[00:00:00] Ben Poulter: toolbox talks for electricians, loading electricians with the tools and the skills they need to reduce stress, gain back time, and earn more.

Welcome back once again. My name's Ben Polter, your host, and this podcast

We Have two electricians that have built their own electrical company in the uk, and let's find out what got 'em into wanting to be an electrician and how they scaled their business over time. Chris Leon, welcome to Toolbox Talks for Electric. Welcome. Thank you. To start out, what got you thinking you wanted to be an electrician back in the day when you were at school? So, originally I wanted to be in the Army and , I relate to that. What did you wanna do in the Army though? I didn't care.

, I just knew I wanted to be in the army. What? Play with guns. Oh, they play guns and GoBoard, but , it didn't pan out. I failed the medical. , and then my dad was, Oh, what are you gonna do now? So I was like, I honestly don't know. , I've never even thought about a pack, a backup plan. No. My only plan was we had your heart set on the army then.

Yeah. Yeah. Always. Like from a boy, he just now I'll do, yeah. I'll get you fixed. Yeah. Kicks it. So, , my manager said to me like, come on site with me. Pop Town, 17 years old. , I , just went from there really and just escalated. What made you wanna stick it here though? Cause it's quite hard, didn't it?

You think when you started out an apprentice and, well, some of the old boys like, yeah, shit. A lot of abuse, didn't they? I did. I was always quite graft. I like always, yeah. , I like going my money. I didn't. , yeah. Did take any gypping away then. And you had your old man there as well. Yeah. So he was working, I was working with him for about three months.

Right. Cuz he actually, to get me on site, he took a demotion from a supervisor, dropped down to a tester. And then about three months later he, he left to go back to supervisor. Oh, I, I stuck out. He's got, got you in the door maybe then. Yeah, pretty much. It's got me in the door and run off, but . There you go, mate.

Yeah, it was good. Like, , I can't complain. And it was, it was the right thing to do. He needed the money. And , he got me, got my foot in the door cause that's what I needed really. To prove it worked out, didn't it? What about yourself, Chris? How did you get into being a spark? Well, I actually did my first, so my granddad's smile man was, he was disabled, so I used to help him a lot, putting up shelves, cutting wood.

I was with a power saw from ROI man. Already then. Yeah. Yeah. A very sort of old school upbringing. Yeah. And I remember fixing an extension lead with him in my nan's conservatory, which was twisting the flex and tap. Twisting and then it worked. This saw worked and I was like, oh, , this is good.

And so , obviously didn't go to school, played video games up until I was 16, the moment I could go to college. Right. I did what was the old level two and then I did the newer level three and I got distinctions in all my exams and obviously progressed properly then. Yeah. And yeah. So I didn't really know my old, my actual dad growing up, Right.

I'm actually a third generation electrician and I didn't even know. So you, your previous is in your blood then sort of thing? Yeah. My, my granddad earned his money, so my granddad on my dad's side, he earned his money fit in power stations in South Africa. My dad actually spent the first 12 years of his life living in South Africa, and then my dad was part P electrician and I only really got back in contact with him when I was 18.

Oh yeah. So yeah, third generation sparks, but I didn't know. So its definitely my jeans. So you both come from basically a generation of Sparky then? Yeah. What? Yeah, definitely. From that, obviously I've Jo Jogged arounds. My first apprenticeship was when the Icelandic banks went under the first recession, the first proper recession in our lifetime.

What is that? , that was 81, was it? Or No, there was a recession in 81. Yeah. No, the, so boys weren't around early 2000 when we had our big recession, when the, market crashed. 2007 company I worked for had a lot of money in Iceland, so , they went. And then after that I just, agency contracts, self-employed all the way through my 17th birthday was my first day working self-employed.

Oh, your 17th birthday. So that's quite young then. Hey, start out on your own. Yeah. I remember turning up on the site and they actually brought me a little cut take from the shop cuz they asked how old I was. Cause obviously I was, And I said, I'm 17. And they said, oh, when you turn 18? I said, next year it's my birthday.

Today I just turned 17 and probably a little bit underqualified at the time. I think I only had my level one, obviously not level one old version, level two at the time, and I was going around , and fit stuff and then from there, just worked all the way up until the point I was getting married.

and that was when I realized how much money you can make, right? Doing your own stuff with word of mouth. I used to just do the odd bit and , I grafted hard evenings and weekends for four months to pay off my wedding completely. Cool. I know when I was like, I'm not working for anyone ever again. You've got the bug then.

Yeah. This is the thing. They say that now, once you got self employed, you can't go back and I don't think I could go back for working for someone else. , if you would, if you needed to, you would. But yeah, be a struggle. Yeah. Be a struggle to be told what to do. Especially when you think things are wrong.

I remember I used to work with someone in Brock. down your way. And they, they were re, they were doing these houses and I said to 'em, look man, I don't think this is right. You're running an armor from the main head like halfway across the ceiling and something, the way you connected, it's not right.

The kit you've given me is not right. Ah, just get on with it, Ben. I thought, whoa, so quit. But that was another reason. , you can't do it. You can't just, can't do a shit job, can you? No. Come back, they'll come back. We've done a shit job. . Oh yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes we ain't like kid in the van . No.

There's been sometimes where I've walked away knowing we're going back the next day and I'm like, , that's a bit rough. That maybe shouldn't have left it like that. Yeah. Was happy that they had it on. That's the main thing. Cause sometimes, well they want to get it on, don't they? All the time.

That's all , they're looking for. I don't care if it's safe or not. So. Yeah, yeah. , you kind ask. I'm just more thinking like when you've, ran a bit of trunk in at nine o'clock at night to get a job done, and when you look back at it and you realize you've coed all the corners, instead of putting , the bends on the PREMs, it, it just looks rough.

Then you have to go back and sort it out. You morals kicking. Yeah. Yeah. At least you've got it sort of, so you know that you've gotta sort that out. Yeah. It's a bit a perfectionist thing, isn't it? You, you think you boys are like that, a bit of a perfectionist where you. , I think most sparks are. Yeah, it's, you definitely have, I've met a few then.

Yes. Same . I dunno if there was sparks to be honest. . Yeah. I think a lot of sparks are, it's a hard job, whatever way you look at it. , and people have pride in their work. Yeah. And you can soon tell when someone doesn't have pride in their work. By the most simplest of things. Stringing cables across and stuff, but what do you think the trade is the most that has the most pride in their work?

Gas engineers to really, no, no, no, no. Gas. Yeah. Gas has gotta be on and safe, but I not but the biggest ego on site, right. Of a gas engineer. And we had this, I'm thinking about Sandy, Sandy gas. Sandy gas engineer. Yeah. You know, did the, showed us all that pipe work of the like boiler house. Oh, he was, he was a

Oh, he, he, he was an absolute jobsworth. He was. I think, I think carpenters cause carpenters, well, whatever they do, the end product's gonna be seen, isn't it? Mm-hmm. . So I think they've gotta do a good job to look with, like you see 'em hanging doors and they're a bit of perfection perfectionist wise as well.

I don't mind carpenters. There's plumbers that I don't go on with. There's a lot of bad blood. My, my biggest clash with, plumbers, especially when they call themself heating engineers, is when they come to me to do a wiring. Because I'm sure somewhere in Gas Safe, they should know how to do a wiring center to teach you something like that.

Yeah. And if they can't do a wiring center, how can you call yourself a gas agent? How are you ever gonna go to commission the boiler? Because you know, you can't finish your job. And I've al always said that. And we called out a, a plumber at this, guy's house. We did a, it was like a million pound build.

And I told the builder, I said, he said the plumber was coming today. And I said, oh, is he gonna do the wiring center? And he went, oh, should think he. You can tell if he's a heating engineer, an actual heat engineer. I said, if he's not, he's a plumber. And, yeah, called him out in front of him when he went.

Are you gonna be doing it? Heating engineer heating systems is just a bunch of switches and obviously the guy didn't how to do him, so we had to end up doing it. That's where, where I pull out plumbers and heating engineers. You got the, Yeah, he showed him up. So did you both go through the traditional apprentice in a way?

Three years? Yeah. So I, I started an apprenticeship and then I had to self fund my level three, my AM two. And then I did an NVQ afterwards. Right. And, Leon, yours was with Darren, wasn't it? Yeah. So I never did the, I didn't did the traditional route. I did , The course, but it's like a 16 week course.

What, well, you say traditional route, but there's so many different options these days isn't, you don't have to have an apprentice. There's a lot of, I spoke to someone today, 52 retraining to be an electrician after being a chef, which is a lot of people think, well, I wanna get into a trade, and they choose electrics.

Yeah. So a, a lot of people that have done the alternative route do get a lot of stick. At the end of the day, if you can do the work safely into a competent level. Exactly. Why, why does it matter? Yeah. Yeah. This is, I've, I've had a lot of sparks that have been in it for 30 years. I wouldn't have worked with him else.

Yeah. I wouldn't have gone into business with Leon if he was an idiot. So I had a business prior to us merging. Right. And I, I wouldn't have taken that risk if Leon didn't know what he. , did you Everly lookout or meet each other on site or something to convert every partner do? Yeah. Our, wholesalers that we both used took like the top 10 spenders out for a big night out.

Nice. All drinks and dinner paid for. And that was where we met. Yeah. And then we became friends. There's a bit of a longer story on why we kept talking, in covid. My, my wife's, a nurse for senior, well for patients with. Right. So she was the key worker. I stayed at home and I gave this guy a lot of my work.

I gave him everything and just said like, look, just gimme a hundred quid, about four grand rewires. And I said, I just want a hundred quid, just a bit of a drink. Yeah. And I found out he was then poaching the work off me. Moonlight. So I know rang Leon, who I know was also giving him work and said, look, don't trust this guy.

He's a snake. This is what happened. And then funnily enough, Leon said you to do heating systems. And I was like, of course

Leon's not a heating engineer, so he's right. No, definitely engineer, but no, a heating control in controls are difficult. It just, I think the first few times, yeah, a bit of an, well, once you know, I've, I've took two port valves, three port valves apart and stuff like that, and you've got why they work. Then once you understand how they work and why they work, you think, well, it's as easy, you need to switch the fundamental, the principles of a heating system and a way the heating system works.

What needs to be called in first. Yeah. What needs to be switched in the right order for, for it to actually work properly. Yeah. Is the understanding of that. The biggest throwout on Polk valves and heat in when I first started was the fact that gray's permanent black switch line in an orange, a switch line up.

And I'd always think brown should be permanent. Gray is your your auxiliary core in, and then orange would be your switch line out. But their colors a little bit different. The figure, they changed the bloody colors as well, didn't they? Yeah. Like new boys around 2004 doing it when they changed, was it 2004?

I can't remember that. I, I started in 16th editions. I, I was pre, I was, yeah, you had the red, yellow, blue. I was the last year before 17th came out, so I was, I was year in and then everything I'd been shown sort of shifted to, yeah, I changed, just to confuse you a little bit more, I hadn't even touched heat and controls in that first year.

Right. So, yeah, I'm very much a new color, but I'm, I was aware of the older color. Yeah, that got a bit confusing cause they changed on DC as well and I was doing a lot of work at DC at the time. So they just changed it to harmonize with Europe apparently. But Ireland was already using it anyway. Yeah, exactly.

then, then we just let let 'em go. , that's, that's another podcast. Chill out on the options of that. So when, when you were sort of working as an apprentice then and when you were working to, being qualified was the plan to have your own. So my, my plan, my old boss that pushed me in the right direction, got my confidence where it needed to be.

Got me back on track really. Cause I was starting to become, , what's the word? A bit doser. Yeah, a bit, a bit disorganized. Complacent, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Complacent. Maybe. That's probably a better word. And then he drove me, proper doer, drove me in the right direction, and he said, if you work hard, give you a bit of ambition in a way.

Yeah. Got, got my spark back. He, he said, you work hard for me for the next four, four or five years. And the, the company's yours. Not as like handing it over, but as he's not doing electrical work, I'd have to, he could pass you a lot of work. He could pass me all of his clients. I'd buy, I bought the tools off of him.

Yeah, I bought, bought everything and he did, gave me a massive helping hand. Oh, stepping stone is said. Sometimes a bonus is when you need someone that's gonna just show you a bit of the ropes. That's the right, especially when you're young youngster. Right.

Definitely, definitely. Yeah. I think everyone, especially grown up needs a mentor they can look up to. It's, it's, yeah, in some respects sort of thing. And, well, how many mentors do reckon, reckon you've had as a spark that you look up to? There, there's two people I can think of who really showed me how to be a better electrician, a better person in, in, in myself, and there too, that I still speak to today.

One of them. He's retired. He's he's very old now, . Wow. And the other one, ended up moving down to Wales and he now does, property investing. But I still speak to him on a day. I just wish he was doing it this end so we could take all the work off him. Yeah, exactly. Be a bonus. But, yeah, so John Ballard was the one that showed me more about how to interact with clients.

He was actually a major in the army. While doing a side business. And I subcontracted to him and he used to drop me off at a site. I used to do the work. He used to come sort of check on what I had done. Yeah. And then for the six months I sort of worked with him. I didn't even know he was a major in the army then did, yeah, I did another year for him after that.

And then that was when he got relocated to Wales. His plan was to, take his army pension and then do the electrical business full-time. , but where he got given an opportunity he couldn't turn down to do five more years in the army. He moved to Wells and relocated. And then obviously there was back on the whole, I need to find employment

So yeah. But he was, he was a very nice, very nice man. Definitely taught me a lot. Yeah, there is, it is always good, I think, to have an older guy or an old electrician to teach. Sort of a lot of things. What, what, what not to do and what to do with myself. Yeah. I've had a few of them and then ended up getting qualified and subcontracting to 'em.

But as soon as I left, things got sour. Like I didn't speak to 'em no more because I didn't like it. Cuz you were trying to, I think a lot of the time when you work for a company and you think, no, I'm gonna break away and do my own thing, I'm gonna start up on my own. I don't like it, in my opinion. Yeah.

I think, I, I've seen that a lot in businesses where they've obviously invested a lot of. In, into a young ladder or a young lady. Yeah. And then they've got their ticket and now they're asking for more money as long as they're doing the work. So we've got two guys at the moment. One used to work for me and my old business and one is Leon's brother who's worked for Leon for eight years or so, and they've both gone through the ranks and they're getting paid good money now.

Mm-hmm. . But yeah, I think if, if they wanted to leave. Yeah, I'll be a bit. So you think cause you're gonna be annoyed for, wouldn't you? . I, I think it's difficult. Would cause I'd wanna, if they've got a better opportunity or need to, you can't blame someone wanna blame themself free. No, a hundred percent.

It's exactly what me and Chris have done by a Exactly. We're all been there going down different avenues to, to better ourselves. And everyone wants to learn more money. They've got the opportunity in front of them and they can't turn it down if we can't match it. Yeah. Yeah. Feel. We're coming out. Sorry, carry on.

I was saying money is a, is a big factor for a lot of people. That's, yeah. The day, that's what we all go to work for. . So with Dean, one of our employees, he worked for my old business, well, we did a lot of work for, mes on the council. Mm-hmm. , it's not great work. Reactive maintenance, terrible. The money's really good, but as for a business, the money's good, should I say?

But the work is terrible. And then Leon had more bespoke builders, rewires loft extensions. So when Dean came over, . He was like, this works amazing because it's good. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Pretty lovely. And Liam, sometimes that's Liam's brother sometimes where he hasn't sinned. The bad side of being an electrician, right?

Yeah. The, the tough bits, the rubbish bits working. He counts else is maybe, yeah. He, he's sitting there like, this is all I ever know. And he's like, oh, I guess it's all right. Cause he doesn't know the bad side. Yeah. So the, the big thing when we merged was, we diversified the portfolio. So for over the sort of Christmas period, instead of relying heavy on builders that were shutting down, we now have a lot more rentals.

Estate agents. Yeah. So now they're Liam's experience in that sort of work, and he's like, wow, this is crap. . Yeah. You get a taste of it, like, yeah. Cause cause you've gotta, you've gotta have a taste of everything, Paul. You won't. Nothing otherwise you get thrown at the deep end. Because like the way, like when you say, when times get tough, you've gotta take on these crap jobs maybe a bit.

If like things get a bit tighter, like in covid and stuff, when people weren't spending money and you get called out to a job, you don't really wanna do it, but it keeps you going. Yeah, well we, when you've got 50 odd rental properties that you've gotta look after, E ICRs you bread and butter sometimes, isn't it?

Like these little jobs, it's 50 properties that you need to look after. That's a. . A relatively good contract that you'd work Exactly. Yeah. Keep and look after. Well, the thing is, as you think of that as well as your business, i d t, like that's a contract that you've got, and I always say to a lot of people is that contract's IDTs, if you ever sold that business, that contract goes without business.

That makes your business more valuable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the long run, maybe you never. If you've interested said, cause I do speak to a lot of people and say, would you sell your business? And they say, no, not chance. Cuz they've built it from nothing. Everyone's, everything's got a number every, yeah, everyone's got, without a doubt.

I, I would do, and we have, a few revenue in income streams outside of the electrics. I'll just pump more, I'll pump that money into my, into that maybe. Yeah. So we've, we've got a second company together called itd. . Right. Which is Right. So you've do security lambs and stuff like that Yeah. As well. That's so, it's a completely independent business.

Right. Have you got other room people that do that? Do you do that yourself as well? No, we, we manage that. You, you actually do the work. Yeah. Yeah. , right? Because I found that if you go to someone's house to do a rewind and they say, well, I want security alarm, cctv, you always get asked as an electrician, don't you?

To do something extra? Yeah. So you've just obviously noticed that and thought, yeah, we can do that as well. Yeah. We had an opportunity. We, we, we've secure obviously it, it's more about the residual income. So every, nearly every customer's on a, a monthly payment plan for maintenance. and of of, I think we've got like 98 customers at the moment paying 9 99 plus, depending if they have CCTV as well.

Mm-hmm. . So with that, it brings cash flow into the business. Yeah. Ideally secure isn't that regimen, so, that works well and it keeps the lad busy. And like the 90 customers, you get to that phone every month without the fail, they've turned the power off, they've knocked the spare. , but most of them, they, they're, they literally sit there paying the monthly until the service as well.

They wait so they can call you if they need to? Yeah, and then we, we, we, we provide the service and then they've got that point of contact. They know if there's a problem. Yeah. They can call. Cause a lot of people they get these, these security alarms or the CC set up, if it goes wrong, they don't get it fixed.

And then they've got, oh yeah, we've got. Oh, well, you, it should have worked. So I think definitely a maintenance contract with security and cctv, it's a must if you've gotta install it. Cause no doubt you'll get calls all the time. Oh definitely, definitely. Yeah. But all, all that is above board . Yeah. Spot on.

So when you started on your, on your business, did you think that, do you have to get extra qualifications at all before becoming your own boss? I thought there would've been more guidance or more sort of crash courses around basics for running a business. I actually looked, I looked online to see if there was any basic business courses, but there was all two corporate, corporate enrolled around multimillion pound firms instead of sort of 1, 2, 3 man, one small corporations.

It's. Fuck. It's difficult to work your way through it, but I think trial and error, basically you've gotta do it. If you, if it doesn't work, you're learning hard way. I've done that a few times I think with us when, so main reason for the merge too far got done over for a lot of money and had my last business.

Right. And Leon was working every day. His guys were working, but he hadn. Streamlined his business to the point where he was making money. It was just the business was making the guy's money. Mm-hmm. biggest, it wasn't, yeah. The biggest thing with the merger was I, I brought in that experience on how to run the business, right?

On how to get his lads work in as efficiently as possible, and then bringing over talent from my business where Leon then could then take a step back and not do as much. To then progress on everything else. So having two heads really helped. Well pro you don't mean to progress on Call of Duty, . So, no, Leon's a's a but given, I mean, gave me more time with the family, cause Leon was doing obviously his half.

We do spend most nights on Discords talking about what's gonna happen, what we doing, how we're gonna get through this planning jobs, booking material. But having that extra set ahead, especially with the experience coming over for Leon and then for me, having someone who's willing to work just as hard as me on the business, it, it's been amazing.

It's been phenomenal. And just to take a step back and analyze the business, I was so deep into the business of working for the business. I was basically an employee, which. Yeah, for myself, but never got any of the rewards. Cause I was paying the guys and then it, there's only when Chris come on board up, we could actually step back and analyze things and look and see that.

I think it was the, the first week we, went through, I, I went through his wholesalers that he was using and he was only really using one and we compared the prices to three different other wholesalers and they were 5% more expensive. And I think it was one, one month was like six grand to Thesal. I said if that was 30% less that you would've then made that money in pro, like extra.

Additional, yeah. That would've been in your pocket. So that was the first thing we'd turn, turn upside down. I think. I'll basically where you get materials from then. Yeah, I, I think Leon definitely saw them as friends as opposed to they are gonna be your best mate, didn't they? Yeah. Too much trust you got in there spending money every day.

Too much trust. Yeah. And yeah, so we first walked into another wholesalers. We picked an additional suitable one to become our main wholesaler. And, from day one, I'm walking in now, I said, we'll be reviewing this every month. And if. Ranking your prices up compared to everyone else, we're just gonna leave and they've all accepted that.

And our prices have stayed low everywhere. Including the one that was, I won't say ripping Leon on off, but definitely not giving into discounts he deserved. Yeah. Sometimes you don't gear discounts till you ask. Mm-hmm. They're sitting there doing a bit of paper and, and I'll say to her, I want, I want BP price.

Ben Price. They're like, oh, well be, what's that? What's that? I said, what the best price? Come on. Like, knock it down. Not even if it's a good price. You gotta say that because that's how they work. Yeah. They've got discounts on your, on your sheet. They give you, they say you've got so much. Why have I, why am I own it that much?

I want more. They're like, oh, okay. Okay. You've gotta ask for it. Yeah. When not cheeky enough. We probably, it's, yeah, it comes with like, just experience wise, it, cause sometimes you've, when you quote your job as well, you know much how a drum of two point fives gonna be. All right. So was there any, look as, as you're building your business and becoming more and more successful, is there any mistakes that you think, I don't need to do that.

I wish I didn't do that. Okay. What's one that sticks out thousands, holding onto employees that you think will make it right. What will get better over time? So, I had, again, I won't say say their name, but I had an employee who. Gave me anxiety. Why? What did he give you? Anxiety. I, I know I'd have site managers come up to me and say like, oh, but you know, they'd go for a fag break right before they know it's break to get like an additional 10, 15 minutes just a piss take off.

And what. What people don't realize is that we've all been there. I, I've phoned in sick before cause I couldn Bob to go in. It's like we, we all know what they're doing. Yeah. And you'd get these messages on a Sunday night, like, oh my, no, my dog's really ill. And I, shit, I think I've got a stomach. I definitely had one

Yeah. I'd rather them just, just be honest than say like, look, I'm not, I'm not feeling it. I. I'm just down. I'd rather not come that I can't be asked in the truth. Oh yeah. You like some of the tallest. Sometimes even if someone says to you, look, next week I'll grab Monday off just cause I feel like it. Then you'd be like, okay, well work it out.

It's a bit of notice. You can play around it. You plan around it, work way around it then. But if they wanna just call up on a, especially on a Monday, cause Monday's always busy. When you gotta get things going, they don't turn up. You're like, hang up out. There's a person phon me. You. You meant to be there.

Yeah, I've got a, to my, I have my toe. You know what? Shut up and get on with it. I think my, my biggest mistake electrically, I installed, it's probably about 57, multicolor change in steak lights, right? Which were DC that had to be wired in series. And I ac means them. And I blew seven up. I fried them.

Yeah. You did not come with a transformer then You just didn't do it. So I, I was given the lights and obviously I didn't look. I've taken off and it's brown and blue and I was just like, yeah, there you go. All means. And I realized they had to be wired in series across the beach. Did they pop or when you turned them on, or did they just fry?

Oh, I turned them on and I was like, oh, they're fucking.

I left him on and then it was almost left to right. It was this massive house in H the person who lived there was actually the owner of the range beer prior. And, I remember going from left to right closest to the AC supply firms. The way I remember seeing them just go, just slowly pop out and I thought, what, what's happening?

These are, these flash as well. These are good lights. . I looked into the, the catalog and realized the lights. They're, and I've just seen DC see that little bit and think, yeah. So that, that was an expensive mistake. It's 17 to make. I think I was only booking myself out for 45 pound a day. and the lights were like 340 quid.

It was like a week's wages. Damn . So, but obviously you just bite the bullet and pay it. Ah, sometimes you never learn, don't you? What about yourself, Leon, on any mistakes? Ah, my biggest business mistake would be focusing too much on the work and not enough on the business. Yeah. Yeah, too. In the business rather than working on the business.

So when do you think you took that switch then to focus more on the business? Literally when me and Chris was coming together. Would some well someone come along and point out to you? Maybe? Yeah, a hundred percent. I was blindsided. I literally, I was like a horse with, what the things called with blinders on blink blinkers.

Are they called blinkers on? I dunno, blinkers isn't there? Yes. Yeah. I was literally, I was just steaming ahead and dragging everyone with it. Yeah. You're concentrating on the work basically. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, and then paperwork get getting neglected. I was missing invoices. Just get a bit of a whirlwind.

Yeah, just don't get too caught up in the work. So, , you can't generate the work. Yeah. Well you can't step back and look at your business in effect. Definitely. I think that this goes onto the mentor, whatever stage you're in, if you're doing something new. I mean, what would've really helped Leon if he, if he spoke out to people that run a business mm-hmm.

at the time and said like, it's going well, but I thought it [00:31:40] would be better. Yeah. And just ask for advice and help. I mean, that would've really, would've really helped lean on that time and. Who's looking to make that jump. But you speak to people, there's plenty of people, especially like the lower followed accounts on TikTok.

If you can see they're running a business, they'd have time to message up. I mean, you won't be able to go to the accounts court with million followers on. Facebook or anywhere like that because they probably won't have the time to reply to your message, but just find the lower accounts and just ask for advice, ask questions end of the day.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, people always help you. You don't get wrong. You get, some people won't even reply. People won't probably, oh, they'll, they'll send you an invoice saying, I can tell you it, but it's this much. Yeah, it's gonna cost. Yeah. Come on man. I'm not gonna do that. Generally will help. Yeah. Well it's difficult I think as well.

Cause you, you speak to some of the old boys in Thesal. Oh, they've done it for years. They're not really interested anymore cause they're coming up to retirement. But I think the new way to build a business is social media. Mm-hmm. , like, did you ever go out and post leaflets? No. No, I, I did that when I first started out.

It was pointless. Complete waste of time. The best thing is like on Facebook and social media and having, oh, basically Google is where, cause what, what do people do? They Google it. So if you're on Google, yeah. They'll ring up and say, right, you are near me. Can you come and have a look? That's, and we've started doing s e saw, Chris mentioned it earlier, but yeah, we, it's paid for itself tenfold.

We just. Keep paying for it, and it just keeps, keeps generating more work. Yeah. As long as, as it keeps bringing the jobs in, then it's gonna pay for itself con consistent organic customers. Yeah. So is that, is that your main say what, what would you think that is your main source of sort of customers or leads in a way to your business?

New leads would be Google. Yeah, Google. If, if you're talking about volume of work, it's, it's exist. Clients that either myself have held on to for about six years now, or Leon, for probably about three, four years that, you know, you do a good job and they just keep you up again. Yeah. So we've got a few estate agents in London.

My work used to always be in London, so the biggest thing with the merge was that I was taking half of our work towards London when Liam was very much predominantly always in Ken. Right. So, we've, I've got good relationships with some people in London and, and we get continuous work. I, I'll probably say it's one estate agents every month they pay the guys wages without foul cause of the volume of work that we get from them.

And that's what has made this January, a January we didn't have to worry about because our portfolio was diversified enough that we've got customers that always call us. Cause they have. Right. They're contracted too. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think, do you think now as well that you get customers that just phone you up and say, right, I've got this house wants a rewire and they're not really interested in a quote because they trust you?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Definitely. The part, one of the particular agents in questions I just mentioned, they don't even ask us the quote jobs anymore. Yeah. That they know what our prices are. We don't get it done, and we trust you to do a good job. Yeah. So we just lost the builder. Sorry. Leon would say, we've just lost a builder here.

They're moving abroad. But they was like that. They was just, they knew what we charged. They knew we did a good job. Oh, they just hooked me saying like, I need you here in three weeks. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. That's, that's, I think that's the best way sometimes, cuz when you do go to a job as well and you give 'em a quote, then you've gotta get in contact with them when you say, Hmm, the quote's different.

Like, I didn't realize you needed this as well, or we've gotta get an asbestos removed or something like that. There's, it adds. So many different variables. When you're quoing a job, it's, it's like it's a minefield and everything changes. As soon as you take one thing off, it could change the quote. Yeah, definitely.

It depend the cost of materials these days. I remember back in the day, like when I first started that we used to the G 10 down lights, and unless I could change that into l e D for five pound more, extra for the. Well, it's not anymore. They're flipping 20 quid now. A decent down light, aren't they? right now.

So it adds costs that way for a decent one. But, so when you started at working together then mm-hmm. Obviously mm-hmm. , you found, you found that you had a lot more time. So is this the reason you started at your second business? No. I think it was just the opportunity. Opportunity arose and it was too good to turn.

It was either going, going to us or someone else was gonna get it was our sort of faults. Yeah. Did you think, do you think you have to go do some more training to find out about security or cctv? No. No. Cause I not gonna say that. If you're an electrician, you can do that quite easy. Can you ? It's a Carle.

Come on. I ain't even live today. We was doing, the C P D training to get up. Cause obviously know now you've gotta do the hours for N I c you've gotta def 30 hours a year or something. So we was doing that today. So we've always, I've always been soly on always training, going to seminars, obviously listening to podcasts.

Mm-hmm. tuning into webinars for the N I c cuz it changes so quick. Yeah. That if, if you say got your 18th and you didn't bother doing your amendment too, it wasn't necessary. They're, they're looking at bringing out amendment free. Right. That's call the 19th. I was googling somewhere a little while. I think they're gonna call it the 19th.

They might even jump it straight to the 19th. I dunno what they're doing, but it's, it's a lot more about earthing arrangements. Obviously with the PME situation, there's, yeah, the next few years is gonna be really difficult around Earth in testing. It's gonna change. Well, cause also, I think the new builds as well, that what they're saying is they're gonna have three phase supply.

Yeah, free face for the electrical charges. The oh, what's it called? They mentioned it today, where? Foundational founding, so, so the actual foundation of the building is gonna have rebar in it or some still strap, and that's gonna become the earth in arrangement now in this country that's gonna be connected from the whole site.

So this is why we've gotta keep upgrading. No wonder like it worked. Why don't just leave? Because it's breaking. It was, it was done 50 years ago. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, not the, the EV chargers and the solar is, causing issues. Yeah, they're all coming out. The thing is, there's a lot of these, windmills and stuff like that all over the place as well, and the solar powers, but the, the, the cable in the ground, can't it material, right.

This is the thing. So we've got to upgrade them. It's gonna be millions. No. So today, the, the. The PM PME systems are just put in post-war 70 odd years ago pan. It's just gonna become a more and more of a problem as the years go on. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Unofficial figures are 500 dangerous circumstances, calls from electricians to, the DNO on a PME dropping out.

Obviously, if you've got houses in a, in a row, a PME drops out at number 12. It's gonna go through the earth on number 15 to get down their pme, which means a fault in this property is gonna make the taps in this property carry 70 volts plus . So yeah, there, there's, there's a lot of changes happening around, around three arrangements.

So, in a similar way as me starting on the 16th and then doing 17th. Straight away. There's gonna be a lot of people qualifying. Then by next year, the whole Earthing arrangement. Straight onto it. Yeah. Different again. Yeah. So, but that, that's the game that we're in is what we do. It always change Yeah. How it works.

So the things that evolve and say like, same mechanics, they didn't mess around with engines anymore. They've got electric ones to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just look at lighting for example. I mean, it wasn't uncommon to have a single pendant with a hundred wat light bulb in every room. Mm-hmm. And then obviously it went to more aesthetically pleasing lighting with your downlights, and now everything's going to l e d.

So you. Gonna be installed in soon, like a five millimeter cable on an e type two amp breaker for all light circuits. Yeah. And that there's then gonna be a big change from the rule of thumb of a 1.5 and six mil, six amp. It's all going change. Yeah. It's all changing. It's all changing. I, I think smart switching.

Most of your lights being ran in, say like, like a cat six or something like that. Yeah. And, and a full, that's, that's all it needs, I suppose. Yeah. To each room as well. So you can walk into your house and say, right. Kitchen light's on. Yeah. Yeah. But actual, the actual main power to the light will be low voltage.

I think we've probably five, 10 years and you won't have mains, cables run into your. My, you were transformed by the boards, and then from that you, that Cat six is out powering all the lights. So that could even be an I D T design.

yeah. New Modern Houses Estate and Lutron already do that. They they do, yeah. But obviously that's expensive. Coppers of finite material is going, which is why as we are bringing the load down on the light in, they're lowering it. That's why they're, they're starting to say a. T E to carry a two amp circuit and that won't be long until that goes down and you will be running lights off of cat six RJ fives in the back of spot lights cause it, the cost on the material is less.

And if they can do it with the technology and the DC like DC voltage to the lights. It will happen. Cause everyone wants to make money. Yes. You think about it. Well, you get 305 meters of cat, like cat six cable compared to a drummer two five. It's a lot cheaper, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I don't think it, it didn't necessarily be a CAT six, but it'll Similar to that light.

Yeah, yeah. Almost definitely. Yeah. So for someone that's maybe training and starting out thinking, yeah, I might wanna become an electrician, what would be the one bit of advice gon Leon, you go first. Take your time. Don't rush. Yeah, don't rush. Take your time. You're always gonna be the best at everything, but just take your time, analyze it.

Slow down. And just, taking all the information you can take in, read the 18th back to back. Right. That's, that's good advice. I had to, I do that 18th when I did that 18.2 a few years ago now. I founded it twice. , it's hard to, I thought it's hard. It was a bloody nightmare. I got like, 60, you had to get 65% or something.

Did you? I got about. every, took twice. I was like, flip second. And when I passed it, I only got like 80. It's hard. It's a nightmare. But way self. Chris, I scraped by my 18th. I did the 18th as soon as it came out. One of my friends owned at college, so we got straight in without any training days. We did exam only and, and I scraped by, there was one question in it.

Good. . . But yeah, for, for apprentices. From my own experience, which is what I wish I did in my earlier years, was stand up for yourself. Don't, don't let anyone put put you down, so to say, mm-hmm. , believe in yourself and give everything a go. Don't, don't sit there, be like, I can't do that. Give it a go. Yeah.

Don't be, don't be embarrassed to fail, maybe, eh? Yeah. I think Edison. Was it? He found a hundreds, 1,400 odd times to make the light bulb. Yeah. Fouled totally times. Look, he didn't still used to this day. That's what I mean. He didn't fail 101,400 times. He found out what didn't work. One 400 times true. And then one B is made we all use today and we'll use for generations to come.

And everyone, everyone remembers his name. Well, obviously could just call Davidson Bulb as well, but you, I mean cause he invented it. . Yeah, but he, he fell go times before he got it right. So just think every time you've failed, you haven't necessarily failed and done it wrong. You just found out what doesn't work and then just keep going.

Especially when you're doing two-way switches and you keep moving the cables around to get it right. Ah, I used to do that. Yeah. Until someone said, look, scrap this, it, is it a new bill? We'll draw it out. And it was, I was, oh no, what? Pardon this? I was pretty qualified. It was like, just draw it out. I'll draw it out.

And then when you understand it a bit more, ah, okay. Right. For time now. Got it now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I draw it. Challenge now. The amount of times I get sent a photo on the back of a switch and I, I, from the keyboard draw where the colors go and then they'd say, oh, your network done. Don't be scared to fuck up.

Yeah, exactly. Don't be scared to fail. Cause it's the only time you learn, isn't it sort of thing when you're making mistakes. Yeah. You think, ah, I ain't gonna do that again. As long as you're learning from it and not repeating the mistakes. Yeah. That's what I can't tolerate. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing I say to the guys as well, and mistakes are only a mistake when you refuse to correct it.

Mm. So that, that's one thing I say to all of our ladson, if they do do so wrong, if they're gonna ring me and go, I did the light wrong, it blew up. I'm going, no, that's a mistake off. We had deemed go to a job and like, but fingers lad, he dropped the light and smashed it and, and before even knowing he had done it, we rang him and said like, where are you?

He said, I'd go and he went and brought one before even bringing us. Mistake solution beforehand. And that's a good idea. Rather than piss and moan about it, it's went and sorted it out. Fixed it. Yeah. And that, that, that's from that saying and the, the, the lads take on that quite well to honest, you'll get a fire in life by solving problems.

That's all our job is, is just constant problem solving. Yeah. If you good at solving problems, you'll go fire as an electrician. Any joy solving problems. Cause I see a lot of people, they get, they pull their hair out, I can't do this. Ra ra, ra. Sometimes they take a step back and go, right. What should it be?

what's wrong? And then work your out that way. How process is elimination. Yeah, definitely. So the future of I D T then, where have you got a plan where you wanna see it? So this is when me and Leon are, are sort of in the heads right about where to go. So, I think we've, the growth, obviously we've got gone from Leon with his lads to free vans out every.

And I, I think he's like, oh, that's a lot of growth in, in what's been less than a year. Right. And I'm very much, let's get, oh, go, go. Let's get as well. So we, we just turned down four jobs that are valued at 600,000 each labor only. Right. And the time of the year, it would've been a struggle to take. But I, I was very much, yes, let's do it.

We'll find it obvious, the money. So I think that that's, that's one thing I think wants to take it a little bit slower than me. Oh, did you do it because of, cost then? Yeah, obviously with the jobs we probably would've needed eight guys to, to start to start the free contracts. We've still obviously got our own stuff, so they would've been agency lands.

People that we knew we could have brought back from my old business and like friends. Mm-hmm. . But you'd still have 60 days of paying their mate guys before the first payments came in. Yeah. . So if you're looking at two Japan a day across, eight guys across 60 days, that that's a shitload of money to, to, to well keep so in mind, which I did before, ah, maybe three or four years ago now, is because I was in the same position, do a proforma invoice to the company.

So Proformer invoice is basically, Money. We ain't even done anything. So that was a boat. I said, oh, it's all on pay privacy. But it was brilliant . Yeah. That's hard. It's hard to bankrupt, bankrupt that sort of size job. Labor only. It's yeah, it's, it's a bit worrying maybe as well, especially in the current climate.

Yeah. I think what if that company goes under, you're screwed. Yeah, well, we've worked for him for, for quite a while. They're, we've done a lot of jobs for, I don't think they're going under any time soon. They're quite, they're quite big. They're quite established. But if these jobs came in in the summer, Once, cause we had a van breakdown.

We had to go out and buy a new van the day before we came back after Christmas. Mm-hmm. And our accountant missed 22 grand worth of receipts up of our back, which we're gonna have to claim back next quarter. Right. So could have done with that. Yeah. Well if, if those things didn't happen, yeah. We might have taken one or two of the three, or even push the, take all three.

Mm-hmm. . But yeah. So definitely the business going forward will. , whether or not it is basic, whether it's faster than Leon likes or not , right? You gotta convince him. , not even that. I'm quite open to to growth, but I want to do it at the right, yeah, you want a bit more assurance sort of thing and see what the, what steps are in place to, without pay basically.

I think we're a nice size now. We've got a lot of work coming in. We're all busy. , but we just need to like focus on the processes, get them backend systems more defined. So would you say you're more of a risk taker then, Chris? Yeah. Yeah. Leon, I was like, no, it's like this, this, this. It's a bit more organized.

I'm a risk taker for calculated risk. Right. I like kudos, but risk is always gonna be, there's always gonna be risk with business. Exactly. It was, it's a risk. I mean, there needs to be sufficient reward and there needs to be, you know, I wanna make too many sacrifices. Yeah. And then put yourself back even further.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Good. He's clever. That's, I see why we're in business with him. , he points things out that you might not think about . Yeah. Good. But there, there's two types of people. So in, in lockdown, I made quite a bit of money on the stock. At at my peak, it was at 38 and I ended up closing all my trades at 21 and I had people say to me, you just lost 14 odd thousand.

But I started with seven, so I'm like, did I lose 14 odd or did I gain 12? I know there's two types people, how you look at things like Yeah, which is where as much as in some aspects me only on are different, we are. Able to talk through him and discuss him and the things that I brought him that he didn't like at start.

He's now like, this is. and then the things that I didn't like with Leon, I now like, yeah, this is good. I used to do nine to five. Leon did eight to four. I like a little bit of the lay in, right. . I now have to get up earlier, but I do appreciate it more getting back at four and spending even more time with the kids.

Yeah, so there there's been things, but over all it's, it's going really well for us. We're, we're, we're working, we are a good team. We're different enough to bring different. Different abilities and different different things into the, the partnership. But then mm-hmm. similar enough, help each other grow sort of thing.

Yeah. Mines are better than one, obviously. Hundred percent, hundred percent company. Then idt, what area is it? Service in effect. So, anywhere from CT to. So that's where our current contracts are. So sort of Canterbury, all Ken Southeast London. A little bit of Sussex. Right. So we'll leave a link into description is as well.

So people, if they're thinking hang about, yeah, I like these lads. I want 'em to do a job for me. Sorry Leon, you're gonna be more busy. We'll push it out to them as well, so they can get in contact with you. We'll leave a link to your website. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. Not a problem. Brilliant. Well thanks a lot very much for coming on.

I think it can be interesting to, for other people to learn how you've come along. Cause everyone's, all of us here have got different avenues of how we've become an electrician. Yeah. Which is interesting cause some people like, well like you said, a lot of people online they say gotta do a five-year apprenticeship.

No, not necessarily. You have not. There's so many different ways that you can do it. As long as brilliant as you safe sort the matters. Yes. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.