Ep 176 - The Skills Test

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Electricpreneurs Secrets, the Premium Service Electricians podcast, where me and my partner, joseph show up five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Joseph, how are you doing today, brother?

Man, I'm doing great, Believe it or not. The windows are open today and it just doesn't feel so good to have like that fresh air blown in on a nice fall day. It makes the whole house feel a little bit more alive.

Absolutely, but it's also feeling a bit cold and I'm north of the border, probably a little chillier than you. What's the temp there today? 65.

It's been the warmest it's been all week.

Oh wow, we actually did set some records here, and I don't actually know the temp, but I do see blue skies and sunshine. So I don't know, maybe I should get out, make use of myself, mow the lawn or something. It's a good way to do it. Yeah, man, otherwise I'd have to agree. It's fall. That means it's the season of tuks and shorts and flip flops in Canada. That's how we roll around here.

I think what you mean is this, the season of apple cider donuts, which is the apex of fall.

Yeah, there we go. Yeah, man, leaves are changing, things are good. I cannot wait to dive in some more from where we took off yesterday, which was more on the soft skills, the service side of testing your next service electrician and making sure that their values are in alignment with that of your own so that you know it's worthwhile taking a person to this level. More of the skills test side of it Are you ready to jump into that today.

I'm down, let's make it happen.

Awesome, man, awesome. So yesterday we covered a few different questions that were really again on the soft skills side, but it was, if we could recall and just review that quick there was make sure they're not going to take side work and that they value your work.

That's 100%.

There was how to actually state your case if you felt your work was perfect but the customer felt in opposition to that Correct. And then we covered. If the customer won't even let you in because of this price value objection which we know so many texts are facing and this is a common thing, because maybe their cousin's uncle's brother was an electrician and told them that it shouldn't cost that much.

Yep, that one was particularly special because I always felt that if they're willing to defend the team, or at least willing to take a stab at it, like it doesn't matter if they have the right answer it's are you willing to defend your company? Would you at least try, right? Someone who's willing to try is always the person you want on your team.

I love that. And before we get too deep into today, I just want to reaffirm, say this one more time hire for attitude, train for skill. That's why we started there, right, it's so important, so important because we can't really train those characteristics. I mean, think about all the inputs that go into that. For example, I don't know if you share this or anyone listening shares this. I fucking hate to impose on people, man. I hate it. You will never, not in a million years, catch me walking to someone's house with my shoe zone, for example. Yeah, that makes sense.

Why.

Yeah, there's the common disrespect piece, but there's also like they would have more cleanup to do. You will never catch me go for dinner and not clean up after myself.

Actually, you speak something that you did that I love about you. The last time you came over my house and you made that awesome breakfast, I remember having to fight you to clean. I was like, let me clean. You're like, no, I cooked that clean. I'm like, no, you cooked, you don't clean. I remember literally arguing about it while our wives were just standing behind looking at us like just fucking clean the pot.

Both of you, you both clean it's all good, you know there's two sides to that, though, right, I'm down to hear yours. There's like no, there's two sides to even my side and that is like the respectful. I want to serve you side. Don't want to impose. I don't want to come in your house, eat your food, make a mess and then leave you to clean it. That's like cardinal sin. This is no bueno. Right, we're on the same page. But also I don't want to sit there in awkward small talk. Give me something to do, man. If I'm just sitting still, then what am I going to do with these hands and my feet? I'll start tapping or picking at your table, or something Like I need a job, brother.

You don't see me stimming like 24 seven. So like hey, if you got things to do with your hands, they'll just do it on their own. You know what I mean. It's all good.

Absolutely so bit of a tangent, a little insight to what it's like inside of our heads and inside of our homes when we get together, I guess. But here's the thing you can't teach that, guys, I can't expect you to hire the best electrician in the world with no manners and have them termed out with the knife on the right side of the plate and the fork on the other and the salad fork in the right position, and no hat at the table and not wearing shoes in the house, using the floor protectors. These are all the things that are really difficult to train. Someone with no or little respect, mm-hmm, with no or little values. Alignment with you. If they don't care about people, they don't care about people. If they're self-centered, they're self-centered. How do you fix that?

Realistically, you don't, but they can. The only way that you can fix it is through the constant exposure to the right path. Like, you'll never be able to argue someone to doing something that you want, but you can't love them enough to do something you can show them through. Hey, this is how I conduct myself and through that this is an example that you can mirror. If I can go a little bit further with that, like, for those of us that may not have had some of the best families or some of the Best role models to go off of, it's hard for that person to grow into a person that Society would recognize as a good person. But when they get introduced to other people, like how you and I have where they're like, you know what. This is what we're doing, this is why we're doing and this is who we can mirror. That's where really the growth happens. So, in short, we don't change them. We can only expose them to what the benefits of change is.

I Love that, I love that. And so, stacking the cards, really, the apex of what you could find would be someone with that level of respect, that level of care for others, that level of caution to ever imposing or dis Disrespecting or or taking away from someone, right even the time and effort and sacrifice pieces that are so huge to the value formula. If they have this piece just built in, okay, your steps ahead. Now getting to the skills piece, if they have the skills to to pay the bills, and that level of respect, the level of values alignment. Now we're talking about an apex player, so let's dive into the skills aspect. Sure, it's not a good ways to get that out and get better of the way, so you at least know what you're working with in the field. Pretty important still, isn't it?

It is, and be happy to dive into it, all right. So first thing that you want to look at and I'm gonna go via levels of intention, right, okay, because I'm sure you've dealt with it before when you're working on projects, how someone would say I've had this many years Experience, and then you put them on it and they don't know what they're doing. Yeah, and it's frustrating for them, it's frustrating for you, it's frustrating for the team, because now you're all like, well, what do we do with this person now? So personally, I'd rather know where they're at at the beginning and Slowly build up and test their knowledge as it goes. So the first thing is what would an apprentice need to know, basic level, what do they need to know? They're really just an extra set of hands and a pair of ears that are meant to learn. So what would you have them get? Usually it's can you get this from the van? Can you get this material? Can you get this tool and as you're showing them these things. So the first thing that I recommend doing is going to your supply house and getting a material catalog. Then what you have is you've got a list of all the common use parts that you would use Most often when you get them from the supply house, they don't have names. Next to them they have the model numbers. So what you can do is you can literally say okay, point to a BX connector. Here's the page like point to a BX connector. If they don't know what a BX connector is, what does that show? That they have lack of experience in it?

Yeah, well, materials for one, BX for two.

Well, yeah, what it means they may not be having a lot of commercial facility experience, like, if you're not working, if you're working with armored cable reverse question might make a little more sense. Yeah, if I ask someone for a Romex connector and they've never worked with Romex, that would imply that they're primarily commercial. Yeah, so it's like hey, okay, you know your strut, you know your conduit, you know you're. Okay, you're a commercial guy, great If I can point out explosion proof fittings. You're an industrial person, fine. So at the very least it's can you detect certain objects and certain tools. This actually saves you in a big way, because I've ever heard well, I call it something different, yeah, we're not calling it by name. Here's a picture like what is this thing? If they don't know the material name, you can even ask if I wanted to do this, what would I need to grab? Mm-hmm, great question. Yeah, so that at least is the base, base, base level. If they can answer that, they at least have capability of being a gainful apprentice. Make sense.

Oh great, hundred percent, great. Great like baseline test here Just to see where they're at. And many times I wish that test would have happened at the hiring room, because you get people out who with have, who have inflated resumes, inflated egos. Worse and it's actually Pitiful to watch happen in the field I've noticed over the years, because what happens next is a massive puncture in the ego and sometimes that leads to people leaving when you never even got to see their work, or if they were able to do or contribute in any way. It's all just ego driven. It's a bit of a mess.

It is. And the thing is, I'm never gonna fault someone for not knowing something, but I will. If they act like they do and they don't, yeah, like if you don't know it, that's fine. I'd rather set the bar where you're at. That way I know we can expect, because I don't want to hire you at $30 an hour when you say you're a journey person and you've been doing this for seven years and I ask you for a band saw and you come back with a circular saw like it shouldn't be the same. Like what. I need this. You should know the difference.

Definitely, and there's two other little pieces there that kind of go back to the values again. But it's that integrity and the accountability. Mm-hmm, and if anyone going to lie to cover their tracks. That's a break in integrity, right, mm-hmm? And for us, we've literally stopped working with people for that reason. You could be the best electrician, you could be the best salesperson, you could Promise to bring in a million dollars a year, but if you don't have integrity, you don't fit here. Mm-hmm and the accountability kind of ties right into that, with being able to Accept that you made a mistake, admit that you made a mistake and be able and willing to it wrong or right the wrong, rather.

Mm-hmm.

I love it.

It does. Yeah, I would rather someone that's able to say, yeah, no, I didn't do this, or yeah, no, I don't know this. Yeah, and then you can at least have them prove themselves yeah, I may not know this, but let me do this and I can show you. So the next thing is show me, I like that. So the second stage would then be you have a typical picture of a job that you most commonly do. So it could be a generator, it could be an outside service, but let's, let's say it take a service for an example residential exterior service. You have a picture of your meter, your riser, your weather head, the drip line that goes across like all these things. Literally just go to the technician you're trying to put on, turn the paper around and point to things, say, what is this? Now, the thing is is that they knew what material was, but now, seeing it all assembled, it becomes a little bit different. So they may say like, okay, I'm going to point to the meter, be like what is this? It's a meter. You can go further and be like okay, well, what amperage would you say? This might be Okay if they know it's a 200 amp. Does that do? Just by look. That shows that they have some experience, because a hundred amp and a 200 amp looks different just based on size. Right, the meter itself can look different. The next is, I would say go to the wire that's going from your meter to your panel. Grant, I wouldn't say that directly to them, but I'd say where do you think this is going? Where's the next most likely places would go I? They might say they could say anything. They could say subpanel, they could say main panel, they can say it's going to a spice or a trough, or okay, they at least have a general idea that this is feeding something. Great, got it. Then, pointing at things like the overhead mast, be like, okay, what is this material called? What is the name of this? What is this doing? You can go even further. It'd be like how close to that window should it be? Like? It depends. You can always test them based on the level that they're demonstrating, and then we'll-.

What I like about this, if I can just say, is like Silence. There's not even a training center involved. At this point, you've found a way to put it on the page and just test knowledge, but the knowledge being tested really is a thorough display of how much experience they've had with it.

Correct, because that's why it's better to do the jobs that you most commonly do. Because, let's say sake of argument, they're a commercial person, they've got 13 years of commercial industrial experience and then you take them to a main service. They may not know 120, 240. But if you were to say, line to line, what am I talking? And they came out with, well, okay, this could be 480, or this could be 280, or this could be 277. It's like yeah, okay, at least they know something. They gave you something that explained where they thought it was. It's like no, remember, this is a house, we're not feeding a residential house with 277. Like, sorry, but it's close, you're getting close enough. But for me, in a residential situation, I would always ask what is the voltages between the two lines? Hmm, because it's like okay, what would, if you were gonna judge and say, what's the average voltage coming in to this service? Yeah, 240, great. Line to line what are you getting? Line to neutral, what are you getting? Yeah, I just feel like that really allows them to see what I'm working with getting them tested a little bit further and trying to point out whatever gaps there might be.

Yeah, I mean it's also the basis for troubleshooting If you don't have that solid information. I mean, right there, it's not only telling you and maybe I'll back up and even say it's not necessarily a hire or don't hire, it's just an understanding where this person's at and where they would fit in your hierarchy of needs within your business. Maybe at that point, okay, well, you'd be suited to work as an installer under direct supervision for a little while until you demonstrate competency at this.

You know, we can actually even mix it up even further. Sure, imagine someone coming in and having every material figured out. They know everything. They're like yeah, I know this, this is the gas proof. Fitting this is an explosion proof. Fitting this one is your weather hub. Like they had everything down, yeah, but they couldn't name the voltages on a residential service. That may mean you've got your parts manager right here. This is the guy you know, like you don't know. He knows all the parts. How did he know all the parts? Oh, I used to work behind a shop. I used to work behind the desk at the supply house. I know what these things are, I know where to get them. Okay, that's a skill that we didn't know that we had, but now we know. So maybe I don't put them in the position I thought I did, but I take the resume. I say you know what? When we're creating our warehouse, I know who I want to use. Hmm, there's another opportunity as well.

I'm not an electrician. I'm just joking. I said what an insult to an electrician. I came here to be your lead sales tech and you're putting me in parts.

I mean, you know what. You go where the people's skill is. You know what I mean. If you wanted a job and I said you know what, I'm posting this one, but I see that you're actually fit for position I'm not listing right now I think that you'd be a better fit here. What are your thoughts? It's like I could pay a parts manager higher than I could pay an installer based on skill, like if you could run my entire thing, order all my material, get everything prepped, stored everything in bins, clean out the vans Versus someone who's a year one apprentice on an installer, that person is gonna get more. Yeah, so if anything, it's not harmful.

I've been on the airing side of this, where we've tried to make too much use of every person Because of the shortage and the demand for for help, again with relativity to more construction and project stuff and what I can say is that when our beliefs lie and what we encourage for everyone to do is to build this staff journey. Just like you map out your client journey, your staffs have a journey to right. You've got to create, as Tommy Miller, it's a win-win situation which really comes from seven habits of highly effective people. Stephen, are cubby, mm-hmm. You got to create win-wins for people. That's how you have long journeys together, when we can both see light at the end Of the tunnel. Here's our needs, here's your needs. Where do they meet this person? Even if and in considering what I said, to insult them with a parts management position, you have a good understanding of why here and they should too it's demonstrated Mm-hmm areas that we need for this. Currently you're not quite demonstrating competency in, but you demonstrated above average competency in these areas. That's why you fit there. Let's build a journey on how to get you back to where you want to be, and we're, ultimately, I'd love you to be too, just not there right now. So here's the training. Here's how we help. Here's someone that's good in that area. You could train with them to cross accountability within a year or two. Maybe they are the perfect fit for that position. And Even if you don't hire someone today, I think this is a massive takeaway for anyone In this position. We shouldn't be shy and we shouldn't be afraid to give people this little journey, this little path to getting where we want them to be, because your business is going to be around. For how long? One year, probably longer. Three years, probably longer. Five, ten years. Most of us are looking towards a legacy, aren't we? That's the goal. So shouldn't we not discount people? Shouldn't we treat them like a prospect? Hey, I'll do business with you today, tomorrow or three years from now, I don't mind, I'll take care of you, check in on you Every once in a while and tell you're ready and I'm ready to have that perfect equation where we can work together. I love and if someone took that advice from you If, let's say, they failed the skills test you gave them that solid advice hey, what we need right now is this. And they took those steps seriously and came back and four to six weeks and aced that test with you. That would be. That's about that person.

That's a person that we want to bring on immediately because that shows not only that have incentive or, primarily, when I say, initiative, they have more initiative, they have a passion, they've got a dedication, they have a discipline. Those are all key characteristics of apex players. So you may not have all the knowledge now, but your desire and attitude of actually finding the answer Alright, that's an employable skill. I'll take this person on 100%.

It's like accept, challenge, accepted. I'll be your mentee. Mm-hmm gave me guidance and I ran with it. There's no better proof of a great coach to player.

Mm-hmm.

Incredible. Anyways, I didn't mean to tangent us that far down the rabbit hole. Joe, I know you got another one for us.

Yeah, I was gonna say, as long as we got some time.

Yeah, man, let's hit another one skills test. What do?

we got. So the next thing that I recommend for skills test is for those of us either have training rooms or want to have training rooms. Now, there was a lot of situations where we didn't have the space for a training room, but we could dedicate a wall to it. Now, what my former partner and I decided to do was we created almost a false scenario when you would have a recessed wall with everything sheet rocked, and in that wall we had a sub panel feeding to outlets, feeding to switches, feeding to lights, and all them was wired behind the wall. But what they didn't realize was on the other side of the sheet rock, we had had hidden splices in those enclosures that ran up the ceiling, hidden into our office, to a switchboard, and when everything was in the opposition, everything worked normally. But you can turn certain switches to create shorts within the circuit, and what that would do is we would say okay, let's test this person's level of skill. Basic level of skill is can you resolve this with it currently working perfectly? Do you have an understanding of what's going on? Do you know what voltages are supposed to see? Do you know how to make splices like bare minimum? But if you wanted to test someone from a service perspective. You flip a switch, now there's a short and they can't open a wall. This is like a home. I'm not just gonna open your wall randomly looking for a short. We got to determine where it is, so I would look for someone to say okay, this is working. You flick the light switch after you change the outlet and now it's not working. What happened? It was working fine before. Now it's not. Oh, I found out that there is a hot to ground short from the load line that goes from the top of the GFI to its next point. Line voltage is correct. We have a fault here. It's good here. This is where we need to isolate. Now you can have practical training for something that's in a controlled environment.

Great little arena. I love that one. And what if you didn't have the shop, joe? What would you do then?

So we can get a little more creative. Because, let's say you don't have a shop, you could theoretically use plywood, literally just get almost like an easel situation. So you can have on one side your quarter inch or your half inch plywood or a quarter inch or a half inch sheetrock. You can have recessed outlets cut into it, maybe even on a rolling dolly, and then on the other side you can have it plug into an outlet and now you're feeding a circuit and you can decently judge the circuit's capabilities off of it. So okay, can you show me how to cut on a recess box? Anyone sure you can find a piece of sheetrock Can you do it, making it even and level? Can you show me how you change out a nail on box that's too close to the beam without widening the sheetrock now opening it up? These are all practical skills that a service tech would need to know. So high budget I mean we weren't high budget, but high quote, unquote budget create one wall in your show, in your office. If you don't have an office or you don't have that kind of budget, no shame. Get one board of sheetrock, one board of plywood and create your own scenario. All you need is an extension cord and maybe $100 in material. You'd be good to go.

Nice touch. I think it's worthwhile. Personally, let me ask you one more question. Before we create some action items for our folks here today, did you ever test on code or find value in that?

No, no, I personally did not, and the reason being is I'm a little weird when it comes to the code. I believe in following what the customer needs in their particular situation rather than a blindly adhering to something that may not so like. As an example, let me give you something that is relevant. So let's say you're in a situation where the customer has a sub pump right. They're in a constant flood zone. This thing is constantly firing off. And then we were to go in and code would say any wet location now requires a GFI, and I'm not faulting it. It says it needs it, right. But what will the customer say when that GFI trips, even for the right reason, and now they're basement floods, or now they're finished office floods, or now they're other room floods?

Well, they're not calling any C code council, they're calling you, they're calling me.

And I'm the one who has to eat it. And how happy are they going to be when I say, well, we followed everything to code standards and I think that's great. No, it's not my basement fucking flood, it's not great, and you were the last one here. So code is good, it is good to know code, it is good to be able to apply the code, but it's more important to know how it serves the customer and where and when it needs to be bent.

Love it, man, love it. Of course, you guys can get all this and more on the value piece that we're building right now. As we speak. It's almost done. I was sharing that in the content, but hands are already going up for hiring secrets. Finally, a guide for electricians to hire. With all this and more, of course, joe, we got a couple of action items today. Do you have anything in mind you want to give out today?

You know what I was gonna say. I can definitely think for a basic action and an all-star. Do you have a preference on what you want? Otherwise I can take him.

Grab the basic or I'll follow you up.

All right, awesome. So the basic action is this We've already told you the different levels that you can take to hire someone right, whether it's going through and having the manual, whether you're having the training facility set up, whether you're having the service pictures. You don't have to be great, this you know. You just have to start, like. You just have to start somewhere Right. So for the basic action, can you go the next time you're at the job, the job you're at right now, can you take 10 feet back and take a picture of it? If you just did that on Every install you did this week, you technically could have seven installations you could test someone off of and Then from there they'd also see your level of quality at the same time. So if you're not worried about designing this long and elaborate training, seven pictures, five pictures and one material brochure, that's, that's the floor. It can't get any more basic than that.

If you at least start there, you'd be able to take these steps and properly apply them definitely Let me add to that all-star action, of course who want you to implement the skills test as part of your interview process and bringing on your next apex player, because the reality is, you're not going to find unicorns, you're going to train them, and the best way to train someone is to know what they already know. So why not do a skills test? Why not adopt this philosophy? Why not help you, help them and create that win-win situation as we mentioned? That said, how important is this stuff and what Joe just said taking pictures of your work? Well, not only serve you in the interview process, but if you really put that into good order, it'll also serve you in your sales to work order installer process, where you're then doing the handoff with people to finish jobs, given the expectations that were already laid out and paid for. If that's not important, show what is.

I can't say anything else, but there's actually one other way you can spice it up.

All right, one other way.

I was gonna say, just just based on what you're saying, if I could just sprinkle some salt to it. Yep, so you've taken. If you get in the habit of taking pictures of every install you do, theoretically you could also create your field training guide, because if you have every job I've done has a finished product of what it's supposed to be like, you now have a standard that your team can follow. So after one year imagine one year of pictures you can say either this is before and after and now it's a marketing piece, or you can say this is now a starting guide for our field installation manual. This is supposed to what it's supposed to look like.

Definitely, man. Speaking of starting, you don't have to be great to start. You do have to start to be great. Taking those pictures, building that guide, building those folders, having this process, all of it just takes action. If you'll take action today, you'll start seeing the impacts of this in the near future, guys. So thanks for joining us. This has been another episode of electricpreneur secrets the electricians podcast, episode 176. The skills test, headed steady for 200, keep coming back for us. We'll keep coming back for you to help you, master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Thank you, joseph sales, but the can you see you guys again tomorrow?

It's really my pleasure See y'all soon.