S3 EP38 From Side Hustle to $71K Months | Brandon Schultz

Most electricians don’t have an income problem. They have a process problem.

In this episode of Million Dollar Electrician, Brandon Schultz from Schultz Family Electric breaks down how he went from grinding through multiple jobs and running his company part-time to hitting his first $71K month.

We dive into:

• The mindset changes that unlocked growth
• Why most electricians undercharge and underserve homeowners
• How premium service creates premium revenue
• The ‘Brandon Special’ and how creative solutions increase tickets naturally
• The role communication and process play in scaling an electrical company

If you’re an electrician tired of small tickets, inconsistent revenue, and feeling stuck in the grind, this episode will challenge the way you think about service, sales, and business ownership.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're gonna do something, you do it all the way. Sorry, but you don't have ask it. I've always felt like I've been the person that I've had to prove somebody wrong. Like I was told, oh, you'll never get your journeyman's license. Oh, you'll never get your master license. I got my master license. I want to make my parents proud. When I was younger, I made a lot of very dumb choices. So I do anything and everything I can to show people that I'm not the person I used to be. Even though they tell me they're proud of me all the time. I still sometimes in the back of my mind I feel like they're not really proud of me. And I want my kids to be proud of it too. I want my kids to go, hey, my dad did it.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

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_01 0:41

I'm Joseph Lucani, 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 band.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Now it's time for sales. It's time for scale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another great episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast. Today, extra special day. We've got a long-awaited guest, Brandon Schultz, Schultz Family Electric. You've heard Brandon receive a winner of the week award on this show and be mentioned a couple times for his rapid uh substantiation of his business, going from part-time working in the business, full-time working for the city, doing many different things, wearing many different hats, but finding that early success uh from just joining the group, just at the really even the free level, I think you started at Brandon. But either way, guys, we're gonna get into the full story. We're gonna get to know Brandon, how he came up, how he got into this, how he found us, and what the heck happened to launch him to his first 71k month after just a couple of months of even knowing each other, really here. Uh, first and foremost, my co-host Joseph Lucani, how you doing today, brother?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

I'm feeling great, man. Honestly, I've been looking forward to this particular one for so long. Because literally, when I address Brandon in class, I usually say, Brandon, home of the Brandon special. Because the kind of stuff that he comes up with is so out there, but so premium at the same time that I just like learning from him just as much as he likes learning from me. So it's I'm I'm really pumped for this one. I'm feeling great.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

And Brandon, I'm gonna pump you up one more time before I ask how you're doing, brother. Uh, we actually had Brandon in our cohort too do a teachdown, come in and be a guest expert. Uh, and the the class voted for him. There was over 10 people, and there was a couple of choices. Uh, we had Nathan Miles in the second one. So, Brandon, I hope Nathan's not listening. I think he might know already, but you actually got voted over Nathan, who, as you guys know, did a million-dollar first year, uh, April to April, uh, which is awesome. We're super proud of him. Super proud of you, brother. Welcome to the show. How the hell are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

I'm doing all right. Um it's not been bad. That's been a little slow lately, but uh it'll pick back up.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

All right, all right, man. Well, let's start back in the beginning here a little bit. I know last year, I think you had even said, man, you never had a ticket over 500 bucks, just kind of mood lighting on the side. Is that accurate? What was that like kind of last year of your business?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Last year, yeah, you're you're about right. It was, you know, net most tickets run over a couple hundred bucks. The biggest ticket may have been 500. I was literally on the verge of closing the doors, like I'm done. And uh just like a lot of people just started trying to find somebody to help, somebody that knew more than I did, because I didn't know anything about business. You know, I didn't know how to fix things, how to troubleshoot, but business, I didn't know anything. You know, took a couple classes, you know, how to be a successful business owner uh that was ran by the college. And then it was, you know, start listening to podcasts, of course, you know, kind of going down that rabbit hole, I think, where everybody starts when they figure out that they don't know nothing.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Can we pause you there for a sec?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

I've never attended a college course, how to be successful in business. Like, can you give us a little more detail on that? A kudos to your college for for having that. Uh Bell wasn't some of the takeaways that you had from that.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Well, it wasn't my college, it was a college in Houston, and it was just something I've seen on Facebook or something like that. And it was it's ran by a gentleman who's a certified CPA. He's out of Dallas. And basically, it's kind of like what y'all do. It's all online, and he runs like a boot camp, a two-day boot camp. You do it on one Saturday, and then the next Saturday, it's like 15 hours. Oh wow. And um, yeah, it's a lot of information to take in. You got to download all the paperwork. I've literally got two books in here, like this thick of just printouts, you know, of all the things you need to do to make sure you're successful in business.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Talk about information overload. Like I can imagine, it sounds like with something that thick, you can run through and be like, this could have been a month's course. Yeah, could have been two months' course, it could have been a summer course. I wonder why do you think they made it only two days? It's just how seven, eight-hour days isn't that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, well, they were spread out, so you do one one weekend and then it they waited a couple weeks and then you do the second one. Oh, yeah, guided. Yep. And then they say, well, since you took this course, because it was like, I mean, it wasn't as it was substantially expensive, it was like 1500 bucks or whatever. But they're like, well, you have access to us for the next six years or whatever, you know, if you have any questions, but nothing tailored to us, you know, just just it was basic general business information. And I'll be honest, I've haven't even thumbed through it. It's just there's too much for me to process, you know. So, like I said, I started doom scrolling and going through podcasts, and you know, I think I'll ended up on one of y'all's podcasts, one of the earlier, early, like when y'all were doing it every day podcast. I went from like season one when you had like Giermo on there, like way back. And what y'all were saying was making sense, at least to my mind it made sense. So I'm like, okay, we'll listen a little bit longer, and then I think I ran across one of those Facebook ads, and I think I signed up for it, and next thing I get a call, a call from Austin, and then me and Austin talk, and then you know, I'm just like, well, we'll we'll try it, we'll see what happens. Nice. And then I'm and then from there it was just kind of like a snowball effect.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

When you first listened, did you ever think God I could be on this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

No, I didn't. I was like, you know, I thought those guys on the podcast, I'm like, man, these guys are multimillionaires. I I just I just want to be able to pay my bills.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

That's where it starts, my friend. And that's an honorable goal. Now, when you had mentioned saying it to kind of snowball, like what do you mean by that? What kind of code?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

So, what I mean by the snowball effect is first it was, you know, talking to Austin and then you know, going from, okay, well, we'll start with uh I can't remember what it was, like $150 a month or whatever, to be able to use the app or go to some of the classes and stuff, not even the classes, but to be able to listen to the Q ⁇ A, and then you know, you have the podcast with uh Scott, and then you had the podcast with Billy, you know, Wednesday uh Wednesdays and Thursdays. So I did that. It was honestly the first I went to the podcast with Scott Parker, but then when I got to the podcast with Billy and they had you know that that class, and that first night, man, I I'm not gonna lie, dude, I I cried. Like I was just these guys are talking about man, they're buying their third and fourth van. And and you know, Billy, I think at that time, I think he was probably somewhere around 300,000 in net. And I'm like, like, I've I've got five hundred dollars in my account, you know. Like I said, everybody's story, and then there was um, he's probably gonna hate, he's probably gonna be so mad because I can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

So we'll blank that out, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, I'm I'm running a blank, and he's an awesome dude. And I still talk about Brad, because you mentioned Brad to me before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brad writing. Me and him talked, and I just and he you know, he told me his story, and it's like it kind of lined up with what I was going through and went through, and and then I was just you know, that next day I took a leap of faith. I called my wife, and actually I may have, you know, asked for forgiveness rather than permission. I'm just like, hey, by the way, I took our last $2,000 and I bet it all on us. If if we succeed, we succeed. If not, I'll shut the doors and I will stay at the city of Houston and stay an electrician, keep my 401k, and we'll just we'll keep rocking with it, you know. And when I did that, you know, I went to a couple classes at first, got a little bit of confidence, learned how to somewhat write options, and then I did my first my first opportunity call, and it was supposed to be going in and just taking care of some stuff their electrician didn't do or wasn't gonna do, some lighting issues with their GC. Talked to the couple, I said, Well, what if I told y'all that I could come up with some options and come back the next day, present, and we can go from there. And I don't remember if I was in class and came up with those options with you. I may have been.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Depends on the if you tell me what the job was, I could probably remember.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

But it ended up being so it was they were doing a renovation on their home. Ended up the electrician that was there, that was gonna be there, was supposed to do a panel change, do an interior panel. It was kind of crazy the way they were doing it, and then I was gonna come in and do lighting, but I ended up putting the options together, and it ended up coming out to be, I think, a silver option, is what they chose. It's like $23,000. Like they handed me their, they were they they went through it, we presented, and she says, Yeah, well, we like this one. And they chose the silver, and they ended up writing me a check that same day for $11,000 or $12,000.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

I think I remember this one. Was this the one with the cabinets where they they had bought a substantial amount of cabinets and they're like they were trying to take on but they were doing being their own GC?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

No, no, no, no, no. So they hired a GC. So what they were doing is the GC was coming in and repairing a bunch of sheetrock on the ceiling because their ceiling was doing this. So the GC was laying fur down strips and then furring everything out like a quarter inch or five-eighths of an inch or something like that. And then he wanted a whole bunch of dedicated circuits, like he wanted timers for his lights, timers for his pond, dedicated circuit for his shaver, dedicated circuit for his wife's hairdryer. It ended up being a lot of work. Like, and for my first project to be that big and still working at the city, it was I never thought I was gonna get through it to end up learning a lot on that job. As most people do. But yeah, they that was the first one. And then from there, it was you know, I got a panel upgrade. And for next panel upgrade I got, you know, it would have normally would have been a $2,000 ticket, was end up being he ended up choosing choosing an economy package, which ended up being $4,500. All right. And it just kept going and going and going. And then it was then, of course, the big one, which called out for a demand call about an hour and a half away from where I live. I went out there, he said, my light, my bathroom light isn't working. And I walked in, and the house had like styrofoam tiles, like interlocking styrofoam tiles on the ceiling, and he had a keyless fixture there with like an old Edison bulb. Didn't work. Turned the switch on, nothing. Tested voltage on like a 12 volts. I'm like, what in the world's going on?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I crawl up in the attic because I couldn't get the screw, I was like, well, maybe I can have access up here. I called up in the attic, and as soon as I crawled up there, I seen a whole bunch of cloth wire. Whole house was on a two-wire system. So when I crawled down and I was like, man, if you can give me about 15-20 minutes, I'll create some options. And I didn't, you know, this is the first time I didn't use y'all. I was like, no, I'm gonna do it by myself. And I'm ended up being a full rewire for a house. He ended up, I had six options. He didn't even look at the other six. He looked at the platinum, he goes, If you can promise me you can do all this, I'll take it. I was just like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Why do you think he said that? What do you think he meant by that?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

I don't know if he was just impressed that I went up there and looked or if what it was. I mean, because I did what I I did what I normally don't do is I went to the truck to do it. Um it was just one of those situations where there wasn't anywhere to sit uh or to do anything. So I was like, and it was raining too that day, so I was like, give me about 10-15 minutes. I wish I knew why he was doing that. Uh but come to find out he his father-in-law passed away. Or not his father-in-law, but his stepdad passed away. His mom was living in the house. Him and his wife just moved down there to help take care of the mom. The stepdad was very was a very successful businessman. Left him, you know, left him enough money to take care of the mom, take care of the house, do a bunch of renovations. He left him well off. And I I didn't know he had already, he had just upgraded the AC system. And then next thing I know, it was oh, you know, here's a check for ten thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

So I want to jump in on this and apologize for my enthusiasm. But I resonate with this because there are those who are in service who cannot find people to serve them. I happen to be one of them. I cannot find people who will do the things I asked them to do, regardless of the tag attached to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

So if he's worked with other people before, he may have experienced a lot of what I've experienced. Where someone comes in and says they can do something, but the overall experience is so much less than what they promised or what you paid for. I can understand the skepticism, but he was looking for the promise. Like, listen, man, like I want it, I want what you're offering. I want it. Can you promise that you can do it? Like, I can I feel that emotion. And when you're like, yeah, it's like then take the money, like be done. Here you go. I want the thing done. If you can do it, you're my guy.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

So that's a huge trust factor that had to be built for that to be verted so quickly. What did you think you did to build that level of trust with them? Honesty. Yeah, an undervalued thing or underestimated thing. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, I mean, just just being honest with the person. Like, I don't treat anybody any differently. I don't care if you're a multimillionaire or or if you have two don't have two pennies to rub together. Just a human, you're a person. I respect that. No, I'm I'm gonna treat everybody the way I'd want to be treated. I love the sense of honor. Friday, brother. And then it was funny. We were coming back, we were doing the install. We were had all my guys out there, and then he's like, hey Brandon, he had this old just a champion generator in in the garage. He's like, Hey, uh, you will this run the whole house? I'm like, Well, I mean, it's not gonna run the whole house, but I mean it'll run, you know, some necessary circuits, you know, whatever you're you know, what you're trying to look at. He goes, and he was like, Well, what can we do to run the whole house? So they're saying, Well, give me about 15 minutes. Let me get put up some options. Came back from, and I think this is the one me and you worked on. I remember this one.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

That's why I'm so happy.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah. So it was like, okay, well, we can either use this, and it was the literally they had an interlock and an inlet out by the main. They had literally ran the cord up the side of the wall through the attic. Through the attic, yep. All the way down. It was just a dangled cord, all the way down with a uh inlet on it. And I'm like, there's one way to do it. We ran the options, and it was he's like, the top option was a liquid cooled generator with full security system and take down the old security system. And at first, he's like, nah, I don't need all that. We'll just go with the the lower pad, the bronze package. Okay, cool. It's like 3,500 bucks, no big deal. Ten minutes later, he walks outside and he goes, You know what? Let's go with that platinum option again. All right, well, I'm gonna need that 50% deposit. He walks inside and writes a $25,000 check, and here you go. I like to go cashing that. Yeah. And I'm just uh mama felt good when I gave her that check. And then again, we were back back to work. I'd already ordered the generator, got everything. He then he was like, there was another one. He was like, Hey, I'm putting my barbecue pit out there underneath the oak trees. I need some lights out there. Gave him some options. He's like, Yeah, do the fully trenched out there with the bug zapper and the dinatraps, yep. The dino trap, and then we're gonna put the two floodlights. I said, All right, that's you know, your option you chose was five grand. All right, well, here's 2,500 bucks. So after we ran all the numbers, it was like $71,000 he invested. And he literally just handed us another $30,000 check to pay it off. So he's completely paid.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Really good. Brandon, what was your process like before this?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Process like before this would have literally been you called me out there for the light, I'm gonna fix the light. $150,200.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

I'm gonna run the numbers on that from $71,000 to $150,000. What kind of X are you even talking about? All right, give me a second. So $150 divided by $71,000. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

But even even this, let's let's play devil's advocate against a massive ROI, $10,000 X or whatever you're about to pull. You would have still found the cloth wiring because there's a 12-volt thing. There was a problem, right? So you would have had to fix this somehow. Would you seriously not have offered a full rewire as a package?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Nope. Because at that time I I'd probably still be working by myself. Even if I would have offered a rewire, I wouldn't even have known where to begin. It'd have been maybe I'd have been like maybe okay, five five grand. I'd have lost money because I'd have probably paid more than that and just wire.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

So the thing is, we don't really have a rewire class. So what gave you the confidence then to estimate and pull off the rewire?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Kind of figuring that, you know, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it right and I'm gonna serve at a higher level. I don't care what it would take to get it done. It's gonna get done regardless. And if I'm not gonna do it, if I'm gonna be out there, I might as well do it and do it right and get it done the first time.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

So I think a lot of guys get intimidated by this, like yourself. It sounded like you mentioned that. But it's also I get this idea of like, how do you even estimate a rewire? How do you even begin to count what this is gonna take? What did you uncover in that time that gave you the confidence to even begin to estimate what this would be?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Actually, it was when I talked to you. I was I actually went and quoted a full rewire, and I was using, I think I used AI too. I've never been in estimating, I've just been in basically an installer, an electrician, and go fix it. Working with the city, they just hand you a credit card or whatever and say, here, go purchase the material you need and get it done. Okay, cool. It's it's when I think I overestimated a job. And I was talking to y'all on a class, and you were like, Well, just do it like basically how long would it take to run one wire? Like down a wall to a receptacle. How long does it take? Hour, hour and a half. Okay, well, if you got that 20 times, so 20 hours, 23 hours, whatever. Because I know I overway overshot one. I think I spent like 60, 70 man hour or hours or whatever it was. I think I told somebody for like a 1500 square foot house it was gonna be like 90,000 to rewire it.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

That was your first effort.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

That'll do it. They're like, nah, I think we're gonna go with somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

So it started out humble beginnings, making some mistakes on the estimating. Did you go back and make an adjustment to that estimate then? Or did they just go somewhere else?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

They just I think they just went somewhere else with that one. No, actually, I did contact them. I I I said, Hey, look, I was like, hey, I am so sorry, but we were using a uh a newer pricing model, but I talked to the owner of the company and she was willing to go back on our old pricing model if you would like to proceed with us. And I think that was after talking with y'all, and I we figured it was gonna be about twenty thousand dollars to do the rewire.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

And then they were like, Well, no, we didn't go, we didn't proceed with that home anyway. So when we go with another one, we'll give you a call.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

So they didn't end up buying the home, so they were people looking to purchase homes to actually quote it. That's honestly why I want to insist that we always charge the retainer because what would end up happening in this moment was you quoted a rewire, which took time, took energy, took investment of your personal time, and then their intention is to take it, use it as a negotiating tool against the seller, and then after they've negotiated a large number, they may or may not end up using you. But if you put that retainer into place, even if they went that direction instead of not using you, granted, you still have your your time invested, but it's also a negotiating tactic. Because if someone's gonna go by the loss of adversity, or is it loss of uh loss of version? They're gonna go by a loss of version, they're gonna say, Well, I have six hundred dollars invested with Brandon. I don't want to lose that. I'm gonna you're gonna be weighed pretty heavily in that decision. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

No, it makes a lot of sense. Well, thanks for being vulnerable on that and sharing the early because this is the stuff like no one wants to talk about it. I get it. I've made really stupid mistakes, you know. I talk about the the times I worked for free, thinking that that was value, like I was solidifying some great back end to something that never ever happened. That's not a point of pride for me. It was a really stupid thing to do at the time. And now I look back and go, Yeah, that makes no sense. I get that we make mistakes in this, but I really wanted to look at that reware, and I'm glad you shared that because. So many people won't estimate it for the couple reasons. One, they don't really know how. They don't have a framework to do it. So you found one early on. And most times we don't see guys come into this and even stand to the plate of a rewire like that. Most often they'll just go, Well, that's not going to be my top option. I'll put that later. And if they really want something like that, they'll ask for the same reasons why I didn't charge for jobs, right? You dream about this back end. We're like, oh, they'll love me so much. They'll just offer more work in that volume, and maybe then I'll be ready. That never comes. So what I find really astonishing about your case, Brandon, and it tends to be there's a certain type of person, and I don't know how to speak to it even exactly, but some people can just adapt and adopt. Some people just dive into the deep end. You're one of those people, and for that reason you've had great success early on. That's been really massive, man. So congratulations on that. What do you think is your secret if you had to say in like that level of trust and that level of just, you know what? Deep end, we're diving in versus dip a toe in, and maybe this works, maybe it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Honestly, I just believe that I'm very much like my father in a in a sense. Is that if you're gonna do something, you do it all the way. Sorry, but you don't have ass it. I've always felt like I've been the person that I've had to prove somebody wrong. Like I was told, oh, you'll never get your journeyman's license. Oh, you got my journeyman license. Oh, you'll never get your master's license. I got my master's license. I'll do shit just to piss somebody off to prove that I can do it. That and I don't really have to say this, but uh I want to make my parents proud. I when I was younger, I made a lot of very dumb choices. I'll tell everybody I was an ex-drug addict. I was a drug addict for well over 15 years. I've been to prison. In fact, I was I was released in 2007. I made a lot of very dumb choices as a young person. And so I guess I've always ever since then I've been chasing my parents' approval that I I've done better. I just want them to be proud of me. I do anything and everything I can to show people that I'm not the person I used to be. Even though they tell me they're proud of me all the time. I I still sometimes in the back of my mind I feel like they're not really proud of me. So and I want my kids to be proud of me too. I want I want my kids to go, hey, my dad did it.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

That's beautiful beyond words that I think I think can describe. But I understand the feeling you're talking about, where it's like, I want them to be happy, I want them to be proud, but I'll be damned if my kids grow up not proud of their father. I love that you take it to that level to that extent.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, I felt that for sure. I've got some similar ghosts that I chased. One of my reasons for being here, uh, for sure, man. So with you there. Uh glad you made it through that. You're certainly making us proud. Where is Schultz Family Electric headed, Brandon?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Well, hopefully, right now we're at one van. I I bought my guys a brand new, slightly used 2005 Chevy Express colored big red in the next five years. You know what? Even three years. I want at least one more van on the road. I want an experienced technician in there with an apprentice. And I just want to do sales. I just I want to go run options. Like, I don't care if I ever have to put my tools back on. I will, I don't care, but I enjoy it. And I want to be doing at least five million a year.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Go for it, man. Sky's the limit. I love how when you get to shift out of install mode, you actually become a specialist in something, and it's much easier to build momentum when that's all you're doing and all you're focused on. I think you have a gift. I don't know if anyone knows, but I'm gonna speak to it. Um, whenever I address Brandon, I always address him as uh owner of the Brandon Special. And one of the reasons why is because you and I were designing a job where we were talking about doing a gazebo and how we're gonna get a trench out there. And Brandon, I remember stops and you're looking up in the air and you're like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take on carpentry, I'm gonna frame out this area, I'm gonna side it myself, I'm gonna roof the whole thing, I'm gonna paint it and match the thing. It's gonna look it. It was always there in the first place. Like it was so cool to think you see you think that outside the box in order to serve at such a level just for the aesthetics of it. That doesn't come normally. That's like you have an inherent gift that's being shown. For better or worse, man, it's working out for you. I'm really proud. I think you're gonna have a lot of good success in your future, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I hope so. We we did a PL last night, and I was actually kind of impressed. I'm I'm impressed and a little disappointed at the same time. So we ran it last night from January till now, and we're a little over 260 or 270,000 and gross or net for us after everything's come out. I think we're at like 80.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Nice, really good.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

So to know that I can actually do that myself, I'm the only one going out there selling, it's like if I can do that in from January to now, what can I do the rest of the year?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Nice. What do you love about presenting options and the sales side, Brandon?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

The sales side, the the presenting the option is is watching that aha moment from the customer. They're like, I didn't think of that. You know, when you tell somebody, hey, I'm gonna put a um, we're gonna put a battery backup light above your panel. So if you do have a power outage, at least you can get to it and you can know where your interlock is. And they're like, didn't think of that. It's that's what I like watching that. Like, damn, he actually thought of something like that. That's kind of cool. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Spoken a few times about because guys will ask, well, you know, this change came about, and then they wanted to add this, and what am I supposed to do in this situation? And I kind of make fun of it and I just go robot mode. I'm not trying to be the sales bot, don't worry, Joe, but I go full robot. Oh, that's a great idea. Let me just set up another set of options for you so that you can properly see all the different ways we could do that. Like it should be that, and I'm hearing you do that each time in some of the descriptions and stories you're telling tonight. How hard has it been for you to just adopt that? Is like, I can't add more scope without providing more options.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

It's sometimes it still can be a challenge, even for me. Like, I am not perfect by any means, like today. In fact, I literally I was I was running late to this meeting because I was driving back an hour away from a customer who we took a Lowe's job from, and it was just a ceiling fan installed. 20-foot flat ceiling, downrod, had to go buy an extra set of scaffolding just to get to it. And me and Joe came up with some options yesterday for it, and I went and presented them. And I'm looking at his house, a gorgeous house. It's got its own boat house, got sauna, jacuzzi, full generator back up. It's like, well, how do you make an option for this? And then you walk inside and he's got fluorescent can lights, he's got almond builder grade receptacles, he's got almond builder grade rocker switches that are all daisy chained. And it still can be a challenge. It's like, damn, how do I do this? And then you step back and go, well, I got to do a safety inspection to make sure we can install this properly. And then you see that, oh, the panel's not labeled. The switches are daisy chained together from builder grade, fast install. And then you can kind of see how to somewhat build options. Oh, we didn't have any electronics protection. Let's throw that in there. It it's it's still a challenge. Sometimes coming up with six is not always easy. I can always come up with at least three, if not four. That's why y'all have class, and that's why we can at least always bring it in there and be like, hey, this is what I was saying, what you got?

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah. I remember having fun with that one with you because the first thought was, well, we're gonna change the bulbs. And you're like, oh, well, actually, we can't because it's the built-in LED. I'm thinking to myself, all right, so we got a built-in LED fixture on the top of a 20-foot ceiling. If that fails, if it ever hits hit by any kind of surge or unders, now you're gonna go all the way back up there, take the whole thing back down again rather than have a pole you can change bulbs with. So it's like, of course, now we're gonna do electronics protection, and it's now justified because it's what's directly connected to what you call before.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Yep, that's that's the part I like about doing everything. What do you find is your toughest job so far to create options for and make a friend on, make a sale?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

I would say the toughest jobs right now to create options. I really don't know. That one was actually pretty tough for me. It's sometimes it's the simple jobs that are hard to for me to come up with the options. Or when I walk into a home that's a multi-million dollar home, because it's like, how do you create options for somebody that has basically almost the best of everything?

SPEAKER_02 30:11

You come to class, we work through together, we'll come out with some sort of solution. Leave it better than we found you.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

I have found this though, that surprisingly the people that do live in multi-million dollar homes, the ones that do drive, you know, the $300,000 car, the $100,000 car, those are the ones lately have been the ones that don't really want to do options. They're just like, I don't care. Like I'm here to do a what's it gonna cost me for a switch? What's it gonna cost me for this?

SPEAKER_02 30:36

It's a weird phenomenon because you think about it, like I've gone to like trailer parks, and now they'll not only buy platinum, but they'll go out there with a shovel. They'll actually bring it to you, they'll do a whole shovel to help you dig, and then they'll go further and say, Hey, can I get you some water? You want me to get you some lunch? And you go into the area and the guy's got a Maserati in the driveway, and he's like, Well, what's the breakdown on this? You're changing three switches. What does it cost per switch? How long are you gonna be here? What do you charge up per hour? It's like I've got a handyman who'll do for less. We is it blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah, so I remember one specific. Like, I'm not an RV technician, but for some reason lately, we've got a couple RV parks around the way, and I've gotten several calls to him. I've got no problem. I'm an electrician, I'll figure something out. And we went to an RV, and the lady's literally on oxygen, and her husband's like, Man, we can't get the maintenance guy out here. He said he came out here the other day, and it's not, it's not on him, it's not their stuff, it's something RN, RN. And we do some testing, we're like, Well, you're not getting you get voltage from here to here, but you don't have voltage back to the panel. We tested the breaker, come to find out it was a bad breaker on the parks end. And we're like, Well, you know, we can get you taken care of. And she's like, she's calling the electrician, the onside electrician, and he comes out there, and he was one of those electricians. I've been an electrician for 20 fucking years. Just I tested it. I know it's on well, I'm telling you right now, it's the breaker. Nothing on their end, it's on your end. And by the time it was done, he was like, Oh, yeah, you know, basically fucking Siemens breakers, piece of shit. And I'm like, whatever, dude. You may have been an electrician, but you're not doing it right. You just didn't want to admit it was your fault. It's fine, I understand. It was at the end of it, and we told the lady, we got her back up, got her running. She gave me a hug and just like, thank you so much for coming out so fast. The husband was, you know, shaking my hand and you know, inviting us over for barbecue, you know, just because we're there to help. I'm not there to sell you anything. I'm I'm legitimate, I just I want to get your power back.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

You know, I want to take that a little bit further because there's always this fear that I know a lot of us have, where we're saying we always assume that the other competition, like the other guy, we assume that he knows everything of what he's doing, he understands that full thing, and we all start to doubt ourselves. Like when you had that conversation, did that start to happen there where you were starting to doubt yourself when he was like, I've been a lecturer in 25 fucking years. Like, that's that's a big state.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

No, I didn't doubt myself. I knew I was right. Okay, perfect. I love that. I knew he was full of shit, and I knew I was right to just be honest. He just didn't want to take the blame for it.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

If you think about that same kind of guy, and I you know, obviously he went from being, you know, where you're moonlighting to running a professional outfit, and I love you for that. What do you would you say to contractors like him who are out there just soloing it and underpricing themselves?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I'd say there's a better way to do things. And you know, if you if you call yourself an electrician or you are an electrician, then I think you owe it to yourself and you owe it to your family to try to do better. If you make the money you need to make, it's out there. All all the customers want you to do is just do right by them. They're just out there asking you to do is fix something.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

So I guess the difference between the kind of person who's racing to the bottom and the one who's trying to rise ahead. Okay. Love that. I know you had also said to yourself, like at one point, you know, I'm just the the one guy who's doing it. But do you still feel like you're in that situation? And if you aren't, obviously, I assume you're not, what would you do to tell other small business owners? Like, how would you advise them to start growing and seeing the results you've seen?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

If there's any other small business owners out there that are struggling and you know, you're not being profitable, obviously, first thing I would do is I'd tell them to give y'all a call or at least start watching the podcast. Reach out to your local, other local businesses. I mean, you don't have to be like everybody else. I mean, there are other people that are profitable that will do 75, 100 jobs a week, work 90 hours a week, and then brag about it. And they do great, you know, but they're sacrificing time for money. I just I don't want to sacrifice time for money. My time's value, my family's valuable, and I'd like to see them, I'd like to be able to be there for my kids growing up. I don't want to be the dad can't make it to practice because he's working, he's helping a customer. God like feel that. You know, and did you have to experience that when you were younger? Yes. So I used to, I remember one year in high school, ninth grade, I don't play sports. I don't even watch sports, but I joined the football team. I've always been a big guy, so I was like, well, maybe if I join this, my dad will be there. My dad never would show up to a game, wouldn't show up to because he was always working. He couldn't. I think that had a lot to do with how I turned out when I was younger, basically seeking attention. Whether it be good attention or bad attention, it was still attention. I don't want that for my kids. I don't want my kids to be seeking my attention, whether it be good or bad. I just want to be there for my kids.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Really respectable. I really, really respect that. Now, if we're gonna take it one step further, right? You're where you are now, and clearly you've had growth not only, you know, financially, but like it seems like personally you've started to grow into this larger individual. If you could give yourself advice back when you were charging $500 for these jobs, what would you tell yourself? Like, do you think that a person would even recognize who you are right now?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

They probably wouldn't. If I could give myself any advice, any bit of advice from six months ago, it should have been stop listening to their guy and seek the people that are doing better. So, what I mean by that is, you know, if you want to be a millionaire, you don't hang out with people that are not millionaires. If you want to be whoever it is you want to be, you want to surround yourself with those people. Because obviously, people that are where they want to be or are growing, they're gonna help you get there as well because you're gonna see the things they're doing, you're gonna start doing the things that they do.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

I think it's one of the reasons why I love hanging out with Clay so much. You know, I mean, not all not everyone actually gets to be blessed with a big brother, but like the people you surround yourself with are the people you want to be like. It just feels good to be around the right kind of people, you know?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

It does. I mean, I've got people that I can call on now. I can call Billy Harper and I talk to him all the time. I I can call people like Emilio. I've got these guys' personal phone numbers, and we talk on a regular basis, and I love them for it. I love that I can call on asshole's guys for advice. I love that I can hop on here and hop on a chat or something and and message somebody, hey, I'm having issues with this. How would y'all go about handling it? You know, as well as I had an issue with a client and a message they had sent me and didn't know how to handle it. I took it very personal because I do, but y'all gave me some solid advice to help me handle that. I'll be honest, I just don't want to be broke. I've been broke for a long time. I don't like living paycheck to paycheck. You get a paycheck and all of a sudden it's gone. So we can't do nothing this week, kids. Sorry, we gotta wait today, gets paid again, and then it's just a repeat cycle.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

I guess then with that being said, specifically, because I've seen your journey almost fold out like a road, would you say your biggest breakthrough was financially or personally?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Probably personally. Confidence in being able to go out and know that I'm worth charging what I charge. Because I tell every, I tell every client, I said, we are not the cheapest electrician on the block. If you're looking for cheap, you can find cheap, but I'm not him. But I'm one of the best. I stand behind my work. So and I tell everybody that. And if we're not that electrician for you, I'm perfectly okay with that. I tell my, I tell I even tell my guys, I said, we don't need every job. We just need the ones that count. I'd rather much work three days a week and make the same amount of money that would have had to work 80 hours a week and be okay. The way I look at it, I'd rather work less and make more than work more and make less.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

For what it's worth, we're in the stands cheering for you. I'm really proud of you, man. I truly am.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Yeah, I don't think enough people realize that that's a business model too. And you get to choose it. And it's 1,000% ethical, in my personal opinion. Uh, we just had Joshua on the show as well. He was telling his story. First guy we've had in Australia really uh break through with this, maybe one of the first to really do it with us in the app, like you did, Brandon, around the same times. Uh big 70k month as well. And he said, you know what? Like, I've got more time with my six kids and wife than I had before. And there's money in the bank. And so when we asked, like, how big you want to get, he's like, Man, I'm trying to decide if I actually want to change this at all. Why change it? Right? Does he charge more than the average in the market? Absolutely. Three more. Does he provide more value than the extra or uh average electrician? Absolutely. Three to five times more in his options. There's always an option to take him at a higher level, and people aren't even flinching because that's service trust that he's building up, just like you are, uh Brandon. And so I couldn't blame you if you just wanted to sit in the pocket for a bit, as we call it. Just sit in the pocket and enjoy and stabilize and whatever, man. But if you want to get to three to five million, uh, like you mentioned, I have no doubt that you'll be able to do that in the next three to five years as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Awesome, man. It's going to happen. He's doing it. That's it. He just set the anchor, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

I love it. God willing, you're getting there, man.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

All right, guys, we're gonna wrap this one up. It's about 50 minutes. So thank you for taking time out of your day, Brent. Is there anything else you want to share with the followers, people listening, people that may have been in your shoes months ago?

SPEAKER_00 38:59

I do. Go online, look at SLE, watch the podcast, listen, pay attention because it does work. I promise everybody I went from $63 an hour making nothing to now being able to have a team of at least four guys and working every week. Not bullshit. It works.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Thanks so much. I'm gonna be awkward and say the opposite. It doesn't work. Go home, stop listening now. Don't come, do not join the app. Do not do what Brandon and all the other client interviews are saying. Uh that was uh uh thank you for that vote of confidence, Brandon. It's very kind of you. Uh we never ask guys to say it, they just do uh it works if you work the play, right, Joe?

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I love that. It's sometimes you have to put you have to put faith into your first step. And once that first step comes, the other foot follows.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

Love it. Uh join us on YouTube, guys. If you're listening to this on one of the podcast channels, YouTube's got some super extra benefits like uh new show, more to give from Joseph Lucani, the sales bot, doing options, new tech, all the best ways to actually position yourself as the authority in your marketplace. And niching is the best, the safest, the most peace of mind provider out there. And then also we're doing uh RTFM. I've got on Fridays, read the fucking manual, which is an ode to my first year teacher, where we're literally rewriting a simpler way to jump into business. Not a 15-hour crash course, Brandon, but a 15-minute session we can do every week together to get you clear, have an aha moment and get you actionable out there to go and make a change in your business this week. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you on the next one on the Million Dollar Electric Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Thank you for having me, Greece. Take care.