Building a Skilled Trade Business in Today's Market with Brian Hamilton
Host Andrew Brown sits down with serial entrepreneur and LiveSwitch founder Brian Hamilton to unpack what it really takes to succeed when starting a trades business. Brian shares real stories—from mentoring an ex-inmate contractor to lessons learned from running multi-million dollar tech and service companies. This episode is packed with contractor business advice, deep reflections on skilled trades entrepreneurship, and no-nonsense talk about pricing for tradespeople and providing exceptional trade business customer service. Whether you're a plumber, electrician, carpenter, or HVAC tech, this one’s for you.
In This Episode:
(00:03:30) – Brian Hamilton’s background and why the trades are the backbone of the economy
(00:10:20) – The leap from skilled worker to business owner
(00:18:45) – What new contractors get wrong about pricing and customers
(00:30:00) – Real-world examples of success—and failure—when starting a trades business
(00:42:15) – Why mentorship and education are key to skilled trades entrepreneurship
(00:54:10) – How LiveSwitch helps contractors improve trade business customer service
Key Takeaways:
The trades are a mission, not just a job. Passion for craftsmanship and problem-solving is what separates great tradespeople from good ones.
You need more than skills—you need systems. Running a business takes financial literacy, contractor business advice, and self-discipline.
Customer service is your brand. Showing up on time and doing what you say you will do is the heart of effective trade business customer service.
Start small, price smart. When starting a trades business, don't be afraid to take smaller jobs with the right margin—master pricing for tradespeople early.
About the Guest:
Brian Hamilton is the founder of LiveSwitch and Inmates to Entrepreneurs, with a decades-long career spanning tech startups and skilled trades entrepreneurship. A passionate advocate for contractors, tradespeople, and second chances, Brian helps aspiring entrepreneurs turn grit into growth using actionable, real-world insights. His mission? Empower people through small business ownership, especially in the trades industry.
Keywords :
starting a trades business, skilled trades entrepreneurship, contractor business advice, pricing for tradespeople, trade business customer service, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Andrew Brown, Brian Hamilton, LiveSwitch, Toolfetch, Carpentry, HVAC, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, Construction, Craftsmanship, Problem-solving, Creativity, Tradespeople, Advocacy, Trades Careers, Industry Experts, Contractors, Education, Skilled Trades Advisory Council
Resources :
Transcript
Nice guy, comes out of prison, he's got tattoos all over. Big, barrel
Speaker:chested guy, contractor. He wants to do his first painting
Speaker:job. And I said, oh, I can help you with that. I used to do
Speaker:painting. And I said, go get your first customer. Give him a 30%
Speaker:discount. I think it was a $5,000 job. He probably could have
Speaker:made 8,000 in the free market.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening to the Lost star of the Skilled Trades
Speaker:podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on
Speaker:careers in the skilled trades that are high paying, honorable,
Speaker:rewarding and fulfilling. The trades are the backbone of the
Speaker:economy that keep us running. And without them, our world
Speaker:would cease to exist.
Speaker:Today we have a special guest, Brian Howilton of Live
Speaker:Stuff, which. Welcome, Brian, to the show. Great to be here,
Speaker:Andrew. Great to be here, Brian. One of the biggest
Speaker:leaps for trades people is to start their own
Speaker:trades business. And a lot of them start off
Speaker:in the field as they're good at what they do. The, the plumber,
Speaker:H vac, welding, whatever it may be. I find,
Speaker:you know, especially speaking to a lot of tradespeople is making that leap
Speaker:to being a small business owner. You're not
Speaker:dealing, you know, when you're obviously out in the field and you don't have your
Speaker:own business, you're not really dealing with customers face to face. You're not dealing with
Speaker:employees, you're not dealing with taxes, whatever it may be.
Speaker:And it's a whole different skill set. How does someone
Speaker:make that leap or make that transition for someone who's in the field to
Speaker:having that skill set and running own business? Yeah,
Speaker:well, you have to dive into the pool. It's hard. I do have good news
Speaker:to share today. A lot of my uncles, all my uncles were
Speaker:tradespeople, carpenters, electricians or whatever. And if you can figure
Speaker:that stuff out, you can run your own business. Anything with electrical,
Speaker:I screw up, I guess you just have to do it. I do want to
Speaker:say this, and, you know, we can go over my background if you want to,
Speaker:it's up to you. But here's the good news about the whole
Speaker:thing. We've got podcasts, we've got audio books,
Speaker:we've got biographies of entrepreneurs. We have a lot
Speaker:more access to knowledge on how to run a business than we had 30 or
Speaker:40 years ago when I was starting out. So that's the good news. But it's
Speaker:a big leap from like nailing the board
Speaker:to managing. Nailing the board or nailing the board
Speaker:while you're Starting your company, which is even harder. And I'd like to talk
Speaker:about it a little bit. Andrew, I'm going too far with your question, but I
Speaker:always say, man, it's like I'd rather have a one person business
Speaker:or a larger business, but nothing in between. Like if you're
Speaker:going to be the individual carpenter or electrician, you know, I can help you get
Speaker:your QuickBooks set up. I can, you know, get some. You don't need much HR
Speaker:help because you know, you're managing your own company. We can get you in compliance,
Speaker:but you got to figure out what you want to be. Do you want to
Speaker:be the person doing the work as a sole proprietor owner and it's just
Speaker:you, or do you want to build a large company? Anywhere in between those
Speaker:points is what I call no man's land and very
Speaker:difficult to do. To answer the question, you dive into the pool.
Speaker:I've done it three or four times. You go in and you understand that you're
Speaker:not going to know everything, but you're getting knowledge. You're listening to
Speaker:audiobooks, you're listening to this podcast, which is
Speaker:desperately needed. But to get these tools to run. The company, the
Speaker:entrepreneurial journey, it's so difficult. I mean, I remember I started
Speaker:my business almost about 24 years ago
Speaker:in industrial distribution. And I remember
Speaker:six months into it, I'm like, what am I doing? Like, I had no reference
Speaker:point at that point. I just knew and my brother knew that we
Speaker:started this business. And it was, for me, it was based off a passion
Speaker:for me. And my backstory is that I found
Speaker:myself on ground zero on 9 11, helping first responders,
Speaker:EMS and firefighters and tradespeople find survivors on ground
Speaker:zero a few days after the incident. So for me, it was a mission
Speaker:to switch over to supporting people in the trades, providing them
Speaker:tools and equipment. And that was like my drive. But the thing is,
Speaker:I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I really didn't.
Speaker:And no one gave me like a blueprint. My brother and I had to figure
Speaker:it out myself. We didn't make any money the first year and it was like,
Speaker:now we're bootstrapping this thing, we're not making any money. I left a full time
Speaker:job job in it. My brother left a job in
Speaker:real estate. And now we're just on this journey and we were
Speaker:working remotely before anybody was working remotely.
Speaker:You know, fast forward to after Covid and it's been a journey,
Speaker:man. We stuck with it and it worked out, but not easy. I
Speaker:tell you going back to the trades in particular. You're right. It is the backbone
Speaker:of our country. One of the things, we can talk about it later if you
Speaker:want to. It's like these PE and Wall street guys, man, they get everywhere. It's
Speaker:crazy. I you try to keep them out there, they're like the whack a mole
Speaker:thing. You whack down the thing and it pops up somewhere else. Now they're rolling
Speaker:up H Vac companies and electrical companies. I'm like, oh, that's great.
Speaker:Just what we need in a small town to have one H Vac guy to
Speaker:call. We could talk about that a little bit. But it's an important
Speaker:backdrop. You know, about 100 years ago and I'm off,
Speaker:but not by much. About 50% of the people in this
Speaker:country own their own business. Non farm. That was about 100 years
Speaker:ago. 50, 40 years ago, that dropped down to like 20,
Speaker:24%, something like that. Do you know it's only 9% of people
Speaker:who run their own businesses now? 9. That's very
Speaker:dangerous for the country. Why has that happened?
Speaker:Incredible downward pressure. You got the big box retailers,
Speaker:the Office Depots and the coming in there now you got the
Speaker:private equity guys rolling up these trade businesses. What that
Speaker:does is reduces competition. So it's very dangerous
Speaker:for our country. We want more people being entrepreneurs. And
Speaker:what I would say if you're out starting a business, you are going to get
Speaker:punched in the face. It's going to happen. I'm telling you. Just
Speaker:view yourself as a big cylinder pipe and it's all
Speaker:dark and you're crawling along that pipe every day, one
Speaker:inch at a time. Going forward, you're learning. Oops, don't go over there. Go this,
Speaker:this way. Every entrepreneur on the planet
Speaker:experiences that. Now I've run contract businesses, as you might know from
Speaker:my background. I've run a larger tech company but just expect
Speaker:that you're going to get bumped and bruised. However, you know
Speaker:guys, we get a lot of testosterone and we want to be the
Speaker:strong guys and we know everything. That's exactly
Speaker:the wrong attitude to have. When you start a business, you want to be out
Speaker:gathering information. You don't want to be Clint Eastwood, right?
Speaker:We want to be getting information from people. So we learn. Now
Speaker:you know this. There's a big difference between swinging that hammer and then running
Speaker:that business. So I think it's easier to learn how to run a business than
Speaker:swing the hammer. So that's the good news. You gotta be getting that information.
Speaker:And my Big message for entrepreneurs, by the way. I started a
Speaker:landscaping business and same thing, Southern Connecticut, first
Speaker:year, no profit. But you learn more and more and more and
Speaker:more. And then all of a sudden, Andrew, you get to this tipping point and
Speaker:it's like, oh, my goodness, things are going so much better. I
Speaker:love entrepreneurs. I love them. I am not jealous of
Speaker:anybody. Elon Musk, I don't care how much he's worth. I'm not
Speaker:sure why he's going to Mars, but that's his business. I don't have
Speaker:any animosity or competitiveness with entrepreneurs.
Speaker:Why it's so freaking hard to do.
Speaker:So, you know, the kudos for what you're doing here. Let's get these people
Speaker:the information. Let's make sure these people are open to getting the information.
Speaker:I have learned as I get older, I lose
Speaker:confidence. It's crazy. When I was younger, I was confident, you know, I was like,
Speaker:I thought I knew everything. There's an inverse relationship between
Speaker:my age and my confidence. I realized how much I don't
Speaker:know. But the blessing of that, Andrew, is I can go to other
Speaker:people and get information. And as you know, entrepreneurs
Speaker:help one another. It's a brotherhood or a sisterhood. It's hard. So. Well,
Speaker:it's interesting. I'm going to come back to that for a second about getting help,
Speaker:which I worked that out later on in my career. But going back
Speaker:to the private equity, and then they're taking the H Vac companies,
Speaker:the plumbing companies. There was a Wall Street Journal article on that.
Speaker:They're taking smaller companies. And it's for some
Speaker:individuals who have H Vac companies just, you know, maybe they're a little bit older
Speaker:at almost retirement age and they want to get out. And these companies are
Speaker:purchasing them, whether good or bad. The issue is also is
Speaker:that a lot of these companies, and I'm picturing my H Vac company,
Speaker:they're having trouble trying to find people or good
Speaker:people to come work. What's going to happen if you can't find
Speaker:people? Where we're going to find people who are just not as good. So you're
Speaker:not going to get the same quality. It is super hard
Speaker:to find somebody. I love when people come here at my
Speaker:house and I love speaking to them. I love speaking to them whether they're
Speaker:union or non union. What has been their makeup? Why did they get into the
Speaker:trades? A lot of them get into the trades because somebody was in the trades
Speaker:prior. It was their father. It was an uncle of some sorts. That's
Speaker:in their blood and they love working with their hands and they're so
Speaker:passionate about it. But I want to swing back to what you were talking about,
Speaker:about getting help. My business hit a ceiling a few years ago. It
Speaker:just. We couldn't break through the ceiling. And I remember being out with a friend
Speaker:and this guy, he sold this company for a lot of money. He just, he
Speaker:knew the things that had to get done. Obviously different industry. But I said, we're
Speaker:hitting the ceiling. He's like, join Vistage. I'm like, what is a Vistage?
Speaker:It's a group of CEOs where you meet once a month. They have a
Speaker:speaker and you talk about your business. And at that point,
Speaker:to be honest with you, I wasn't asking for help. I don't want to say
Speaker:I was embarrassed, but it was more of that ego thing. I can figure this
Speaker:out. It's like asking for directions. It's like, I'm not going to ask for
Speaker:directions. And until I joined and when I joined that
Speaker:group, I was like, oh my God. They say it's lonely at the top, which
Speaker:it is. And you talk about people not having businesses
Speaker:or not as much. In my area, nobody has their own business. This
Speaker:is no one to talk to. And when I joined this group and I
Speaker:got really like down and dirty, I like, I just was like, you can
Speaker:beat me up, I don't care. I want to get better. And I've been beat
Speaker:up. It's made me a better person, a better CEO. I looked at
Speaker:my blind sides that I didn't even know that we were even there. Picked up
Speaker:a lot of different books and I picked up a few different mentors and wow,
Speaker:it's helped tremendously. And you don't feel alone again
Speaker:as men. It's so true. We're so like, you know,
Speaker:big egos and pride. And I remember come out
Speaker:of 1986, I'm in a Volvo station wagon.
Speaker:I was multi purposing it. As for my first landscaping business, I'm in
Speaker:Westport, Connecticut. I'm on the side of the road on Route 1. Some of you
Speaker:guys, you know, know that area. And I pulled off to the side of the
Speaker:road and this is my first sort of professional business. I've been an entrepreneur my
Speaker:whole life. But I'm sitting there, man, I'm like, hey, I'm not
Speaker:a member of the basketball team. I'm not a member of the football team. I'm
Speaker:not part of the Key Club or whatever in high school. I'm. I'm
Speaker:on my own. I was 22, I'm
Speaker:telling you, I can remember the cumulus clouds that day, Andrew in the
Speaker:sky, and I'm in this Volvo station wagon. I'm like,
Speaker:holy crap, I'm on my own. And
Speaker:that feeling of isolation keeps a lot of people from being an
Speaker:entrepreneur and seeking help. But here's what you find through
Speaker:Vistage, through this podcast. When you get around other
Speaker:people, you're like, oh my goodness, the problems I'm
Speaker:having, everyone else has. And you don't feel as
Speaker:alone or as dumb, you know, but if you're off
Speaker:on your own and you're just struggling all the time, if you can't get to
Speaker:that level. So when you get around other people, you're going to learn that your
Speaker:problems are not your own. One other story, same year
Speaker:I worked at a bank. When I got outta college, they would have fired me
Speaker:for sure, man. I was there like nine months and I quit before
Speaker:they fired me. So I start this landscaping business and I'm working my
Speaker:ass off. I mean, I'm working 10, 12 hours a day doing the
Speaker:work. And I mean like raking leaves, you know, it was the days
Speaker:before leaf blowers, you know. Anyway, I was working at this
Speaker:guy's house in Orange, Connecticut, and he had an H VAC
Speaker:company and we became buddies, you know, I was painting his house or something
Speaker:like that. His wife was lovely. And it was late at night, it was six,
Speaker:seven o'clock at night, it's getting dusk and dark. He goes, hey,
Speaker:how are you doing? I mean, how's the business going? I'm like, man, I gotta
Speaker:be honest with you, I am sucking a win. I'm not making money, I'm not
Speaker:this. And he goes, do you know any other entrepreneurs? Are you
Speaker:reading about entrepreneurship? Are you networking with other
Speaker:people who have a common problem? And I was like, no, I don't. You know,
Speaker:and he goes, you gotta join a group or, you know, you gotta
Speaker:read, you gotta. And that next year, of course, I made way
Speaker:more money and it was a lot more fun. So yes, you gotta get around
Speaker:people. You deplete that whole I'm on my own thing.
Speaker:And you get that domain knowledge you need to be successful. It's
Speaker:lonely being in your own business. I'm older than you, so I
Speaker:can say it. I don't have the fears that I used to have 30 years
Speaker:ago. It's lonely. You feel isolated.
Speaker:I'm stupid. I hired the wrong person. I didn't handle that
Speaker:customer the right way. Yes, welcome to the club, but getting around
Speaker:other people. I agree. And it just puts a different spin on things. You know,
Speaker:when you're an entrepreneur and like you're in your business, it's almost like, I don't
Speaker:wanna say you have your head in the sand, but in order to scale, you
Speaker:need to delegate. You can't do everything. You can't be the person
Speaker:doing sales, marketing, accounting, maybe in the first hand
Speaker:for a year or so, because you can't. You don't have the, the money to
Speaker:pay for people. But at some point you have to delegate
Speaker:without delegating. You have to delegate and elevate. And there are
Speaker:certain things that you love to do that give you energy and there's certain things
Speaker:that just take everything out of you. And I, I know that. And I put
Speaker:these things in like a quadrant. And we use something called
Speaker:eos, Entrepreneurial Operating System. And it's how we run
Speaker:our business. It's like e myth. There's a lot of them out there. And it
Speaker:taught us how to run the business. It taught us
Speaker:how to create a leadership team. It taught us how
Speaker:to look at one year, three year and 10 year
Speaker:goals and break them down into 90 day, what we call rocks.
Speaker:So for the next 90 days, this is what I'm going to get done. So
Speaker:I know I'm on track for my one year. That changed everything. Not only
Speaker:from that perspective and being a visionary, but from
Speaker:communication. We have great meetings and they're called L10
Speaker:meetings. And basically every meeting we rated at the end, we're at
Speaker:nine, five to ten. In a leadership meeting. We have
Speaker:quarterly meetings, annual meetings. And that's what you need to do.
Speaker:You need to strategize. You need to get out of the business and start working
Speaker:on the business. Not everybody does that. You got a trade
Speaker:business, make sure you get a good accountant. We want our
Speaker:accountants old and grumpy like me. We want
Speaker:old, grumpy accountants. They've seen a lot of pitches. They're going to make sure you
Speaker:do one thing. You got to pay your payroll taxes. I cannot
Speaker:tell you how many businesses get messed up because of payroll taxes. Oh
Speaker:my goodness. I can pay this guy as a subcontractor. No, you can't.
Speaker:Have you looked at the regulation? So get an accountant. And the second one,
Speaker:this is just like my little advertisement because I don't know how granular we're going
Speaker:to get right is price your product the right
Speaker:way. The reason that the plumber is charging 150
Speaker:bucks to come out and check one toilet is because the experienced
Speaker:plumbers know you're not always doing that right. You got
Speaker:to spend the gas money to get out there and to get back.
Speaker:And I can't tell you how many people in the trades. Andrew. Don't
Speaker:price their product the right way and they're working for free. So
Speaker:that's my little advertisement. Get it? An old. We want them
Speaker:old and make them grumpy. Grumpy. You
Speaker:know, the glasses and the mustache and. And they're telling you
Speaker:the things you're not doing right. We want an old, grumpy accountant. And boy,
Speaker:you better make sure you know how to price your product. You know, you got
Speaker:to cover your direct labor dollars. 30%, 30% for
Speaker:your overhead and 30% for your profit. And I'm wrong a little
Speaker:bit, but not by much. I can't tell you how often people mess
Speaker:up their taxes. Here's some rules. People
Speaker:shouldn't fight with businesses, and businesses shouldn't fight
Speaker:with the government. Right. So rule number one is if you're an
Speaker:individual, don't fight with the government. Make sure you pay your
Speaker:taxes. Don't get behind with the irs. My goodness.
Speaker:And again, the old grumpy accountant. In pricing your product the right way. So
Speaker:that's my. I gotta get that in there. Yeah. It's about having
Speaker:the right people around you. And I've heard plenty of stories, even my own
Speaker:stories, of having the wrong accountant who you thought
Speaker:you can lean on or trust. They didn't understand your business or
Speaker:they gave you wrong advice and you didn't know about the
Speaker:wrong advice that you were given till later on. Yeah, that's why we want
Speaker:them older. I'm goofing around a little bit because they've seen a lot of
Speaker:pitches that you haven't seen, and you want to. Get around experience
Speaker:as well and someone who's got a good track record. I think it's having
Speaker:the right people sort of beside you when it comes to
Speaker:people in the trades. One thing, obviously, pricing
Speaker:is one piece of the puzzle, but also taking care of your
Speaker:customers. What I find, and it's interesting enough because in the world of the
Speaker:trades, and when I speak to contractors, and a lot of times
Speaker:people hear it's a smaller contracting company, they
Speaker:only have a handful of guys, but the one person is the salesperson. They're
Speaker:the marketing, their customer service. And I find that some of
Speaker:them don't even call back or there's no
Speaker:communication. What have you found and what have you
Speaker:developed with liveswitch? Your company to make
Speaker:communication better. I want to have some fidelity on
Speaker:this, Andrew. I'm going to do a little advertisement on our company.
Speaker:I'm very passionate about our product because we've developed
Speaker:video communication tools that allow you to instantly
Speaker:contact through video prospects and customers. It
Speaker:reduces your travel time. You can do more estimates the company's
Speaker:lives which that's where I'm from. I'm being shamelessly self promotional
Speaker:here. But I will tell you, if you look at my background and everything I've
Speaker:done, I am very passionate about helping the small
Speaker:guy to become successful. And if you're not using
Speaker:technology, man, forget it. You're going to be left behind.
Speaker:You got to use technology to save you money or make you money.
Speaker:That's what we're doing at Liveswitch. It fits into a much bigger
Speaker:picture for me. I sold a pretty big tech company in
Speaker:2018, Sageworks, you may know the name. I sold that
Speaker:company. I got back in here because I want to help those small businesses.
Speaker:I know we got some old school people like me listening, but
Speaker:leveraging good technology to save you time or make
Speaker:additional money also maybe give you some leisure time.
Speaker:Absolutely critical to any small business today. That too is staying
Speaker:in touch with your customers. And especially if you're on a job. But you
Speaker:need to visit a customer's house or location, whatever, residential or
Speaker:commercial, if you're doing it video wise, where someone is
Speaker:giving you exactly what they need done and you don't need to necessarily
Speaker:go there. That saves so much time because you're driving 20 minutes
Speaker:here, 20 minutes there. You got to spend time with the customer where you can
Speaker:get the video right then and there. And a
Speaker:lot of times some people don't want anybody coming over their house. So there is
Speaker:a benefit there. The ROI for our product specifically is just
Speaker:enormous. I mean because simple example, I'm the landscaper, you're the
Speaker:landscapee, you want your lawn cut right now you might want me coming
Speaker:over to your place, but let's be honest, even though as contractors we think
Speaker:people love us and they want to see us, the truth is they might not
Speaker:want to. So I'm the landscaper with our products at
Speaker:Liveswitch. I'll text you, link you click on it, you show me the work
Speaker:that you want done. We work across Android and the
Speaker:iOS, the Apple stuff, so we're ubiquitous there.
Speaker:We store those records in a library for you. So you always got
Speaker:before and after. Sometimes the customers don't have great memory
Speaker:of the work. That's done. So you always got a CYA
Speaker:thing there where you can document your work. It's enabling
Speaker:the small companies through technology to compete with the larger companies. And
Speaker:that's. That's what we're all about. You know, I'm just switching back
Speaker:to entrepreneurship. We're both passionate about it. I almost
Speaker:feel like to some degree, you're born with it. There's something about
Speaker:an individual that has. Is okay to put
Speaker:themselves out there and maybe fail. I've just been at the point where it's like,
Speaker:I want to quit, but I did not quit because there's a little voice in
Speaker:me. I don't know what it is. It's almost like this little, like fire.
Speaker:Welcome to the misfit club. I mean, I think the truth is
Speaker:underneath the surface, Andrew. The great entrepreneurs, the good entrepreneurs, we're
Speaker:misfits. I'm older than you, so in my day, man, if you
Speaker:wanted to go get out of college, Andrew, and go work for yourself,
Speaker:people say, hey, why you can't get a job? You know, what's up with you?
Speaker:Things have changed. There's more acceptance of entrepreneurship now of doing
Speaker:it. The truth is, man, I remember being at the bank and I could
Speaker:barely talk. I felt constrained. I felt
Speaker:tight, like, you know, you're a good speaker, right? Like, maybe you were always that
Speaker:way. I don't know. I wasn't. You know how when you get tight a little
Speaker:bit, you're a little tight, you're a little nervous. I didn't do well in
Speaker:the corporate environment. And so, you know, I
Speaker:guess I could have done it, but just accept that you're a
Speaker:misfit a little bit, right? You don't exactly fit into
Speaker:the standard play call that maybe a lot of your neighbors are fitting
Speaker:into. And guess what? That's okay. In fact, the country
Speaker:was built by you, so don't be embarrassed about it. But I
Speaker:find the entrepreneurs little quirky, a little
Speaker:off. They often have great desire. I had an incredible
Speaker:desire. I wanted to do this, but they're a little off, you know what I
Speaker:mean? And my goodness, that's what makes our country great. We got kicked
Speaker:out of every decent country in the world. That's why we're all here, right? Just
Speaker:embrace that. You know what I mean? That's been part of my journey. When I
Speaker:went to business school, I didn't feel like I gelled. You know, I felt I
Speaker:didn't belong there or something. But being in my own business,
Speaker:wow. One thing on customers, by the way, my
Speaker:uncles and all World War II guys with the Camel cigarettes,
Speaker:no filter. They were all contractors. I. I've been around it. I
Speaker:had a landscaping business. It all starts with the customer,
Speaker:with your heart. You got to get your heart rate. I might not be speaking
Speaker:to you, Andrew. I don't know who I'm speaking to at this point, but when
Speaker:you have a blue collar background, like I definitely had, you
Speaker:know, maybe you got a little resentment just a tiny bit right. Of the customer.
Speaker:Just a little bit. I remember being in, I think it was Greenwich,
Speaker:Connecticut. Unbelievable. I was 25, and I go out to the
Speaker:front yard of this customer's lawn. She's got about a three
Speaker:foot wide maple tree. You know, three feet's a lot, right? And she goes, hey,
Speaker:Brian, can you move that maple tree from there? Move it 20ft over to the
Speaker:right. And I'm like, what the heck are you talking about? Like,
Speaker:the maple tree's roots are as wide as the branches are, right?
Speaker:I mean, you can't just move it around like a piece of furniture. My point
Speaker:is, talking to the contractors out there doing their own work,
Speaker:sometimes you get a little resentment. Like, hey, this person's never
Speaker:picked up a shovel in their life and they're kind of cussing me out or
Speaker:whatever. Yes, welcome to the club. Check
Speaker:your heart and still embrace them as human beings.
Speaker:You really gotta love your customers in here, not just
Speaker:taking surveys. You gotta be grateful for the money
Speaker:they're giving you. And luckily, because of my background, I was always
Speaker:very grateful. I mean, some of them, you know, they kind of piss you off
Speaker:a little bit. But do you understand what I mean? It starts in your heart.
Speaker:We become very metric in this world about surveys and this and that
Speaker:and whatever. But if you're a contractor and you don't
Speaker:really care about your customers and like them,
Speaker:you're probably in the wrong business. Do you see what I mean? I've built large
Speaker:companies and small ones, but my training with my
Speaker:employees, Andrew, is always around, check your heart.
Speaker:How do you feel about that person? Do you have empathy for that person?
Speaker:And that's the essence of good customer. You can use Life Switch
Speaker:technology all you want, and I hope you all do. That's wonderful, right?
Speaker:I got plenty of money. It'd be great to have you as a
Speaker:customer. I don't care about that. What I want to do is I want to
Speaker:help businesses grow. And the way you grow is
Speaker:checking your heart with regard to your customers and really
Speaker:empathizing with them. And that's hard to do, especially
Speaker:when it's 90 degrees and you're on the roof
Speaker:and, you know, you don't have water, and you've been up there for eight hours,
Speaker:and you got some customer, you know, on the ground there, sitting, criticizing
Speaker:because you got a couple of roofing tiles that went on their lawn.
Speaker:It's a heart game. So I was out to dinner over the weekend with
Speaker:my son, who's 11, and I have a perfect story for you
Speaker:when it comes to customer service. And this was like. Like a life lesson for
Speaker:my son. We were out for dinner. It's a place that my wife
Speaker:loves, and she always likes this particular appetizer at this Italian
Speaker:restaurant. This will make sense. I ordered it, but I ordered the wrong
Speaker:thing. I looked at it, but I had already ordered it. I said to my
Speaker:son, I'm like, and I screwed up. Mom's not going to be happy. He's like,
Speaker:yeah, Mom's not going to be happy. I said, here's what I'm going to do.
Speaker:I'm going to tell the waiter that I ordered incorrectly. Let's
Speaker:see what happens. So the waiter came over, and I said, look, I
Speaker:completely screwed up. My wife's going to kill me. What did he do? Did
Speaker:he tell me, if you order the appetizer, it's X amount of
Speaker:dollars, or did he take care of it? First thing he said, he's, oh, I
Speaker:completely understand. Here's what I do. I'm going to go in the back, going to
Speaker:get you the other appetizer. But guess what? I'm not going to charge you on
Speaker:top of that. You can keep the appetizer because there's nothing we can do with
Speaker:the other one that you ordered. So he goes in the back, and then I'm
Speaker:talking to my son. I'm. Let's see what happened. Let's see if the owner comes
Speaker:over. And I'm watching this in real time, and all of a sudden, the guy
Speaker:comes out and he gives me. The waiter gives me the food, and I say,
Speaker:that's really nice of you. And then all of a sudden, the owner comes over
Speaker:and he says. He goes, my son, do you like chocolate? And
Speaker:he's like, yeah, I like chocolate. Well, we just made dessert. And he goes
Speaker:back to the kitchen. Now he brings free dessert. I'm talking
Speaker:to my son. How are they making you feel? He's like, wow, they're really going
Speaker:above and beyond here. I'm like, you're right. This is what's happening. And
Speaker:this is a good lesson for business. I Said to the. The owner, I said,
Speaker:look, you run a really tight shop here. Each and every one of your employees,
Speaker:even though that I screwed up, now, I would tell 10 other people
Speaker:about my experience. Now let's talk about what happened the next day with one of
Speaker:my vendors. They screwed up one of our orders for our customers for a
Speaker:heater. That heater was supposed to go out to the West Coast. The customers
Speaker:called the vendor instead of admitting they were yelling at
Speaker:me. And they were like, you're giving us a hard time. I'm like, the customer
Speaker:just needs their heater. And I'm thinking to myself, I just had the opposite
Speaker:experience. I'm like, God, man, don't do it because you
Speaker:want a Google review. Who cares what the guys at Google say? Who cares what
Speaker:those guys think? Don't worry about a Yelp review. Do it from your
Speaker:heart, man, because people are going to be able to detect that the
Speaker:hardest thing about running a business is self discipline. You know what I
Speaker:mean? Like, really checking the way you think about people.
Speaker:And I've had to do that because life has, you know, not always been super
Speaker:easy. And me running a business, and I know there's a lot of pressure. Your
Speaker:profit margins are, in the example of your vendor, the profit margins are low. That
Speaker:other thing, when you do something, don't worry about a Google review or
Speaker:don't worry about a Yelp review, do it because you care about that person because
Speaker:that will come through. Like your restaurant example. Oh, hey,
Speaker:one other thing. I gotta throw this in. I forgot where I was. Can I
Speaker:ask all you guys something very simple? Can you please show up
Speaker:on time when you're gonna give an estimate? Literally. Get the
Speaker:grumpy accountant. Price your product the right way, and when you say you're gonna
Speaker:do something, do it like. And when you say you're gonna be there at 3:00,
Speaker:be there at 3:00. I can't tell you. And by the way,
Speaker:I've been in the trades. I can prove it. I can't tell you how often
Speaker:I'm calling contractors and they don't show up, or they're sloppy.
Speaker:And little things like that make a big difference. It
Speaker:rubs somebody the wrong way. The problem is you run out and you
Speaker:tell five, ten other people when somebody's saying, you know, I've been
Speaker:looking for somebody who's good, an electrician. Can you recommend anybody? And
Speaker:I say, you know what? Don't go to John, because John really
Speaker:screwed us over. And you don't realize those Conversations are happening behind
Speaker:the scenes and your company is being bashed. I
Speaker:understand you can't take of everybody. But let me ask you something. Let's
Speaker:say you didn't care about people at all. You seem. You're not that kind of
Speaker:guy, but let's just say you didn't. Let's say you were just a
Speaker:greedy, grubby guy trying to make money.
Speaker:You would still do this. In other words, show up on time,
Speaker:have regard for your customers, don't argue with them. You know,
Speaker:do what you say you're going to do, and the word will just
Speaker:spread. I tell you, we could take any trade in the United States
Speaker:of America, including blacksmiths, if they still have those
Speaker:guys. And we could build any business by
Speaker:showing up on time and caring about our customers and doing what we say we're
Speaker:going to do and doing it with goodwill. It's the basics,
Speaker:you know. It is the basics I found too, especially
Speaker:with contractors. They say they're going to get me the quote. Where's the quote? It's
Speaker:been five days. You told me you're going to get it to be five days
Speaker:ago. That says something, right? Because even if I accept it,
Speaker:what's going to happen when the job starts? Are they going to show up on
Speaker:time? You don't realize it's. Even if you bring it back to the trades for
Speaker:a second, and especially when young kids want to be
Speaker:plumbers, electricians, employers, the number one thing
Speaker:is will they show up on time? You don't you think that's just an intuitive
Speaker:thing, like you should show a lot of people don't show up on time. And
Speaker:that is like your first impression of somebody. I've had
Speaker:that so many times in my business where we hire somebody and they're two
Speaker:hours late the first day. I mean, look, if there's something really happened,
Speaker:something happened. But a lot of times if it starts off like that, it's
Speaker:not going to work out too well. You know, I grew up playing football. Football
Speaker:was my trade from 8 to 18. It's what I
Speaker:thought I would do with my career, to be honest. And I got hurt my
Speaker:senior year. But it's. This is old school football. We ran a lot more than
Speaker:you guys. They do this passing stuff. It's always about offense. What
Speaker:can we do? We're going to do a down and out. We're going to do
Speaker:a fly pattern. We're going to do this. The number one rule as a quarterback
Speaker:is don't throw it to the other guy. So just don't throw it to the
Speaker:other guy. Don't throw an interception. And what people need to understand
Speaker:in running a company, Andrew, is it's not just about the proactive things
Speaker:you're doing. Well, it's about the things you shouldn't do.
Speaker:You shouldn't show up late, right? You shouldn't tell people you're going to do
Speaker:X and then you do Y. And I'm telling you, in this country, if you
Speaker:do that, you're going to be super successful. So it's internal discipline.
Speaker:But it's not about, you know, oh, we got all these great
Speaker:strategies or whatever. I always look at, at the ground game, man,
Speaker:I want to get five and six yards to carry, right? If I get
Speaker:five or six yards of carry, I keep the ball and the, the other guy
Speaker:never gets the ball. Part of that is showing up on time,
Speaker:doing what you say you're gonna do, being responsive to the customer. Like you said
Speaker:it. Long story, but I've done a lot of real estate stuff. I dealt with
Speaker:a lot of contractors. Dude, if you tell me you're gonna get me the estimate
Speaker:on Monday, will you please get it to me on Monday, Maybe
Speaker:Tuesday? Don't throw an interception, you know? Yeah, those are the
Speaker:little things, but, like, it's a big thing and you don't realize
Speaker:that that can really throw off that relationship. Whether it's an employee
Speaker:that starts or a business deal that you're going through, these are little
Speaker:red flags that usually bubble up and it turns out to be
Speaker:deal breakers later on down the road. So be a man of your word
Speaker:and show up on time, get the estimate when the estimate
Speaker:is due, and. Do good work and be grateful for the work. Like,
Speaker:I don't know, you know, I don't know how long you have today, but just
Speaker:a quick story. I started an outfit called inmates to
Speaker:entrepreneurs 32 years ago. And the idea of
Speaker:that, Andrew, is that when people get out of prison, it's hard for them to
Speaker:get jobs. So we help them start their own little small
Speaker:businesses, you know, And I've been doing this 32 years.
Speaker:It's a great. It's my best business idea. I'll never make money from it,
Speaker:but it's really taken off through the whole country. This guy
Speaker:Ronnie, I won't give his last name. Nice guy, comes out of prison,
Speaker:he's got tattoos all over. Big barrel chested guy, contractor.
Speaker:He wants to do his first painting job. And I said, I can help
Speaker:you with that. I used to do painting and I said, go get Your first
Speaker:customer, give him a 30% discount. I think it was a $5,000
Speaker:job. He probably could have made 8,000 in the free market. And
Speaker:he did it, you know, so he's right out of prison, he makes 5,000 bucks.
Speaker:It was like in a week or two, it was. He made a lot of
Speaker:money, in my opinion. Right. He did all the work himself. Do you know what
Speaker:he couldn't get off of Andrew? I mean, one of hit him upside the
Speaker:head. Great guy, real gruff, you know, and tough guy.
Speaker:He couldn't get beyond the fact, oh, I could have gotten 8,000, but
Speaker:I got 5,000. And I'm like, dude, you got
Speaker:5,000. That's your first job. That's a referenceable
Speaker:job. You can use that to build your company. But again, your
Speaker:mentality is screwed up. You gotta be grateful for that job,
Speaker:grateful for that customer. And positivity builds
Speaker:positivity. So, you know, and I love the guy, he's a great guy, but,
Speaker:you know, be careful the way you think about people, you know, it's true.
Speaker:You should be happy that he got the job if it's his first job. He
Speaker:used that, like you said, as a reference moving forward. And it's just, you know,
Speaker:you move forward from there. It's interesting. There was a
Speaker:podcast series called Locked in by Ian Bick. I don't know if you know
Speaker:that, where he brings on people who are been castrated and he went to
Speaker:jail himself. I think I know him. Yeah. Dave's killer, Brad,
Speaker:I've been on that one too. He's an interesting guy. It's an interesting world out
Speaker:there. But, you know, the difference between the people who are incarcerated and us is
Speaker:very small because maybe we didn't break the law, you
Speaker:know, or whatever, but our heart isn't right. And that's gonna stop you from growing
Speaker:your business. I agree. And these passion projects, like you said, you're, you
Speaker:don't benefit financially from it, but for you, it's a mission and a passion. It's
Speaker:like me with the trades in my foundation called the Skilled
Speaker:Trades Advisory Council, with eight other members. Like, we're working
Speaker:to make the industry better. We're, we're advocating for the
Speaker:trades, we're trying to retain people in the trades, and it's a
Speaker:passion project and it's mission based. And it's. I can get up every morning
Speaker:and just be super excited because I'm making an impact just
Speaker:like you're doing. It's a good feeling that you're, you're making
Speaker:Impact in the world. Look, I don't know you super well. I mean, you mentioned
Speaker:something about 9, 11. I. I don't even know if I want to know about
Speaker:that. That's terrible. But I don't know you well. But I do know you.
Speaker:You've built your own company. And like I said, it's a brotherhood. It's a sisterhood.
Speaker:We've all gone through these journeys. So other
Speaker:entrepreneurs will help you. You know, you can get the help you need
Speaker:to be more successful. So we gotta reach out. I. I think
Speaker:it's kind of a man problem. I really do. Men are insular, you know,
Speaker:we want to think we're gonna solve everything. Like you said about, like, asking for
Speaker:directions. We don't want to do that. Entrepreneurs will help you, you know, Other
Speaker:entrepreneurs. Yeah, the hardest thing is actually asking for help. I
Speaker:wanted to bring back just that one point, is that I never used to ask
Speaker:for help. And it's interesting. My father used to say, always do it
Speaker:yourself. You know, figure it out yourself. And. And now that I look back, I'm
Speaker:like, that was the opposite of what I should have done. I should have asked
Speaker:for help. And it took me a long time to just ask for help because
Speaker:I felt like I'm asking someone for help. Like I don't have anything to give
Speaker:in return, at least not now. When I started asking for help, people were
Speaker:like, sure, I can help you. And look, whether they
Speaker:charge for their time, that's perfectly fine. Some just want to help somebody who's a.
Speaker:Because they see someone who's passionate about something. You just got to
Speaker:ask. Just got to get out there and ask. Yeah, well, you know,
Speaker:there's been these longitudinal studies, whatever that means is
Speaker:studies of highly successful people, Andrew. You know, one of the
Speaker:attributes when they get a problem set, they
Speaker:automatically go to somebody else. Like, let's go to an expert who
Speaker:solved that problem 100 times versus the way my
Speaker:old man was. The same way, by the way, do it yourself. And, you know,
Speaker:but the highly successful people are trying to leverage other people's brains
Speaker:and other people's money. It's a good point. It's not how,
Speaker:it's who. And by the way, especially in trades where, you know, where,
Speaker:you know, you know how to swing the hammer, you know, the electrical work, you
Speaker:know, the H vac work, you know that that's a very
Speaker:important part of the business. That's very
Speaker:important that you're skilled. But there's a whole other a hundred percent
Speaker:dimension of running the company. The right way, and you need to get that help.
Speaker:So do your research, reach out to people, and just be
Speaker:willing to know that you don't know everything. Get out there, get around people.
Speaker:Like you said, don't try to reinvent the wheel. There are people who have done
Speaker:this in certain different types of either a trade or an
Speaker:industry. And get around them and be positive and have a
Speaker:good, positive mindset.
Speaker:Now, the tools of the trade.
Speaker:Brian, this has been an amazing conversation, and in
Speaker:every episode, we always ask our guests their
Speaker:tools of the trade. What are the three
Speaker:most influential books you've read that has helped your
Speaker:career over the last handful years? It's taking me 40
Speaker:years to answer that question, and I have an answer. Go
Speaker:figure. As a man thinketh. As a man
Speaker:thinketh 64 pages will change your life.
Speaker:As a man thinketh Napoleon Hill's
Speaker:Think and Grow Rich and Dale Carnegie's how
Speaker:to Win Friends and Influence People. If you read those three
Speaker:books and read them over and over again and you
Speaker:internalize those, you are going to be a changed
Speaker:person. And I've read hundreds of these books. When I was like, you
Speaker:know, younger, like you, I wanted to go out and conquer the world. And I
Speaker:read all the books, but those are the three best books. And they,
Speaker:they are mind rockers. They are total mind rockers.
Speaker:You kind of know certain things and you read a book, you're like, it just
Speaker:reinforces what you thought you did know, and obviously it changes
Speaker:everything. What changed my mindset was the Gap
Speaker:in the Gain. It's a great book about, you know, people who,
Speaker:you go into a negative mindset, and it's about getting out of the negative
Speaker:mindset, and it's about looking backwards. So if I set a
Speaker:goal to, let's say, lose 20 pounds, well,
Speaker:I maybe didn't get to that goal. But if I look backwards, I could say,
Speaker:well, I lost at least 10 pounds. Like, I. I'm still successful in a way.
Speaker:I just didn't hit my goal. And it's about looking back and swapping out your
Speaker:negative mindset for a positive mindset moving forward. And
Speaker:that really kind of helped me. I mean, I, I could probably list another 50
Speaker:books. I know we're breaking, but just real quickly, the CEO of our last
Speaker:company, Scott, said to me one day, he goes, how do you deal with all
Speaker:this shit? Like, it's amazing. Like, we got, you know, patent
Speaker:lawsuits and this and that and employee problems. I'm like, look, man,
Speaker:I'm always trying to read. I'm trying to
Speaker:visualize. I want to be around other successful people. You need
Speaker:that positive energy to get through the the negative stuff and you will get the
Speaker:negative as you know. So that's great advice. Yeah. I
Speaker:mean reading and being around people, definitely.
Speaker:It's just what it is, you know, the people around you, if they're in a
Speaker:positive state of mind, they want to grow the growth oriented. Definitely get
Speaker:around those people. I mean that's really helpful if people want to find
Speaker:out more about you. Social media website what's the best place
Speaker:people can go? My email address is the easiest one in
Speaker:mankind. It's Brian B R I a
Speaker:n@brianhamilton.org it's the
Speaker:foundation I use to teach entrepreneurs. The company is live
Speaker:switch. You know, that's where I am now. Hooked up with these guys four
Speaker:years ago. They're great guys and we're building technology tools for small
Speaker:businesses like the trades. It's one of the reasons I'm on here, honestly. Reach
Speaker:me those ways. I don't know my handles and stuff like that. We'll
Speaker:list them out in the show notes when the episode does come out.
Speaker:Brian, it's been a blast having you on the show. Thank you very much.
Speaker:Thanks man. Appreciate it, Andrew. And thank you to our listeners. If you're looking for
Speaker:a dynamic keynote speaker to elevate your next event, head over to
Speaker:andrewbrown.net and review some of my speaking topics. Trades
Speaker:awareness, career exploration, advocacy and addressing the trade
Speaker:shortage. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never
Speaker:miss another episode. We'll see you next time.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to the Lost Art of the Skilled Trades. Visit
Speaker:us@AndrewBrown.net for more resources and tips.
Speaker:Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives
Speaker:as we celebrate our men and women in the skilled trades and shape
Speaker:the future together.
