Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros

S3 EP12 Don’t Hire an Electrical Apprentice Until You Know THIS (Residential Service Edition)

• Clay Neumeyer • Season 3 • Episode 12

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Every electrical business makes this choice. Most don’t realize the ripple effect it creates.

In this episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, we uncover the truth about electrical apprenticeships and why choosing between an apprentice or journeyman could define the future of your business.

Clay and Joe share real-world stories, stats, and mindset shifts that expose what most shop owners get wrong about hiring and training.

Whether you’re struggling to find good electricians or wondering how to grow your team without sacrificing quality, this episode is for you.

💡 What You’ll Learn:

  • Why journeymen aren’t always the safest hire
  • The character-first approach to apprentices
  • How to build instead of borrow your next top tech
  • Where to find and develop the next generation of electricians


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#ElectricianPodcast #ElectricalBusiness #Apprenticeship #JourneymanVsApprentice #TradesPodcast #ElectricianMindset #SkilledTrades #ServiceLoopMethod

SPEAKER_00:

Most electricians, when they say they need to hire someone, they're thinking a journeyman because they need to immediately get themselves out of the field. They need to train or put someone in who they're like, I don't have to train, he's already certified, I don't have to teach him what a ground nut is. Yeah, he has the tools, but if you don't train him really, really, really well on the surface and really kind of motivate his ethics, you could have someone that's actually hurting your brand. Now, on the other side of the coin, a reason why I'd suggest apprentices is because you're taking an empty bucket and you get to fill it. Yes, the new guy doesn't know the technical skill, but you can hire based off the character. And once you have someone who fits your role, who fits like your morals, your ethics, your standards, then when you teach him, he knows your way of doing it. So in three to five years, he becomes your best hire, your best employee, because not only does it have the character, but he can emulate you. So the real argument is do you need the one right now enough that it's worth compromising that risk of he may not be the right person morally, ethically, or character-wise, or can you take the investment of training someone or even multiple apprentices at the same time as a future long-term investment with a higher dividend?

SPEAKER_02:

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_00:

I'm Joseph Lucanni, and together with my co-host Clay New Meyer, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service man.

SPEAKER_01:

Now it's time for sales. It's time for scale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast. As you know by now, we're powered by Duramax, portable power with a great warranty, a great solution for all of your homeowners out there that you guys are serving. Joseph, I'm pumped to be here again with a great topic today discussing the importance of apprentices to the trade. This doesn't, I mean, it kind of seems like a no-brainer, except that I had this guy, and I think you may have been a part of this call, or maybe it was before. We were in that old Rebs group with Lloyd Mills. I mean, this guy reached out after one of these evening lives. We had these Rebs growth lives, and he said, Clay, you lost my respect the moment you said I should be hiring apprentices in service. And so we thought, why not? This came up this week. So why not do a topic on this? The whole apprentice versus journeyman. Is there room for apprentices and service? Joe, how are you doing? And what are your thoughts on this, brother?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm feeling great. To be totally honest, it's cold outside and it's a beautiful day inside. So no complaints. I'm loving that. I'm feeling blessed today, hydrated, full of caffeine, surrounded by friends. Who could ask for more, right? Feeling really, really good. Now, as far as the stance, I see it actually having two correct answers. And it depends on exactly where you need to go and how quickly. So let me do mind if I kind of just jump into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, jump in, man.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to hear it. I want to hear it from you. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. So the first thing is that most electricians, when they say they need to hire someone, they're thinking a journeyman because they need to immediately get themselves out of the field. They need to train or put someone in who they're like, I don't have to train. He's already certified as a card carrier, he's got three, five years. I don't have to teach him what a ground nut is. It's like awesome, got it, taken care of. The thing is, is that you often will then look for the experienced guy, but you have no real guarantee of the qualities, the characters, the personality of the person, whether he's got a service-based mindset or service-based personality. Yeah, he has the tools, but if you don't train him really, really, really well on the service and really kind of motivate his ethics, you could have someone that's actually hurting your brand. Now, on the other side of the coin, a reason why I'd suggest apprentices is because you're taking an empty bucket and you get to fill it. Rather than having the journeyman where you got to pull all the bad experiences or bad habits out of, yes, the new guy doesn't know the technical skill, but you can hire based off the character. And once you have someone who fits your role, who fits like your mode, your morals, your ethics, your standards, then when you teach him, he knows your way of doing it. So in three to five years, he becomes your best hire, your best employee. Because not only does it have his character, but he can emulate you. So the real argument is do you need the one right now enough that it's worth compromising that risk of he may not be the right person morally, ethically, or character-wise, or can you take the investment of training someone or even multiple apprentices at the same time as a future long-term investment with a higher dividend? That's my stance on it.

SPEAKER_02:

For sure. For sure. No, I can appreciate that. And you know me, I'm a huge advocate for the trade. I want electrical to absolutely boom, and I want electricians to enjoy that ride. I want us all to collectively work together towards this. And so I'm going to point out the obvious, which is well, without new entrance to the trade. And by the way, statistically, they're already low. I think we talked about that on a podcast in this season already. But statistically, it's something like 10% are leaving the trade consistently, and only 7% are coming in to replace them. And it's these attitudes of like, I can't afford to watch an apprentice struggle and make mistakes and wreck tools and wreck property and all the things that are absolute rites of passage as an apprentice. Like we have to make mistakes. And I'll remind everyone here, I think I told this story before when my daughter was about five years old, and I remember the age because this was kindergarten time. I was driving down the road and I missed this turn. And I and I said kind of under my breath, I was like, dang, I missed the turn. And I remember seeing her in the rear view, she was still center seat in a car seat and enjoying like a McDonald's milkshake at the time, and the pigtails, cute as hell, Joe. Just the absolute cuteness. And she said, That's okay, Dad. Mistakes are how we learn. If that's not a hard, I don't know what it is. It's a profound moment that I'll never forget. And I tell this story often because we forget that. We forget that. As a business owner, I believe it's not only should we hire apprentices, it's our responsibility to hire apprentices and train them to be as great as you are and as great as you and your business will be to have maximum impact. I I totally buy into what you're saying about like the old dog new tricks kind of thing, too. I think journeymen are really important, and I agree with you. And I think there's a lot of journeymen out there who are also not, they haven't found their home yet. And one of the biggest things that comes up, Joe, is like, well, guys will talk about like coming to Service Soup Electrical or joining us in the SLE pro app. And they'll one of the first concerns they have is like, well, there's no electricians to hire anyway, so so what? What are we gonna do with that? Do you have an opinion on that, Joe? Like when someone says, hey, there's no electricians out there anyway, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00:

So it almost sounds like a defeatist mindset. It's almost like, well, it's gonna be hard, so why bother? Right? And if you look a little deeper into it, it's like, okay, every one of your competitors has the same problem, right? So you're either gonna go with the grain and struggle like they're gonna struggle, or you take the lesson taken road, which is okay, there's no electricians to hire, so then make them. Like, why aren't we doing that? Because if you think about it, there are trade schools you can advocate to. Like, I remember getting into it, like I started really, really young in my teens, but the reason being was I was allowed to go to trade school, and then after that, go to college from it. So you can either go to the trade schools, you can go to the tech colleges, you can go to vocational programs. They're all there and they don't know what the hell they're gonna do. Because imagine you're like a 16, 17, 18-year-old person, and the economy and the world is literally on fire and in shambles, and you gotta say, What am I gonna do? How am I gonna take care of myself? Being an electrician allows you a great life, a great salary. You can actually be something that's respectable, you're one of the cleanest trades, one of the most educated. Like there's some honor and pride being an electrician. So if you can't buy them, forge them.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm hearing, as soon as you say one of the cleanest trades, I'm hearing about you know 10,000 necrolls as guys go, yeah, except for the attic or the crawl space. Yeah, honestly, I'll be a crawl space anywhere.

SPEAKER_00:

I love my crawl spaces.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you're the crawl space guy.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the is it the insulation? I hate the insulation, but I also am not afraid of rodents or bugs or dirt or mud. So whenever we had the opportunity, my partner and I to do work, it would be you take the attics, give me the bugs. I can get into a space a foot and a half. Just squeeze me in there. I'll get in and get the thing done. I don't mind it.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Joe, if we were working side by side in the field today, I would uh I'd be your attic man.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. That sounds a good deal. I'll take it. When we start our service truck company, we'll make it happen.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. That's right. So back to our our earlier point was ultimately, you know, journeyman versus apprentice. This is a huge and long-standing debate, especially in residential service. And I understand why. In residential service, we tend to prefer people with a little more experience on the tools. We tend to prefer people that understand their way and can maybe troubleshoot in a residential home. But also you want someone that can present themselves well. And I, Joe, I just want to double down on what you said earlier. I think the presentation of self is actually a character trait that can exist before we decide or elect to hire this person onto our team in the first place. That's something that could be possessed by either a journeyman or an apprentice. But I want to leave you guys with this note from me. I want everyone to understand and maybe do some soul searching yourself. When I was an apprentice coming up through school, in the 40 weeks of training that we had to do on theory, um, and for us it's full time, right? So we had to take two and a half months a year, basically, do a 10-week training and then go back to work and then go back to school. We didn't get to do it at the same time or evening school, like some places do. But during those times, I knew when I looked around the classroom that I was I felt different. It felt different for me. And I knew and I remember feeling like I'm stuck in projects, I'm stuck in industrial construction. I was stuck in places, and I remember even verbally saying out loud, gosh, I mean, you could go work and start your own business, but like once you replace a receptacle, when's the next time they need you in their home again? So I literally remember these being actual pains from my earlier career that held me trapped. And I still believe to this day, even with the uptick in service and the understanding that now, electricians, there's a place for you where you can have all that and be home by dinner and teach and coach the uh the kids' soccer team if you want, have your weekends off. Like you can be a present father and an electrician and make a good living. That was like my my Achilles heel, man. I never believed it. And I think it's important that we make sure that we share that message, we spread that word. That's why we're here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_00:

Honestly, I'm learning something new about you because I didn't know we had that so much in common. Like I remember being in trade school and I grew up with white-collar professionals. I'm one of the only blue-collar people in all of my family, extended for all of it. And I remember going to trade school and I was not surrounded by the guys I'm used to being around. Like almost every teenager had a giant lip of chew in their mouth. A lot of them were fighting in the back, like 16 years old covered in tattoos. One guy was on mushrooms in the back of the class. Like you constantly have all these things going on. And here I am saying, like, I don't want to be a contractor. I just knew I wanted to be some sort of professional. And I wanted to conduct myself as a professional, and I couldn't find anyone that I could resonate with. So it was just, it's a crazy thing how you and I were on opposite sides of that, but still feeling like we weren't belonging where we were, and we needed to find an area we didn't even know existed.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, that's wild, man. And I'm glad we found that relation. And I'm betting there's people listening that would agree. And I'm betting that because our vibe attracts our tribe, and this is a little tribe that we've built around this entire mission of just turning residential service into not only a lucrative and profitable venture, but one of impact, one where you can be that five-mile hero, the local celebrity for the great work that you do. And I know that celebrity is not everyone's goal, but from all the tradespeople that I've actually worked with or talked to over the years, Joe, I'm sure you you'd probably agree with this. Most of them are looking for impact in some way, shape, or form. And they just either they haven't found it out or figured this whole thing out or unlocked this yet, or they have and they're enjoying it and they're just navigating the dangers and the the pains of business that come with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I can understand where you're coming from with that. And a lot of times I feel like it's almost like a Venn diagram that doesn't overlap. Where you've got one circle where you've got the apprentices where they feel out of place, they don't know what they're doing, they don't know where they're going, and they don't know the tools. But they've got all the all the components of a good recipe. And the other side of it is you got the business professional, and he knows the tools and he knows business, but he's not making the money he thought he was gonna make, he's working harder than he has to make, and he's wishing there was a way out or a way forward. And the problem is there's a so little overlap nowadays because the business professionals aren't in the trenches in the trade schools, and as a result, if you're not talking to people as they're coming into it, it's like if you're gonna water a plant, you gotta water it from the beginning. You can't just go around and say I'll water what's around and then complain there's only weeds. Like you gotta cultivate something from the start.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's still a big problem. People don't know. I can't wait to uh build our bolt-on program. I believe that our service providers, the SLE pros, should be going to your local trade school. I think that's where a lot of this begins. So, you know, to really drive this forward even more, not only do we believe in apprentices and you making sure that you have room in your business for apprentices and to train them so that you have these great people later on in your service company. Um, but also I think you should go to trade schools and lead. I think you should go to communities and high schools and job fairs and teach people about this opportunity. And I think electrical, uh becoming an electrician, becoming a service electrician in the next five to ten years is more important and more seen as one of the most what's word I'm looking for, acknowledged and professional aspects of electrical that's ever existed.

SPEAKER_00:

Prestige is the word that came to mind, the most prestigious. Prestige. Great word.

SPEAKER_02:

Anything else you want to add to this one, Joe?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I guess just one last closing note is that I'm sure that regardless on which side the listener is in right now, there's a lot of eye rolling because you need to start at some place and pick a lane. If you're going to go with the apprentice route, go all in on it. Really focus on it, foster it. If you're gonna go with the journeyman route, go in all on it. But when it's near the situation where you're trying to do a little bit of both and not committing to either, I can see that's where the biggest struggle is. So pick a lane, run that lane, and then reap the reward that comes with it.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, guys, if you're watching this, uh we just crossed a thousand subscribers, by the way, just before the end of 2025. That's on YouTube. If you're not following us on YouTube, go and check it out. I swear we've improved our cameras since uh the podcast beginning uh almost three years ago. Absolutely uh enjoying the YouTube presence. So thank you guys for subscribing. Thank you for finding value in us, and thank you for sharing it with others. Please leave us a review where you found us first. And if you have an opinion on this matter, please comment below. Follow us on YouTube and comment below. Let us know. Are you hiring an apprentice? Do you have apprenticeship programs? Do you just go right for the journeyman and try to get them on your path, on your service potential? Thanks, guys. We'll see you again next week, where I believe we're going to be discussing how much do electricians make really? What is the potential in this trade? And I can't wait to open that up with you guys. Take care, friends. Be blessed.

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Clay Neumeyer

Host
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Joseph Lucanie

Co-host