Starting a Low Voltage Business Part 1

Ready to transform your low voltage skills into a thriving business? Three successful entrepreneurs who've walked this path share the unfiltered truth about what it takes to transition from installer to owner.

Pierce (All Green Lights), Ryan (R&R Connectivity), and Jeff (Better Days Technology) reveal that their journeys didn't begin with meticulous planning but with a willingness to take calculated risks. Each had different safety nets—a spouse with steady income, youth's flexibility, or a strong client base from moonlighting—but all took the leap without overthinking it.

Creating a memorable brand identity proved crucial for standing out in the competitive low voltage landscape. From Pierce's Lego figures marking completed racks to Jeff's crowdsourced logo design, these personal touches helped forge authentic connections with clients. The panel unanimously stressed the importance of proper legal structure (minimum LLC) and seeking guidance from mentors both inside and outside the industry.

The most revealing insights came when discussing early mistakes. All three admitted significantly underpricing their services initially, failing to account for overhead costs beyond materials. Ryan candidly shared a cautionary tale of a project estimated to profit $20,000 that ultimately lost $70,000. When unexpected challenges arise, they emphasized transparent communication with clients rather than suffering in silence.

For finding clients, cold calling proved less effective than authentic relationship building. Ryan's game-changing moment came from answering a 2AM emergency call, while Jeff leveraged hometown connections where "rarely is there not one degree of separation" between him and potential clients. The consistent thread? Exceptional work quality that generates word-of-mouth referrals—the most powerful marketing tool in the low voltage industry.

Looking to start your own low voltage business? Join communities like Tech Knowledge Worldwide where experienced owners willingly share both successes and failures to help newcomers avoid costly mistakes. Remember their parting advice: charge more than you think you should, communicate openly when challenges arise, and never stop learning from others.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Let's Talk Cabling
• 2:02 Planning Your Low Voltage Business
• 9:39 Creating Your Brand Identity
• 14:01 Legal Structure and Business Setup
• 21:17 Landing Your First Clients
• 31:45 Pricing and Common Estimation Mistakes
• 36:17 Learning from the Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wild Monkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. So you thought about starting your own low voltage business. This is the show for you.

Speaker 2: 0:08

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling. Let's talk cabling, your source for low voltage expertise and connection.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, IT personnel, even customers. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Wednesday night, 6 pm, Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know you get to ask your favorite RCDD questions on installation, certification, design, estimation, project management, even career path questions. But I can hear you now I'm driving my truck on Wednesday nights at 6 pm. I don't want to get into a direction. I record them and they're available afterwards without you having to get into an accident. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours. Of course, you can even buy let's Talk Cabling t-shirts.

Speaker 1: 2:02

So, as I mentioned, starting a low-voltage business who in this industry hasn't thought about doing that? Here's a story I don't think I've ever told. I was sitting one day outside the office of the Navy Annex with three of my buddies Only about a year or two in the industry and we had to wait because our truck was blocked in. So we're waiting for the power can light guys to move our things and we're just sitting of talking oh yeah, we can do this, this is so easy. Well, actually, two of us actually did. I never did. I never started my own business, but we've all thought about it all the time. But what do you have to do to actually take that lead to go from an installer to an owner? Because, well, a lot of the skill sets are going to cross-transfer. There's a lot of new skill sets that you better be good at.

Speaker 1: 2:43

And this show is actually coming on the tail end of another show on how to sell your low-voltage company, how to sell the servers and stuff. So this is going to be a good part of that series continuing on. So we're going to break this show up into three segments, or three acts, as they like to say. The first one is going to be planning your launch. The second one is going to be executing your first projects and hard-earned lessons that you won't find in any textbooks, and then we're also going to cover. You know what to do afterwards. So let's go ahead and jump into the first one.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Funny thing is, this show has been in the planning efforts for over a year Over a year. I first approached these guys to do this show, probably, I think, about a year and a half ago, but because of their busy schedules, because of my busy schedules, we just never crossed paths, couldn't do it. But I finally got a nail down and I got three of the best on tonight's show for you. I've got all green lights R&R, connectivity and Better Days Technology. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 4: 3:48

Doing good. Thank you, chuck, great Thank you for having us Doing well. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Not a problem. So let's start off with you, piers. You're a repeat interviewee on the show. Yep, let's start with the original. What made you decide to start your own low voltage company?

Speaker 4: 4:06

So I had back in 2010, 2011, somewhere in there, I had started doing small MSP kind of work break-fix kind of work, if you would locally around town and I got hooked into doing some small kibbling projects for a couple of clients, didn't know the first thing about it, but figured it out enough to sort of stumble through it and pull it off somewhat successfully. Shortly after I did the first couple of those, I got into one or two bigger ones. They quickly sort of escalated and I realized the margins at least for me, versus doing MSP work, were a hell of a lot better. That incentive for the money right out of the gate made me want to become a better installer, a better technician, and improve my skills even more. So ever since then I've just been on that path and trying to become better and better and better every day.

Speaker 1: 4:55

Very cool, Ron. What about you? What was your story? How did you get into doing your own Louis Vuitton business?

Speaker 4: 5:00

Roughly about the same thing. I started in uh cell phone repair and MSP Um, and that was back in 2013. I started with that and we had customers reach out to us wanting uh cabling jobs small ones and just continue growing from there. Um, a lot like Pierce. We see the the money value uh, more so in the cabling jobs than some of our MST work, but we still do a lot of MST work as well.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Very good, and Jeff what's?

Speaker 4: 5:30

your story. I was IT director for a private school for 20 years and I was doing this nights and weekends. I had a pretty good client base and decided one day I was when you're working in a private school, you get a lot of weeks off. Two weeks here through, you know it's crazy. So I had two weeks off for spring break and I was wiring a house and there are a bunch of other traits there. Jamaican music was playing and I was like you know what? What? This is where I want to be. And so, uh, I I went to my boss that when we came back from break and I said, look, this is going to be my last year. Um, and I went for it. And, uh, my only regret is not doing it sooner.

Speaker 1: 6:16

There you go so I'm pretty sure that the process of when you and the first the the thought first came across your mind that hey, I want to, I'm gonna go ahead and start doing this extra service or do this business, I'm sure you didn't just jump right to it. I'm sure you guys probably knowing you three the way I know you guys I'm pretty sure you've thought about it, researched it and maybe even done some planning on it, right? So, going around the room getting started with you first, peter, what was something that you did during the planning phase that helped you hit the ground running?

Speaker 4: 6:44

You know I'm the last person you should ask that question, because I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it. The good thing for me was I wasn't afraid to take the risk. If you were to take the leap, I had somewhat of a backstop and safety on my wife working. So you know, if I had failed I wouldn't have been dead in the water. But being somewhat fearless and not knowing what I didn't know, let me sort of really go after it in a way that I probably couldn't have if I'd really calculated what I was doing.

Speaker 1: 7:10

It's nice having a sugar mama, isn't it, Ryan? What about you? What, what, what during the planning stage helped you be successful when you, when you finally started doing this little goal.

Speaker 4: 7:21

So mine's pretty straightforward. I was still in high school when I started it, so I really could go any which way I wanted to. So if it failed, I could go flip burgers if I really wanted to. I mean there could have been a couple different scenarios that happened, but still being in high school was a great benefit for me. But still being in high school was a great benefit for me Was it easy with the hours? But we worked through the weekends, late nights to get the jobs done and went through ground running after that, after high school, and I went through a little bit of college, but not much, and just let the business continue growing from there.

Speaker 1: 8:06

See one of these days, ryan, you're going to be sitting back looking in the mirror. You're going to be staring at that man in the mirror with a whole bunch of gray hair. You're going to be like man. I've been doing this for 45 years. I've been doing this since I was out of high school. Ask me how I know that.

Speaker 4: 8:22

I have gray hair already.

Speaker 1: 8:24

I think that comes from having a business. Yeah Right, jeff. What, during the playing stage, helped you hit the ground running?

Speaker 4: 8:31

I can echo Pierce's story almost to the letter. I have a sugar mama at home too. So you know, my wife is a full-time nurse and it really kind of gave me the springboard I needed full-time nurse and it really kind of gave me the springboard I needed. I didn't have to worry about things like medical insurance and, you know, pensions and all those things that you know a lot of people unfortunately have to think about when they're thinking about their career. So I really had a strong support system at home and when it was time to go off, like Ryan, I did have a strong client base that I felt I could confidently make the leap and keep me busy while I continue to grow and find new clients, starting your own business, right, and yeah, I didn't realize this until I started my podcast.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Right, you got to think about what's going to be the company name, what's going to be the brand, what's going to be the positioning? What's going to be the brand? What's going to be the positioning? Um, what's going to make it feel right? How did you come up with all green lights, pierce, how did you come up with that brand?

Speaker 4: 9:33

so it's actually the second iteration of my company. When I first started and I was doing the msp work um, or msp like work I went by tech caddy, the idea being that, you know, I would help carry you through your technology problems or some silliness like that. I, in 2016, we were on sabbatical overseas and I had sort of shut down tech caddy. I was planning to come back and launch something new and in a moment of just like a aha moment, I was sitting in the little house for renting. I looked over at the modem and noticed all the green lights blinking. I was like, oh, things are working. Things are working the way they should, and that, literally, was kind of what inspired me to say all green lights would be symbolic of keeping the network up and keeping things running smoothly.

Speaker 1: 10:12

You know one of your brands too, one of your marketing things are the little people, little Lego men that you leave on top of your racks. How did that come about?

Speaker 4: 10:24

That was a thing with my son. So Jasper, who's now 12, when I was started he was probably six or so hated to see me go out and go to work sometimes. So we made a deal. I was like I'll tell you what, when I finish a rack and I'm getting ready to come home, I'll put the guys up on top to keep it all clean and I'll send you a photo. So you know I'm done and I'll be on the next flight flight home the next day. And it started from there, and so he's always made him for me, giving me like his little custom Lego man to go put on the different racks that we build out nice, nice, right.

Speaker 1: 10:53

What about R&R Connectivity? You guys have a, have a really unique brand with uh with it, with the R&R logo and stuff like that. How did you come up with that?

Speaker 4: 11:01

so R&r comes from rick and ryan, so rick is my business partner, so we took the two r's there. Um it, it's funny. One of the people that we actually were talking to when we were starting the business said oh, that's a stupid name, you shouldn't go that way, uh. And we looked up to that person. But we kind of looked to our first customer and they said we love it. And I was like, oh, we're going with it. I said we valued our customers brand or their opinion more than someone that has a successful business themselves. We wanted to go with what a customer thought was good.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Right, jeff, better days, technology, the sunrise. Actually, I think I got one of them stickers. Yeah, I do. I got one of them stickers back there in the back of my thing. How did you come up with your logo?

Speaker 4: 11:50

So my logo. I actually, you know I was struggling for that artistic, you know, development there. Obviously the name comes from my last name, day, better Days, but the logo. I really loved the process, my Last Name, day, better Days, but the logo. I really loved the process. I put it out to one of these online-based, you know, computer graphic design places Like the Elver or something like that.

Speaker 4: 12:13

Yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but you know I had to put up a cash prize for the one that I selected and I had I'm not exaggerating hundreds of entries that I got to really comb through and it was such a really fun process that I've, like tried to find other ways to go back to it with like little, like side things that I had going on, like because it was just so cool to see people dreaming for you.

Speaker 4: 12:44

It was just so cool to see people dreaming for you. And if anyone's got that hurdle that they're trying to get over on, how do I get this logo? It was such a fun experience for me. Like I said, I don't want any play on the initials. That was just a thing that I didn't want and you got a lot of those, but for the most part when you saw it. You, when you saw it, you're like that's the one. And then you got to go back and forth with them to make little iterations like the uh, it's like the grays are like a soldering solder board, if you've ever really looked at it close. Yeah, so it was fun.

Speaker 1: 13:17

It was so cool to to see some people who had no idea who you were bring your dream to reality, right and the thing about branding that a lot of people don't realize is, you know, coming up with a brand is only 40% of the battle, right. The other, the other, is being consistent across all of your stuff, across your your, your social media platforms, across business literature, lettering head, all the be consistent that way, if someone sees that right now, if someone were to flip across the web page and they'd see the let's Talk Cabling logo, they'd automatically know oh, that's Chuck, right. So the key is being consistent with that, and that's where I think a lot of people fall down.

Speaker 3: 13:57

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Speaker 1: 14:46

Now one of the things I want to touch base as well is getting your own business license. You get your own business license, your own insurance and your legal structure. Any advice for a new starter, starting with you, pierce?

Speaker 4: 14:55

talk to people who know more than you, listen to what they tell you. Um, I kind of winged it out of the gate and I you know that's my one regret on starting is I was like, oh, I can do everything you can't and you shouldn't try to do everything. Um, you know, do the right thing, set up the right legal structure, get it set up as an llc at a minimum to protect yourself and separate the company and everything else past that. You know, if you've got they don't even have to be in the same field, but just mentors who can help you on structuring business or running a business and the things you need to think about, like how do you set up your accounting and your billing and all that kind of just basic stuff that we all need to do to run the business. Definitely, leverage those people and use them as best you can.

Speaker 1: 15:35

What about you, ryan, who helped you so?

Speaker 4: 15:37

What about you, ryan? Who helped you? So it was a business mentor that kind of helped us and a county person that we knew from a previous company, because Rick and I worked together for a previous company before we joined and did this venture, so they helped us. One thing I would say is definitely reach out to people that have their own businesses for the help, especially if you're in the low voltage community and want to start your own business. Look up Tech Knowledge Worldwide TKW. There's a couple of channels on our Slack that are made for that, and all of us would be happy to help mentor anybody looking to start their own company. All of us would be happy to help mentor anybody looking to start their own company. I know one of the guys recently, sean Wilson, out of Philadelphia area or New Jersey, pa. He started his own business and I kind of helped him along the way with that.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Was that the same guy who helped you with all your legal advice and all that Was?

Speaker 4: 16:39

he the same guy who said your R&R was stupid. No, thank you. Okay, no, thankfully not. Uh, so we had, um, my wife is our was a paralegal, um, so we looked to her boss who, uh, did white collar federal law um for a lot of the stuff. And then, um, we had a couple other accounting people that we we leaned on well, we've all more income than I realized.

Speaker 1: 17:03

My wife was a paralegal for for 30 plus years and she goes sometimes you know little things, I'm gonna show stuff.

Speaker 4: 17:09

No wait, let me read through them, like okay yeah, I'll let mine read through everything at this point, even if we put it through our lawyer like we have two or three lawyers that are on our team that we deal with constantly, I still let her read it because I'm like, nope, I want another person and she's she's gonna look out for the the best of for r&r, no matter what.

Speaker 1: 17:31

So I think. I think it's the paralegal in them, right, because we were. We were at uh t-mobile over the weekend and we were looking to maybe get a backup internet service for the house. Here he has two is one, one is none kind of thing and to use when we're traveling with the RV and stuff. And you know, when you start looking, they start handing you all these little page boards that you got to sign. She's like no, no, I'm going to read this and I'm like, okay, jeff, licensing, insurance, setting up a legal structure, any advice for me.

Speaker 4: 17:58

I can't add much to what Pierce and Ryan have said. Definitely find mentors, people you look up to. They certainly don't have to be in the industry. One of my best friends in the world kind of followed. I followed his track. We're the same age but you know he was able to get a good, you know, 10-year head start on me. He's an engineer but I was able to kind of like watch him and and how that worked.

Speaker 4: 18:22

The only thing, as I was listening to the other two guys talk that I would add to that is um, you know, get yourself obviously a great lawyer, a great accountant, but uh, don't stay with them If you don't feel like they're the right one and don't feel like you're trapped with that professional offering. That's something that happened to me and you know you kind of feel like, oh man, like at this point they're so entrenched in what I do. But if you don't feel right about them, I mean you got to remember you're not, you're not working for someone anymore. People are working for you and you got to feel really good about the people that are on your, on your team and uh, you, you can't be afraid to cut bait if you need to, and that's something that happened to me, and and I um, I try to tell anybody who will listen is uh, don't feel like the decisions you made from day one are the ones you have to live with for the rest of your career.

Speaker 1: 19:18

True, and't think this is in the questions that I've that I sent to you guys in advance. But yeah, I love consuming anything business related, and I don't remember who the guy was. He's one of the professional business people and and he said one of the worst things that entrepreneurs do is they don't fire people fast enough. They will try to put up with them and then try to try to make them work and all stuff, and then there's a lot of damage it can have. This show's not about that. But yeah, don't be afraid to cut bait. I like that.

Speaker 1: 19:43

So let's talk about okay. So now you've got your business and I think one of the biggest questions I get asked quite often is Chuck, how do I get my low-voltage license for XYZ State? I don't know, I don't live in Wyoming. I don't live in Wyoming, I don't live in New Jersey, I don't live in. But I think, as Ryan pointed out, I think that's where the advantage of being in a community like TKW or Technology Worldwide will help, because even though somebody may not have gone through that process, they probably know somebody's gone through that process. Right, certainly can help you with that. So let's shift from kicking off and all the legal stuff to your first job, right? Your first job under your company name, the first paid gig under your company name Pierce. How was it? How did it go? Did it go as?

Speaker 4: 20:27

expected Mostly so. I had just gotten back from being overseas and I kind of literally hit like two days after we landed we always get out and start working and I was a little rusty if you would, having not worked for several months at that point. So we did it and got through it, but I definitely forgot some little things like just some materials and some planning and some key logistics stuff. But you learned and the next one went perfectly fine. It was just that first one.

Speaker 1: 20:55

Yeah, well, I remember being in Esmeralda Whenever.

Speaker 4: 21:03

Yeah, well, I remember being an estimator, but whenever I got the phone, call that hey, you won the job.

Speaker 1: 21:06

The first thing that would always go through my mind is uh-oh, what'd I forget? Yep.

Speaker 4: 21:09

Ryan, what about your first job? How did it go? Compared to how you planned it, it went pretty well actually. It was for a food chain restaurant we did two months up in michigan. Uh, rick and I did um and we we did. I think it was 16 or 17 stores in that two month period. Oh and uh, it was our first solo gig and we did it together. I will say, uh, he lost some hair, I lost some hair. We wanted to punch each other a couple times, but we made the best of it and it was a nice paycheck at the end of the day right, right, right, and you guys came by with probably a little more healthy respect for each other as well oh yeah, absolutely jeff.

Speaker 4: 21:49

What about your first job? How did it go? Compared to not well at all? I had, um, I, I was, I was working at a school, um, I had um like five classes left to get a second major. So I asked the job if I could finish my fifth year of college while I took this IT director job. So, from you know, the first semester of the year I was part time and then I was just part time for the remainder of the year. So one of the board of trustees, one of the members of the board of trustees, he reached out and he said, hey, um, I know you have this uh spare time now that you finished school and everything. Uh, you want to jump in and do some it stuff at my, my place of business? So I said, yeah, this sounds great. Um, looks like I'm going to be doing some freelance stuff. And you know I the mistakes, I I mean one mistake that just kind of like resonates with me every day is I I was responsible for ordering new computers and I had to order.

Speaker 4: 22:49

So we were ordering, windows XP had just come out and I was like, yeah, let's save you some money. I'm ordering all these XP home computers, not realizing that those couldn't join a domain. Uh, you needed the xp pro uh license. So, uh, that was egg on my face, uh, first time. But you know, I I think about it every day. Xp is long gone, it's not part of our world anymore. But it it reminds me to, you know, cross every t and dot every. I make sure that when you and like you, said, oh man, I won the bid, what did I do wrong? This is that kind of reminder for me, like something as simple as ordering the wrong operating system on a device could really, you know, submarine a project fast. So simple reminder of to look out for things.

Speaker 3: 23:40

Let's take a short break. Are you trying to reach the technicians, project managers and decision makers of the ICT industry? Then why aren't you advertising on let's Talk Cabling? With over 150,000 impressions a month across podcasts, youtube and social media, this isn't just a show. It's the go to resource for the low voltage industry. We spotlight the tools, training and technology shaping the future of structured cabling, and your brand could be front and center. Don't just get noticed, get trusted Email. Chuck at advertising at letstalkcablingcom, and let's connect your brand to the right audience today.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Good news is anybody who's been in the business long enough. We all got horror stories.

Speaker 4: 24:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:34

We all have horror stories. No project goes right every single time. I've even mentioned on the podcast before that I wired up a call center in Memphis, tennessee, a couple thousand seats, wired them up T568A and guess what the contract wanted? B, b, exactly, yes, and luckily the customer and I were good friends and he's like you know what? I'm not going to make you go back and redo all these and retest everything. We'll just make these A's. Just next time pay a little more attention. They're like whoo-hoo, because you know how much money that would have cost Because the modular furniture was already set up. They were moving stuff in.

Speaker 1: 25:07

That would have been a huge hit to the project and I hate to admit this, but I had 15, 20 years experience at that point. That shouldn't have happened, but it does. It just does right. So one of the biggest shifts, I think, for a lot of people coming from the tech field once they start their own business is how do you find customers, how do you land contracts? And I actually talked about this a little bit in last week's show where I mentioned one of the ways you absolutely should not be doing it is there's a book that gives you all the local construction projects for your area, and the problem is there's very little margin and they're too late. You know the low voltage contracts are going to be selected by the time it hits that block. So let's start with you, pierre. How did you land this first couple of clients?

Speaker 4: 25:49

So let me step back to when it was tech I do this with the MSP stuff because that's probably a better answer for this I literally went door to door. So when I decided to start doing that, I went downtown you know a little college time we're in and in the first day I had picked up three clients literally knock on the door and say, hey, this is what I could do for you guys, ddad services. When it got into the cabling, I got very, very lucky and I'll admit that out of the gate that I picked up a very good client from the outset and I've been with them ever since. So I haven't had to do a whole lot of looking for new clients, if you would, because there's been a lot of work over the last decade with them.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Right, ryan, how about you? Because I know when I go to the TKW events and I do lurk in the TKW Slack channel I don't answer a lot of stuff because I'm usually way too busy, but I hear all the time Ryan's got all kinds of work, all kinds of work. He's looking for people everywhere. How do you find your clients?

Speaker 4: 26:47

So it started with the MSP side and we got clients that were starting open nationwide branches or locations whatever, but one of our most famous clients I'm not allowed to speak about them because nda but I answered the phone at like two o'clock in the morning and their their headquarters is in charlotte, north carolina, where I'm based, and my phone's ringing at two o'clock in the morning my wife's like who the hell is calling you? Like I'm like I don't know. So I answered it. It was uh, it was this client and their headquarters were in charlotte and they were screaming, yelling that they hired someone that started doing the job, then just walked off the job and their entire network's down and it was the entire campus for this large company in charlotte and they didn't care what it took, but they needed to get someone there. So my happy butt got out of bed at two o'clock in the morning, went over there, took about two and a half hours, got it done, all working. I stayed until about 7 38 o'clock in the morning just to make sure as their employees were showing up for the day everything was working. As soon as I got the check off that everything was good, one of the people come in and they handed me a blank check. They said you fill it out.

Speaker 4: 28:08

Oh, wow, I'm like I have no idea, like this 2 o'clock in the morning, like I wasn't thinking about money at that point I was thinking, okay, here's a good, solid client, nationwide client, over 5,000 locations Like didn't think anything about it. Uh, we've, we've talked about it for a couple days and I was like, yeah, I'm not looking to knock your head off, but how do we get in to do all your nationwide work? Right, right, right, that's that's where I took off with them. Um, but it's been mainly word of mouth and I'm thankful for a couple of the facebook groups and for tkw for that as well. Um, I mean, I don't want to toot my own horn or to any of, uh, our horns at r and r, but as you continue to do quality work, your name get recognized and your name is put down there yes, it's done.

Speaker 1: 28:59

And you know, I totally forgot that you were in charlotte. I was. I literally taught in the charlotte gray bar last week. Oh, I totally forgot. I've totally forgot that you were in charlotte. I should. I should have called you, said hey, let's meet up for dinner, or something yeah dang it, I'm sure I'll be back. Mr jeff, how did you, how did you, uh, do yours?

Speaker 4: 29:18

I think for me it's um, I, I grew up in a small town, um only left to go to college, and even that was only 15 minutes up the road. So I I've kind of born raised, never left, and you know I have a lot of connections. I feel like a lot of the people that are my age, you know, are now starting to move into decision making roles in their, the companies that they've been with. So we work for a lot of electrical contractors and a lot of the people who started off just being journeymen electrician are now project managers with their company and they're realizing like yeah, we don't know anything about low voltage stuff. We're losing jobs because we don't have a low voltage person on staff. It really doesn't make sense for us to hire a low voltage person on staff, so we need a reliable subcontractor that can do that type of stuff.

Speaker 4: 30:14

So I feel like, you know, for me it's definitely word of mouth, um, you know really big into, like local sports, uh, so I have a lot of connections there as well. And um, yeah, for me that's that's really uh, the phone never stops ringing. Just I I've said before, very rarely is there not one degree of separation between me and and the client that I'm working for this. There's always like it's very rarely do I just get a cold call like hey, saw your van, took your phone number down. It's always like hey, I got your number from so and so um, so that that's very meaningful to me and um, and I don't feel like I'd be wearing it today without having a solid connection and word of mouth advertising is the absolute best because you already go in there with somewhat of a somewhat.

Speaker 1: 31:07

You know you don't have the biggest wall to hurt the clear, because they already kind of know about you a little bit or somebody's recommending to you yeah. So you still got to kind of preview stuff, you still got to kind of break down the wall a little bit, but it's not a big, it's not like cold call.

Speaker 4: 31:19

No, 100%. I always say that introduction just gets you in the door. It's your quality of work that keeps you there. Very good Sage advice.

Speaker 1: 31:30

Exactly A lot of the questions I hear asked quite often on social media about people just starting their own low-voltage business. Thinking about starting their own low-voltage business is how do I price a 100-cambrian stall? How do I price 75 drops? I'm not going to ask you guys how you estimate, because there are a dozen different ways you can estimate. Each one of them is valid in their own ways. But what I will ask you is did you make any early mistakes during the bidding and estimating and if you did, how did you recover from that?

Speaker 4: 32:03

Starting with you, Mr Pierce, I didn't charge enough because I didn't know any better. I charged what I thought was enough for me to get by on and make a little bit of profit for me, without factoring in any of the stuff that you should like tools, licensing, all the overhead stuff. So over the years I've, you know, increased prices a little bit as we go, but once I realized where I should be charging out of the gate, it became much. What was better for us financially? Because we had? We were a little bit as we go, but once I realized where I should be charging out of the gate, it became much. One, it was better for us financially because we had, we were getting paid what we were worth. But two, it's been operating that much easier.

Speaker 4: 32:35

You're always worried about not being like, always worried about cashflow when you're not making enough, quote, unquote. And so guys ask me the same question all the time what should I charge? And I'm like always charge more than you think because guys are like oh, it just cost me, you know, two dollars for a box of cable and fifty dollars for a bag of jacks. That's all I gotta charge.

Speaker 1: 32:51

No, there's a lot more. There's a lot more to than just the, than the material cost. Ryan, how about you?

Speaker 4: 33:00

uh, I'm about the same way. Uh, we've we made a lot of mistakes to begin with. Um and I we're not perfect. We still make those mistakes. Uh, we finally just ended a project that should have been a lot more and took us what was supposed to be like two weeks and it took over a year and a half to complete the project.

Speaker 4: 33:19

Um, and that that invoice and our, our net negative is posted on my wall in my office now just to remind me every day, because we took a project that we were supposed to make probably net 20,000 on and we're negative net 70,000 on. So I mean, there's projects like that that have bitten us and we still do it here and there. But we live to learn and we work through it. Obviously, we try not to make that big of a mistake every day, but it happens here and there. There's still going to be unknowns and I think that's the biggest thing that I stress to anybody is don't panic when an unknown hits you. Just stop the project and talk to whoever you're working with and say hey, hey, this happened. How can we go about it? If you can present those facts nine times out of ten, those customers are going to work with you oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 34:18

And and just for those who are listening, every estimate that goes out the door has a mistake in it. Every single estimate right, and the best you can do is learn from them, and I've got several projects I've done as well where I've, you know, missed up in the estimate and I've talked to the customer and they were having me work this he had. It's funny we work in a communications industry, but what do we suck at? Communication, jeff? Okay, let's talk early. Mistakes for bidding and estimating. What were they and how did you overcome them?

Speaker 4: 34:47

Well, I mean, you know, I feel like I've already shared two between you know, not speccing out the right products for the job, and then, you know, maybe holding on to, you know connections a little longer than I should have, but I think for the most part it's. I will also say it's not a matter of just learning from your mistakes, it's a matter of like, like ryan and pierce keep referencing. You know, we have a community of people and it is in tkw, and you know, the ones that I have the closest connections with are the ones that aren't afraid to admit to me when they have messed up. I find those relationships to be the most genuine and I try to be that way as well, to share my mistakes and ask questions and not worry about being vulnerable.

Speaker 4: 35:39

I'm at a point in my career where you know if, if, if. If you think I'm stupid because of the type of questions I asked, I mean I can't change that, I can't do anything about that, you know. So I'm a perpetual learner. I'm never going to stop learning from people, and that's really what it comes down to is. So, in addition to learning from many of my mistakes, I learn from everybody else's mistakes as well, and I find that to be really humbling to um to be able to do that to other people that's great advice, that's that's the.

Speaker 1: 36:16

That's absolutely great advice. You know, one of the big one, of the one of the benefits of working for large companies, like I did, was um, we had multiple offices across the united states and once a year they would always bring in each of the office for a yearly meeting and during that yearly meeting each office manager had to talk about one project that went really well and the project that went really bad, and the goal idea there was to have the other area managers learn from the mistakes, so if they came across the same situation they were kind of already step ahead. And that's one of the advantages of being a member of a group like TKW, because you've got other people who are similar size and similar size businesses have gone through that stuff.

Speaker 4: 36:56

Yeah, not just TKW either, Like that engineering friend that I brought up again, like you know, just watching how he handled a bad relationship with an employee, and then you know me being able to see how that went and put steps in place to make sure I didn't put myself in that position. So, yeah, I think if anybody takes anything from today, it's, you know, definitely lean on people in the industry, but that should not be the only place where you gain knowledge on running a business, right, Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects.

Speaker 2: 37:34

If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's Talk Cabling Empowering the industry, one connection at a time.