Ep 244 - $1M Launch Series 2024 - Why Your Why Is Your Ultimate Weapon

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to yet another episode of Electric Preneur Secrets, the Electricians podcast. I'm your host, Clay Neumeier. With me, as always, my esteemed co-host, joseph Lucani, and we are the Electric Preneurs, just a couple of master electricians with business addictions and current licenses, I might add. Welcome to our freemium daily coach call, where the cost for admission is absolutely nothing but your time, your energy. To sit back, listen to us, whether you're driving to your next job, or at the gym or in the office which, based on our last episode, we'd hope you're not but to sit back, take everything we give and promise to take action, so that you can report your wins back to us and let us know in our community. How the heck are you, joe? How the heck are you today?

I'm actually feeling really, really good today, man. It's one of those days where you really sit back and have reflection all the good in your life, and I had one of those days today, and I'm just truly grateful for all that God's blessed us with.

Truly, truly blessed. I'll join you in that, man, a little bit of grace. We're serving a divine mission. I feel inspired every time we get on the mic here. I was not going to make it as a hip hop artist, so this is the best mic I could get on, just going to fill the void, just fill the air with electrical service knowledge. Today's no exception. Also 244, and it's totally appropriate that this far on our million dollar launch series, that we come back and reiterate why your, why is your ultimate weapon, how important that is, how important tying to that, to everything, is. And although we kind of touched on this last episode, it really wasn't enough. We need to really dive back into this. I know some people are asking right now why don't we just do this in the first place? It's your answer to that question, joe.

Why didn't we bring it up in the first place, or why aren't we talking about in the first place?

Why didn't we, at the beginning of this million dollar launch, before we did anything else, just dive in and fully crank out and crack the code to our why then?

Because a lot of times your why though some of us have a why when we first start sometimes your why develops over time and then, as you're working with it, you really figure out what's important to you and what's not. And it's understanding that dichotomy of is this truly important or is this just something that I'm moving to pass? The time really will determine. With time. That's the best answer for it. Giving it time solidifies your faith in it.

I love that man. The old way of thinking of this is like it's a crucifixion, it's a mummy in a coffin, it's like this thing we're going to put on the wall and just keep it there. And you know what I mean. Like, I don't like it that way, because why these values? How we're living and acting and serving through it is like a living, breathing, not enterprise organism is what I'm looking for. An entity is what you said. I think right, yeah, absolutely so. Doesn't that mean that, you know, if not even yearly, we should come back to it? I mean, we just did in service loop, right, came back to it. Add some words, change a few words, really revisit the values as the team grows. Values tend to not shift out of like alignment, but just evolve, expand, yeah, expand. It's an iteration of a business and you get to reinvent that iteration every so often. And for us, in this million dollar launch, I have to agree with you. We've come a little ways now. We've got pricing, we've got customers, we serve people in our network to learn more about us and how we're perceived. We started organic marketing and learning in that. We interviewed Dan, who did this too, and Dan clearly saw some identity shift too, as a team grew, so would it be wrong of us to want to revisit that right now, at this critical mass point, now that we've brought on a CSR, now that we're clearer on our messaging?

I didn't mean to interrupt you for a moment. Go ahead, all right, it's all you man, awesome. What I was going to say in that situation is that this is actually the period of time, like we've started our business, we've established, we've started hiring, we've gotten our pricing, we've done our offers. This is the moment of time where now we're putting our pulse, check onto our why and saying is this truly what wakes me up in the morning? Because if it's not, this is a great time to adjust and figure out what is really important to you. The reason why I bring that up is some of us have a why, but until we really get into the field, we don't realize what actually it is that makes us stick to it. So, as an example for me, my why is I want to make people better than me. But the why I want to make people better than me is because I recognize being in this place of depression, being in this place of almost self-loathing, to an extent not understanding how to communicate, not understanding how to articulate myself to others. I never want anyone else to experience that. I never want them to have to feel that way. But I wouldn't have been so close to my heart if I didn't spend so many years in it. So sometimes you have to be in it to really experience and articulate. What is it that's truly getting you up in the morning.

Yeah, man, I like that and I think it's worthy of noting even in our personal ventures individually now coming together. My why was rooted in the dumpster fire of my first business, who was like again, this flaming path, that's like, ok, don't go right, don't go right, don't go right, stay on the left path, keep doing the right things, keep putting the work in, keep growing further and further away from that. And I recognize that that's actually movement from scarcity, that's actually a fear-based movement, but it only started there Because we've done this so many times now I've had a couple of successful businesses, including this one now where I've felt great about my outcomes and my results, and so as you grow from that place again, it would be wrong to stay in the fear mindset and just keep running. We're no longer doing that Now. We're propagating, we're spreading that, we're doing it for and from love, for a place of love for electric entrepreneurs to grow and for a place of business in general, electricians, people in general, to just have a better understanding so that they have two legs to stand on Evening the playing field, if you will.

Yeah, a good way I think I've heard described it is that we, as electricians, struggle to have a people. We are a trade but we're not a people yet. But when we're putting out this information, things that Plain Eye have struggled to build and put together and influence the world with, we're doing it because we have love for our people. We've identified it as this is our tribe and it becomes a place of honor to serve your people. Every culture in the world has this. This is ours and now it's something that we get to share. Yeah, you might have started from at a dumpster, fire or business, and I might have been like I couldn't communicate to save my life, but through those negativities, we've molded it into something that's beautifully positive and that's why this episode is your. Why is your greatest weapon? A weapon isn't just meant to destroy. Weapon is a tool. It's meant to guide and it's meant to influence. This is something that we're trying to do to influence a greater purpose beyond ourselves, and by helping those who need it most, I know that we're sealing seeds of good deeds.

Of course, and homeowners need it most too. As we've described, residential service electricians are taking up a big task that otherwise was a big ball drop, massive right. If this is left to construction companies or trucks and trucks just when they're starting out, without things like the loop method, without the business aptitude and this forward progressive thinking about service at the highest level, especially at a time where everyone's going automation at the highest level, then what we end up with is a bunch of underserved people wondering why they're surrounded by baboons.

That's the way to go.

Absolutely, man. So that's a huge thing. So the steps of this and actually let me recalibrate a little bit, because I know there's some people that are putting a ton of emphasis right now you might be exploring maybe we're talking and you're not even hearing us at this point, because you're actually thinking like, what is my why? Maybe I skipped a step and so many electric printers get stuck on this, so many business owners, rather really right, like this is a huge thing. What is my purpose? How can I ground this in my values? And the reality is that you need to know is you already have your why. You may not have explored it fully and articulated it, but everyone has a why. Imagine a world where we do things for no reason.

I mean, it may seem like that for some people right. I mean, maybe turn on the news. You're like, where are you thinking this through?

I actually believe that every decision is rooted in good intention and there are no evil people. I don't believe that that is true. That's my perspective, and it's a presupposition of something in neurolinguistic programming that every decision is actually rooted in good intention. Now we could go to the extremes, right, we really could, and even there you can find a root cause in a world that lives in cause and effect, a root cause that was grounded somewhat in a positive intent almost always, and your why might be buried deep in there too, but it's there, whether you're aware of it or not. So for each of us we have a different experience. For me, it was a dumpster fire of a first business, but it probably goes beyond that because, well, why did I get into business so young? Right, I wanted to do things the right way. I didn't feel like anyone was giving me the reins to do it the right way. I was frustrated by this box. I wanted to prove myself. There's all these reasons that come from that. Now, for you and your electrical business, if you're listening, it can be much simpler than that, right, many of our electric printers find that rooting just in being the family person, the family man or the family woman that they set out to be, to take care of those people closest to them and to treat customers like family too, just as a couple of ideas building that community up right. So your why might be closer than you think and this is something that you can explore quite easily. Okay, if you just make some time for it, real thinking time for it, that makes sense, joe.

It really does, and I like that a lot.

Awesome. And so the second piece of this really is well, why is it important? And, as we mentioned in the last episode, we want that to help spread awareness. We want it to help ground decisions in your business, right, for example? We've been really talking about this win-win-win thing. There's got to be three wins or it's got to come to the table with a discussion, because if it's not a win for us, it's not a win for our team and it's not a win for customers or any one of those drop like. Shouldn't we discuss why that is?

Yeah, you know. It's funny that you bring that up because people will say well, my customer is winning and me, the business owner is winning. Where's the team? A situation like that would be I sell a service or a redevice, I sell a whole home redevice in a home and they've got 11 dogs and it smells like urine in the home. Yeah, the customer gets the benefit. Sure, they're winning. Yeah, the business owner gets the benefit because they've been sold a huge job, probably, but the technicians are walking around in respirators and white gloves trying to get the work done and hoping that they don't come home with bugs. It's got to be a win forever 100%, man, 100%.

So as a decisiveness for us going forward, in our million dollar launch we kind of spoke to our revitalized while already in serving these homeowners, in a time again, if you agree, joe, in a time where everyone's going more digital, more automated, we want to maintain and even elevate, train in and continue to perfect the interpersonal engagements between people.

You know, this actually situation just came up yesterday in my personal life and I feel like it's relevant to bring up here. Do you mind if I touch on something for a moment? Awesome, hate it brother. So I went to visit my family the other day and they had lost. They had apparently lost their internet. Right, internet wasn't working. The concern was I was like, okay, we'll just call the company about to talk to them. And I could see the pain look on my dad's face and he was like I'm not fine with them. I've been on hold with them. I can't even get to talk to a person. There's an automated system and even when I press any of the numbers, it just reroutes to another automated system. And here I am just trying to get my power back on because I have to host an event online and I can't even get to talk to someone. Figure out what's wrong. And it made me think, if there was, I actually asked them. I was like if you had to pay double every month for your internet bill whatever it is, I don't know what it is, whatever it was it was double that. But you knew that if you had to call in case of emergency, someone would answer would you pay it? He's like every time that's what's missing in this industry. So many of us say, oh, they won't charge more, they won't allow us to charge more, customers won't hire it. Yeah, they will. Because when you start to see the lack of humanity, you crave it even more.

Focus on the experience, brother. We've said that time and time again. It's really important. It's going to be really important for us. The other piece of this, and I think you're going to love this I'm going to make a suggestion here. I want to make sure our customers are never without power, and I'm with this. Like I know, we're in residential service, but I still feel we need an edge to really drive this and really make more of every engagement, make more options, create more customers from things like maintenance packages adding to our memberships, and to ensure our customers always have power. How could we do that, brother? Any ideas? I mean a couple of things come to mind Because you think about it and people are like well why would you offer a generator?

I can tell you that one of my favorite calls I ever went to was a customer to call me for a light bulb change. Light bulb change. She had the bulb. It was a fluorescent trough. But following the process, we go to the panel, go to the panel. I see next to the panel there is an old generator on blocks, doesn't even have wheels. She's an 80-year-old woman and we simply just brought it up and be like hey, often do you use it? Granted, the process went through, but eventually she was shaking my hand and so grateful that we said that we're putting an automatic generator, because she never even liked that portable system, couldn't even get it out of the driveway herself. So when you look for these opportunities and your commitment is I never want my customer to be out of power you'll look for the chances when they would be out of power and you just bring it to their attention. And the best part about it is that if it's done with a place of love, you're not pushing something on someone. You're like hey, I understand you're telling me that you're a hunter and I know you've got a elk freezer and I would hate for you to have to spend all fall going out and taking a trip up north and coming back with a caribou and chopping it up and then finding that it's completely lost and you have an entire season's worth of meat Lost. And you have an entire season's worth of meat lost. Is it wrong of me to want to prevent that outcome for you?

Not at all, man, Especially if that's like your tagline or your motto or your living breathing mission is to make sure your clients never without power. Is it wrong of you to offer it? Absolutely not. Puts it back on me as a customer. Was it wrong of me to call the person that believes in that? Then if I didn't want to be offered it? Mm-hmm full reversal of that scenario. So obviously we could go a ton into generators and the good news is we already have in the past. There's all sorts of resources, but what do you think is needed to be known here for us to use this, this additional niche, and to tie it into our why and our statement, our mission and our values and our goals for this million dollar launch year, which we're already well underway, mind you, we're just adding this little bit extra to it right now, this iteration, this evolution of it. Joe, is there anything you want us to know about generators, or what our listeners to know right now so that we can get going in that?

So if our goal just so I understand the question correctly if you're saying if our goal is to incorporate generation to our niche, what is something that we can tell them about generators that would allow them to be more common or more likely to offer it?

Yeah, man, I think I'm just trying to crush this into a small amount of time because we really don't have big generator episode plans in this one. So what's enough to get started? Maybe a top three things that someone should do that we would do in this million dollar launch in the next coming week to get started.

Your top three things. You're going to approach generators and you want to start doing it as a niche. Your first thing is understanding one how they operate, because you cannot help someone install either a manual or an automatic if you don't know the pros and cons of each. You show up to a customer's home. The guy's an ex mechanic, he has every tool in the world and it's a strong back Great. You lose power once a year. A portable system would be perfect for that person. At the same time, if you realize that same individual didn't have the mechanical background, or even if they did have the mechanical background but doesn't want to be frustrated with it, then having a one touch system is good and if they don't even want that, upgrading to an automatic is best. So, first, understanding your why. Second is being intimately familiar with each individual division, such as if you're going to say I'm going to offer portable generators, truly understand what that means. Who's going to maintain it? How do you flush out a carburetor? What are the things that need to be done in order to get this thing running? What are size requirements and condo developments? Then going further, on top of that is say, understand the automatic, but not just how to wire it? How much fuel does it use? I mean, you have a 20kW that can be using 2.86 gallons per hour in some capacities. If you have a customer who's concerned about their fuel costs and financials you know frugality is a thing that matters to them then yeah, they're going to be kind of pissed when they're spending six bucks an hour just in fuel. So the thought comes down to understand each and its entirety, so that when you do need to present it to your customer, you're doing so from an ethical standing of. Here are your pro and cons for each category. How would you like me to proceed in helping you with this?

Love it. Those are huge, huge, huge, huge. So let's try to limit this episode and jump into a couple of actions. Let's do a bit different. I'm going to take action for the first half, the why, if you'll take action and help people get started in generators like we would from day one. So, in this why, let me actually give you a little exercise that you can do to really help you with this. If you don't have it yet, you want to evolve it a little bit, I want you to actually go back and look at your good reviews. I want you to look for keywords that people are using that describe the pluses of your service and some of the values that you've demonstrated to incorporate why, just like our marketing. I want you to use their words so that this isn't just a big buzzword statement that no one gives a shit about. I want you to say the things in your why and keep saying them, that matter to your customers and to your staff and to this business and its thriving. That makes sense, joe.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

That's the why action for today.

Okay, now the generator action, I would say, is because there's so many things.

If I can only choose one, okay.

If I can only choose one and we're a new business I still have to split it into two. All right, which is one? You need to be established in. Whatever brand you want to do, we have to be searchable as a service dealer for that brand. The reason being is that the second action is learn how to service and maintain the systems. There are so many installed the generators already that are not being maintained because either, a people don't prioritize them or, b, they're not familiar with it, like, the amount of five year old generators that I've seen fail because people don't know how to adjust the valves on them is insane. So before you even figure out how to install, even if you never install, if you know how to fix them, you'll be way better off in your own installations and you'll have an entire market that opens up for you, especially now that you're also searchable as a service dealer.

Love it, man. That was huge. Now we're going a bit long in this one. We're going to get off on this episode. Episode 244, the why the developed niche of generators jumping down even further with this in an effort to master our sales, simplify our pricing and deliver premium level service on our million dollar launch. Joe, we've got even more on the next episode and I can't wait to get into it. Brother, we'll see you then. Okay, see you soon.