Behind the Scenes of Telecommunications A Career Guide

Ever wondered about the intricate paths weaving through the low-voltage industry landscape? Strap in, as Chuck Bowser, your trusty RCDD, guides you through the diverse career opportunities that await in the realms of network cabling, building automation, and beyond. From the sensory satisfaction of pulling wires to the complexity of interfacing with advanced telecommunications systems, our latest episode exposes the multifaceted roles that make this industry tick. We'll even toss in a playful acronym challenge to keep your mental gears grinding!

Pull up a chair, and let's crack the code on what it really takes to excel in the hands-on world of network installation or the strategic command center of project management. Chuck spills the beans on how attention to detail and a steadfast focus on industry standards are not just jargon but the lifeblood of roles from low-voltage apprentices to fiber optic technicians. Plus, he peeks behind the curtains of the office life, revealing the creativity and problem-solving prowess required in positions such as estimators and automation engineers. It's a narrative tapestry woven with personal tales from the trenches and a roadmap for those aspiring to lead from the front.

As we wrap up our auditory journey, we zoom in on the career-defining skills that truly distinguish a seasoned project manager from a mere holder of the title. Chuck shares his insights on the analytical finesse of estimators, the meticulous nature of quality assurance, and the delicate balance achieved by division managers juggling operational excellence. Whether you’re a budding technician or an experienced professional seeking a shift in gears, this episode is your conduit to navigating the electrifying avenues of the low-voltage cabling industry.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Thursday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. You know that can only mean one thing Live after hours with Chuck Balzer RCD, your favorite, your favorite RCD. My glasses are still wonky. Look at that, I thought I had them fixed. Nah, never mind. Your favorite RCDD yes, you know I'm your favorite, you know it we're going to talk about tonight.

Speaker 1: 0:25

We're going to talk about the different career paths that you might find in the low-voltage industry. Okay, the different career paths, because I get asked that question quite often. You know, I get asked what could I do in low voltage, what could I find? And this is kind of funny because you know, if you know me, I'm good friends with with bs, with todd from uh brother solutions. He did his live stream today and his live stream today he talked about training and the JATC. So our shows kind of match each other, right, anthony's in the house, hello, anthony, how you doing, my friend. So our shows kind of tie together, which I thought was kind of interesting. Right, I did think that was interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:18

But before we get too much further along, you know we got to do the acronym challenge. The acronym challenge. What is this acronym? E-m-r? Tell me in the chat box what does E-M-R mean? Come on, I know somebody knows this E-M-R. I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with E-M-I or E-M-C. It's all in the same kind of realm. What does EMR stand for? Going once, going twice? It doesn't look like anybody knows what this acronym is. It is electromagnetic radiation.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Shotzi got it. He just had to type it in. That's why it took him so long. Shotzi got it. He just had to type it in. That's why it took him so long. Shotzi's in the house. Let me guess, shotzi, you're drinking a two-liter Diet Dr Pepper, am I right? Let me know. Let me know if I got that right.

Speaker 1: 2:19

So tonight's show, like I said, we're going to talk about career paths and opportunities in low-voltage. I get asked a lot you know what's my career path? Well, that's the beautiful thing about our industry, right? The beautiful thing about industry. You're not set to a certain path. You know you can go down. It really depends on what your skill sets are. You don't have to spend your entire life pulling cable. Now, there are people that do spend their entire life pulling cable, but you know what People love pulling cable. There is some tranquility in manual labor. I get this all the time working on the farm. There's something about going down there in a tomato patch and just working on the tomatoes. There's that whole tactile feel back that you get. That just makes it worth your while.

Speaker 1: 3:09

So when you look at our industry, the positions fall, and the list I'm going to give you tonight is not an all-encompassing list. Okay, there are, I guarantee you. As a matter of fact, if I miss any, put it in the chat box. Okay, if I miss any, put it in the chat box. If I miss any, put it in the chat box Now. So the ones I'm going to list are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. But when you look at all the ones we're going to talk about here, they can all be grouped into three major categories Field positions, office positions and sales positions.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So again, it really kind of depends on what your thing is. So let's go ahead and talk about what is a field position. Let's get this thing fixed up. What is that doing wrong? Hold on, I'm having problems with my computer, as, again, let me fix this, fix that and then fix this. So, like I said, there's lots of different things that you can do within the industry. There it is. It was hiding from me. That was weird. Why was it hiding back there? There's this person who attends every single class. His name is Murphy Murphy, and Murphy is messing stuff up again because that's just the way Murphy is. So what does a field position really mean? Right, a field position means for the low voltage injury usually involves hands-on work. Right, that means you're going to be pulling cable, terminating cable, testing cable, moving ladders around, loading trucks, unloading trucks, and this type of work, as I said, can be appealing to individuals who enjoy that tactile task, and that's me. Again, I love doing this. There's a great feeling of accomplishment when you build something with your hands, and there's a lot of people that just enjoy that. They absolutely enjoy that.

Speaker 1: 5:37

No-transcript if you're working out in the field, if you don't like the environment, wait about a week. You'll be on a different job somewhere else, in another building, another part of the state, another city, you know. So you're always in different and you might be. You might be in a commercial building, you might be in a residential property, you might be in an industrial facility. My brother and I did cabling Baltimore's on my mind because I'm originally from Maryland, and the whole thing with the Francis Scott Key Bridge. But my brother and I did a project in the industrial part of downtown Baltimore that manufactured pools and spas. That was a cool place to work, man. You could see how that stuff works. Bars that was a cool place to work, man. You can see how this stuff works.

Speaker 1: 6:26

And, like I said, that diversity of being in all those different types of environments and all those different types of peoples and stuff helps keep the job interesting. That's one of the reasons why people like working in the field. Another reason why people like working in the field is because it gives them a chance to problem solve stuff right. How am I going to get through this wall? How am I going to get to the other end of the building when there's no drop-tile ceilings? It gives you a chance to see a problem and then work your way through that problem, and sometimes you may have to think outside the box to get to that area right. So this can be very intellectually stimulating and very rewarding for people who like to think analytically, like me.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Right, you're the problem in the house, says one day I worked in downtown Chicago and the next day I'm 90 miles away in farmland. My point exactly? Would it be southern Illinois by any chance? Like Carbondale, by any chance? Just asking, let me know if that's in the right area. So yeah, you could be in a different area and different types of people. So, like I said, when you work in an office, you see the same things day in and day out. The same people day in and day out, the same computer, the same office day in and day out. That's one of the hardest things to do. Coming from the field, going into office is overcoming that whole thing.

Speaker 1: 7:46

And another reason why people like doing work in the field is because they get to interact with a lot of people. They get to interact with the customer or the customer's agent, or maybe the electricians or the HVAC people on the job site. They get to interact with other people on their team within their company. Because some people thrive on people skills. That means communicating interpersonal skills, stuff like that. But there are some people. You know me. 20 years ago there was a reason I pulled cable Because I didn't have to talk to anybody other than my boss. But then I started climbing the ladder and I had to improve on my interpersonal skills.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Another reason why people like field positions is because it gives them opportunities to grow. There's lots of when you come in and we'll talk about all these field positions here in a minute, all the different types it gives you. It gives you the opportunity to grow because there's always another position to make a little bit more money to do something else right, it might lead to a supervisory role, it might lead to a to a management role, might lead to a sales role or engineering type of role, and getting a good, solid foundation working in the field will probably most likely make you better in any other position that you fill. Ask anybody anybody from the low voltage industry who works in the field. Right? The worst project manager that you can be that can be assigned to a project is a project manager who has never been in the field. Ok, I said it. I said it. You know I was watching a tick tock thing the other day and it said you want more views? Take a stand. There's my stand. Project managers who have not spent time in the field most likely are not going to be as good as a project manager who has been in the field. I've said it. Let me know if you agree with that or disagree with that in the chat box, right? So there's lots of opportunities.

Speaker 1: 9:32

So let's talk about some of those field positions that you might get asked to do and let's list a couple, a couple good skills that make you be successful in those positions. The first one is going to be the low voltage installer. When I say installer, I'm talking about an apprentice or an installer, right? Not the technician, the apprentice or the installer. So with that, you have to have a good understanding of not only of the different types of cable systems, like Cat 5E, cat 6, cat 6A, poe, all this stuff but also the equipment, right? Sometimes you have to be certified with personnel, lifts and which PPE and which tools to wear. You also have to be really good at problem-solving skills.

Speaker 1: 10:15

I kind of already said that already and you want to be good in the field. You have to have a good attention to detail. I said it good attention to detail, pay attention to what you're doing, make sure that you're doing it the right way, and the code is not always the right way, right, you have the codes, you have the standards, and then you have industry best practices. I'm making a whole class on that, right? Do you want to be good? Do you want to be better or do you want to be that, right? Do you want to be good, do you want to be better or do you want to be best? Right? So you have to really have really good attention to detail, right?

Speaker 1: 10:50

So another position in the field that you can see quite often is going to be the network cabling special. Sometimes they're called technicians. Now the technician usually is pull cable, terminal cable, testing cable. They understand all that stuff, but they go one step further. They might be running crews and they also may be putting in network equipment, right. They might be putting in hubs and routers and switches and stuff like that, and they need to know the basics of how to set those up. So your low-voltage apprentice, your low-voltage installer, they're just pulling the cable. Now, there might be times where your low voltage technician may only just be pulling cable too, but they have those skill sets to do additional things. Now they also need attention to detail. But their attention to detail is next level. They have to know what's in the industry, standards, what are the best practices, because that's going to be the attention.

Speaker 1: 11:45

I'll give you an example, and I've said this, I think last week, I think, if I remember right? No, I didn't do a live stream last week, it must have been the week before. I was talking about plywood. There's nothing in the code book that requires us to use plywood Nothing. Now an inspector might require you put one in, but there's nothing in the code book. The standard says at least one wall should be covered with three-quarter-inch AC gray plywood. The best practice is those two walls.

Speaker 1: 12:09

So a good technician needs to know those things that are required by the standards and the best practices. And the reason they need to know that is because the contract might stipulate that the work will meet and or exceed the standards. And how do you know that your work meets the standards if you don't know what's in the standards? Right, and most people learn the standards not from reading the standards but sitting in classes and having people tell them what's in the standards. That's how most people learn the standards.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I do have a copy of the standards in one of my cases back there somewhere. I'll get it out one day and show it to you, yeah. So if you want to read it, yeah, come on over to the house. We'll, we'll, crack open a root beer. Sit on the back porch, watch the sunset and I'll, I'll, I'll crack out the standards, we start reading it and then you'll probably fall asleep, right? So that the technician also has to be better with their communication skills, because they're going to be communicating with their team members, right, their installers and their apprentices. But they also got to talk to the project manager, to the owner of the company, to the customer, right?

Speaker 1: 13:15

Somebody says some companies will require you to use not only plywood but fire-rated plywood. Oh, absolutely, rated plywood, oh, absolutely. Some people will say not only will they say fire-rated plywood, sometimes they'll make you put two coats of fire retardant paint on that fire retardant plywood. Some companies will do that as well too. If they do that, don't ever paint over the stamp, right, don't ever paint over the stamp. Good point, 10,000 points for Jojolus. I hope I said that right.

Speaker 1: 13:46

So now another field position. And see what happens is when I talked about the earlier, when I was talking about some of the reasons why people get into the field is career advancement. So some people usually get into pulling cable because they want to become a fiber optic technician, which is the next one. They want to become a project manager. They want to become a PBX engineer, a project manager. So it's a good stepstool. Now, a good fiber optic technician is going to be proficient in handling.

Speaker 1: 14:11

You know the different types of fiber optic cabling inside plant, outside plant, single mode, multi-mode splicing techniques such as fusion splicing, mechanical splicing. Ooh, I've got a multi-part series starting in three weeks. So on Monday, april, what's the week after? What's the Monday after April 8th? Anybody know? I don't have a calendar in front of me. So, yeah, I'm going to go through a fusion splicing series, right, and actually on Monday the 8th, I'm starting off with fiber testing things.

Speaker 1: 14:41

So we're talking about what is a DB, what is a DBM and what's an event, dead zone, attenuation, dead zone, that's all coming up. All stuff has already been recorded. It's already in the pipeline. So a good fiber optic technician will know what all those things are. They'll know how to set up that fusion splicer. They'll know how to set up that optical loss test set. They'll know how to set up the OTDR. They'll know how to read and interpret that OTDR. They're also going to know that it comes out on April 8th. You're the problem. April 8th we're going to discuss DB, dbm, db versus DBM, event and attenuation, dead spaces and something else. I can't remember what the other one is. It'll come out, you'll see it.

Speaker 1: 15:25

The fiber optic technician also has to know I'm going to say safety, but so does the apprentice, so does the technician and so does the installer. But the fiber optic technician needs to know those safety habits plus safety that's specific to working with fiber, right, like maybe working over a dark surface, maybe how to dispose of your fiber scraps appropriately. I was teaching a class last week and one of the guys in the class was supposed to be their fiber technician, their fiber guru. Right, as they said, working in confined space. That's a great one there's with too. And he said I just used, I just put my scraps on electrical tape, brought over backwards. I wanted to strangle them. That's not the right way to do that. So the fiber optic tech has to know how to deal with all that.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Don't eat at your fiber station, don't drink at your fiber station. You're the problem, says OSHA. 30 is important. Yes, it is yes, it is yes, it is Right. And you also have to have good analytical skills, because you got to be able to look at that OTR test result and understand where the problem is. You have to be able to look at that test result for the optical lens test set and find out okay, is my stuff going to work? Right, so you need to do that.

Speaker 1: 16:38

But so far, all of a sudden, the next position, all the positions I've covered so far have really been structured cabling positions right, there is other things to the low-voltage industry besides structured cabling, right, how about a security system installer? Right, you're putting in the security systems, putting in voice surveillance systems, video surveillance systems. Right, access control, stuff like that. Because not only do you need to know cabling and that kind of configuration Right For security systems, and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to go ahead and put in with security systems installer, I'm also going to lump in fire alarm panels with them too. You may have to get additional certifications, like maybe NYSET training or something like that NYSET certifications, where in the structured cable industry, the low voltage guy who's doing just voice and data, they don't have to do that, right?

Speaker 1: 17:28

Can I touch a bit on the pay ranges for the different types of jobs? So that's a great question. The problem with touching on pay ranges is because it depends on the area of the country, whether you're union or non-union, right, it also depends on your ability to negotiate rates. So you know what. Here's what I will do. I'm going to write this down, I will do it. I'll do a live stream. I'll try to do it next week. Pay rates Pay rates for these positions How's that sound? That means you've got to come back next week, though. Somebody just asked me what was the pay rates, because I'm going to have to research that because there's a lot of factors that go into that. That's a great question.

Speaker 1: 18:11

So the AV security, the, the security system, the, the fire alarm panel guy, they, they have to know not only cabling, but they're also got to know the nuances for each type of security system, each type of fire alarm system, what panels work with what, how to integrate those and do those right, because that's why, while they are low voltage, they're not category rated UTP cabling most of the time. Right Now, the attention to detail is even more so with the security system and the fire alarm guy, because people's lives are at stake. People's lives are at stake. So it's the attention to detail is more, because if that fire alarm panel doesn't go off when there's a fire, people will get hurt, people might lose their lives. So the attention to detail is even more there, might lose their lives. So the attention, detail is even more there and if you're doing the security side of it, you need to make sure that you truly understand or be aware of security risks and best practices.

Speaker 1: 19:10

And just to kind of give you an example where to place cameras right, that's a big one, right? So when you play, everybody knows I got a farm right, I'm not hiding anything from anybody. I've got security cameras all around my property. And I got them from my property for two reasons One, to watch out for the two-legged intruders and number two, to keep an eye on my animals, right? So when I place my cameras, I got to make sure that I place them where, like the cameras that are facing east, I got to make sure they're not facing into the sun, because when the sun comes up that camera is going to be useless. See, because when the sun comes up that camera is going to be useless. See, that's something additional that somebody's putting in a security system, a video surveillance system, has to understand.

Speaker 1: 19:52

And then there's this type of technician. I actually started off this industry as this technician 40-plus years ago an AV technician, audio-visual technician. So now, with audio-video technicians, you have to understand. You know things like line in line out. You know component cabling, audio and video equipment installations. What happens when the there's latency and the audio is just a tiny bit behind the video? How do you fix that, right, yeah, and but even though the AV stuff seems HDMI right, hdmi over fiber, hdmi over balanced twisted pair cabling they need to know all that stuff on top of knowing cabling. We already talked about cabling right, they have to know all that stuff. So there's the AV technician, and the AV technician has to be also creative. Matter of fact, a good, a good, a good residential technician, residential AV technician is going to be the best person to choose when you want to know how to run a piece of cable somewhere, because they're used to. You know, hey, I don't have drop tile ceilings. What's underneath the floor, what's behind that wall? They're good at finding other ways, right? So those are the field positions.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Now let's talk about office positions. Right Now, office positions are basically people who now some of these positions you say Chuck, that person comes out in the field too. The office position is going to be the person who spends the majority of their time in the office. They might be doing tasks like designing stuff, planning stuff, estimating stuff, project management. So, again, they're going to be spending the majority of their time in the office. Now, this can be appealing to some people because they don't like being on noisy construction sites. They're not having to climb 10 foot ladders, they're not having to carry boxes of cables up the steps because the freight elevator is not working yet on that new construction site. So there is that whole part of office work that people are attracted to.

Speaker 1: 21:54

One of the things about working in offices it gives you an outlet for creativity. Right Now. This really showed up with me when I started talking about doing work as an estimator right, an estimator, because as an estimate, I got to design stuff and then, when we'd win the project, I got to see it being built. So it is a way for me to express my creativity. Now, the creativity doesn't have to be estimating. It could be writing proposals, it could be thinking of an innovative solution. The customer would say, hey, I want to do this type of a system, but CAF IV won't work, and then maybe you might have to look at it for another way. That's the cool thing about that. Hey, tony's in the house, hey, Tony, tony is a fellow instructor and a good friend of mine. One day I hope to get to sit in one of his classes one day. He's a great guy.

Speaker 1: 22:43

It gives you opportunity for that creativity. That creativity can be finding ways to. The customer says, hey, you win the project. Yes, I understand the project scope of work is four weeks, but we got to get done in three weeks. So you, as the project manager, might get to look at and figure out ways to maximize the schedule. Change work schedules, put different people on. It gives you a way to be creative.

Speaker 1: 23:05

And working in your office also gives you a way to be collaborative because as an office, if you're the project manager, you're going to be dealing with your colleagues the estimator, the area manager, maybe somebody who does the paperwork, who does the notary and that kind of stuff. Clients you're going to be talking to distribution vendors, inside salespeople. Outside salespeople come in and tell you about new products coming in right, so you get to be in all that kind of stuff. You might get to work with what they call ideal sharing terms, like meetings, where they'll sit down in the thing and say, okay, look, we've got to sit in a conference room. Say, hey, look, we need to come up with a new way to solve this problem.

Speaker 1: 23:44

The person on the field is not going to be involved in that conversation, but the person in the office might be right, and one of the good things about working in the office is it gives you a better work-life balance, because the majority of the time people who work in the office generally go into work eight to five. I'm not going to say they don't do overtime because they can, but they're going to do a lot less overtime than people who are in the field. So that gives you time to go. Maybe go to your kid's soccer games, stuff like that. I have to work or coach little league or whatever the case may be. Again, keep in mind, these field positions may involve travel, so you might have to be driving to job sites, so you will be out in the field, but the majority of time is going to be sent in.

Speaker 1: 24:29

So this first one we're going to talk about is the automation engineer, right, the automation engineer. So we're talking about building control here, so the automation engineer has to be able to look at and think about the functions that building's going to be doing and how to come up with systems to make it so it functions correctly. They're going to need technical knowledge of not only understanding the cabling for voice and data and security and fire alarm, but also understand how the lighting works, how the HVAC system works and how all those systems talk to each other. Talk to each other. So that's what that automation engine is going to do. And again, you have to be really good at problem solving. You'll see, problem solving skills is common amongst a lot of these.

Speaker 1: 25:13

The next person who works in the office a lot is called the telecommunications engineer, the PBX engineer, the telecom engineer. They have to understand how telephony networks work right. What protocols? Is it going to be a physical star topology or hierarchical star topology? Does it work? Is it going to be analog phone lines or is it going to be VoIP? Is it going to be 100 megabit Ethernet or is it going to be one gig, two and a half gig, five gig, because all those need different types of switches and networks and cabling.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Right.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Right. So the good thing there is it gives you the ability to design and configure and manage stuff. And again, here comes that whole creativity portion again coming in and you might be able to do some project management as well. Because one thing about titles in our industry is a lot of times they overlap, right, they overlap, and none overlaps even more than the project manager. Right, let me know in the chat box if you've ever worked for a company that you were the project manager. Right, let me know in the chat box if you've ever worked for a company that you were the project manager but you're out there pulling cable. Or you know of a company who, the project manager, came out there and pulled cabling. Well, I'm sorry, if you're the project manager, you shouldn't be pulling cable. You should have some skill sets, you should have leadership skills to be able to lead that team, make sure they get motivated to do the work on time, on budget, on schedule, right. And if you're out there doing the work with them, you're not doing what you're doing because you also have to be planning ahead. So, for example, let's say you're pulling horizontal cable now, but you know you can start pulling the backbone cables in a week. Well, you have to be thinking about that, because you got to order that material and all that ancillary material to support that stuff. That's what the project management does.

Speaker 1: 26:58

Project managers have to be good at time management. Again, our industry is horrible at giving people titles of project manager when they're not project manager. One of the easiest ways to find out if somebody is a true project manager when they're on the job site. Ask them what's your material budget, what's your labor budget, what's your schedule. If they don't know the answer to any of those, they're not a project manager. They just have the title. They just have the title Right. And also, to be good in project management, you have to be good at computer programs like Word, excel, maybe Oracle, stuff like that. And you have to be good with money. I'm not money. You have to be good with numbers, Good numbers, because you're going to be doing oversight on the material budgets and the labor budgets and you have to be able to do calculations Based on our current workload and our current production rates. Will this project come in on time? So you have to be good at forecasting too. That all falls under the things of a project manager.

Speaker 1: 28:00

Then you have estimators. So estimators again good analytical skills, because you have to be able to read a request for proposal or a request for quote or interact with a customer and say, okay, based on what you told me, here is the system that you need. You need two Cat5e cables and you said you want them to be different, so we'll do the voice in ivory, but the data in blue, or whatever the case may be, and the project information may not come to you in a formal document. You might literally have to sit down and meet with the customer and get that from verbally right. As an estimator, you have to have precision to detail, because if you mess up something, every estimate goes out the door has a mistake in it, every estimate right. So if you have the project goes out the door and it's not estimated correctly, you will be the first one thrown under the bus. Yep, you will, it just is. And as an estimator, you also have to have good negotiation skills, because customers, they always will come back. Well, not always, but a lot of times. They'll always come back and say, man, that price is kind of high. And of course, what always happens is the poor estimators. What they do is they just, they knock off. They knock off hours out of the project. That's not the way you do that. What you might do is ask the customer hey, well, then maybe we need to talk about a different type of system, because the amount of hours it takes to install cabling, terminate cabling, test cabling doesn't change just based on the fact that the customer says your price is too high. It's always going to be the same. Now there are ways to cut pricing on a project, but you've got to be careful doing those too. I mean, you can go back to distribution and say, hey, can you revise your pricing? Give me lower prices on that material. You can only do that a couple of times, I'm telling you.

Speaker 1: 29:49

Another position is a quality assurance specialist. This is a great job to have I've had this position too where you go out and you make sure that the cabling is installed, terminated and tested, not only the way that the standards say, but the way your company's guidelines say, and make sure that it meets with the documents from the contract. So that's your job as a quality assurance specialist. So you get to go out there, make sure it's done, and then you get to take those QA inspections and turn them into mini training sessions to make your people better, more efficient. It's one of the best positions you can have. It truly is. Then you have to be good at documentation skills as a QA specialist, right, qa specialist, because you're going to be, you're going to be taking down information and then you're going to have to tell the person how to fix it and you have to be able to come back and make sure that you, that they did change that, right. I love the customer tries to cheap out on testing new 864 reels. Yeah, customers, yeah, I'm not going to go down that road today.

Speaker 1: 30:56

And then another position, and sometimes some companies will combine these two right, it's going to be the training and development specialist. So the person who does training, like me and Tony. Right, that's my job, I train people. Right, some companies, the training person is the QA person. Sometimes they will combine them together, right, so the training skills you have to be, you have to.

Speaker 1: 31:19

This is this is a hard position to really fill because you have to find somebody who is, who knows what the codes and standards and best practices are. Yet they have the ability to be a good communicator, to be able to communicate those to people who might have strong opinions. Tell me if I'm wrong, tony. They might have strong opinions on how to do something because somebody taught them how to do it that way, but they were taught wrong. A good training person knows how to overcome those hurdles. A good trainer is also going to know how to manage your classroom, because you will have people come in your classroom. There's different types of students. I'll just leave it at that. And to be a good training person is you have to be a continuous learner, because everything, everything, pulls down to learning. It just pulls down to learning. Yes, my kid loves to pull cables sometimes too. Yeah well, I already expressed my opinion on that one.

Speaker 1: 32:16

So the next position is going to be area or division managers. Right, so the office managers, area managers, division managers they're going to manage the whole entire office. They're going to manage all the cable crews, the salespeople, the back of house people this is a restaurant term the people who do HR accounting, all this stuff. They got to manage all these people together and they got to make sure that their office meets certain goals that have been set out by the owner of the company. Now, it's a great position to have, but it's also a great responsibility. It truly is. It truly is.

Speaker 1: 32:48

Now, again, you have to know what motivates people, because what motivates me may not motivate somebody else. People are motivated by money, some people are motivated by titles, some people are motivated by just a simple pat on the back hey, you did a good job. You have to know what motivates everybody, because everybody's going to be different. No two people are going to be the same. Then you have sales positions. So the sales positions I don't have as many.

Speaker 1: 33:14

We're almost through all these. I know I'm running a little bit late today. So, number one they're going to be interacting with clients, right. They're going to be doing sales calls. They're going to be frequently contacting them, sometimes some companies. They're going to be calling a lot and have to do what's called cold calling and they have to take a lot of no's, a lot of rejections. So they have to be able to listen to customers, understand what the customer wants, build relationships with the customers. See, this is a different skill set here. Now, some technicians are good at building relationships, but there's a lot of technicians who aren't good at building relationships with customers, right. So well, I've said this before and I'll say it again If you're in front of the customer, no matter what your position is, even if you're just the person driving the delivery truck to drop off materials. If you meet face to face with the customer, you're in sales. I said it, there you go, because you have to understand that you are the forward-facing person of that company, right, forward-facing person.

Speaker 1: 34:16

The good thing about working in sales is, again, you get to see a variety of different types of projects voice projects, data projects, government buildings, commercial buildings, landmarks, right, and it keeps it interesting. It truly, truly does. Oops, my battery's running low on my phone. You also have to be a consistent, a continual learner and also a good commitment to career growth, right? So what are the two positions here? You have the sales engineers and you have consultants oh, I forgot to put one in here Manufacturer sales rep and a lot of I forgot to put one in here Manufacturer sales rep and a lot of these are going to be kind of similar. Sales engineer is somebody who has a lot of knowledge on low voltage cabling, voice cabling, data cabling, security, av. They know the codes, they know the standards, but they're also good at conveying all that needs to the customer. Again, this is really going to be a sales position and they have to be good to be able to lay in deals, negotiate those contracts. Another one is going to be consultant. So you see a lot of them out there. A customer will hire a consultant to deal with the different low-voltage contractors. So that's a good position to have. You have to have, again, expertise in low-voltage systems and the ability to think analytically. And then you have the sales positions of manufacturer sales reps. So what I mean by that is there's a lot of companies out there that will manufacture different types of companies. For example, let's say I run a manufacturer sales rep outfit. I might rep one type of cable, but this type of cable track, but that type of a tester, and it's my job to sell those products in my area and then I get paid commissions off of those. So those are the products Again not an all-encompassing list, but those are some of the career paths that you can take in the level of the gentry.

Speaker 1: 36:13

And even if you're in one now and you don't necessarily like it, start looking at one of the other positions. You know as much as I liked pulling cable, I didn't like it as much as I do training people. So you've got to find a job that speaks to your heart, speaks to your mind and gives you that satisfaction, and so now, what I'll do is for next week's live stream, based on the request I got there in TikTok world, maybe I'll look up the salaries for those positions and we'll do a show on salaries. Keep in mind, though, you know salary. You know the big thing is is it's going to be based on your negotiation skills. You heard me right If you're a good negotiator, you might get a better salary for the same position than somebody who's not a good negotiator.

Speaker 1: 37:07

That sort of boils down to. This is the world we live in, is not a practice run. This is life. You've got to develop people skills. I don't care. People want to shake hands and want to look in the eyes of people. They do, by our deep-rooted sense, want to shake hands and want to look in the eyes of people they do. We are, by our deep-rooted sense of being. We want to be, we want to talk to people. We want to be with people, not computers, not video screens. There you go. All right, that covers today's show. We went a tiny bit over, we went over eight minutes, holy smokes. All right, everybody, we'll see you next week and remember until next time remember knowledge is power.

Speaker 2: 37:52

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.