From Electrician to Entrepreneur with Naomi Pittman

Naomi Pittman began her career in IT but found herself looking for more.

Now Naomi is a master electrician and the owner of ElekProTek, an electrical & controls contractor with presence in 6 states! 

Nikki & Naomi talk about her journey, entrepreneur stuff like building a website and growing a client base, and the apprenticeship model that allows skilled tradespeople with the drive to succeed to become masters of their craft. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. This is Nikki with Automation Ladies. Welcome to another live recording of our podcast. We actually have our guest today is Naomi Pittman, who is a master electrician and the owner of Elec Pro Tech, a massively growing, fast growing electrical contractor who I believe now is licensed in at least four different states.

She does a lot of controls work automation, and, we've been, you know, friends around LinkedIn for a little while, we love another, you know, entrepreneur, somebody that's going after her dreams, she's growing her business, but I've been learning a lot about the interplay between trades, and sort of the engineering world, and I think we have throughout this whole journey, I was on a fun live with our friend Megan Zimba, that we kind of co hosted, although all props to her, she hosted it.

With mavens of manufacturing earlier today, kind of a recap of the year. She had different guests on, including myself and another friend, Hank from Canada. Hank is [00:01:00] a 40 year veteran electrician that is now in charge of the electrical and controls. I'm sorry, and the controls sort of portion and automation for an automated, conveying.

And, uh I'm sure there's a lot of people in this hybrid role, and I really am excited to learn more about how somebody goes from being an electrician doing the typical things that most, you know, lay people think electricians do, like, wiring things up in houses or pulling cable to getting into the control side of things and robotics and whatnot.

But Naomi had to jump off. She was having an unstable connection. So she should be here in a minute. And then I think Ali won't be joining us today because from what I gather, 1 of the SCADA systems that 1 of her customers just completely went down today. So, I think it's all decks on hand for her team at the moment.

She has grown also her company processing controls [00:02:00] engineering. Uh, just insanely this year, the team has grown. She's got. Team members in. Three different locations, Seattle, Washington area, Virginia, and now Texas. And so if you guys haven't been, you know, following along on LinkedIn or seeing, what we've been up to, Allie actually came down here to Texas, sat in this very office, and we planned to do an episode or a live, and as usual, you know, we just got too busy, with meetings and projects and things.

And, we didn't get it done, but she came down here and we're looking at possibly, getting a location for her down here in Texas. Now that she has, at least 2 team members here. And yeah, so that's a little bit about what's been going on with Automation Ladies. I know it's close to the end of the year and we do have one more recording which is going to be live planned for next Thursday, the 21st, and then we'll be off for the holidays for a little while.

 So depending on when you hear this, if you're watching live, but just a little note of gratitude from myself. [00:03:00] Uh, if you're listening to this podcast, thank you. We appreciate you. We would love it if you throw a review out for the show. But if not, no worries. We're kind of low key about these things.

You're supposed to say, you know, follow us everywhere. We actually do have a YouTube channel. But we will be putting more effort into scaling the amount of content that we get out of the show next year, posting more video clips and, making the show a little bit more of a professional production, I guess, now that we'll be coming into our 4th season, sometime next year, and I want to give a shout out to our wonderful sponsors for this season.

Our sponsors processing controls, engineering and quote beam. And then, our sponsors that have kind of been with us this year, last year, various different events, E Plan, Siemens, Banner Engineering, Phoenix Contact, Clarify, Factory Fix, Software Defined Automation, Traction, [00:04:00] Vention, there's quite a few of you out there that are embracing what we're doing, want to get more women into your companies, want to highlight the ones that are doing well.

And we just want to say, hey, we really appreciate you being part of our community in whatever way we hope. Hopefully we'll be doing more, collaborations next year and we appreciate all of you if you guys, you know, listeners are listening to this and you haven't heard of those companies before.

 All I can say is they care enough to be supporting this cause, and be part of this community. And we don't just take sponsors for their money. We also want to make sure that they, you know, are in it for the right reasons. So, I can tell you that there's something unique about them and as to why they're part of our community. So if you haven't checked them out, definitely keep them on your. Roster or your radar, if you end up, you know, looking for any of those types of solutions, whether it comes to, standardizing your PLC code across different companies, um, different sites, being able to, access things remotely, being able to [00:05:00] collaborate on time series data.

Uh, all the way from the plant floor and up a lot of cool stuff happening out there. And also, I guess, while we're still waiting for Naomi and. Ali or Courtney, I know Courtney might be able to show up today. So we do have a few events planned next year that we're definitely going to be attending. And so a lot of people do connect with us and ask, hey, can we, you know, where are you going to be?

Can we meet you at this event or another? So, with all that said, Naomi is finally here again. Naomi, how are you? Awesome. How are you doing? Very good. I'm glad you're here because I've been talking to myself for a little while, but that's okay. I'm glad I'm here as well. Thank you so much for the consideration and the opportunity.

Are you able to hear me? Okay. Yes, I can hear you just fine. Awesome. Awesome. Like the hat, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Embrace the hat life. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Definitely shout out to Allie G. Uh, yeah, she definitely [00:06:00] rocks hat life. So if you don't have a hat, definitely get you some merchandise for sure.

Sure. So I want to give a quick shout out, because I think this gets lost sometimes too. Bill at Lucid Automation for starting the hat life trend and our friend Josh Varhees at Traceroute for making it, even a bigger thing and including the rest of us in it. I'm sure they're like cringing at some of what's happened to that.

 Everybody's running around with hats and some of them are. Great. And some of them are not so good. Courtney is here. Hey, hey, sorry. I did not end up getting my oil change. I'm down a man for my warehouse shifting today. So it turned into a little bit of a cluster mess, but I wanted to jump on for at least five, 10 minutes and say hi.

Cause Naomi rocks. Thank you. Yeah, it's hot in December. Can you believe it? 80s? 90s? Yeah, it's like in the [00:07:00] 80s. It feels like it's in the 90s because I'm moving stuff around, but it's hotter than it should be in December. Well, that's where I need to be right now because it's getting pretty chilly out here.

I actually had to wear a peacoat today, so that brings me to a good question. Where are you, Naomi? Your company is operating in more than one area, right? So you could be in any number of places. Yeah, right now. I've been I'm actually in Atlanta, Georgia right now. So I actually had a friend that graduated today from Georgia State.

So, I had to go and, check out that ceremony. And then also this morning, I had an emergency call in Atlanta, so everything worked out. And then now I'm joining you guys. So, yes, right now I'm in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Very cool. I think we might have, I'm not going to promise anything yet, but I might have an event in Atlanta.

 That I'll be attending next year, so I will shoot you an invite slash try to meet up if that happens to be the case. If you happen to be in Atlanta at that time, you and Allie are like just growing like crazy and expanding [00:08:00] everywhere. It's fascinating and exciting to see and I love it. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, we're definitely, well, I'm definitely trying to, stretch out my roots and get as much experience I can and, touch as much ground as I can, so.

Definitely the goal in the next coming years. Very cool. So you were so kind to provide me some information. Normally, these episodes, we just kind of. Get off on the 1st question and then have a chat. But it is super helpful. For you to give us a little bit of a, you know, some points to talk about and, 

so, can you tell us, I guess how and I'm not going to do the full introduction because I'm terrible at following directions, but I'll start with kind of the 1st question. It's, which is our common question. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into. You know, industrial automation, and I know, your company, you're an electrician, you may not do everything related to automation, but you are in this space, which is why, we see each other a lot.

And, I'd love to hear if that's something that you, like, when did you even become aware [00:09:00] of the automation world? Or how did you end up doing what you're doing right now? So, um, actually, prior to getting into the electrical field, I actually worked in it for 4 years. Was a database administrator, with sequel databases and that pretty much consisted of sitting behind a desk 8 to 12 hours a day looking at long databases of query, structuring the query so that it goes through, with the refreshes at night.

 Doing refresh checks if there's errors because the company that I worked for at the time was an oil and gas service company. So they relied a lot on heavy data. So pretty much my goal was to make sure that that data was coming in pretty clean as well as leaving out pretty clean with all the reporting that we did.

So I actually majored in computer science. I never actually finished school because I just got so caught up in the working world. I just. Let go of school and [00:10:00] just kind of pursue my career. And eventually I just got burned out with the I. T. field. So I decided to try something new, which led me into going into electrical, and pretty much.

I had asked around as far as how to get into the electrical field, because I was having issues with people responding to my applications for an apprentice and things like that. And what I was told was that I actually needed to go through an apprenticeship program and that actually opened the door for me from there, which I'm sure we'll dive into build up my career as an electrician, got the opportunity to work with controls.

With a very large electrical contractor, one of the largest in the nation. And from there actually rolled over into doing control engineering, because I was hired by a systems integrator. So that's the short story, short, compact story of how I got into controls. [00:11:00] Very cool. What was it that drew you to electrical when you realized that, you know, database administration and it wasn't your dream job.

So, I actually had a brother that worked in the electrical field for a while and he went through the apprenticeship for a couple of years, but it wasn't really his thing. However, I was pretty interested in the topics that he talked about and some of the things that he was doing. And honestly, around that time, we were actually making about the same amount of money.

He had just started as an apprentice where I was already 4 years in to an I. T. position, but I didn't have a degree. So that kind of held me back. So, as I kind of. Got bored with that field, pretty much just watching my brother do it inspired me. Okay. Yeah, because I think unless you see it somewhere, it's hard to make that connection.

Like, oh, that's what I would want to do. And I think that's one of the challenges as a young person. It's [00:12:00] like a, you don't know what all the things are out there that you can do and be. How are you? How are you? How do you know if you're going to enjoy them or not? I've personally been lucky that or lucky.

I don't know. I'm just I never figured out what I wanted to do. So I always thought, well, let me just get a degree in something that I think is useful. And then I'll try something and then kind of the next thing and that's led me around to try things that I found. I enjoy or not enjoy. But I got a, you know, general enough degree that I could do that, but a lot of other people, I think, I know my husband, for instance, he had tried, he'd gone to school for a number of different things.

And then once he went out to actually do the thing, didn't like doing it, which is sad when you invested all that time and money, but at the same time, I think as long as you're a learning type of person, you, I'm sure you have a ton of skills from your I. T. Things that you can utilize, right? Sure, and it definitely came into play when I got into controls because there's a lot of networking and a lot of databases, especially with, [00:13:00] tracing out issues.

You've got your logs and things like that. And then also forming those logs into readable data, which I have experience in coming from a database background. So, it's one thing to, you know, give, operators A report, but it's another thing for them to actually be able to read it and understand and identify, points that need to be addressed in their manufacturing or automation facility.

Yeah, right now, I guess what is your ideal customer profile for elect pro tech. The type of companies that you can help with this specialized. So, our focus as we're progressing into 2024 is going to be commercial facilities, automation, manufacturing facilities, also healthcare and then also government.

 As far as in the residential sector, we're looking to do smart home panels, generators, off grid systems. We're actually partnered [00:14:00] with a couple of. Manufacturers of those smart home panels and things like that. So we do have a residential sector, but on that end, we're trying to focus more into actual home automation and then for our more commercial industrial clients.

We're definitely focusing on, electrical installations, repairs, maintenance, definitely preventative maintenance being a major key because of a lot of your breakdowns are actually just due to, not keeping up with your maintenance and most equipment actually has like a maintenance file. Or directions of how to keep that said equipment, um, maintained and most of the equipment in these factories are electrical equipment.

So, we want to be able to provide those services and keep everyone's systems, businesses and homes going. I bet that's a satisfying position to be into right when you are able to save that day or, you know, get the line back up and running or keep a house. [00:15:00] I feel like there's something to our industry that just is like this.

Yes, we make things work, right? Do you share that with me? And that was one of the things that really excited me about the electrical field is having that tangible outcome. A lot of times working with data, it wasn't something that I could actually touch. Now I could definitely see it and see an impact.

 But. I didn't have anything tangible that I can hold on to when I go into these buildings or homes, whatever I'm installing or fixing will last 5, 10, 20 years from now. So it's just that thought of tangibility that honestly just, you know, keeps me going and being able to see my work alive every day.

Before you saw your brother, enter this apprenticeship program, did you have any thoughts or feelings about electricians or trades people? That might have changed over the years. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, honestly, I'm on [00:16:00] the outside looking in. I definitely would have. You know, never known what it took to be in these type of positions.

I mean, it takes incredibly hard work. When I became an electrician, I actually had to wake up earlier than I did when I worked in the office, put in longer hours, give my full body, being an electrician requires you to be physically active. So, that's not something that I had to do behind a desk.

So it's that transition. I had no idea how much Hard work men and women put in every day in the trades, whether it's electrical plumbing, mechanical HVAC, you name it welding. I mean, there's so many trades. I just had no idea how hard these men and women work every day. So you guys in the tree. Yeah, I will say that.

I sit at a desk almost every day and part of me wishes I was out there doing something physical. It's better for your health, honestly. And I mean, as long as you can [00:17:00] avoid doing. Like, really straining, repetitive emotions that cause injury, right? There's that balance. You don't want to sit on your butt all day.

 But you also want to be doing things safely. And not killing yourself over the course of your career. And I think we're headed to a place where there is that happy medium, like where you should be able to, utilize technology and robotics, automation to shield you from ruining your body over time.

 With these, like, really demanding, physically demanding jobs. Versus the other side, which is also just as damaging, just in different ways, which is sitting on your butt all day, not getting any exercise, you end up with carpal tunnel or all kinds of other things, back problems, um, do you see out there being, you know, in the field and that sort of thing?

 Do you notice anything as far as trends, Of like, assistive technology to help with that physical part of the job. So, I've noticed a lot of tool companies are now [00:18:00] making tools that help you with certain tasks that would be, you know, more difficult to do or that we usually do by hand.

So, I believe that a lot of the tool companies, especially Milwaukee, Hilti. Client tools. I mean, there's a bunch of companies out there. They're actually taking the science of what, people out in the field have to go through and then they're going back and they're redesigning their tools or they're making new tools that actually make installing easier.

So I definitely see that being a nutrient as far as, just overall help. I mean, a lot of the electricians that I came up with amazing guys, great guys, but they weren't so keen on their health. Whereas I see a lot of the younger generation coming up, you know, we're trying to stay active in the gym, watching what we eat, try not to drink eight Red Bulls first thing in the morning to hit the clock, you know, not stopping at the [00:19:00] gas station every day and getting that big burp.

Gas station food, trying to actually do meal preps and things like that. So, even down to P. P. E. I see where we. definitely take the steps to, you know, where the necessary people, a lot of the guys, again, great guys that I came up with taught me amazing things. They were just these rock hard, solid guys, like who needs gloves, like who needs safety glasses, but nonetheless would get the job done without injuring themselves.

Hats off to them again, but yeah, you'll see where we're going into that realm of just being aware of our Everyday choices in life and I think that's really awesome. Definitely I think it also opens the door for more people to come into the profession because you don't have to be that one rock hard, you know, I can do everything the tough way kind of person Which good or bad, we needed that for a while.

We didn't have all this fancy stuff, whether it be regulations or PPE or, you know, it was, it's [00:20:00] always been hard to eat healthy when you're on the road. I know some people like, drive long haul trucks and things like that. And then you just right off the bat, think unhealthy lifestyle. I truck stop food all day.

You sit on your butt, but there are ways. And there are now, I think some people that are like, you know what? I bring healthy meals to the road. I meal plan. I cook in my, you know, in the cab. There's all kinds of things that you can do if you care. Or want to, and I think, you know, big part of being able to accomplish that want is if you have, if you can find some sort of community of other people that also have that drive to be healthy and also have your.

You know, are in your profession because it can be really hard to, it's so easy to say, oh, you should, you should, you should. And then you don't know the realities of that person's job, the demands, the time they have. And then, you know, yeah, yeah, you can say that all day, but you don't know my job. And finding people that have some of that in common and can talk about it, or you can see, like, if you're not the only electrician [00:21:00] around that's trying to eat healthy and not eat eight Red Bulls, that probably helps or drink eight Red Bulls.

I'll say, like, I know, back in one of my previous companies. There was a particular developer, in our software division that he just, he needed, he wanted to drink monsters all the time. And so we would just buy him cases of monster and when he left, thankfully, not nobody else was like that much into the monsters.

 But, I don't know, I'm going completely off topic with this here. But I was just having conversation with one of my colleagues today, Nick, and we don't talk that often anymore because our company has gotten bigger and we have different departments and we used to work together really closely. But today we had a reason to talk and we ended up talking for, like, an hour.

And I was just like, oh, yeah, I gotta get let you get back to your work. And he said the same thing, but it's like, sometimes it's just so nice to chat with you because we are the only 2 people at the company that have served that same function. And. [00:22:00] Just having somebody that knows the pain points that you're talking about, those little quips that you can, you know, relate to, the challenges that are hard to see from the outside.

One thing that I'm credibly valuable to have somebody to relate to and talk to like that. Exactly. And 1 thing that I will say is I'm actually in a lot of groups. I mean, you guys just added me to the automation ladies room. I also follow female electricians online on Facebook for a while. I followed apprentice electricians and these are group with.

Hundreds or tens of thousands up to hundreds of thousands of people that are in the same field doing what you do. I mean, there's so many ways to reach out. You've got read it. I mean, it's just a lot of ways now to network. Even if you don't necessarily have someone that's, you know, close to you, you can always hop online and find someone.

I know the female electrician group on Facebook is a really [00:23:00] huge community of women that come together and talk about the various issues that they have coming up in the trades, whether it's, you know. Learning how to deal with certain guys or, how to dress in a way that they are still able to work comfortably.

What types of, I guess work attire or work where companies work for women bodies because a lot of, um, clothing is not, you know, especially PPE is not made for women's bodies, mostly made for guys. So because guys have been in the field for the majority. The time these fields have existed. So, I mean, there's, like I said, there's definitely support groups out there.

You just got to do your research and hop in and don't be afraid. Oh, that's a really good point. Like, I don't know. I never found a. Women in automation, you know, Facebook group sort of membership based groups in our industry, like a nonprofit group that you pay membership dues and they have meetings and they maybe have [00:24:00] conferences.

Those I've always kind of, you know, it's a commitment that you have to make and sometimes, you know, you can't make the events or whatever. Facebook groups, I actually hadn't thought of and I don't know that any, if any exist. For. What we're trying to like automation ladies, right? Or, or women in industrial automation or machinery.

Maybe there's 1 for manufacturing. I don't know. And I'm going to have to look into that. So that's a really good point. I just learned recently also from Marlene at PC, when I met with her last week, she's a tech. She works down here in oil and gas. And she runs a Facebook group, for techs, which there are many, and many of them are very, very large, right?

Like thousands of people, or tens of thousands of people. And that just also blew my mind. That's very cool. And then she runs a group in particular that is only for vetted techs that get a referral into the group. And they post job opportunities and, like, [00:25:00] help each other find things. But the idea is that you have to have somebody that knows that you're a quality person.

 And that if they recommend you for a job that you have some accountability, not just, you know, the group of tens of thousands of people where they may or may not, have the credentials or the experience or. Things like that that you'd be looking for. It was amazes me when people, like, reach out for a recommendation, for instance, and, I don't know them.

I'm like, how could I recommend you if I don't know you? I mean, I can say that this person was enterprising enough to reach out, but that's all I know about you. Anyway, do you have in your industry? Um, and I'm sure. Well, I don't know, do you feel like a lot of your work is based off of referrals and word of mouth because people want someone that they can trust with the reference?

Or do you find that, you know, things like online marketing or your website are bringing in business where people just like the. The professional front that you present as a company. Both. Okay. So, I would [00:26:00] say maybe 35 percent of my work is word of mouth. Either it being someone I've worked with, like, elbow to elbow or a customer that has referred me.

 And then the rest is all search. Okay. Online marketing and website. So, as you guys saw, I just posted the updated website and for a while, I actually had a free website that Google provides when you have, like, the Google business profile. The only problem with that is it's not optimized, or you can't really optimize it for SEO and just, you know, starting out, I just found a really quick platform to get everything up and running but eventually I knew I would have to backtrack and build a better website.

And I mean, the sites. Been up, I don't know, less, maybe less than a week, and I've already got someone that called, like, that I know for a [00:27:00] fact, or reached out to me because they sent me an email, and I know that they sent it, straight from the website, so. It was, and this was a engineering firm reaching out to me to, and they also in automation.

 So I'm assuming the keywords that I put in there for that. We're working. So I'm going to definitely say, like I said, both, but overall is going to be online search and SEO search engine optimization. Yeah. Wow. I know. I mean, if I need like any trade for my house or anything like that, I either go on Yelp, my husband likes to go on Yelp.

Yeah, to look for people and I mean, 1st thing I do is just kind of Google or whatever, but if somebody doesn't have a website at all, it does make me think that maybe this person isn't somebody I want to do business with because could they take a credit card payment? Are they going to be, you know, those sorts of things?

I think the benchmark today. At least for most younger customers would be that you need to have a [00:28:00] professional website at the very least and be able to communicate professionally through, you know, like email, invoice properly, those sorts of things. I'm sure in like your level of the business where you're dealing with B2B customers, it wouldn't even be a question.

But I know in the residential, like oftentimes you get, you know, people that are just been doing the job for a long time. They know their trade really, really well, but they're not exactly business operators in that sense. How do you see, like, is that balance really hard? Because just being a good electrician doesn't mean that you would be good at building websites and vice versa.

You just happen to be 1 of those people with the cross skills. Right? Right. But there's a lot that goes into managing a business versus doing the job. How are you feeling about all that as you're expanding? Honestly, I'm so thankful for AI right now. I couldn't be in a better position because, like. I mean, it has just really helped me out.

Like [00:29:00] even down to preparing for this meeting with you, I sat down with chat, dbt, and I'm like, Hey, I've got this. Meeting coming up. This is what I want to do. Make it sound good. It's like, cool. There we are. I mean, even when I'm going out to do installs, it's like, Hey, chat dbt, give me the description of what I'm about to do.

This is what I'm about to do format it. So I can put it in an invoice and it's literally copy paste. I don't have to sit and write 3 to 10 paragraphs about my diagnosis. It's cut and dry. And then from there, I can actually duplicate because usually, If I'm going to go look at a panel and I'm diagnosing a breaker, it's going to be the exact same step.

So now I can automate the process of creating an invoice. So, honestly, just these online tools, even down to making my website, it was much easier, though. I could definitely probably told an HTML, but that would probably take me weeks, if not a month to do just plug and play. Now everything's a drag [00:30:00] and drop.

So it was pretty easy. Okay. To put my website together now to make it something that I visualize for myself that took time because even when I push it out, I still had to go back and make changes and it looks completely different now than what I originally put out. But the layout, the template is exactly the same.

It's just the images or the text is different. So, and all of that. Was generated with AI. So it's just an awesome time to really be able to, merge the skills that I have coming from an I. T. Background has helped me so much. And then also getting the hands on experience. So being able to go from receiving an invoice or receiving a request, turning it into an estimate, turning it into an invoice, It's actually going out, completing the work, following back up with the customer.

I mean, I have to go out and do the work or I have to send someone out and do the work, but the [00:31:00] process of the background and, you know, all the documentation and filing, it's definitely become a lot easier, with the help of technology. Yeah, what a time to be alive, that's for sure, or for a small business owner or somebody starting out, there have never been as many tools at your disposal for you not to have tons of money, in time to do something, right?

It still takes time. And you're right. Like the website, I built a website on WordPress, for one of my old companies. And at the time it was very easy compared to if I'd had to code it from scratch. But you just fast forward to today and like, it's that much easier. I know our website for automation ladies, podcast, it's automation ladies.

io. It's built on a platform called pod page and it's literally a platform built for podcasts because it kind of knows there's some standard features and things and workflows that you need. If you have a podcast, it's not some other general website. But I was able to set that up in, I [00:32:00] mean, no time compared to my previous doing it on WordPress and, like, using the template and then making those edits.

And, you know, chat, yes, it is insane how much productivity you can get out of it if used correctly. And, you know, you understand what you're using it for, which is in your case, mostly formatting and the repetitive steps of doing paperwork. Obviously, you would never have it diagnose your panel yourself, right?

It actually refers you. All the time, it says right after it types up this nice paragraph, but definitely consult with an electrician or trained professional 1st, before you take my advice. So I'm like, okay, that's pretty cool. You're letting me know you are the trained electrician. So you're doing it.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, I found this with Ali. I actually had her use it. I'm. On a proposal recently again, just not to make anything up, but just [00:33:00] format the information that is there for consistency checking errors. I mean, it's the fastest 1 of the fastest ways. You can do things like, you know, fixed grammatical errors.

I always thought of myself as a good, you know, somebody that can read over, but it's time consuming to make those little suggestions and changes and. Hey, when you're a one man show or a growing company, you know, where you always have to balance that resources against time, where do you spend your money in time?

Not having to spend it on those sorts of things is huge. Exactly. Yeah. And it's crazy. Like if people want to start a business today, it is easier than ever for what, whatever it is. I was talking to Jim Meyer. If you haven't heard podcast, he's a good one. He works with a lot of machine shops.

Okay, it helps existing machine shops look at their culture. That may be, you know, organizational culture. That's holding them back from hiring or retaining people. But he also talks to people, I guess, that are getting started in the industry [00:34:00] and there are now marketplace platforms where you can, for instance.

If you're so small and just starting out that you don't have any kind of customer base or a way to advertise yourself, you can go on one of these big platforms and pick up, you know, jobs bid for jobs. And he was saying, hey, any young person that wants to do, you know, machining instead of going to school and spending all this time and money over all these years, like, buy a machine, a basic one, you know, put it in your garage or get a little space and then start picking up these jobs.

Basic jobs. You may not make a ton of money right away, but you'll start building up a business. And you can do that as a one person, you know. Things today, and I think that's a lot of what some of the established companies don't realize when they're competing for talent and say, young people don't want to work.

I think they may not realize all of the other options that young people have today that they didn't have. And, yes, there's this whole talk of, like, oh, you know, it's a joke. Gen [00:35:00] Zers just want to be influencers on TikTok, because there's some surveys out there saying that, a huge percentage of young people, that's what they want to do for their job.

 I don't know if that's real, if there's really that many people that want to do nothing but be influencers on TikTok, but I think it misses the larger point. We have the option to make more money being an influencer on tech talk than to go work for 30 years at somebody else's behest, you know, coming in when they tell us and doing what they tell us.

 And I think we need to. You know, yeah, we can dismiss that and say, it's stupid all day long. And that doesn't change the fact that it's there and that anybody with some resources, you know, an ability and a drive to learn. Can go out and start a business or, make more money than a basic job doing almost anything nowadays with the power of the smartphone.

AI, and if you have some business sense and you're willing to learn and, you have the grit to make it through, um, tell you that he liked from tech [00:36:00] was started on an iPhone iPhone. You guys better get at me right now. Apple that is, but, yeah, you'd like from tech I would say is.

Was mostly created via cell phone. Yeah, from going out and purchasing my LLC, did that on the cell phone. Getting my EIN cell phone every, even down to getting my hats and t-shirts. I text the person that makes them for me. So, I use the laptop a lot to like, send emails and things like that or, um.

You know, but honestly, my cell phone is like, this is literally 8, 000, 000 on your cell phone, honestly, so. Yeah, that, and, hey, if you're out there and you question the validity, oh, hello! Who is this guest? We have a doggy guest. Can you tell us his or her name? This is my friend's dog. Her name is Tracy.

Oh, okay. Yeah, my friend's dog, Tracy. Tracy. [00:37:00] Well, thank you for joining us. We love guests. She came to say hello. Yeah, it's usually kitties, not doggies. Because I don't, I don't do the recording at my house. I tried, but I had kids and my dog wouldn't come in because she's blind. She can't see anything. I know where I'm at, but we have a kit.

We have a cat now. His name is Luke. Anyway, I digress. I think I was saying something when the dog joined and now I, oh, yes, if you don't believe in the power of B2B texting, that people should be able to text your business, you're missing out. What do you have to say about that, Naomi? So as far as that goes, I like to do a three point of communication.

Usually it's initially a phone call, following up with an email and then I will usually send a text message as well. If the customer is okay, I find that to help me convert a lot of leads [00:38:00] just those three points of contact. Like, on the ladder, you gotta have three points. So it's a good way to remember it.

But yes, most people, Are using a cell phone. I mean, no one is using the landline. So, and it's going to be quicker for someone to receive your message to their cell phone versus an email. They may be driving. So, though, they shouldn't be checking their text while they're driving. But yeah. You know, an email could take them hours to get back to where in text it's even if you are driving, you could do voice activation and send a text back.

So that's what I was about to say. There are safe ways of doing it. Yeah, for sure. It's a matter of doing it right. And I think the point there is also all about context, right? You wouldn't send the same information over text that you would send over email. Exactly. But text is that quick connection, confirming things.

Checking things, telling people you sent them that long email for later, or that you're on your way to the job, or, you know, different things like that. Right? Correct [00:39:00] yeah, and I guess also depends, what type of position the person you're dealing with. Are they at their desk a lot? Or are they maybe out in the plant or on their way to a job site or in the car?

That sort of thing. But it's amazing that we get to choose all these different methods of communication. Personally, don't spam me on my text. Like, don't send me an unsolicited cold text for my business. Like you said, if you've had a phone call, and you've had an email, and you've confirmed that it's okay to text the person, then you're good.

And it's a great ingredient to three points of contact. I really like that. Well, we'll make a clip out of that. Just like you do for safety, but yeah, if you're a business and you don't allow people to also text you. That may be something that you're missing. We implemented a phone system is called open phone, but it allows people to, like, text or call our business number and we can follow up with that.

We can see that text, like, on slack or on the computer or on the app on our phones. [00:40:00]Interestingly, I was having a conversation. I'm going to go back to my conversation with Nick earlier today. We run a platform called quote beam, which is where people can find and buy industrial automation parts. And it's meant to be as easy as Amazon, right?

You get to check out online. You can either, you know, get terms or you can just put in your credit card. And once your credit card save, you're good. You don't have to put it in again. My dad just told me he was trying to buy some Christmas gifts and I'd send him a link to something at Academy Outdoors, which is 1 of the sports stores around here.

And he was like, no, I ordered a different 1 from Amazon because I'm not going to create a new account with, you know, with Academy or whatever. It's like, if it doesn't, if it's not sold on Amazon, I'm not going to buy it. So for us, we think there's a lot of convenience in being able to just put in your credit card online to a trusted platform.

So we use Stripe to process all the credit cards. We don't ever see the number. We don't, you know, handle it. It's all secure and you know, stuff like that. But there are still people that will say, Oh, can I call you? I want to call [00:41:00] you with my credit card. Yeah, being a younger person. I'm like, why? I don't understand.

Why would you ever want to, you know, have the process of manually entering, telling me the number. Then I write down the number. Then I enter the number. Now I have it in front of me. I have it on a piece of paper. You know, am I smart enough to shred it after I've talked to you? I don't know. I don't think that that'll ever go away, especially as we go continue towards automation.

I think that there will always be that need to have someone alive on the phone, because I can't tell you how many times I have called AT& T and it's the robot is, and I'm like, customer service. And the customer service, like, no, I want a person on the phone. So I don't think that'll ever go away, especially if you consider, the majority of our population being.

An older generation, a retiring generation. I definitely think that, those customers and that customer base is [00:42:00] always going to want that, phone call conversation. And just in general, I think people need that, human contact for sure. I agree. So what I tell people on the phone is, you know, if you'd rather give it to me over the phone, that's fine.

I just to let you know, what I'm going to do is go in your account and enter it for you. But if you'd like me to do that over the phone with you right now, just to get it out of the way, then absolutely. Because I just want to like, be transparent with people. But at the same time, I found telling them, Oh, it's easier to do it online.

Well, that's subjective. It's easier for me. Right? It may not be easier for that person to train them to do something new to feel comfortable with something that they're not comfortable with. And so having that customer centric mindset and just think, okay, well, what do they need? Right? Instead of me telling them, oh, this is how you have to do it to do business with me as you're starting and growing your business.

Hopefully you'll be. Systematizing a lot of these things and you're using a lot of ai, do you ever see that being in the forefront of your business or that's a tool to help you on the backend and you keep that [00:43:00] human touch with your customers? I guess I'm not exactly sure what your question is.

Are you saying do I see the ai Oh, like, would you ever use AI on the like. answering those calls or making, you know, like interacting with your customers or just as a tool for you to use to be more efficient? I would probably do both. I would just give the person on the other end the option to decide which route they would like.

So, if you prefer to continue with the automated system continue, if you prefer to speak to a lot of person, you know, continue to because some people can get their questions answered through the automated system. And, you know, others just, like I said, need that person to talk to. So I think giving the customer an option will definitely play better for you.

Overall, I'm sorry, I know that this was not at all what we planned or what you plan to talk about during this episode. I'm putting you on the spot with all kinds of questions, but that's how I [00:44:00]roll. I hope you're okay with it. I do want to, I guess I will try to go back to some of the things that we decided to talk about.

Can you talk a little bit more about the apprenticeship process? Because I think that to people outside the trades, um, it's not very clear. Like, you think maybe, oh, you can just go get an apprenticeship directly with the company. But it's something more official and specific. Do you have to go through programs?

Do you want to talk a little bit more about that and how it works? For sure. So there are, 2 options. Well, I would say 3 options. Um, I'll just say 2. 1 would be a. Authorized apprenticeship through the United States Department of Labor. So, 1 being the apprenticeship that is 1, that's the international brotherhood of electrical workers.

Now, I'm speaking for electricians for other trades. There's probably others, but I know for the. Majority is going to be that you attend a apprenticeship program that is authorized through the United [00:45:00] States Department of Labor. Now that can be a union, such as IBEW or a non union apprenticeship, such as the IEC, which is where I went, which is the D.

Independent electoral contractors, and then that's under that 1 umbrella of, you know, United States Department of Labor apprenticeships accredited. I guess you well, no, definitely accredited for sure. Because I received the emblem and everything from the United States Department of Labor when I said, yeah.

The other option is actually private companies that have their own apprenticeship programs. Now they are accredited. What will depend on a case by case basis? Maybe some of them are accredited in the specific. Municipality or region that they're in, or some of them may actually be recognized, the United States Department of Labor.

But, if I were suggesting someone, I would definitely go with either a union or non-union, either IBEW or the IEC or other non-union, [00:46:00] um, apprenticeship opportunities. I will say that the IBEW, it's a little bit longer. Five years as opposed to four years. But they have a great, great program, shouts out to the IBEW, and then also IEC, the program that I went through.

 It's a four year program. You have to do 8,000 hours of on the job training and various, sectors including like lighting, troubleshooting, some controls work. Just overall distribution. I mean, I can name off so many things, and that's what I love about electrical. You can do electrical controls, low voltage, you can do instrumentation, you can do automation.

It really just doesn't end there. And depending on the type of apprenticeship that you. To how you are, to go out into the field after your apprenticeship is complete and, you [00:47:00] know, apply those skills. So if you go through a company that doesn't really have an accredited system, well, it may be more difficult for you to go to one of the larger contractors because they're going to want that, actual, you know, accredited journeyman or apprentice card.

What have you so yeah, apprenticeships are a great way to get into the field. Sometimes they're the only way in the area that I worked in when I first got started. There was at the time. I mean, honestly, I was the only. Female in my class, I believe. So I just had a difficulty applying directly to electrical and it was way more.

It was way easier to get into the electrical field by. Applying to an actual apprenticeship program, and when you apply to apprenticeship program, all of the contractors that are in [00:48:00] that particular program, they're able to see your information so they can pull you from that stack. And usually. Most of them are high.

 We need electricians more than ever. I believe in the mix. 2 to 3 years, we need anywhere from half a 000 electricians, because we've got a lot of electricians that are retiring in the next 5 to 10 years. So, yes. Shouts out to apprenticeships shouts out to the independent electrical contractors and shout out to the.

So, clearly, you can see that. A, it's a great field to get into when you're fresh out of school or young or you know, haven't started anything else because it's seems like it's very comprehensive, right? It'll teach you most of what you need to know and give you that path to start learning on the job with someone.

But then, too, you can, you know, transition into this career at pretty much any time, would you say, as long as you're willing to put in the time and learn and, get started in that fashion. Are the apprenticeships [00:49:00] really selective and like difficult to get into or do, you know, how did you feel about that process?

Once you found kind of the right place to apply and wasn't straightforward. So I will say the process of the apprenticeship itself, the four years, which I forgot to mention includes four years of school as well. So you're doing anywhere from one to two days a night, anywhere from four to six hours a day, you know, learning like in a textbook.

Your 1st, year may be residential and then half of the semester, or half of the year, you may study grounding and bonding. And then your 2nd, year may be controls. And then the other half of the year, you're learning, industrial control system. So they'll give you like, an entry level. Simple ladder logic, and then here goes an entire more control cabinet, you know, make it work.

So I will definitely say it'll weed you out. When we 1st started in my 1st year, my instructor, let me know, like, [00:50:00] look around you about 70 to 80 percent of these people will not be here by the time you reach your 4th year. And I mean, we held on. I believe my 1st year class was. Maybe 20 to 30 people. By the time we graduated, I believe it was less than 10.

So, Yeah, it'll definitely weed you out because you have to keep your grades up. If you fall below a certain grade point, average your, the company that is sponsoring you for that apprenticeship, they will actually drop you. And if you get, if you fail twice, if I'm not mistaken with the, I see, you actually have to wait maybe a year or 2 before you're actually able to.

Reapply, so it's not easy at all. And, you do have a lot of people out in the field that never, you know, went through an apprenticeship and they gained all this, that you want to be. So, with the national electrical code, and that is required, you're required to know that in order to 1, pass your journeyman [00:51:00] electricians exam. And then following that, you have to do a master electricians exam. If you're trying to pursue becoming an intellectual contractor, and I mean, the master's exam.

Was very, very difficult. I'll tell you right now. I got like a 77 but you don't need a 70 to pass mind you. It was a hectic month. I think I only did like a week of studying. Whereas my journeyman says I was still in school. So my. Schedule wasn't as hectic. I studied for like three months and made almost an A on that, but it was not as stringent as the master's exam, but just all those years of going into the code book really got me prepared to be able to.

You know, figure out and find things with ease and do those calculations and things like that. Another thing as an electrician, I wouldn't say you have to be the best at math, but you have to be pretty decent at math. Sometimes you're required to do calculations. Sizing [00:52:00] wire sizing junction boxes, motor controls require you to be able to size those, overcurrent protection devices, whatever thermal fuses, whatever you're using, even your feeders or tap feeders, everything because the size wire you use to your disconnect might not be the same size wire going back from the disconnect to your panel.

So it's just so many things that you have to take into consideration and you can only, you know, learn that by applying yourself. And gaining the knowledge necessary. Yeah, I mean, it is a lot and to be, you know, your decisions, the things that you do, if you, they can have massive impact if you don't do them correctly.

Right. Exactly. As a person that's done both, you've been to, you've gotten an it degree and you've gotten your master electrician's license, which one was harder? Master's for sure. The degree, I have a. It's a, it's actually, it's a certification and programming, shouts out the University of Phoenix. Got that online.

Um, [00:53:00] I do plan on eventually going back and finishing up my bachelor's in computer science. 1 day. I just haven't had the time, but I definitely want to do that because I did incur those student loans. So I need to finish that. But yeah, I got a degree or again, certification. Right? And I mean, it was nowhere near as difficult as becoming a master electrician.

Nowhere near. And that's probably a good thing. I think that's probably the right thing. And I think a lot of people, at least me, you know, like, just having an , ignorance of what the skilled trades really have to go through the amount of skill, the amount of actual, you know, knowledge, studying the skill that it takes to do these types of jobs when you're in charge, especially, I think a lot of us that don't know, we underestimate.

How much you go through to get that, you know, and how it isn't an easy choice necessarily, but it, you know, it may be easier in some ways to get into than some things like Ivy [00:54:00] league colleges or whatever. But like you said. It takes a certain amount of hard work, grit smarts to get to actually graduate or get that certification.

And so massive respect to you for that. And on top of that building a business. And thank you so much for your time coming on the show today. I hope I didn't, upset you by going all over the place. I think it's a great, great show for sure. I just love having conversations like this. I learned so much from every guest.

 I thank you so much for your time and for educating me, as well as hopefully whoever was listening that found this interesting. If people want to follow your journey or hire your company for a job or, you know, continue to learn from you, where can we find you? And what should we expect to see from you going forward?

So, you guys can find me everywhere online at the like, or www dot elect pro tech dot com and it stands for elect the professional technicians. [00:55:00] As far as the future, I mean, we're like, I said, we're looking to expand and grow in 2024, deal with more commercial facilities, industrial. Manufacturing facilities, we want to be able to provide that preventative maintenance that I believe is necessary to continue to keep our industries and infrastructure strong in general.

Um, so, yeah, we're definitely looking and excited to expand. All right, well, whenever you're hiring ping us, let us know. We'll share it with our network. So I'm sure there's plenty of ladies out there. I would love to work for a company like yours connecting with more and more of them every day. So maybe there's a Facebook group in our future.

I don't know. I got to figure out where we can make this kind of community happen. So. Yeah, that is all for today. I think we're right at one hour. We managed to keep you on the whole time without dropping off. I know Courtney came and went and said, hi. I know Ali is going to be very upset that she missed this conversation with you, but we'll catch up with you again with Ali another time.

 And we'll do a [00:56:00] recap close to the end of next year, to see all the crazy things that you've accomplished. So thank you so much, Naomi. It was a pleasure having you on and a wonderful rest of your night. All right, you guys too. Thank you. Bye.