Revolutionizing Skilled Trades Careers: Technology, Sustainability, and Apprenticeships with William McCoy

William McCoy [: 00:00:00

So one of the best books that I've read is a book by Danny Warshaw called See Style, Skill. He takes an anthropological approach to finding solutions, right? So that's his background, but then he applies it to all the different areas of life within entrepreneur scale. And so one of the things I tell a lot of my friends who are like, hey, I'm thinking about going into the Springs or I'm just starting a business or whatever it may be, is to read this book because it helps to identify a ground up need. It didn't exist. You can build a really nice business for yourself and enrich area of the trade.

Andrew Brown [: 00:00:38

Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening to the Lost Star of the Skilled Trades podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades that are high paying, honorable, rewarding and fulfilling. The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running and without them, our world would cease to exist. Today we have a special guest on the show, William McCoy. Aviha. Welcome, William, to the show.

William McCoy [: 00:01:11

Hey Andrew, thanks for having me on. I love what you guys do, think it's very exciting, so feel privileged to be a part of it.

Andrew Brown [: 00:01:17

It's great to have you on the show. Will. When we think about solving climate change, we often think about things that in one way or another plug into an electrical grid. Solar panels, heat pumps, efficient air conditioners, wind turbines, electric cars, and electric car chargers. For every five tradespeople that are coming out of the industry, only two are coming in to the industry. What are you seeing on your end from an electrician standpoint? You know, are you seeing a shortage on your end or are you starting to see things kind of ease up and there's more electricians coming into the industry today?

William McCoy [: 00:02:02

No, I think that's why what you guys do is so important. No, we don't see it easing up. It's actually getting more frustrating for both industrial contractors, but also their customers. We have enterprise customers, consumers. What we're seeing is that initially when electrification was starting out, electric contractors say, hey, look, I can take on the work. But now with so many people electrifying, from utility Companies to auto OEMs to anybody else out there, you're starting to see the pressure of electricians and the.

Andrew Brown [: 00:02:36

Need to have I've seen this too. And you know, a lot of my friends will say, does anybody know a good electrician? Or I'm trying to install a charger for my electric car Tesla and I'm not getting the response. Or, you know, it's four Weeks and there's a wait there, you know, with your app and marketplace. What are you seeing on your end when it comes to people trying to bring somebody in in the electrician trade or in any trade, are you seeing delays in your line of work?

William McCoy [: 00:03:12

I'll tell you a story. I started out as a electrical apprentice in ibew. I was told by everybody to go to business school. So that's what I ended up doing. But then I ended up coming back into the industry and that's exactly why we started via. We started to see that the barrier of entry for people getting electric vehicles was not being able to have a charger at their home or see charges out in the legacy that gas. Same thing with anything sustainability wide solar battery storage. I think it's very adventurous people not seeing or having long wait times.

William McCoy [: 00:03:46

So we built billionaires of Marketplace to be able to connect everyday consumers or enterprises where service provider contractors out there who are looking for work and it allows them. In the past the backlog would have been because we would have a company, they would choose a really big contractor. But even then we tap out, we think about the millions of installs and things that we need to happen. And so what our system allows these companies and also everyday consumers to be able to do is to connect with all the local contractors in your area and then walk them step by step through a process in the system that helps them communicate quicker, transact quicker so that we can start to cut down this backlog. What's in your point? There are still some challenges when it comes to finding contractors. It's one of those things that we told the whole generation, including probably you and I were probably close to my age that you should go to business school versus being a tradesman. Well now that shift as we go to automation things are happening and now we don't have the service people that we need in an industry to do all the amazing things. Sustainability.

Andrew Brown [: 00:04:51

When somebody does go on the app and is trying to find or if I'm trying to install something in my house or you know, if it's charger of something like that. How do you vet out the people who are actually a part of the network? Because you know there are good installers, there are not good installers. There's all different types. How do you vet individuals out or companies out?

William McCoy [: 00:05:15

You can always go on Google search and find some contract but you don't really know who they are. I'll tell you, 90% of us never check license when it comes to these people. So we don't know what they do. Our system is a little bit different. We used to be a closed network. Right now I think we're about 16,000 contractors. But by next year, we want to be about 100,000 contractors. But now what we realize is that we can take any contractor right out there and make them a good contractor.

William McCoy [: 00:05:41

If you walk them step by step. See, what we found out is that a lot of these people know what they're doing. They're just not great at communication because they're one or two people. Right. They don't have the technology. Technology is not typically geared towards them. And so in order for us to get to where we want to be, Andrew, when it comes to, we have to make all contractors good contractors. We watch what the good contractors would do, and so we help the everyday contractor do the same thing.

William McCoy [: 00:06:07

That comes down to communication. Follow up with the customer. And then step by step walking through a consistent process for them. So the vetting comes in that we do check license and insurance. We do make sure that they have the experience listed and they can feel proof of that to the customer. But most importantly for the consumer and also for the contractor, we walk them through a step by step system so that everybody arrives at the same exact place with the same exact quality. And if there is an issue, we can go ahead through a state of custody and show where that issue has happened so that we can correct it quickly for the consumer.

Andrew Brown [: 00:06:42

Yeah, because that's one of the issues. And I'm just thinking about people around me who is always looking for somebody good that you never know. Usually it's word of mouth. A lot of it's like, you know, John, he's really good. Or Joe, he's really good. And that name gets pushed around. You know, there's also some Facebook groups that people talk about different contractors and electricians and plumbers. And that too holds a lot of weight.

Andrew Brown [: 00:07:07

A vetting process and. And making sure that who you're getting is right and will show up. Is there an SLA or like, certain timeframe? So when you go to bid out something, if I have something in my house I want to do and I want to go through this bidding process. Is there a certain timeframe that they need to get back to you or through the app, typically?

William McCoy [: 00:07:28

Exactly. That's exactly who it works. Right. Think of us like Uber. Right. You get a driver instantly because it sends it out to all the drivers, not just the ones in the Facebook post that responds, but the one to everybody. A lot of times we've noticed what makes somebody good in somebody's mind is a communication aspect. If they can communicate with them pretty quickly, if they keep them up to date on what's happening, this creates a good contract.

William McCoy [: 00:07:53

Well, we help you contractors by giving them, I guess you could say, a like problem, right? We send that bid out to everybody in our area within a 50 mile radius. We can't find somebody within 50 miles. We go 100 miles, right? And we say, hey, look, this customer right now is waiting for you and they're ready to go. Here are their projects, here's information, here are the things that you're going to need to do in order to contact that customer. And then we give them a time limit to be able to do it. But usually that time limit is within about an hour. And if you think about it, if it's going out to everybody, somebody will say, okay, I want that job. And then they must contact that customer within that time period.

William McCoy [: 00:08:29

We then monitor the process along the way, reminding the contractor, hey, look, we probably need to be in communication with them, right, about what the next steps are. Or our AI system will literally say, hey, customer, the contractor is on its way, they're running late, all the things that will help them be better contractors in their mind. Because again, consumers understand that things will happen, but they want the communication. And so sometimes that's missing because the contractor is just working in another job. We help contractors be good contractors by giving them the tools and the things that they need to stay in front of that customer and become a good contractor. So you say even at one in that book, that Facebook lead, you'll eventually get tapped out if everyone's going to have next, right? And so we're trying to make sure that you always have a contractor, your demand, as you say, service on demand, if you need one.

Andrew Brown [: 00:09:21

So it's kind of a jump ball when it goes out, right? So within a certain mile radius, it's a jump ball. Just like Uber, like you said, like whoever grabs the call gets, the customer, gets the potential sale. So the ones that are quick to react, I assume that the higher percentage, I mean, it obviously depends where they come in, price wise. I mean, do you ever deal with price? I don't want to say gouging, but somebody's always coming in much lower than others out there. How do you keep it to some degree even? Or is it just whoever quotes it out and they decide what they're going to charge?

William McCoy [: 00:09:55

Well, here's what we decided to do when it came to initially, when we started, we set Prices for certain things, we found out that it's really difficult to do. Plus legally, when it comes to certain states, you just can't do that. Right. Because you become a contract in the state's mind, specifically California, I think it was a couple others. So we pulled out of that. Right. But what we did do is we asked contractors to provide three things. The admin cost of their business, the labor costs, and any material costs.

William McCoy [: 00:10:19

Right. And typically when a contract is forced to break down those things, it cuts down the likelihood of their being gouging because now they have to justify the material. If there is admin or going to pull permits, they have to justify that, itemize that, and then they have to justify their labor rate. Right. So if you're telling me it's eight hours to be able to do this, but you're charging me x amount of $2,000, right. Then help me understand labor wise, why does it come in? Yes, admin cost is here, material costs there. Most contractors though, they know that people will be price shopping and price sensitive. And so what we found is that a lot of them are always, most of them are there, right? But by asking them to provide that information in that line item way, the itemized way to consumers, now the consumers can compare, right? They can say, I like you, but I don't know where your price falls in.

William McCoy [: 00:11:08

Let me take a look at someone else and see where you fall in. Okay, he's both. I'm in this system. I'm going to go with John. He was very honest.

Andrew Brown [: 00:11:17

I always wonder about that. And I wonder about, you know, different applications like Angie's List that's out there that contractors and electricians and plumbers are on. Like how does it stay even keel with pricing? Because there's always maybe that one person who charges much less than other people. But I always shy away from that because I was. Why is that person much lower than that person? You know, they have to turn a profit. There has to be some sort of, you know, guidelines there to keep everybody sort of some degree on the same playing field.

William McCoy [: 00:11:51

To your point, by having that list on those items makes them be able to justify what it's going to be. It also stops them from being like, hey, look, I'm just going to start this five feet and then you get a change order because they realize they got to run to Home Depot or whatever. It may be a grab a point part. Right? It helps them go through that process of saying, here's my end, here's my labor, here's my material Cost, right. Oh, and I do need to pull the permit. You're right. That's going to be another $250. So now we're not going into a bunch of change orders when it comes to consumers.

William McCoy [: 00:12:21

It's helping them say, okay, line miner by liner. This is what it's going to cost me and this is how I turn a profit, which is usually their labor or maybe a little bit more materials.

Andrew Brown [: 00:12:31

So how do you start off, as you said, you did an apprenticeship or your apprentice to figuring out this idea? Where did that. At some point in your career, did you have that aha moment? Did you see something in the marketplace that was missing initially?

William McCoy [: 00:12:45

When I started out as a friend, I was actually like 18 years old. I was in college at the time and I was trying to look for something to do right. And I was always geared towards electrical. Electrical engineering. I'm really excited about that. I went into the IBEW because they had great pay. And so I was in college, I was like, this would be a great idea. The problem was that I was placed with somebody who I just did not mess well with, right? And so I was like, well, if this is what the industry is like, I'm out, right? And so I end up going into business years later.

William McCoy [: 00:13:15

I've owned a real estate firm which I've worked with a lot of contractors, as you can imagine. I built an app for being able to work with our customers that we manage properties. The aha moment here came when I was in a dealership. My wife's family are dealer owners and people were coming in and they were literally not buying EVs because they didn't have a DV starter. And they were like, well, I gotta wait and I gotta call this contract and I'll schedule something and I'll come back to you. I was like, this is insane. Like no one would do this with a gas vehicle. With EVs people are stopping and so it could be a nice easy way for them to transition to saying, hey, I'm getting this EV and I can get a quote pretty easily.

William McCoy [: 00:13:54

I can have it installed typically by the time this EV comes to my home or shortly after I purchase it, claim where you would get a free tank of gas and then shortly you have to fill up, you can pick that EV charger. So that's what kind of created via. So we started off as a much of a contractor and I found out I couldn't scale the way I wanted to being a contracting company. So my master electrician friend ended up becoming Actually one of the service providers of our app, I created this app and now we scale to across the United States for enterprise customers who are looking to install EV chargers for their, their, their customers who are buying EVs, utility companies, and then also different manufacturers who have different services or products that they want to install in somebody's home and office.

Andrew Brown [: 00:14:37

Yeah. So I'm always curious about somebody's journey. You know, you, you have to walk in those shoes, right. So you have a good understanding behind the scenes from obviously, you know, doing an apprenticeship and going down that road. But then there's that jump to entrepreneurship and going off on your own or starting your own business is, is never easy. And I found that as well, being in my own business, tool and equipment business for 23 and a half years, that journey has never been easy. So I imagine there's been ups and downs and challenges and things that you've had to deal with the technology end of it over the years.

William McCoy [: 00:15:12

Being electrical contractor, like I said, as we started out, I mean, we had the challenge of me trying to answer phone calls, I'm on a job site with, trying to install EV chargers at a dealership or, you know, trying to figure out how am I going to respond to this customer because we're running a few minutes late and then just not calling them and then showing up and be like, oh, until they call me, like, oh yeah, I'm in the way. And so it really came from me being in the truck myself, riding around with the mask. Especially my experience of working with contractors throughout the years, 17 years that I've been in business and really understanding their needs again, I noticed that most contractors are great people. That's why they still get phone calls, even though sometimes they're not great at communicating, but they need like real help when it comes to answering phone calls and emails and up and downs that they may have because the comfort of entry is up and down. It's seasonal many times. Right. So they can have an admin who may be answering the phone call when it's top season, but they may not have one when it's a down season, but they still need that support. And so what I found was that now we're in a place with AI and technology that now what we have are called agents of service.

William McCoy [: 00:16:24

Right. And so we utilize a lot of these agents of service to help contractors keep work coming in, keep them having the admin and support that they need while they're out there doing what they need to do, which is installing and servicing a lot of these products that we have. I'm not a technologist, as it were. Like, I'm not a computer engineer, but I'm an engineer at heart. And so I'm an engineer that's been out in the field. And instead of giving them chat bots, which most contractors don't need, that they need people who are actually doing things or agents that are actually doing things for them to keep them moving down the line. And so that's what we provide. We provide the AI services with AI agents that actually help them do a better job.

William McCoy [: 00:17:04

And then what's really cool about that is that when they have more work, they're more likely to hire or take on, because without work, they don't want to take longer terms, right? They don't want to say, look, I want to bring this person in. I don't know how much work I'm going to have. And so that moves us on to, like, some other things that we've. We've decided to do. But our main focus is helping contractors with AI better and get more work.

Andrew Brown [: 00:17:27

I found a lot and I've seen this, and this is just my experience. And I use a few different contractors, and they're not great at answering the phone. And I understand they're busy. Look, everybody. But there's a customer service side of it. You know, if you want repeat business and somebody has a problem and it's your customer and they're not answering the phone, that could hinder repeat business where you tell 10 other people, I didn't have a good experience. So helping people who have these small businesses, these construction companies, these contractors, whether an electrician or a plumber, that you do need to have the support behind it to take care of those problems. And they sort of hit like a ceiling because they don't have the support behind it.

Andrew Brown [: 00:18:12

And some of the jobs they lose because they're not getting back to people. I've seen a lot of that, like.

William McCoy [: 00:18:18

You hit it on the hood. And so that was one of those things that we focus on when it comes to deal. Creating technology and solutions that will actually help them scale, right? We have different plans grow and then scale grow kind of keeps them in place, right? Just being able to manage the customers that they have. And then as they move up to scale, that allows them to really be able to say, okay, I got my footing in place. I'm getting pretty regular business. It's time for me to grow, which is what we need them to do, Andrew, because without them growing, we're never going to Hit our sustainability. We're trying to. Like you said, for every five that go into this trade, only two are coming out.

William McCoy [: 00:18:55

And you know that a good portion of these contractors are around the age and they're going to be retiring. So our solution is to figure out a way, if they're not coming and picking us, to use them as efficiently as possible and help them scale their businesses to reach the sustainability goal that we have.

Andrew Brown [: 00:19:11

That's a nice resource to have. A lot of these contractors can use that and utilize that either. Maybe they don't have the budget, they don't have the time, they don't want to train somebody. Whatever it may be that this service is an extended service that can help them support their end users. What is for you when it comes to requests? What are the top two requests that come in for customers? What are they looking to do?

William McCoy [: 00:19:37

So most of the times the plumber request is going to be the top, right? It comes in outlets. Our big one, they come in. But our biggest one is plumbing. You don't think about a plumber until you need a plumber. When you need a plumber, you need them now, right? Electricians are pretty high in mind, but they're not as much because a lot of times either you can cut off the breaker panel or things can just shut down and so you have some time. But when water is running or not running, plumbers are using the top. So. And that was interesting to me.

William McCoy [: 00:20:05

The cool thing about data is that you can start to formulate these ideas about what's happening. The next one will probably be H Vac. So whether it's pooling needs, they come up really high, really quickly. And we always talk about the hair on fire needs. Plumbing and H Vac are typically the hair on fire needs when it comes to both businesses and consumers, like home, residential, and they're right after that. Electrical needs.

Andrew Brown [: 00:20:31

Well, now you're starting to make me think, because I have a plumbing issue that I have that I've been trying to tackle. I have a toilet issue that I keep putting off. But that's interesting that the plumbers in H Vac are 1 and 2 and then obviously electricians, because when you have water leaking from your ceiling, you got a broken pipe, you need somebody to come in. What are you seeing the people who are in the network? Is it an older generation? Are you seeing a mix of younger generation? What is the makeup of some of the companies that are in the network?

William McCoy [: 00:21:09

They're mostly mid age. I mean, anywhere from their early 40s, which is what I am to 60s and even 70s every once in a while get a younger electrician, plumber and they get it right away, right. They're on board, they're ready to go. Majority of our contractors on our site are people who are mid age. They've been in the industry for quite some time, they're very experienced. But as you say, you mentioned they're not the great at customer service. They're really good at doing their jobs. If you ever think about a tradesperson, they're like the equivalent of like a computer program, right? They're very good at what they do.

William McCoy [: 00:21:46

They're like focused on like the programming and the getting things done. If you try to pull them out and have them face customers, a lot of times that's a unicorn, right? And it's in the different type of person who does that. And usually they go out and start a contract and business because they're not even the contents of that seems different from that. And so when you have that demographic and the age, it typically needs to be super, super easy for them to be able to do the things they want to do. So from programming and AI, they don't have to do that in the system. My system just gives them props to set it or forget it, the only thing they have to do is list their emergency contact. And then our AI does other things, answer phone calls and emails. When it comes to reminding them to call the customer, they set it up, forget it and say look, I'm running late.

William McCoy [: 00:22:27

We can geotrack them and say look John, looks like you're not going to make it this time. Would you like us to call the customer, let them know, right, we give them the option but at least alerts them right to what's happening. Right. When they supply come in the next day, they set a nurse. Every job that they put in the system, they and tells them, hey, the customer, we are sharing the time of this day in this time, right? Please be at this time and please have these things ready for you. So we created a system where even at this stage in contracting that they can really still take advantage of the technology that's out there in a very easy way, powerful way for them to be able to do it so that we can continue to use them. But to your point, I still don't see a lot of young contractors and if they are, it's really their day or uncle or somebody else has handed business over to them and they're taking it on, they're excited about it, they're excited about being in the industry. But I don't see ones who are just coming out of school saying, look, I'm going to come out and be a plumber or an H vac person.

William McCoy [: 00:23:21

Now what we do to try to combat that, and again, we're not a workforce development company, but I saw the need is that we allow for people to become apprentices. Right. What we found when it came to apprenticeship is that apprentices like me will have the sent with a person, but then when that person doesn't no longer have work, then she's kind of like left out there trying to fend her own and find. Well, that can also take them out of the industry because they don't have steady work. So again, using our same algorithm to find contractors, we allow apprentices to raise their hand in the system and say, look, I'm looking for work. And what did you just tell me? There's always a contractor out there saying, hey, look, if you know anybody who wants to get in this industry, let me know. Right? And so through this automated system, contractors say they need help, apprentices say, I'm ready to help. They can stay in that system.

William McCoy [: 00:24:11

They'd be connected together. That apprentice can consistently get work by connecting with other contractors.

Andrew Brown [: 00:24:17

I love this. I mean, it's like the next evolution, you know, and it just makes things so streamlined and today, kids today, they want everything is gamification and technology and phones and it's just the next iteration. And I like how it's all set up. Is this nationwide or is it just certain areas or.

William McCoy [: 00:24:38

No, no, we talk to a lot of the unions, from the UA to the ibew, we even do school. So we're trying to onboard apprentices. Right. Because again, to your point, that's the next generation. It was my way of trying to figure out the solution that we. I think we're all heading towards. But I see you do you push all the time. I love it.

William McCoy [: 00:24:56

On LinkedIn and other social media. How do we get young people to take this on? It's good jobs, it's a good pay, it's banking hours. A lot of times, if you're really good at what you do, right, and you can have a really, really nice life. But the problem is that how do you get to that? And so what they're used to is computers and phones and ease of use. You are too. We all are. Right. It has to be push button and that should get me right there right away.

William McCoy [: 00:25:22

This is our solution of trying to get this done. We need to do more outreach and I'LL be the first one to tell you I was focusing on keeping the business running. I need to put more time into our apprenticeship program or how apprenticeships work so that we can get more of the skill training people contacting the contractors out there who need that.

Andrew Brown [: 00:25:40

Is there other competition out there in your realm or is it your app kind of stands alone?

William McCoy [: 00:25:46

It does in some way. But you mentioned Angie's List like it could be a potential competitor. We do a few things that are different than Angie's List. We provide the contractor an actual. We try to lead, but then we also have to provide them everything from E commerce to CRM to being able to use it for their own jobs. Right. Sometimes that could be considered a competitor to us. But again, we're offering CRM, we're offering AI assistance.

William McCoy [: 00:26:09

We're doing a lot of things. The next evolution, as you say, to just getting leads, right? We're giving them the backbone, the business analytics, the business insight. I think it's a competitor to us. Some people, some of our investors compare us to that. But really, like I said, we want to be a marketplace with services. Right? So, Andrew, if you're out there and you're like, hey, look, I really didn't get this funding issue done, I would love to do it myself, but at this point I really need to get a plumber out here. You can go into via. That'd be information.

William McCoy [: 00:26:39

We send it out to a network of plumbers and through that you'll be able to work through it. That's our solution to being able to help you. And this is the key because we do focus on sustaining. We want to help you with the services that you have right now, the hair on fire services, so that we can potentially talk to you about other services. See if I can get your plumbing done pretty easily, then you may be more open to talk to me about solar panels and battery storage because it seemed like a big project. Right. If I was able to get this project done in this app and be connected with a good contractor, maybe I will consider battery storage and solar or maybe I will consider a windmill or whatever it is that you want to do, an EV or whatever, whatever is your reason for sustainability. The biggest issue that people have is that it's a project.

William McCoy [: 00:27:27

And so by having the solution, we can help people get to where we want to be when it comes to sustainability.

Andrew Brown [: 00:27:32

Once you get that individual in your ecosystem and you have a good experience, the likelihood percentage goes up that someone could want, like you said, doing solar panels or doing plumbing or H vac work that they just become the one stop shop to find the right person to do the installation. And as I said before, I just see it in my friends and people that I know and family. Who's a good plumber? Well, if you go over to your app, it's already vetted out. It's already, you know, you have good people. So it's just a very easy, uber like type of application that you can go on and you get two or three bids and you figure out who is the right person. And it's all kind of managed through an app, which I think is the future. And I think it's where it's going.

William McCoy [: 00:28:18

And to your point, like I said, I thought about my experience as an apprentice when I would have loved to have an app like this, because when I didn't have things going on, I was sitting there working at a fast food restaurant but still trying to be an electrical apprentice. Between that and the combination of other things made me fall out of it. And so I went into business school, but I probably would have stayed electrical apprentice and became electrical contractor and even still would have made me finish business school. But still being able to have this ease of use when it comes to being able to find work, because that's the biggest issue when it comes to apprentices. Well, it's not really an issue because contractors are always raising their hand, asking for somebody to help out. There's always some contractor out there who is on Facebook Marketplace and everybody knows and he's like, I would love to take you on but I have no help. So it's an easy solution to my, you have these apprentices, you got these young people who are looking for work, you got these countries who are raising their hand. How do we connect them? And so our mission is to connect people together.

William McCoy [: 00:29:12

And that's really Via's vision, connecting customers and contractors so that we work well together.

Andrew Brown [: 00:29:18

Well, this has been a great conversation, learning more about your company and sort of your journey. But before you leave today, what is one of your special tools of the trade advice that you can give somebody who is maybe in the trades that is looking to make the leap to entrepreneurship? What are some qualities that that person would need from going from a maybe someone in the field to being a maybe a business owner one day?

William McCoy [: 00:29:45

So one of the best books that I've read and I've written over and over again, I've explained on the background is a, a book by Danny Warshaw called See Saw Skill. He takes an anthropological approach to finding solutions Right. So that's his background, but then he applies it to all the different areas of life within entrepreneurs there. And so one of the things I tell a lot of my friends who are like, hey, I'm thinking about going to the Springs or I'm just starting a business or whatever it may be, is to read this book because it helps to identify a ground up need that didn't mean exist. And in the trains we now have niches, right? And so there may be something that you want to concentrate on. If you can find the pain points, if you can find the source of the issue, you can build a really nice business for yourself in a niche area of the trade. And it's probably a niche. What does the people need? Right.

William McCoy [: 00:30:36

And so my advice is to read. That's my toolbox advice, Seesaw Skill by Danny Warchell. Read it continuously, listen to it in the back of your mind, right? It will absolutely help you to be a great entrepreneur. It takes you step by step through the process of identifying problems and then being able to find a value proposition that you're going to need to say to your customers and then creating an actual solution that is going to be effective in scale.

Andrew Brown [: 00:31:01

Riches are in the niches. And it's true. And I mean it's about getting also around people that have made that leap themselves, that were in the field, that have jumped over to entrepreneurship. Because I always feel it's just two different skill sets that you can be a great electrician, but from the business perspective, that's a whole different side of it. And it's about reading books, it's about joining groups, getting around business owners and just being vulnerable to get constructive feedback from other people that things that you may or may not know. I always feel it's the things that you don't know hurt you the most. And not everybody knows everything. But to get around good people and to really get a good understanding, it's not like you're reinventing the wheel.

Andrew Brown [: 00:31:44

Someone has done that. So you might as well get around that person who's been successful. I appreciate you being on the show today, Andrew.

William McCoy [: 00:31:52

Really appreciate it, man. Love what you're doing. Anytime you want me to come out and do something with you, I'd love to do it, man. I really, when I saw you online on LinkedIn, I was like, this guy is doing exactly what I would do if I was in that area of business. And you're telling them, it's a lot of my trade people who know who you are. I'm LinkedIn with LinkedIn and I told them I was coming to the show and they're excited. I'm like, oh, we'll listen to it, we'll listen to it. They like you.

William McCoy [: 00:32:14

So please continue to do what you do and it's a privilege to be here. Thank you so much.

Andrew Brown [: 00:32:18

Thank you. And just one last tip. Where do people find you website, the app and your social media?

William McCoy [: 00:32:24

So we're on the Apple Store. We're also on Android Auto. You can find us on www.via.com so pronounced like the word via, but it's V E H Y A. My social media is probably like that. I really don't have any Instagram or anything else like that. I'm probably one of the like really bad at that. But LinkedIn is what we are. We're a business, right? We're finding people out there.

William McCoy [: 00:32:48

So you can always Find me on LinkedIn. People can contact me anytime with any.

Andrew Brown [: 00:32:51

Questions and thank you to our listeners. If you want more valuable insights and trades related information, head over to andrewbrown.net and join our Trades Movement newsletter where we advocate for the trades, we share inspirational stories, we provide resources and you join a passionate trades community. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss another episode. We'll see you next time.

William McCoy [: 00:33:18

Thanks for listening to the lost art of the skilled trades. Visit us@AndrewBrown.net for more resources and tips. Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives as we celebrate our men and women in the skilled trades and shape the future together.