was using a special tool. Do you remember what it was called, joe? Um, it's a new kind of shaver and it even had like a buffer like a flush.
Speaker 1:It was like a flush wash or something like, something like that yeah, I don't know that makes it sound like maybe it washes and cuts. Anyways, we'll get topic. But we keep finding ourselves in interview situations where I'm outnumbered.
Speaker 2:Well, until you join us.
Speaker 1:The bald brotherhood is greater than the hair.
Speaker 2:Until you join us man Just take it off Just shave it.
Speaker 3:Just shave it. Enjoy your hair while you have it. Enjoy it while you have it.
Speaker 1:I'm thinning a little in the back. I don't show that too often, I, and I try to hide it with the whole the flip back. Anyways, gents David, you said 21 years, man super pumped for you to have come this far you started from scratch.
Speaker 3:Then expert wire, was it yours right from the ground up? Yep, so my, my partner, which is actually my ex-wife we started together. We're still still partners today, and so so, when I was five years old, my family lost their home to an electrical fire, and so that that essentially sparked my passion for providing that sought after electrical safety to our customers, and so that's that's kind of the focus of our company is providing, you know, electrical safety and quality service to our customers with total happiness.
Speaker 2:Did you, like back then, decide that you were going to start an electrical company? At what point was that pivot? I can't imagine a five-year-old throwing a burnt truck to the ground and being like I'm going to prevent this for other people. When did you decide that you were going to rally behind this cause?
Speaker 3:Certainly not at that time. So I guess, really, when I was 17, a friend of mine who worked for an electrical company got me, got me hired with his company and as we went, as I went through the apprenticeship, I got my license the year before I graduated school. Wife at the time, she, she you know, was she was a stay at home mom and she, she encouraged me to work together you know us to work together to create the business and, and so that was what we did and it was kind of, to be honest, our reason and and and passion for what we're doing kind of developed over time. I don't I don't think you necessarily have to have that right off the bat. You kind of focus in on it and now it's crystal clear. I would say it's been crystal clear for quite some time.
Speaker 2:But at first.
Speaker 2:No, it definitely was not I think it's pretty cool, though, regardless, because you're solving a very specific problem that everyone worries about having. No one likes to use the fire word when it comes to electric, because everyone thinks it's like a scare tactic, and obviously we don't want to scare our customers, but being able to say like I've been there and I never want anyone else to be there and that's why I've poured my heart into this, so that no one has to experience what I've experienced, gives you such a level of credibility and authenticity that I can imagine people rallying to you, both customers and employees, for that specific relatability, and I think this is really, really amazing, and I wanted to showcase that or highlight it. Thank you, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. It's really tough to talk about safety without pushing that button, isn't it? I love that you tie your story into that. Is there a way that your guys speak to that too, or do you put that in your marketing? Like, how do you share your story to be part of your brand currently?
Speaker 3:So like five years ago, we definitely had a campaign around around that. That was kind of told you the story that I just said and kind of explain that and it is, it's on our website and our about us section and of explain that and it is.
Speaker 3:it's on our website and our about us section and stuff like that. But I mean, we don't focus on that. Like you said, it's, we're not trying to scare people, but we are trying to make sure that we go in and do a thorough evaluation, find out what, what, what, how we can best serve the customer, including their, their safety issues, but also what they want, need and be able to serve them in that way.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that, and this is your mascot behind you right?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:I think you also have like a stuff somewhere, anywhere handy, that you can bring back.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, my girlfriend actually had this made for me.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:My girlfriend actually had this made for me. I love that we used him in a recent company thing that we did.
Speaker 1:We did a shopping spree and he was a part of that. What do you mean? A shopping spree? Will you go into some detail? What's the purpose of this shopping spree other than to spend your money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's a lot of fun. We've done it three years in a row now and what, what? What it is is we typically have a have a game that's a month long game in our, in our company, with goals tied to it, where we can earn different earn points towards the shopping spree and so, and then there's different levels. This year we laid out four different levels that the guys could earn, and the team ended up earning the $200 level of shopping spree. And so what we did is we went to Home Depot and got everybody gift cards, and this year we tied in kind of a scavenger hunt to it too, which was to take selfies of some different things throughout the store, and also we added in an extra $10.
Speaker 3:So there was a couple of reasons for that One. I wanted to throw people off on the amount in case they pre-planned what they were going to buy, and so they had to do the scavenger hunt. And then also there was kind of another game tied to that, which was that the winner of the shopping spree was going to get a thousand dollars in cash, and that was tied to doing the shopping spree but also spending the closest to the full amount without without going over in the shortest amount of time, and so so the Mr Ed is what we call Mr Electrical Device. We had him hidden in there and it was a ton of fun just watching the guys look for him and while they're trying to calculate how much they spent and this and that, and just so much fun doing it.
Speaker 3:And actually the same guy, nate Warrington, has won three years in a row, so I think we got to shake it up a little bit next year. Yeah, it's fun. If you go on our Facebook page, there's like some 30-second teaser videos of it and yeah, they're definitely having a blast and actually that's probably our most liked video that we've ever had. Right now, we've got one that's got almost 450 likes on it so far, which is a lot for us, and that's under Expert Wire on Facebook, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go and check it out. I'm a huge proponent of this. As you know, we've been massive proponents of taking responsibility for your own marketing and investing just a little bit of time at first, if you can't afford someone to help you with this, but whatever energy form you've invested in it, make sure to invest in it to put yourself out there and to help spread your, your message and your energy and your culture, and that's something that I've acknowledged about you, david, and I'll continue to. I've even seen you actually do videos, I think in the van right, showing the shelves around and explaining how you're going to stock it with the best materials and make sure that an electrician never has a problem when they're on site finding what they need because of the good organization. I mean, doesn't that speak volumes to the service electricians out there who are looking for a place to happen?
Speaker 2:you know, oh, yeah not even that, but like how many of us were working out of coffee cups and cardboard boxes in the back of our shot, like I I was. There was no argument against. When you first start out, you're broke as a joke. You do what you do, but the fact is is that you had a situation where you showed that you're a more established organization with a technician in mind like hey, you ever get frustrated and have to come back for random changing a ivory covered GFI. Well, we have them already stocked and they're ready to go, so you don't have to make the trip back to the shop. That's like really focused on the tech and I think it's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, so that was actually something that I was doing, a ride along with one of the guys actually the same guy who won that shopping spree and he came up with the idea to redo all the shelves. Mean, I think, I think at the time, at at that time this was maybe two years ago we were averaging like two supply house trips a day per van, which is that's, that's really typically that's a nightmare, yeah it is, it is and um.
Speaker 3:So we put a number of things into place, including using an, an app to order material, and having the vans all set up with the shelving system that was designed by our team, and we essentially were able to create 50% more space to put stuff, and so that made it. So we can stock a lot more stuff and and but also organizing it. You know, in our shop the way we do it is, our apprentices will. They might ride with technician a today, but tomorrow they'll be with B and the next day they'll be with C, and this way they can get on any one of those vans and know where. You know, if the journeyman says, hey, go get X, y, z off the van, this technician or the apprentice knows exactly where it's at, and so it's really. It's improved our material efficiency, but also our time efficiency, which is huge.
Speaker 1:So I love that I heard a few things, Joe.
Speaker 2:I think I'm seeing your wheels are turning too.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, you're doing ride-alongs. Absolutely, absolutely, wow, a proven strategy to make sure that people are really on that culture, on that process and able to help them identify and improve. Ride-alongs are a great thing. I love that you do them. Trust that you're still doing them today, david.
Speaker 3:So I have a service manager in place now that does them way more often than I do, so, admittedly it's not nearly as often, as it used to be.
Speaker 1:I love that For me, but they're happening.
Speaker 3:Yes, our service manager does it three days a week.
Speaker 2:The thing that really stood out to me was you mentioned two things. One, I think, was a slip and the other was really interesting. I thought you said princesses first when you said apprentices. And the other was really interesting. I thought you said princesses first when you said apprentices, so I was like I was like timeout. What kind of position is this? I was like I gotta know what this means. But the second thing was is that it seems like you've got such a culture because it keeps coming back to it. Our team designed this and the team designed it with 50% more efficiency and they were the ones who brought it to your attention of doing these things. Like, how good is it knowing that you have people that are contributing towards the overall mission, rather than being what most business owners feel like, where they have to carry everything and lead everyone rather than have a community effort push forward? Like that's got to be a difference and how does that feel?
Speaker 3:Oh, it feels great. I, I, I've, I've definitely heard other people talk about it, but I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want people around me who have ideas and and and. So that's definitely a big. A big part is listening to your people and figuring out ways to work together in a better, more efficient way.
Speaker 1:I love that, yeah, really good share. And in a better, more efficient way. I love that, yeah, really good share. And that was going to be my next one I pulled out too Awesome. Awesome that you're taking that constructive feedback from the team and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to take everything, and I'm sure this is your experience too but just listening and acknowledging that that's there and having a review where it seems to make sense could be enough to create an initiative, like David did here, and create a big change, right, and that all led to this position that started this conversation in the first place, which is well.
Speaker 1:Why don't we showcase this now? Because in my time of coming up as an electrician, I know it's like the magnetic field has swapped on the industry, right. Like we used to wonder if I was going to get a van, used to wonder what the condition of the van would be. Maybe it was like the fourth generation hand me down with with a spare tire still on the back and shelves with plywood ripped. You know what I mean. You remember that feeling, and now you get to see it before you even apply. So it's like why would I want to work for expert wire and you're putting it out there on the playing field. Man, I just really love that you do that. So can you walk us through a little other piece there, because we got into material management? But there's a whole other side. Do you mind going into a bit of how you guys are going about your restocking and some of the material management stuff at the shop? David?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, sure, Sure, Um. So we were using Capital Electric, which is, uh, I think, a Sonopar company, their nationwide company. They've got an app where, um, you can order order online, and so essentially what, what we aim to do and we're not perfect with it, but we aim to have every buddy order, uh, order their restock items on a daily basis or job on job per job basis, and then that way, the next morning it's here at the shop, Basically when the technician comes in and is talking with dispatch or maybe a service manager or something like that. While that's going on, apprentices are restocking the vans, and so that that process in itself two, two, two years ago we were at 21% cost for our material and our cost of goods sold and got it down to 17% just by making that change.
Speaker 1:Wow, go ahead, joe, if you want to speak to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm looking at it and thinking to myself like, okay, the best thing is it doesn't sound like a huge number, like going from 23 to 17. But when you think about the scale that you're at, even a 1% change is thousands upon thousands of dollars. So for you to be adjusting and making a five to 6% positive inefficiency, that's a tremendous amount of improvement and I think that's really worth noting.
Speaker 3:Not to mention the time that we saved in amount of improvement, and I think that's really worth noting.
Speaker 2:Not to mention the time that we saved in the supply houses.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that number is off the top of my head as far as like the percentage that it improved, it's a burn time avoiding as well, because, like I don't know about you, but I know that when I would go to a supply house and I went and I saw the Klein wall and I was working on a project, there was something I was probably going to buy, right, and the thing is is that it's almost like having your orders delivered for you. It stops the impulse purchase that you would need. Or, hey, I don't have these on my van, so I'm going to buy more that I need now, that way I can have it later. It's already ready. So you're finding that the in-person impulse purchases are probably also down as well.
Speaker 3:True, true. I would imagine that's true.
Speaker 1:I want to take it a level deeper yet, if we can, because I think there's still a couple of tidbits here that we don't go in the depths of often, but they help people with some clarity. Are you using a bin system or something for materials in the shop in the morning? How do they know what materials are for the job or what materials are for the van, et cetera?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. So we have one guy who's our trade administrator or material manager and his job is to get all this stuff set up. So he's got, and our property here is very small we're on a third of an acre is our total lot here and so we've got kind of storage containers or, yeah, like shipping containers is our warehouse essentially and in those containers we've got shelves set up. Where the shelf is for van, you know, whatever van number it is, this shelf belongs to that van and so the guys can go in our material manager will assign, all, put all those material on the specific shelves so that they can know quickly who's good as to what van Did.
Speaker 1:I answer that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for sure. No, that helps Paints a much more vivid picture. I know it's easy to breeze over and we kind of have assumptions about what others know, but just keeping in mind that we've got people listening who are starting out their first day of business. We've got people that have been 10, 20 years like yourself in business doing millions already, so it's good to just paint the picture. You mentioned apprentices a few times not princesses, but apprentices and there's an ongoing conversation about that ratio in a service business. It sounds like you've got a number of apprentices. Do you have an opinion on how many apprentices you should have or what you guys like to run with in your experience, um, to be able to help with these units?
Speaker 3:great question I would say whatever the maximum that you can possibly take on at a time is is what you should have, because that's your farm. You're farming up the next generation of electricians, creating, creating the next service techs, um, and so for us it's a it, it's two apprentices for every three journeymen, and so kind of my reasoning for that is that if we have some techs that call out sick or go on vacation or something like that, I don't want to have apprentices, not have someone to go work with, but at the same time I want to have as many as I could possibly be training up at a time that we can I want to shift gears and I want to ask a bit about your journey, if we can.
Speaker 3:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:You said you're at about 3.7 million per year. Humbly, I mean. You see him. You come across a very humble guy. You've delegated a lot. It sounds like a great organization that you're happy just being the brand ambassador and leading these guys. Has it always been, right from day one, kind of this million dollar plus company? Was there a journey to the first million that you recall like, distinctly standing out? Could you shed some light on what their earlier days looked like?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, it was. It was-year overnight success, right, yeah. So the first, at 10 years in, I was sitting in my bankruptcy attorney's office getting ready to file. I mean, I had gotten off the path of doing service and got into the new construction. That obviously didn't work out very well, knock on wood, I never did file bankruptcy, but we were there. I was to the point where vehicles repossessed A year of not making a mortgage payment. My house was about to be taken.
Speaker 3:I think I scraped together a thousand dollars, had a really good friend of mine, actually a mentor, helped me out with a pickup truck, got me back on the road and we really and that was that mentor was kind of the one who directed me to get really focused on service and said, well, man, you gotta, you gotta put together the plan and stuff, and, and so I would say from probably 2013 to 2018, was, was grind.
Speaker 3:I mean, at least, at least the first, at least three years was working 80 to a hundred hour weeks and that was 40 to 60 hours in the field and then coming back and doing 40 hours of office time. I built my own website. I built all the systems and processes and stuff. This was before I got into any. Now we're part of the Nextar network, which gives us some great systems and stuff and whatnot, but this was before any of that. I think we got on Service Titan in 2019, which is a software CRM software. It's a really really good one, and they put out a podcast called Tools for the Trades or something to that extent yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I heard well, so anyway, that first year with Service Titan was the first year we did a million dollars, so that was 2019, I believe, wow.
Speaker 1:Congrats.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool. So 2019, and then over the next few years, you've been able to continually grow that. What do you think, then, really unlocked for you? Was it just Service Titan? I mean, I find that hard to believe. It sounds like you were on the way and ServiceTitan became sort of a tool in your tool belt. But what unlocked for you guys? What changed for you that caused this growth?
Speaker 3:Probably a lot of things really, but I would say, focusing on processes, focusing on doing, doing processes, whether it's the, whether it's the guys in the field or or in the office, either way, every, every position in the company has to have specific processes, and so focusing in on that and getting that right was probably probably the biggest thing.
Speaker 3:And then learning to communicate and rhythm that's something that my coaches have really focused in on is we do regular meetings. If you've ever read the Traction Series, the Entrepreneur Operating System that's a great resource for that about. You know you want to meet on a daily basis and kind of lay out your day. On a weekly basis, we do what's called a level 10 meeting where all of our managers will come together and we'll lay out all of the issues that we're dealing with for the week and go through and try to solve those, and then one-on-ones with team, just all of those little things, and that's that's that communication, I think, is a big part of what goes into building the culture that you want to have and being able to, um, to steer things and the direction you want to go.
Speaker 2:I got to admit I'm listening to you and I'm hearing. I'm doing this much training my team, doing this many one-on-ones, I'm doing this many group changing, I'm organizing my day and it sounds like, yeah, you have a great foundation for personal development. But I also love that you're doing one-on-ones with your team, still at this level, because that being able to have your microscope on figure their specific struggles and given that one-on-one attention, I mean really it sounds like you've created this amazing culture that genuinely cares about all your staff. Like I think that's amazing because it seems so foreign to some how other companies run and then you seem like you put your employee first and it's so commendable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so so a couple of things to that one one in full disclosure I don't necessarily do a one on one with every single person in the company. Managers do one-on-ones with their, with their teams, and then I aim to meet one-on-one with everyone quarterly. At least once a quarter meet me with everybody in the company.
Speaker 2:I definitely have room for improvement on that, but that's it does sound like you're doing a ton of them, like the fact that you're even saying, like you, the owner, are still having a one-on-one with everyone in your company. I'm sure there's some people who would rather say I'm the owner, I'm going to hire someone in between. They're going to do that. Why do you choose to have that personal relationship with all your employees?
Speaker 3:so I think that in order for a company to succeed, everybody's got got to win right, and that's the team members, first of all. I have to feel like they've got a place that cares about them, that's fulfilling their financial needs, fulfilling their need to grow as a person. And then our customers have to win, of course. And if all that happens which, if our team members are winning, they're going to give our customers the best experience possible, and then the customer continues to do business with us, the company wins.
Speaker 1:So, I love where this went, because I was going to ask well, who do you decide to have one-on-ones with, knowing we all have just 24 hours a day, so again, it is commendable, I think, to commit yourself to being involved in quarterly one-to-ones with everyone. Can I ask a deeper level question what are some of the important things that you aim to talk about in a one-to-one that involves you and someone maybe in the field staff on your team?
Speaker 3:So it's really about them. It's, it's whatever they want to talk about. I really try to start it out. I mean usually it's a 15 minute sit down, but if it needs to go longer it can. But usually we just try to connect about what's going on in their life and then kind of shift the focus to how do they want to grow and what actions are they taking to do that, and then how can I assist with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I got to go deeper again. I don't often dig in this deep, david, I hope you don't mind, but how do you track those things then If they tell you well, this is where I want to go? I actually want to be your service manager one day. Do you keep like a golden journal? Do you have a certain place you might record stuff like that so that you don't lose it? I mean, with 25 staff, that must be pretty important, right?
Speaker 3:It is. I don't know that I do it the best way possible, but I do have just a notebook that I record it all in. I write down every conversation and then I'll kind of review it before the next one-on-one and kind of go back and read the last couple of interactions that we've had and see where we're at.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Checked out that way.
Speaker 2:The fact that you're even tracking it. It's not like, hey, I've got like a closet full of Post-its that I just keep throwing in there and eventually I'm going to go in and see what sticks to me when I come out of it. You know like, oh yeah, hey, what do you know? John wants to actually become a manager here. We put that on the table.
Speaker 3:So another cool thing that we do is is every December we focus on on personal growth, really Like, so we do training three times a week in our shop, which, Tuesdays, is technical training.
Speaker 2:Wednesdays is service system and then Thursdays is objection training, love it, and and with that.
Speaker 3:And then on in December we like to shift it to to developing the individual outside of work, and so we kind of dig into. First we'll do kind of a wheel of life, if you're familiar with that, which is kind of to say, what areas of your life do you, do you feel like you need to work on, cause it's not about what I want, it's what, it's how, what's going to benefit you as an, as an individual, as a team member here and so. So this the sections might be one is relationships and one is finance, and one is your career and one is your spirituality. One is your fitness, your, your, your, your health. You know what do you eat, how does it work out? How are you spending your time, what are all these things? And so you go through and rank yourself one to 10 on each of these different things.
Speaker 3:If you look this up Wheel of Life on Google, you'll find all kinds of examples, but rate yourself one to 10 on these different areas of life, and then you'll notice, when you fill that out, you'll you'll kind of shade it in and you'll notice that there'll be some areas that are expanded further than other areas, and so the areas that need some work.
Speaker 3:That's that's kind of the way to say, okay, well, maybe I should put a little bit of attention this year into my relationships or my spiritual growth or whatever, whatever, whatever area that is for you, or or, and so from there we start talking about goal setting and we talk about habits. We dive into atomic habits is a book that I really like to dig into and kind of, how do we set ourselves up to make the changes that you identified that you said, okay, well, I'd like to do better here. Well, how do you do that? And so we try to come up with an action plan and by the end of December we try to lay out that everyone's got their own individual action plan for the year, to say, okay, well, this year I want to do this and here's how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good stuff. We did actually use a similar wheel early on when we started the service loop, the beast that it is. Today. When business owners came in, we had a similar wheel and what we would say is because you'd end up, like you said, with different shaded areas Something might be a 10, next thing's a 7, next thing's a 4. Something might be a 10, next thing's a 7, next thing's a 4.
Speaker 1:And it's like, okay, if you took this off now and put it on the ground and tried to push it, how well would it go right? Would it get stuck? And it really is holding that mirror up to those little places that we can I don't want to say forget, but we kind of avoid. I think I heard this recently and it's really been sticking to my mind. I think it fits here. It's like the results we seek are in the work we avoid and it's really easy to just kind of miss how many days in a row we've gone.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll exercise tomorrow. Well, I haven't exercised in a week. Well, it's been a month, but hey, it's almost the year end and january's coming and we can restart. That said man. Uh, huge praise to you for doing that. I I honestly I don't know many electricians that are making december or any month for that regard about the personal development of their team, although I can see I'm a huge proponent of it. I could see how that would uh develop everyone going into the year ahead. What made you to decide to do that, david?
Speaker 3:Um uh well, good question. I'm not sure exactly what, what, what, what's kind of the push for that? I know that, um, again, I'm in the next door network. That's some of those things are probably things that I picked up from those guys.
Speaker 3:Um, I know that, like Tony Robbins you know, going back man years, probably probably 10 years ago I started a gratitude practice based on like stuff that I learned from Tony Robbins and that that practice in itself has developed into, and that's actually, I would say I would say that in itself is the one key thing that, if you know, if, if anybody comes to work with me and then and then leaves, the one thing that I want them to take away, whether you know, technical skills are great, soft skills are great, sales is great, all these skills that you can learn are great.
Speaker 3:But if there's one thing that I feel like would really move your life, or anyone's life, in a positive direction forever, it's to have a gratitude practice, and I would give Tony Robbins credit for that gratitude practice and and that I would give Tony Robbins credit for that he taught me to every day, every morning, keep a journal and say, hey, here's some things that I'm thankful for, and so that that process in itself has kind of developed a lot and evolved for me over time. Now I do morning gratitudes, I do goal setting and I do breathing exercises and stuff like that. So I love that and that makes me so happy because too often people will take their gratitudes. I do goal setting and I do breathing exercises and stuff like that. So I really love that.
Speaker 2:That makes me so happy, because too often people take their spirituality and they don't focus enough on it and it usually starts with gratitude right. Being grateful for what the world brings in, what the universe brings you, is very important because sometimes that gratitude could be the difference between you having an amazing day and you having a terrible day. So the fact that you're starting pretty much in saying thank you allows that energy to come back to you, which I think is really amazing that you've already established that as a new process.
Speaker 3:There's a really good book on this that I read this year called the Gap and the Gain.
Speaker 1:Have you heard of that?
Speaker 3:one.
Speaker 2:Heard, yes, I'm going to be writing it down right now.
Speaker 1:Who's the author again, David. Do you remember?
Speaker 3:I can't remember his name off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:This has been recommended a few times. I haven't heard or read it yet, but please continue. What do you love about?
Speaker 3:it. He also wrote a book called who, Not how. It's the same author that wrote who, not how, it's Dan Sullivan. It's Dan Sullivan.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay. So the gap and the gain. Essentially, the principle behind it is that human nature is to focus on the gap, to say, okay, well, hey, whatever I did this year, that's great, but I didn't do this yet I didn't reach. Hey, I set a goal to hit $5 million in revenue. We didn't hit that. So there's a huge gap between where we're actually at and where I want to be. But the truth of the matter is that does not serve me to focus on that gap. What can actually serve me is to look back and focus on the gain, and so that's what we're talking about is the gap and the gain. And so the gain is that, hey, we did have positive growth this year. We did have positive net income at the end of the year, and, and and or I mean not just in business, but every area of your life.
Speaker 3:I recommend kind of looking at it that way, and that's a really good book. Definitely check it out. Because of that, I actually put together a new practice, which is at night, I do my at nine 10,. I've got a reminder on my watch. It goes off every every evening, nine 10, and whoever's with me is going to hear about my wins for the day and, whether you like it or not, you're going to hear my wins for the day, and so we come up with three wins and then talk about what three wins that we're predicting for tomorrow are.
Speaker 2:Incredible. So you're starting a day with gratitude, you're ending day with positive affirmation and projection. Yes, so you've continued the ball to start from the moment you've woken up to the moment the eyes close. That's a great personal practice to adopt. Yeah, great practice.
Speaker 3:I don't care where you're at in life. I think that that that stuff like literally if if someone left my company tomorrow, if they took that away, then I feel like I did my job, that's it.
Speaker 2:You know, I start my day very similarly, I believe in starting every day with gratitude and as well as also seeking for forgiveness for the things we need to improve on, and being able to end the day in that same attitude and that same level of forgiveness asked for. I mean, it's a beautiful thing, so I can't encourage even more people to do it. I think it's phenomenal.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 1:I got to respect your time, David. We're running out and speaking of gratitude, like we're so grateful to have you here and get to talk through this. I've got a couple of last minute burner questions. If you're ready for them.
Speaker 3:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:I split this one up a little bit in my mind here. I think this is going to work well. If you were to give advice to someone listening who maybe is from the first kind of quadrant of your career, your expert wire journey, maybe in the first 10 years where you were still struggling and trying to figure out some of the principles of what you are now, what advice would you give that person listening to us today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, get a coach, get a coach Coaches save you so much time. It is yeah.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, we get to make mistakes for you.
Speaker 2:That way, it's like you learn from our mistakes rather than having to make them yourself.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, that was not a paid plug for us. David's got his own coaches. We're just happy to have you. The second question then, on the latter half of this journey, where you've been able to get this figured out and now you know, focus on relationships and leadership and the processes. What advice do you give that person listening who's maybe aspiring to go from 1.5 to three or 4.5 million a year?
Speaker 3:Yeah, focus on gratitude, focus on building relationships. I think that's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Was there anything else that you wanted to share today, before we cut this?
Speaker 3:I can't think of anything. This was a lot of fun for me. I definitely am having a powerful day, so thank you guys.
Speaker 2:Awesome, it really was. It was an absolute pleasure having you here.
Speaker 1:If someone wants to reach out to you, david, what's the best way to get ahold of you? Reach out, connect. Talk about working for expert wire. Sounds like a wonderful place to to settle down for a few years and learn from you as well. How, how would someone reach out to you?
Speaker 3:So our website is expertwire247.com. If you go on that website you'll be able to find employment applications. So certainly happy to connect that way. But also on social media. I'm on Facebook not really on anything else but David Naples on Facebook, um, and and my phone number. I'll give my phone number out. Actually it's 3 0, 2, 2, 4, 9, 1, 6, 5, 1. Shoot me a text and uh, happy, happy to connect.
Speaker 1:So straight shooter. Huge, huge praise for you today. Thank you so much, David, and thank you guys. We'll see you again next week. Can we see you?
Speaker 2:again next week. Can't wait to see you soon.
Speaker 1:You'll be well.
Speaker 2:Thank you, guys, and that's a wrap for today's episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast. We hope you're buzzing with new ideas that charge up to take your business to the next level.
Speaker 1:So don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with fellow electricians Together. We'll keep the current flowing.
