# How To Build A Six-Figure HVAC Business With No Experience (Step-by-Step Blueprint) 🚨

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 29 May 2026, 1 h 39 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/d24aaacf-7048-40f1-b9fa-b458011c356c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 3000 Profit Hook 01:12 Why Trades Matter Now 05:03 Meet HVAC Entrepreneur Vince 06:41 From Broke to Business Owner 12:07 First Boiler Job Payday 14:15 Scaling Up and Learning HVAC 20:31 Trade School Demand Boom 22:34 How Long to Get Skilled 23:33 First Steps to Become Tech 26:16 Apprenticeships and Mentorship 28:13 EPA Certification Shortcut 30:19 EPA Cert Reality Check 31:31 Thermostat Wiring Basics 33:40 Transformers And Power Flow 35:57 Jumping Terminals Safely 37:30 Install Vs Service Paths 39:13 Big Margins Small Parts 41:17 Jobsite Safety Protocols 42:15 Starting Your HVAC Business 44:14 Finding Work And Leads 49:16 Social Media And Back Office 51:31 Tools Truck Costs 53:38 Seasonality And Freon Money 58:19 Managing Cash And Investing 01:02:39 Hiring Techs And Integrity 01:05:20 Hiring Like Family 01:05:58 Spotting Bad Fits 01:06:46 Immigrants In The Trades 01:08:33 Black Ownership Gap 01:12:14 Hiring Mistakes To Avoid 01:13:30 Creative Sales Contests 01:16:09 Government Contract Playbook 01:18:30 Maintenance Makes Money 01:22:17 Best HVAC Brands Explained 01:25:29 Pricing And Value Selling 01:31:44 Closing Thoughts And Shoutouts HVAC is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable trades in America, creating opportunities for people to earn a great living without a college degree. In this special Earn Your Leisure presentation, Vincent Taylor shares how he went from having no HVAC experience to building a successful HVAC business and creating a blueprint others can follow. Vincent breaks down everything you need to know to get started in the industry, including training options, certifications, licensing requirements, insurance, startup costs, tools, equipment, and how to land your first customers. Whether you're looking to become an HVAC technician or launch your own company, this episode provides a practical step-by-step roadmap. If you're interested in high-income skills, entrepreneurship, and building a recession-resistant business, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Learn how one of the country's most essential trades can become the foundation for financial freedom and long-term wealth creation. #EarnYourLeisure #HVAC #HVACBusiness #Trades #BlueCollarBusiness #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #FinancialFreedom #BusinessOwner #SkilledTrades #EYL See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: I made three thousand clear without doing any work.
[0:03] Speaker 2: This trade will.
[0:04] Speaker 1: Make you catch up to your friends to no matter
[0:07] Speaker 1: what they're doing.
[0:08] Speaker 3: What's the first step to become an h VAC tech?
[0:10] Speaker 1: If you want to get into the trade and you
[0:12] Speaker 1: don't have much money, you could take and practice for
[0:15] Speaker 1: your EPA examination. This is how my business got started.
[0:19] Speaker 4: What type of jobs are going to be the ones
[0:21] Speaker 4: that I'm going to go to first?
[0:22] Speaker 1: In h track you make your most money off your
[0:25] Speaker 1: lowest cost parts. If a tech comes to your house
[0:27] Speaker 1: and your transformers blown, you're looking at at least maybe
[0:31] Speaker 1: five hundred and six hundred bucks.
[0:33] Speaker 3: What do you have to do to become an entrepreneur? Like,
[0:34] Speaker 3: what's the first step for that?
[0:35] Speaker 1: Most black men's problem is how do you make a
[0:38] Speaker 1: lot of money legally?
[0:39] Speaker 2: The main problem is getting the work.
[0:42] Speaker 1: The summer will make you think that your con righteous
[0:45] Speaker 1: man on earth. It's like the gold brush. People just
[0:48] Speaker 1: cannot live without ac. When it's high, I don't even
[0:51] Speaker 1: want to go to sleep because I'm scared I may
[0:53] Speaker 1: not wake up in the morning.
[0:54] Speaker 2: Because I have so much money to make the next day.
[0:57] Speaker 3: How do you know how to price You can't be.
[0:58] Speaker 2: Too high and you can't be too low.
[1:00] Speaker 1: You could sell yourself to a point where people want
[1:03] Speaker 1: to be involved with you. If you just hone in
[1:06] Speaker 1: on one thing for one time, I guarantee that it
[1:09] Speaker 1: will change your life.
[1:10] Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, welcome back.
[1:12] Speaker 5: Special live episode how To series has returned.
[1:16] Speaker 6: Spent a minute.
[1:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, we did this last year. We did a bunch
[1:18] Speaker 3: of them. Last year.
[1:19] Speaker 5: We did real estate, did social intelligence investing, you know
[1:26] Speaker 5: with Keanu Watson is Keanu Watson as far as all
[1:29] Speaker 5: of the things that you need to know about buying
[1:31] Speaker 5: a home outside of just the regular home purchasing. So
[1:35] Speaker 5: these these how two episodes are like the hybrid interviews
[1:38] Speaker 5: because they're like really really just meant to get as
[1:40] Speaker 5: much information as possible, and so much over the last
[1:45] Speaker 5: year own so much conversation about trades, and that's something
[1:49] Speaker 5: that we never really covered on Earn Your Leisure. We
[1:51] Speaker 5: never really had an in depth conversation on trades. And
[1:55] Speaker 5: when you hear you know, black Rock investing in the trades,
[1:58] Speaker 5: and you know, you you hear people like billionaires talking
[2:03] Speaker 5: about this is going to be the gateway to the future,
[2:06] Speaker 5: and Jeff Bezos and so many different people with the
[2:09] Speaker 5: age of artificial intelligence, saying that one of the few
[2:16] Speaker 5: things that actually look promising are trades because there's a
[2:22] Speaker 5: deficit in the amount of people that we have as
[2:26] Speaker 5: far as plumbers, electricians and you know, painters and different
[2:30] Speaker 5: things at that nature. And as more homes are going
[2:34] Speaker 5: to be needed, more data centers are going to be needed,
[2:36] Speaker 5: more you know, residential commercial buildings are going to be built,
[2:41] Speaker 5: these skills are going to become more and more and
[2:43] Speaker 5: more valuable. And this is something especially in the educational realm.
[2:47] Speaker 5: It's a different form of education. You don't necessarily have
[2:50] Speaker 5: to go to college, you don't have to have a
[2:52] Speaker 5: master's degree. Sometimes, you know, people are trying to figure
[2:56] Speaker 5: it out, whether they're young or they're even older, and
[2:59] Speaker 5: trying to figure out a second career or a new
[3:02] Speaker 5: career pathway entrepreneurship for sure, because you know all of
[3:08] Speaker 5: these traits business owners. One thing is to actually learn
[3:11] Speaker 5: this skill. Another thing is to actually be a business
[3:14] Speaker 5: owner that can do both that. You know, you have
[3:16] Speaker 5: this skill, but then you also have your own business.
[3:20] Speaker 5: So I say that to say, started going down the
[3:23] Speaker 5: rabbit hole. I'm actually building a home right now. And
[3:25] Speaker 5: I actually asked my my contract I said, looks the
[3:30] Speaker 5: what's like the fastest way. What's the fastest trait that
[3:34] Speaker 5: a person could get into right now? Like, what's the
[3:37] Speaker 5: fastest one? Because he was like, well, electrician is hard
[3:40] Speaker 5: because that's like four years of apprentice and you got
[3:42] Speaker 5: to do another four years. He's like, that's really hard.
[3:44] Speaker 5: He's like, plumber is kind of difficult too. He said, honestly,
[3:48] Speaker 5: the fastest way and the thing that I would recommend
[3:50] Speaker 5: the most is HVAC. He was like, you know, obviously
[3:54] Speaker 5: it's not easy, but that's something a couple of years
[3:56] Speaker 5: you can get up and running. You can get the apprentice.
[3:58] Speaker 5: Like he was like, that would be my record mandation. Oh,
[4:01] Speaker 5: I know, she's just as fate would have it. We
[4:05] Speaker 5: actually know HVAC entrepreneur. I want to tell the backstory.
[4:09] Speaker 5: But somebody from our neighborhood, somebody that's been an HVAC
[4:12] Speaker 5: entrepreneur for a very long period of time, somebody that
[4:15] Speaker 5: was actually a client of mind when I was a
[4:17] Speaker 5: financial planner. I actually, you know, put together some plans
[4:20] Speaker 5: for him when he was an age was an HVAC
[4:23] Speaker 5: entrepreneur still is. So it's like you know what early Alesia,
[4:26] Speaker 5: we always talked about the stock market, investing in real estate,
[4:29] Speaker 5: you know, all of these different industries. I think it's
[4:33] Speaker 5: time that we covered the blue collar industries. We should
[4:36] Speaker 5: start with the industry the trade that, you know, what
[4:40] Speaker 5: was told is probably the quickest to get up and running.
[4:43] Speaker 5: And somebody that we already had a relationship with.
[4:45] Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's important.
[4:46] Speaker 4: When we grew up in the neighborhood where we were
[4:48] Speaker 4: in high school, they had trade schools.
[4:51] Speaker 6: We have vocational schools, and that's kind of going away.
[4:53] Speaker 4: So being able to give a platform to that, giving
[4:56] Speaker 4: people an opportunity to see that in real life from
[4:59] Speaker 4: people we actually you know, I.
[5:00] Speaker 6: Think it's incredible. So we're in for a tree.
[5:02] Speaker 3: So let's do it without further ado. Let's bring our
[5:04] Speaker 3: guests up. What's the deal, my brother.
[5:07] Speaker 2: Hey, how's it going, guys?
[5:09] Speaker 6: What's the deal?
[5:09] Speaker 2: Man? Good? Good?
[5:10] Speaker 1: Happy to be here, man, happy to be here and
[5:13] Speaker 1: talk about some h back, you know, talk.
[5:15] Speaker 6: About age back.
[5:16] Speaker 4: We were remiss to leave out the part that you
[5:19] Speaker 4: are also Jamaican, so we're going to support that.
[5:23] Speaker 6: My god, evinced what's going on?
[5:25] Speaker 1: Nothing much, man, Just glad to be here, you know,
[5:28] Speaker 1: and just to give this wealth of information out to everybody,
[5:31] Speaker 1: you know.
[5:32] Speaker 5: So all right, so Vincent Taylor, right, as I said,
[5:37] Speaker 5: from our neighborhood, we actually have a relationship for me
[5:41] Speaker 5: being a financial advisor.
[5:43] Speaker 3: That was probably over ten years ago, maybe longer.
[5:46] Speaker 2: About twenty or so.
[5:48] Speaker 3: It's been a minute, no ages, man, and I can't.
[5:51] Speaker 5: And I came to your house then, and it was
[5:54] Speaker 5: like one of these things, you know, as a financial advisor,
[5:56] Speaker 5: you just networking, meeting people, getting referrals, and like, yo,
[6:00] Speaker 5: you talk to Vinnie Man, he's doing this thing. You
[6:02] Speaker 5: got an HVAC company and at the time, I didn't
[6:04] Speaker 5: even know what HVAC was.
[6:06] Speaker 6: And I came.
[6:07] Speaker 2: I remember that that day clearly.
[6:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do too.
[6:11] Speaker 5: I came set in your house, talked and you you
[6:14] Speaker 5: were telling me about your company and the different jobs
[6:17] Speaker 5: that you got, and you know, the vans. I think
[6:18] Speaker 5: you had the vans on the road and you were
[6:20] Speaker 5: sending workers at different places. So you know, fast forward,
[6:24] Speaker 5: when it was taught when it's time to do this,
[6:25] Speaker 5: you still you're still an entrepreneur to this day. So
[6:28] Speaker 5: I want you to We're gonna talk. We're gonna this episode.
[6:31] Speaker 5: We're going to tell people how to become an HVAC entrepreneur.
[6:34] Speaker 5: But before we even get into that, what is your journey?
[6:37] Speaker 5: How did how did you become an HVAC entrepreneur?
[6:41] Speaker 1: Well, basically, my journey was a little bit uncanny and
[6:46] Speaker 1: very different from the normal process. You know, first of all,
[6:49] Speaker 1: my parents were immigrants from Jamaica, and my mother was
[6:54] Speaker 1: a nurse and my father was an h FACT tech
[6:57] Speaker 1: but he was an oil burner technician for a commercial
[7:00] Speaker 1: industrial And you know, we never really knew what my
[7:04] Speaker 1: father did. You know, it just come home in a
[7:06] Speaker 1: blue uniform. And but we knew my mom was a nurse.
[7:10] Speaker 1: So you know, I never was a mechanical person. I
[7:14] Speaker 1: never was fixing my cars. I was never that type
[7:16] Speaker 1: of person growing up. But you know, I worked on
[7:19] Speaker 1: my bikes and things like that growing up. But as
[7:21] Speaker 1: I got older, now I really had to figure out
[7:27] Speaker 1: my life. Like life started hitting me at like twenty eight,
[7:31] Speaker 1: twenty nine, I was getting married, I was, you know,
[7:35] Speaker 1: about to buy a house. I was going through all
[7:37] Speaker 1: these stages, and I knew that what I did in
[7:42] Speaker 1: high school wasn't enough to make me really progress in college.
[7:47] Speaker 2: So I knew that I had to create.
[7:49] Speaker 1: I've always created my own lane and my own jobs.
[7:53] Speaker 1: When I wanted to be an executive, I made myself
[7:55] Speaker 1: an executive. I only applied for executive jobs, so I
[7:59] Speaker 1: knew I had to do something, but I didn't know
[8:01] Speaker 1: what path to really choose. But I knew that my
[8:03] Speaker 1: father always gave us a good life growing up because
[8:08] Speaker 1: he made more money than my mom. We always knew
[8:11] Speaker 1: he was the bretherwinner of the family. So I said,
[8:13] Speaker 1: you know what, let me try to take a step
[8:16] Speaker 1: into that path because I just know that I'm living
[8:19] Speaker 1: in a good neighborhood. I'm going to good schools. We
[8:23] Speaker 1: were in the middle class section growing up, so I
[8:26] Speaker 1: knew that growing up. So I was like, you know what,
[8:29] Speaker 1: let me just try to do what he does. But
[8:31] Speaker 1: I knew I didn't have the mental capacity for it,
[8:34] Speaker 1: so I took the path of just really.
[8:37] Speaker 2: Like when they say.
[8:40] Speaker 1: Obama had the book the Audacity of Hope, I had
[8:43] Speaker 1: the audacity to have the audacity of hope because there
[8:47] Speaker 1: was no one around. There was no Internet. I was
[8:51] Speaker 1: using map Quest to get the job. There was no
[8:55] Speaker 1: other black entrepreneur guy in the neighborhood who had his
[8:59] Speaker 1: own company. There was no one to really look up to.
[9:02] Speaker 1: So what I did was around twenty eight, twenty nine
[9:05] Speaker 1: years old. I realized I did not want to be
[9:07] Speaker 1: broken thirty. I just it was just gave me the chills,
[9:10] Speaker 1: literally like bagging said. So I said, what am I
[9:13] Speaker 1: going to do? I had about thirty thousand dollars left
[9:16] Speaker 1: to my name, to my entire existence, and I thought
[9:20] Speaker 1: for months, I do a food, restaurant, clothing company, open
[9:24] Speaker 1: up a store. I was thinking of all these things,
[9:26] Speaker 1: but I knew that they could have a very big loss,
[9:32] Speaker 1: especially restaurants, you know that has like a seventy percent
[9:35] Speaker 1: failure rate. So I was researching all these things, and
[9:37] Speaker 1: I was like, what am I going to do that
[9:39] Speaker 1: is really going to support a family? And you know,
[9:42] Speaker 1: have a big ticket item. And I don't want to
[9:44] Speaker 1: make little money.
[9:46] Speaker 2: You know. I was used to kind of.
[9:47] Speaker 1: Making a big portion of money in the streets. So
[9:50] Speaker 1: I was like, you know, what can I do to
[9:52] Speaker 1: make real money but legally? And that I believe is
[9:56] Speaker 1: most black men's problem is how do you make a
[9:58] Speaker 1: lot of money eagerly?
[10:01] Speaker 6: You know?
[10:01] Speaker 1: And that was the whole issue back then. So I
[10:04] Speaker 1: pondered on it. I grabbed my cousin, who was a female.
[10:07] Speaker 1: I knew she had a clean record, she was a
[10:09] Speaker 1: school teacher, and she was smart. She could email do
[10:11] Speaker 1: all these things. I grabbed her. I said, listen, I
[10:14] Speaker 1: got the money. You're going to be the front person.
[10:17] Speaker 1: And I had to learn the business side first. I
[10:21] Speaker 1: didn't know anything mechanical, so I said, okay, I'm going
[10:24] Speaker 1: to learn the business side. I grabbed my cousin. I
[10:28] Speaker 1: did some research. I knew a girl who worked at
[10:30] Speaker 1: a plumbing company, and literally, me and my cousin we
[10:34] Speaker 1: went out. We bought her a Louis Vuitton bag with
[10:37] Speaker 1: the cherries on it. I went to her job one
[10:40] Speaker 1: day after work. This is the true story. She was
[10:42] Speaker 1: from Yonkers. I went to her job one day after work.
[10:45] Speaker 1: It's like a two thousand dollars bag at the time.
[10:47] Speaker 1: I gave her the bag and I said, please, can
[10:50] Speaker 1: you just show me and open up the books to
[10:52] Speaker 1: me and how do I do this?
[10:54] Speaker 2: She gave me the.
[10:54] Speaker 1: Insurance companies to sign up too. She gave me sears
[10:58] Speaker 1: how to sign up to them to be a tractors.
[11:00] Speaker 1: She gave me the general liability information. She gave me
[11:03] Speaker 1: just the blueprint for the office part, and I took
[11:07] Speaker 1: that office part, and I got with my cousin and
[11:11] Speaker 1: we started to slowly figure out how to start an
[11:14] Speaker 1: HVAC company. You know, how to go and get a
[11:17] Speaker 1: soul proprietorship or just take or get your bank account
[11:21] Speaker 1: to get certified, to get the whole process started. But
[11:23] Speaker 1: before I did that, we had a thing in the
[11:26] Speaker 1: neighborhood to call the Penny Savers. I don't know if
[11:28] Speaker 1: you guys are member.
[11:28] Speaker 6: Yeah, man, yeah, we'll deliver to your house every Saturday.
[11:32] Speaker 1: So I told my cousin, I said, listen, she was
[11:35] Speaker 1: a school teacher. She really didn't like teaching high school,
[11:37] Speaker 1: and she was trying to venture out on her own.
[11:39] Speaker 1: And I had no purpose in you know what I
[11:41] Speaker 1: was going to do. So I said, you know what,
[11:44] Speaker 1: We're going to flip a coin. I'm going to run
[11:46] Speaker 1: add into Penny Savers. If we get an ad or
[11:49] Speaker 1: a job, we'll continue. If we don't, we just don't
[11:52] Speaker 1: want to waste our money and don't want to waste
[11:54] Speaker 1: our time. I flipped the coin. It landed on heads.
[11:57] Speaker 1: I ran a three hundred dollars ad. It took me
[12:00] Speaker 1: two weeks. I ran a three hundred dollars ad. And
[12:03] Speaker 1: then somebody called me literally from that PennySaver ad. They said,
[12:08] Speaker 1: come to our house in Yonkers. We want to put
[12:10] Speaker 1: in a boiler. I didn't know what a boiler was.
[12:12] Speaker 1: I didn't know anything of what to do. I went
[12:15] Speaker 1: to the house with my cousin. The guy said, can
[12:18] Speaker 1: you put in a boiler? I said yes, I can,
[12:19] Speaker 1: because I knew my father could do the work. So
[12:22] Speaker 1: I basically was starting my company around my father and
[12:25] Speaker 1: my uncles that were already in the trade. I said, yeah,
[12:28] Speaker 1: I can put in a boiler. He came out from
[12:31] Speaker 1: the back room. He gave my cousin six thousand dollars cash.
[12:34] Speaker 1: She was fumbling with the money because she wasn't getting scared.
[12:38] Speaker 1: So I grabbed the money from her and I said
[12:40] Speaker 1: I wasn't even counting and I was just going through.
[12:41] Speaker 1: I said, yep, it's all there. And he said when
[12:44] Speaker 1: can you put it in? I said, I do it
[12:45] Speaker 1: this week. This is when I learned, guys, this is
[12:48] Speaker 1: when the magic happened. I called up an HVAC supply house.
[12:53] Speaker 1: I said, how much is a boiler? They were like, well,
[12:55] Speaker 1: the boilers around like sixteen hundred or so so I said, okay, hundred.
[13:01] Speaker 1: I gave my father a thousand dollars to put the
[13:03] Speaker 1: boiler in. That was twenty six hundred. I bought about
[13:06] Speaker 1: three hundred dollars in parts and fittings. So I was like, wow,
[13:11] Speaker 1: we made three thousand dollars in one day. That's when
[13:17] Speaker 1: it just like we could just never go back to work.
[13:20] Speaker 1: It just didn't make any sense. It literally made no sense.
[13:24] Speaker 1: And my father did the job with his friend like
[13:27] Speaker 1: the next day after work, and they put in the
[13:29] Speaker 1: boiler and I made three thousand, clear like without doing
[13:34] Speaker 1: any work. Like literally I didn't lift the screwdriver. I
[13:37] Speaker 1: wasn't a helper back then. I couldn't really do anything.
[13:40] Speaker 1: That's when the light bulb went off. I was like,
[13:42] Speaker 1: we are worth so much more like I And then
[13:46] Speaker 1: from there we signed up to Seers. I started doing
[13:50] Speaker 1: contracting with Seers. I started doing so many things, and
[13:53] Speaker 1: then I started realizing that, you know, basically.
[13:58] Speaker 2: You can make whatever you want.
[14:00] Speaker 1: I went per day, and then I started telling all
[14:02] Speaker 1: my friends like listen, guys, I found a way, like
[14:04] Speaker 1: you don't have to do this on the streets anymore.
[14:07] Speaker 1: You can make five, ten, fifteen thousand, dollars away, like
[14:10] Speaker 1: I found a loophole. Some people listened and some people didn't,
[14:15] Speaker 1: so I took the ones that listened. We went to school,
[14:19] Speaker 1: you know, I you know, and then it just became
[14:22] Speaker 1: like a snowball effect, you know, me and my cousin.
[14:24] Speaker 1: That's when we had first bought our house for Shah.
[14:26] Speaker 1: After that, we ran our company for like two years
[14:30] Speaker 1: or so three years. Then we say, hey, you know,
[14:31] Speaker 1: let's start buying some property. I bought a house. She
[14:34] Speaker 1: bought a house. She never went back to teaching ever,
[14:37] Speaker 1: and she was a female. She wind up marrying an
[14:40] Speaker 1: h VAC tech So then they just started their own company.
[14:44] Speaker 1: And then that's when I branched out on my own.
[14:46] Speaker 1: But it was a tough journey, you know. I had
[14:48] Speaker 1: to hire guys where I knew nothing. I had to
[14:51] Speaker 1: depend on guys, and then I just learned from all
[14:54] Speaker 1: the top texts that I hired. But then eventually I
[14:58] Speaker 1: had to go back to school, you know, because I
[15:00] Speaker 1: was paying guys like one hundred dollars just to put
[15:03] Speaker 1: two wires together because I didn't know any better. So
[15:06] Speaker 1: when I went back to school, I went to BOC's
[15:09] Speaker 1: and I took every class one by one. I went
[15:12] Speaker 1: to night school because I was running a company making
[15:14] Speaker 1: more money than the teacher in the class. My teacher
[15:17] Speaker 1: in Bosis would always tell me, Vince, you could leave
[15:20] Speaker 1: the class whenever you want.
[15:21] Speaker 3: You can take so just just people. I don't know.
[15:24] Speaker 3: Boss is a trade school?
[15:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, so question.
[15:27] Speaker 3: So you were an entrepreneur.
[15:28] Speaker 5: You had a company up and running because you had
[15:30] Speaker 5: your dad, but you didn't you didn't actually know the
[15:32] Speaker 5: skill set yourself. So you so you went to trade
[15:36] Speaker 5: school to learn HVAC while actually owning an av company.
[15:41] Speaker 2: While I was in class, I had three trucks on
[15:43] Speaker 2: the road.
[15:44] Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes even the teacher in class would
[15:47] Speaker 1: be telling us stuff and I'd be like, well, that's
[15:49] Speaker 1: not exactly true because I just did that job yesterday.
[15:52] Speaker 2: He'd say, Vince, will talk after class.
[15:55] Speaker 4: There's real quick, real quick, because your dad is doing
[15:58] Speaker 4: the jobs two parts like West Indian family obviously is
[16:03] Speaker 4: that proud when you start going into HVAC and the
[16:06] Speaker 4: other parties? When does he catch on that he's hiring
[16:09] Speaker 4: me for jobs and I'm actually working for my son.
[16:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, he caught onto that.
[16:14] Speaker 1: You know. He wind up retiring after like a forty
[16:17] Speaker 1: plus year career, and he was like the Michael Jordan
[16:20] Speaker 1: of oil, Like literally, you know, he was the best.
[16:23] Speaker 1: I mean, if anybody out there knows he did Cleveland
[16:26] Speaker 1: Brooks boilers strictly hotels, hospital industrial things. So I mean
[16:32] Speaker 1: he once he started realizing the money that I was
[16:35] Speaker 1: paying him, he always told me he was like if
[16:37] Speaker 1: I would have did this years ago, but nobody but
[16:40] Speaker 1: first Jamaican generation coming from Jamaica at that time, See,
[16:45] Speaker 1: that was the thing.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Nobody thought they could own a company.
[16:49] Speaker 1: And when I did that, it was just like a
[16:52] Speaker 1: shockwave because it was like, how does Vincent Taylor own
[16:55] Speaker 1: a company?
[16:56] Speaker 2: How did he buy a house? And he said, this
[16:58] Speaker 2: is what I want to tell everybody, is so much
[17:00] Speaker 2: in the trade.
[17:01] Speaker 1: This trade will make you catch up to your friends,
[17:05] Speaker 1: no matter what they're doing, within a five year to
[17:09] Speaker 1: eight or ten year period of time.
[17:12] Speaker 2: Because what I did was okay.
[17:15] Speaker 1: First of all, I knew that in high school that
[17:19] Speaker 1: everything that I was learning at that time wasn't going
[17:21] Speaker 1: to help me. I knew this way before my time.
[17:24] Speaker 1: The Boston tea party, the jet job, I just knew
[17:28] Speaker 1: that it wasn't going to help me. So I paid
[17:30] Speaker 1: no but I graduated high school with a sixty five
[17:34] Speaker 1: point grade average. Vashad's mom, I took her class three
[17:39] Speaker 1: times in a row. He loved me to that, she said, Vnced,
[17:42] Speaker 1: I like you a lot and everything.
[17:44] Speaker 3: But so you know, Vince, you remember what you did
[17:49] Speaker 3: to me right Halloween. You remember that?
[17:53] Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this guy second we do that for the
[17:59] Speaker 2: other side.
[18:01] Speaker 6: Record we all graduated from that high school.
[18:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, I learned.
[18:06] Speaker 2: I learned that basically.
[18:08] Speaker 1: You know, I knew those skills weren't going to help me,
[18:12] Speaker 1: so I never really concentrated. Now, look, everybody that was
[18:15] Speaker 1: in regents, gifted and talented, all those special classes. I
[18:20] Speaker 1: know they are not making as much money as me.
[18:23] Speaker 1: It's impossible. It's impossible, you know. And then I learned
[18:29] Speaker 1: the light bulb went off. I was like, Okay, you
[18:31] Speaker 1: just have to learn something specific and hone in on that,
[18:36] Speaker 1: and then you will make the money.
[18:38] Speaker 2: You know.
[18:39] Speaker 1: That's what college was supposed to be, like, you go
[18:41] Speaker 1: there and learn something specific and get a job with that.
[18:44] Speaker 1: But then all my friends came home from college and
[18:47] Speaker 1: got jobs with nothing that they went to college for.
[18:51] Speaker 2: That's when I knew I had a chance. So I
[18:54] Speaker 2: was able to make the money.
[18:56] Speaker 1: Okay, my first year as a business owner by myself,
[18:59] Speaker 1: with just a computer and a three and one fax machine.
[19:04] Speaker 2: I probably did like one hundred eighty thousand. Me and
[19:07] Speaker 2: my first year. So we thought we were on our way,
[19:09] Speaker 2: you know, on the road to the riches. Get me
[19:11] Speaker 2: a water, you know. So my second year, you know,
[19:16] Speaker 2: we went up. We were going up to like two eighties,
[19:19] Speaker 2: three eighties.
[19:19] Speaker 1: I never reached a five hundred thousand dollars mark, you know,
[19:22] Speaker 1: so I never really got out of that bubble.
[19:24] Speaker 2: I got stuck in the middle class section.
[19:27] Speaker 1: But coming from where I was coming from, that was
[19:30] Speaker 1: like Hollywood, you know, so I was happy to be there.
[19:33] Speaker 2: My wife never worked for eighteen years.
[19:36] Speaker 1: She was a stay at home mom. My kids, you know,
[19:40] Speaker 1: went to school. My daughter just graduated from Spelman this year,
[19:44] Speaker 1: you know, thank you. So, you know, she was able
[19:47] Speaker 1: to live the soccer mom life, you know, for an
[19:50] Speaker 1: African American woman, and at the time that felt good
[19:54] Speaker 1: coming from a guy like me, coming from just media.
[19:57] Speaker 1: My wife has a master's degree college. She graduated from school.
[20:01] Speaker 1: She had all the degrees. I only had a sixty
[20:04] Speaker 1: five point grade average from high school. But I made
[20:08] Speaker 1: the most money using what the trade brought me. This
[20:14] Speaker 1: trade is just so wonderful. Like sometimes I don't even
[20:18] Speaker 1: want to go to sleep because I'm scared I may
[20:21] Speaker 1: not wake up in the morning because I have so
[20:23] Speaker 1: much money to make the next day when I leave here.
[20:27] Speaker 2: Now I have at least three to five thousand dollars
[20:29] Speaker 2: to make literally.
[20:31] Speaker 5: Well, it's also it's interesting because the circle, like you
[20:35] Speaker 5: talked about the school, but now you're actually teaching.
[20:37] Speaker 3: You're a teacher.
[20:38] Speaker 1: Yes, I just got a job with westter Community College.
[20:41] Speaker 1: I just got a professor adjunct professor position for ah
[20:45] Speaker 1: track which now, as you guys know, Westerester Community College
[20:48] Speaker 1: has never had a vocational program. They said demand is
[20:52] Speaker 1: so high the classes are booked for a semester's coming up.
[20:58] Speaker 2: You know, thank you.
[20:59] Speaker 1: I also I spoke with the director of Mike Jones,
[21:03] Speaker 1: who runs the Southern Westchester Bose's program. He said, the
[21:07] Speaker 1: vocational program is so booked, the classes are packed, they
[21:12] Speaker 1: don't have enough room for students. The fall class coming
[21:16] Speaker 1: up for this winter is already jamm packed and booked.
[21:19] Speaker 1: It's amazing. If HVACT is just something right now, that
[21:23] Speaker 1: is just I have my guy I took out APEX.
[21:27] Speaker 1: I'm affiliated with APEX, Lincoln Tech, and Bosey's. I'm normally
[21:31] Speaker 1: on the advisory board for those schools. I took my
[21:35] Speaker 1: apprentice now, he was eighteen years old. I took him
[21:38] Speaker 1: out of APEX. He came straight from Jamaica. The first
[21:41] Speaker 1: thing he did was sign up to trade schools. I
[21:44] Speaker 1: went to APEX, I said, who's the best student here?
[21:47] Speaker 1: They pointed him out.
[21:49] Speaker 2: I took him from eighteen years old. He's now twenty
[21:51] Speaker 2: one years old.
[21:53] Speaker 1: He's making at least one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars
[21:56] Speaker 1: a week, or he could make more if he wants.
[21:58] Speaker 1: At twenty one years old, like, and he's learned so
[22:02] Speaker 1: much he can almost go on now to do his
[22:05] Speaker 1: own thing if he wanted.
[22:07] Speaker 2: You know, So if you want to catch up, I
[22:09] Speaker 2: know guys.
[22:10] Speaker 1: That are eighteen to twenty one, twenty five that are
[22:13] Speaker 1: making more money than their parents.
[22:15] Speaker 2: You will make more money than your parents if you're
[22:17] Speaker 2: in this trade.
[22:19] Speaker 4: So Ben, we gotta break this down, right, So ahvac heating, ventilation.
[22:24] Speaker 6: Air conditioning.
[22:25] Speaker 4: Right, you go to trade school and again shout out
[22:29] Speaker 4: to bo sees that that program is amazed. I actually
[22:31] Speaker 4: used to work for Southernwests for like six years. Talk
[22:35] Speaker 4: about how long did it take you to actually grasp
[22:38] Speaker 4: the skill? Obviously you are in the job training because
[22:40] Speaker 4: you're watching it, right, that's like not theory anymore, you're
[22:44] Speaker 4: actually putting those things that How long did it get
[22:46] Speaker 4: to you?
[22:47] Speaker 6: Like, all right, I'm comfortable, I learned these skills. What's
[22:49] Speaker 6: the timeframe?
[22:50] Speaker 2: Okay, still have fun?
[22:51] Speaker 1: How long does it take the average time they say
[22:53] Speaker 1: for you to be a confident tech to say, okay,
[22:56] Speaker 1: I can go out there and you know, be on
[22:57] Speaker 1: my own and handle myself. That's gonna take you about
[23:00] Speaker 1: three to five years, depending on how many jobs you're
[23:05] Speaker 1: really going out there and doing. See me being a
[23:07] Speaker 1: company owner, I was just going on jobs day and night,
[23:12] Speaker 1: every single day, Sunday, Saturday, Holidays, Christmas, New Year's, super Bowl.
[23:17] Speaker 1: I was on jobs every single day. So the more
[23:19] Speaker 1: jobs you do, that's how you're really gonna build yourself up.
[23:23] Speaker 1: But in three to five years you could be a
[23:25] Speaker 1: solid tech. You could almost say I could start to
[23:28] Speaker 1: go out on my own. Now in about five years
[23:31] Speaker 1: it should be good.
[23:33] Speaker 3: All right.
[23:33] Speaker 5: So now we're going to get into the how to
[23:34] Speaker 5: session so we're gonna ask you like direct questions and
[23:38] Speaker 5: then you just give us the answers as far as like,
[23:40] Speaker 5: you know, really like how to write. So the first is, Okay,
[23:43] Speaker 5: I just got out of college, but I can't find
[23:45] Speaker 5: a job. I changed my mind. Now I want to
[23:47] Speaker 5: become h vac Right, what do I do? Like, what's
[23:50] Speaker 5: the first step to become an age vac tech? What's
[23:55] Speaker 5: the first step to become an h VAC tech?
[23:57] Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, just coming out of college and you want
[23:59] Speaker 1: to switch roles and go into something else.
[24:02] Speaker 2: First thing you do is try to apply to a
[24:04] Speaker 2: trade school.
[24:05] Speaker 1: If you can, you get into a trade school that's
[24:08] Speaker 1: going to take you maybe bout a year, depending and
[24:12] Speaker 1: then from there you would have to get into your
[24:14] Speaker 1: first company. But you see, the problem is sometimes a
[24:18] Speaker 1: lot of companies don't want to hire guys with no experience.
[24:20] Speaker 1: That's where guys and people meet the roadblock. But then
[24:23] Speaker 1: how do you get experienced if you don't get a job.
[24:26] Speaker 1: So you know, you've got to really apply yourself. But
[24:29] Speaker 1: there's a ton of positions that are open. There are
[24:31] Speaker 1: a lot of avenues. You could work in a supply house,
[24:34] Speaker 1: you could be a technician, you could be a product rep.
[24:38] Speaker 1: There's so many different roles out there. But if you
[24:41] Speaker 1: want to be a technician and get into the field,
[24:43] Speaker 1: you're going to have to go through some sort of training.
[24:45] Speaker 2: You know, it's formal school training.
[24:48] Speaker 1: And you try to get your first job, or if
[24:50] Speaker 1: you get lucky for a company just to take you
[24:53] Speaker 1: on and just say all right, come on in.
[24:55] Speaker 2: And those guys seem to me to be worked out
[24:59] Speaker 2: a lot.
[25:00] Speaker 1: You know, it works out very well because I've taken females,
[25:03] Speaker 1: I've taken males, people who don't speak English. I've had
[25:08] Speaker 1: all walks and forms of life that I've trained. That's
[25:12] Speaker 1: why I've become good at the training. Because if I
[25:14] Speaker 1: could train you and you don't speak much English and
[25:16] Speaker 1: then you understand it, or you know, I started to
[25:20] Speaker 1: figure out a pattern of how to sync this into people.
[25:22] Speaker 2: But that would be your normal process. I mean, it's
[25:25] Speaker 2: going to take you about.
[25:26] Speaker 1: A year or two, a couple of years to kind
[25:28] Speaker 1: of get used to the verbage and the language and
[25:30] Speaker 1: the tools.
[25:31] Speaker 2: It's a lot to get into.
[25:33] Speaker 1: That's why if you're not really honed in, and you're
[25:35] Speaker 1: not really zoned in, it's not going to work for you.
[25:39] Speaker 1: That's why people that go to school it kind of
[25:41] Speaker 1: works because they've already spent twenty thousand dollars to go
[25:44] Speaker 1: to school or sixteen to eighteen, twenty thousand dollars sometimes
[25:47] Speaker 1: could be more. So they want to get their investment back.
[25:51] Speaker 1: But if you will get that investment back very fast,
[25:55] Speaker 1: if you apply yourself. You know, I've never heard of
[25:59] Speaker 1: a broke plumber, or a broke electrician or a broke
[26:02] Speaker 1: he tract.
[26:02] Speaker 4: I just haven't heard of it, he said, honed in
[26:04] Speaker 4: and zoned in. And this is not just theory, right.
[26:07] Speaker 4: Shout out to my fam Randy. I know he was
[26:09] Speaker 4: working with you, but you talked.
[26:10] Speaker 2: About talk about it. I started his company too and
[26:13] Speaker 2: trained him.
[26:14] Speaker 4: I'm proud of him. I'm proud of him. If you
[26:16] Speaker 4: talked about being an apprentice, and that's important too. Right
[26:19] Speaker 4: after I go to the vocational school, we call it mentorship.
[26:23] Speaker 4: Some people call it internship, and I know in this
[26:26] Speaker 4: space we call it apprenticeship. How does one go about that? Like,
[26:29] Speaker 4: how do you know the person that you should be
[26:31] Speaker 4: seeking mentorship?
[26:32] Speaker 2: Well, that's true, you got to really do your research.
[26:36] Speaker 1: I know Brunie and Campc used to have a mentorship
[26:38] Speaker 1: thing where they would hire text you know, I ran
[26:42] Speaker 1: my own program. What I did was, you know, I
[26:44] Speaker 1: had a program where I charged six thousand dollars and
[26:47] Speaker 1: I would get you EPA certified. I would train you
[26:51] Speaker 1: and being that I have a company, I would take
[26:53] Speaker 1: you out on jobs every single day so you get
[26:56] Speaker 1: on the job training. And I would also pay them
[26:59] Speaker 1: as well well for that. So that program worked really well.
[27:03] Speaker 1: You've got to try to get into a company. You
[27:04] Speaker 1: got to fight your way in. You got to knock
[27:06] Speaker 1: on the door, show them that that you're hungry, you know,
[27:08] Speaker 1: say hey, I'm here, I want to work. Most companies
[27:13] Speaker 1: really will take guys if they see the hunger.
[27:17] Speaker 2: You're coming in on time every day. You really want it.
[27:20] Speaker 1: You have to have that hunger and you have to
[27:22] Speaker 1: have that drive in you, and they will take you
[27:25] Speaker 1: and mold you into what you will. You know, they
[27:27] Speaker 1: want you to be, you know, because they're going to
[27:29] Speaker 1: make an investment into you. You know, they'll send you
[27:32] Speaker 1: to school. So I know guys that didn't have any
[27:36] Speaker 1: EPA certifications, but they were just so good.
[27:39] Speaker 2: At what they do, companies would hire them.
[27:41] Speaker 1: I know guys that worked for Electrical companies that were
[27:44] Speaker 1: illegal immigrants, but the boss just knew that they were
[27:48] Speaker 1: so good at what they do.
[27:50] Speaker 2: They ran the whole electrical jobs.
[27:53] Speaker 1: So, you know, companies just really want people that can
[27:56] Speaker 1: sell good workers and you know things that can you know,
[28:01] Speaker 1: help them to get through. Most of the electricians and
[28:03] Speaker 1: plumbers that are licenses don't really do the hard work.
[28:06] Speaker 2: You know, they're there for the for the permits and
[28:09] Speaker 2: to get everything set up.
[28:11] Speaker 1: You know.
[28:12] Speaker 6: Yeah, so you mentioned the EPA certification. That's for the
[28:16] Speaker 6: other certification that they need to have.
[28:18] Speaker 1: Okay, now this is good you said that. Now this
[28:20] Speaker 1: is what could really help people out there. If you
[28:23] Speaker 1: want to get into the trade and you don't have
[28:25] Speaker 1: much money and your discourage, if you're smart enough and
[28:29] Speaker 1: you're a good person that could comprehend things, read things
[28:33] Speaker 1: and comprehend and then answer questions, you could go to
[28:36] Speaker 1: Mainstream Engineering six so eight and you could take and
[28:41] Speaker 1: practice for your EPA examination. The EPA is about one
[28:47] Speaker 1: hundred questions. It's twenty five questions in each section. I
[28:50] Speaker 1: believe it's four sections. There's a type one, Type two,
[28:54] Speaker 1: and then there's the universal certification. So once you get
[28:59] Speaker 1: your e it's basically, that's your air conditioning license. So
[29:04] Speaker 1: let's just say, like you guys right now, you could
[29:06] Speaker 1: take two or three weeks out and you could say,
[29:08] Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna study this pamphlet and take my
[29:11] Speaker 1: EPA test. You can get certified and just get your EPA.
[29:16] Speaker 1: Not know any air conditioning, just take the test. This
[29:19] Speaker 1: is how my business got started. My cousin bought the
[29:22] Speaker 1: EPA test on a Friday. She studied it. She was
[29:25] Speaker 1: a school teacher. She took it on a Monday, and
[29:27] Speaker 1: she just barely passed it. And that's how we started
[29:31] Speaker 1: our company. Because she passed her EPA test. She knew
[29:34] Speaker 1: nothing about air conditioning. Now that EPA certification lasts for
[29:39] Speaker 1: the rest of your life, there's no renewing it, and
[29:42] Speaker 1: that allows you to buy air conditioning equipment. You can
[29:46] Speaker 1: shop in the supply house like you guys do a
[29:48] Speaker 1: lot of building and stuff like that. You get your EPA,
[29:51] Speaker 1: you can say, all right, guys, I'll buy all the equipment.
[29:55] Speaker 1: Just give me the the list. You guys, buy all
[29:58] Speaker 1: the equipment at the cost, make them do the labor.
[30:01] Speaker 1: That's one way you could just say by just having
[30:04] Speaker 1: your EPA, I made my sister get her EPA. I
[30:07] Speaker 1: made everybody around me get the EPA because you never
[30:10] Speaker 1: know when you might need to go to a supply house,
[30:13] Speaker 1: buy a water heater, buy a furnace. You can actually
[30:17] Speaker 1: buy it and make your person come and put it in.
[30:19] Speaker 1: So that's a very simple process. You don't need to
[30:22] Speaker 1: go spend twenty thousand dollars and stay a year in
[30:24] Speaker 1: school because at the end of the process, it's to
[30:27] Speaker 1: get that EPA, which once you get that piece of paper,
[30:32] Speaker 1: it's pretty much you can do what you want as
[30:35] Speaker 1: long as you understand the practices of air conditioning and
[30:38] Speaker 1: the rules and regulations of what the.
[30:40] Speaker 2: EPA is providing.
[30:42] Speaker 1: You know, if you're driving in your truck, canisters have
[30:45] Speaker 1: to be in an upright position. You know, gases have
[30:48] Speaker 1: to be labeled. Once you learn all those thing that's
[30:50] Speaker 1: really what the EPA is about. The Environmental Protection Association
[30:54] Speaker 1: wants you to do good air conditioning practices.
[30:57] Speaker 2: But even when you.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Get your EPA, that doesn't mean that Rashad could call
[31:01] Speaker 1: you and say, hey, come fix my air conditioning, because
[31:03] Speaker 1: you don't really know any practical skills.
[31:05] Speaker 2: You just know what the Montreal Protocol wants you to
[31:08] Speaker 2: know and things like that.
[31:10] Speaker 1: But that certification will get you into any supply house
[31:15] Speaker 1: order anything, and companies will hire you. They will hire
[31:19] Speaker 1: you and say, all right, he took the liberty of
[31:22] Speaker 1: getting the EPA because you technically can't work around any
[31:25] Speaker 1: refrigerants or gases unless you understand the laws of safety
[31:30] Speaker 1: and what to do. But that's very good because once
[31:32] Speaker 1: you get that, you can skip a lot of the process.
[31:36] Speaker 3: You know, So talk about the low voltage wiring basics, Like,
[31:42] Speaker 3: what's the basics?
[31:44] Speaker 1: Well, basically with low voltage wiring, everyone has a thermostat
[31:49] Speaker 1: in your house and stuff. So if you pop your
[31:51] Speaker 1: thermostat off the wall and you look at the wires
[31:54] Speaker 1: behind it, you're basically going to always see these terminals
[31:58] Speaker 1: are why the common w and then I have an
[32:02] Speaker 1: O slash B here terminal. These terminals are in every thermostat,
[32:07] Speaker 1: no matter what you have. So R represents power, that's
[32:12] Speaker 1: twenty four volts, So R would be twenty four volts
[32:16] Speaker 1: of power.
[32:17] Speaker 2: Why represents AC that's for cooling.
[32:21] Speaker 1: The G terminal would represent the fan, that's what brings
[32:24] Speaker 1: your blower motor on your fan. On the C why
[32:27] Speaker 1: would represent common and that's a twenty four volt terminal
[32:31] Speaker 1: as well the W terminal that's for your heat that's
[32:35] Speaker 1: always going to make heat.
[32:36] Speaker 2: So these wires go from here to your inside control board.
[32:41] Speaker 1: This here is a control board that would be in
[32:45] Speaker 1: every single house, or some type of control board like
[32:48] Speaker 1: this that would go from your thermostat to your control board.
[32:51] Speaker 1: So here are the wires here that are on the board, Y,
[32:55] Speaker 1: WG in COMMON. So these same wires go to your
[32:59] Speaker 1: inside unit whatever you have, an ear handler or a boiler,
[33:03] Speaker 1: and this would turn on the indoor unit, and then
[33:07] Speaker 1: it would also turn on the outdoor unit. So basically
[33:11] Speaker 1: R would connect to R, Why would connect to Y,
[33:16] Speaker 1: the G terminal would connect to G. Common would go
[33:19] Speaker 1: to COMMON, W would go to W, and then for
[33:23] Speaker 1: air conditioning, why would go outside to the condenser, and
[33:27] Speaker 1: Common would also come outside to the condenser to bring
[33:31] Speaker 1: twenty four volts to the contact or to start up
[33:34] Speaker 1: your outdoor unit.
[33:36] Speaker 2: So that in a layman's terms, that's just how your
[33:39] Speaker 2: low voltage would work.
[33:40] Speaker 1: But then you would say, what powers up your control
[33:44] Speaker 1: board to make your low voltage work would be your transformer.
[33:49] Speaker 2: And in this trade we work with step down transformers.
[33:54] Speaker 2: Only can you guys still las see me. H yeah, okay.
[33:58] Speaker 1: So basically with transform with everyone has this in your
[34:02] Speaker 1: house or your buildings or whatever you're doing, you have
[34:05] Speaker 1: to have a transformer. So these two wires, the black
[34:08] Speaker 1: and the red. I could connect one hundred and twenty
[34:11] Speaker 1: volts to these two wires and it would step it
[34:15] Speaker 1: down to twenty four voltes on this side. This side
[34:18] Speaker 1: always stays with twenty four volts. If I had a
[34:22] Speaker 1: air handler, that was two hundred and eight volts. This
[34:26] Speaker 1: white wire if you guys can't see on here, but
[34:28] Speaker 1: the common wire is the white wire. This wire is
[34:31] Speaker 1: always used with another wire, so white and orange. You
[34:36] Speaker 1: could use two eight volts. The two hundred and eight
[34:39] Speaker 1: volts would come here. The transformer steps it down to
[34:42] Speaker 1: twenty four votes. On the other side, this twenty four
[34:46] Speaker 1: volts goes into your control board and that's what illuminates
[34:51] Speaker 1: the lights on your board or the LED lights, and
[34:55] Speaker 1: that's what gives the terminal's power here. So like I
[34:59] Speaker 1: taught in the EYL class, never ever look to the
[35:05] Speaker 1: wires for the power. Yes, you could test the wires
[35:07] Speaker 1: for power, but it's the terminals that are giving the
[35:11] Speaker 1: wire power. Now by code the Y terminal, which is
[35:16] Speaker 1: for AC, that would be a yellow wire by code.
[35:19] Speaker 1: The white wire would be for w for heating by code,
[35:23] Speaker 1: the green wire would be for the fan by code,
[35:26] Speaker 1: and blue or brown would normally be used for common.
[35:30] Speaker 1: But you can never watch the color of the wires.
[35:33] Speaker 1: You have to watch where the wire is going to
[35:36] Speaker 1: the terminal because somebody could use a red wire for
[35:41] Speaker 1: air conditioning for Y. But as long as it's going
[35:44] Speaker 1: to the WYE terminal, it's doing what it has to do.
[35:47] Speaker 1: So never look at the colors of the wires. Always
[35:50] Speaker 1: look at the terminal where the wires going. But as
[35:53] Speaker 1: long as they're going to the right terminals, you're okay.
[35:57] Speaker 1: And you so basically, if R is getting twenty four volts,
[36:02] Speaker 1: let's just say it's Christmas Eve in your house, Troy,
[36:05] Speaker 1: and the heat goes out, and for some reason you
[36:09] Speaker 1: think it's the thermostat.
[36:10] Speaker 2: You want to override the thermostat.
[36:12] Speaker 1: Now, you could take off your thermostat and take the
[36:15] Speaker 1: R wire and put it together with the wire, and
[36:20] Speaker 1: that would override your thermostat and make.
[36:22] Speaker 2: Your heat come on. So when R and W make
[36:26] Speaker 2: your heat comes on. When R and Y and G
[36:30] Speaker 2: make your air conditioning system comes on.
[36:34] Speaker 1: So R is like the twenty four voltes that is
[36:37] Speaker 1: connecting with all these terminals that connect with your control board,
[36:41] Speaker 1: and that will bring on your condenser. So if you
[36:44] Speaker 1: put the RY and G together, the air conditioning would
[36:48] Speaker 1: come on and the fan would come on.
[36:50] Speaker 2: If you want to test your heat to see is
[36:52] Speaker 2: my heat working, you could put the R wire with
[36:55] Speaker 2: the wire. These are just twenty four voltes.
[36:58] Speaker 1: But I would tell you this, never ever jump and
[37:01] Speaker 1: are in common, because then you will blow the transformer.
[37:04] Speaker 2: You have twenty four votes going.
[37:07] Speaker 1: Together getting a good so you never ever jump are
[37:11] Speaker 1: in common, but you could jump R with all the
[37:14] Speaker 1: other terminals.
[37:16] Speaker 2: That's also very good to know for a lot of
[37:18] Speaker 2: safety reasons.
[37:20] Speaker 6: That's that's big man. Just completed a house.
[37:23] Speaker 4: You're talking about that circuit boards, getting back to the transformers.
[37:28] Speaker 4: It's all in line, man, it's all a line. I
[37:31] Speaker 4: wonder when you're talking about heating, ventilation AC. When I'm
[37:35] Speaker 4: starting with what type of jobs are going to be
[37:38] Speaker 4: the ones that I'm going to go to first? Right,
[37:40] Speaker 4: Like I wouldn't imagine is it heating first? Is it
[37:43] Speaker 4: AC first?
[37:45] Speaker 2: What it is?
[37:46] Speaker 6: What's the most more practical to start, well, every.
[37:50] Speaker 2: Home is built with heating. You have to have heating
[37:53] Speaker 2: in your house. Air Conditioning is a luxury. If you
[37:56] Speaker 2: have air conditioning, that's pretty much a luxury that you
[37:59] Speaker 2: have in your house. But you have to build a
[38:01] Speaker 2: house with heating.
[38:03] Speaker 1: It's see, what I've noticed is in this trade is
[38:06] Speaker 1: that if a company hires you, they're going to put
[38:09] Speaker 1: you where they want to. You may want to be
[38:11] Speaker 1: a service tech, but you may get thrown on the
[38:13] Speaker 1: install team, so you don't really have a choice.
[38:15] Speaker 2: Sometimes when you're first coming and you just kind of
[38:17] Speaker 2: go with the flow.
[38:18] Speaker 1: So I might come out of school and get hired
[38:21] Speaker 1: somewhere and they might tell me on the install team.
[38:23] Speaker 1: I might be an installer for three years, or I
[38:25] Speaker 1: might be an installer forever, or I may want to
[38:28] Speaker 1: get out of installing and try to go to service.
[38:30] Speaker 2: So either one is good. You're going to make good
[38:32] Speaker 2: money on either side. But it's what do you like
[38:35] Speaker 2: to do.
[38:36] Speaker 1: Like, installers are like mostly heavy, more brutal type of work.
[38:40] Speaker 1: The service work is a lot more with your brain
[38:43] Speaker 1: and a lot more you know it, regular hand tools
[38:45] Speaker 1: and using your brain. But installing you have to use
[38:47] Speaker 1: your brain too, but it's more heavy lifting. More you're
[38:51] Speaker 1: kind of in the brutal combat, you know. So if
[38:54] Speaker 1: you're a rough and tough guy and you like lifting
[38:57] Speaker 1: and you know, working with ducks and a lot of
[39:00] Speaker 1: heavy machinery, then you know, installs for you. But if
[39:04] Speaker 1: you want to be a service tech and go from
[39:06] Speaker 1: house to house and fix things and keep your day
[39:09] Speaker 1: moving like that, then you know you kind of want
[39:11] Speaker 1: to be a service tech, you know. And just also
[39:14] Speaker 1: I wanted to show you guys something. This transformer in
[39:19] Speaker 1: h track. You make your most money off your lowest
[39:21] Speaker 1: cost parts. This transformer costs about maybe sixteen to thirty
[39:27] Speaker 1: dollars the most.
[39:29] Speaker 2: Now, if a tech comes to your house and your transformer.
[39:32] Speaker 1: Is blown, I mean you're looking at at least maybe
[39:36] Speaker 1: five hundred to six hundred bucks to complete that call,
[39:40] Speaker 1: you know, with just labor and parts.
[39:43] Speaker 2: You know, So if you can.
[39:45] Speaker 1: Understand a lot of these small parts, it's very good
[39:48] Speaker 1: for you. A thermostat. To change a thermostat, I just
[39:52] Speaker 1: changed two thermostats yesterday, I charge a customer eight hundred dollars,
[39:56] Speaker 1: you know, and you know, thermostats can range between one
[40:02] Speaker 1: hundred to four hundred dollars or you know, but that's
[40:05] Speaker 1: from fifteen to thirty minutes worth of work.
[40:07] Speaker 2: It's not even really like a full hour, you know.
[40:10] Speaker 2: So you could almost make your own price.
[40:13] Speaker 1: You can charge with your worth, and you can make
[40:18] Speaker 1: like once I learned how to change the thermostat, I
[40:21] Speaker 1: went to every job and change a thermostat.
[40:23] Speaker 2: You know, I was because I just saw the extra
[40:25] Speaker 2: money in it.
[40:25] Speaker 1: You know, you can buy a thermostat for one hundred
[40:27] Speaker 1: bucks make an extra two fifty and fifteen minutes.
[40:31] Speaker 2: It's not bad money.
[40:33] Speaker 1: You know. There are people that are working hours thirty
[40:36] Speaker 1: dollars an hour forty dollars, and that they have to
[40:38] Speaker 1: work hours and hours after taxes to get to like
[40:42] Speaker 1: a three hundred dollars for the day or four hundred,
[40:44] Speaker 1: you know.
[40:45] Speaker 2: So if you can make that very very quickly, that's
[40:48] Speaker 2: what I love about.
[40:49] Speaker 1: There are trade It's like, you know, you can just
[40:54] Speaker 1: make so much in a very little bit of space
[40:57] Speaker 1: of time.
[40:58] Speaker 6: As you were saying it, I'm thinking about the thermostats.
[41:01] Speaker 4: I got an echob so yeah, more than thirty dollars,
[41:05] Speaker 4: but no, yourr that's going to be.
[41:07] Speaker 1: More because it's a Wi Fi and remalia. You need
[41:10] Speaker 1: that common wire to operate your thermostat. That's what illuminates
[41:14] Speaker 1: your thermostat because there's no batteries in there, right right right.
[41:17] Speaker 4: I'm thinking from a safety standpoint, what are someone like
[41:21] Speaker 4: the procedures and protocols when going into a job because
[41:24] Speaker 4: you're dealing with electric which can be you know, extremely dangerous.
[41:28] Speaker 6: Well, what are the things you tell people before going
[41:30] Speaker 6: into a job.
[41:31] Speaker 1: Basically, when I train all my guys, I do a
[41:36] Speaker 1: lot of safety training as well as you know, we
[41:39] Speaker 1: go into the house, you got to come correct uniform booties.
[41:43] Speaker 1: Always turn off the power if you're not sure what
[41:47] Speaker 1: you're dealing with, troubleshoot from there. Sometimes we have to
[41:50] Speaker 1: troubleshoot with the power live, but always you know, go
[41:54] Speaker 1: to your practices, you know, start with the basics, but
[41:58] Speaker 1: you definitely have to use all safety procedures. You know,
[42:01] Speaker 1: going in there's no reason, there's no way to really
[42:05] Speaker 1: tell what to do because every house is different. You
[42:07] Speaker 1: really got to have to use your judgment and use
[42:10] Speaker 1: all your training. That's where your training really.
[42:12] Speaker 2: Comes in at, you know.
[42:15] Speaker 5: So let's get into the entrepreneur aspect of it, because
[42:17] Speaker 5: that's what earn your leasure. That's what people they want
[42:19] Speaker 5: to know how to become you know, h VAC tech.
[42:22] Speaker 5: But I'm sure they probably want to know how to
[42:24] Speaker 5: how to own a company, how to navigate that.
[42:26] Speaker 3: So what's the stuff?
[42:27] Speaker 5: Okay, so you got your HVAC certification, you got you know,
[42:31] Speaker 5: you got in with a company, you worked a couple
[42:33] Speaker 5: of years as a as a worker, you got your
[42:36] Speaker 5: feet wet, you saved up some money. Now you want
[42:39] Speaker 5: to become an entrepreneur. What do you have to do
[42:41] Speaker 5: to become an entrepreneur? Like, what's the first TEP for that?
[42:43] Speaker 5: What's the licensing? What's what's how do you become? Do
[42:46] Speaker 5: you own a company?
[42:46] Speaker 1: This is this is very good question because I've done
[42:49] Speaker 1: this for so many people to help them start businesses.
[42:52] Speaker 2: Okay, what I recommend is this.
[42:55] Speaker 1: If you don't have much money and you want to
[42:57] Speaker 1: get things going, the first thing you could do is
[42:59] Speaker 1: go to municipality. For us, it was in white planes,
[43:04] Speaker 1: and you could go and get either an LLC or
[43:08] Speaker 1: a sole proprietorship. A sole proprietorship is a lot easier
[43:12] Speaker 1: sometimes if you don't have the money for the insurances
[43:15] Speaker 1: for the LLC, get your sole proprietorship. You go to
[43:18] Speaker 1: that building, you pick out your company name. You got
[43:21] Speaker 1: to pick out like five different names. They're going to
[43:23] Speaker 1: put it in the computer. See if the name's available.
[43:26] Speaker 1: You pay, literally it's thirty five dollars to get your
[43:29] Speaker 1: business license. That is why I don't understand the people sometimes.
[43:32] Speaker 1: But you pay your thirty five dollars, you get your
[43:34] Speaker 1: business name, they stamp it. Now you take that business
[43:39] Speaker 1: name license and you bring that to the bank. The
[43:43] Speaker 1: bank takes that. You open up a bank account with
[43:45] Speaker 1: your business name. Sometimes the bank will give you your
[43:48] Speaker 1: EI in numbers. Sometimes you could apply for that. Once
[43:52] Speaker 1: you get your business name and you get your bank account.
[43:56] Speaker 1: From there, you just need general liability insurance, which is
[43:59] Speaker 1: not really that much.
[44:01] Speaker 2: You get I mean a million dollar policy or a
[44:05] Speaker 2: two million dollar policy.
[44:07] Speaker 1: You know you could pay maybe a couple of hundred
[44:09] Speaker 1: dollars a month, and you know you'll need an auto
[44:12] Speaker 1: policy if you have a van.
[44:14] Speaker 2: From there, the main problem is getting the work. That's
[44:19] Speaker 2: where the hidden.
[44:24] Speaker 1: Mystery, the gray area is for everyone, you know, because
[44:26] Speaker 1: people can almost buy a van and get this process started.
[44:29] Speaker 1: But it's getting the work that's the whole real ball
[44:33] Speaker 1: of whax so that you have to do everything. You've
[44:36] Speaker 1: got to pay for leads you got. I'm a minority
[44:39] Speaker 1: business owner. Most of my partners are females, so they
[44:42] Speaker 1: are double minority business owners. I've used government contract and
[44:46] Speaker 1: I've had I've done all the military basis in New York.
[44:50] Speaker 1: I had a great government contract for a couple of years.
[44:53] Speaker 1: Those are great. If you get a government contract, that's
[44:56] Speaker 1: a great way. You've got to look for developers, real
[44:59] Speaker 1: estate develop orus, people like that big whales who are
[45:02] Speaker 1: building in New York City or anywhere in your area.
[45:05] Speaker 1: To look for those type of people. Other contractors you
[45:08] Speaker 1: can link up with. Now, there's so many AI things
[45:12] Speaker 1: with generating leads. But what I did this is very important.
[45:17] Speaker 2: What I did.
[45:18] Speaker 1: I realized this was going to happen a while back
[45:21] Speaker 1: when I was paying for leads and trying to figure
[45:23] Speaker 1: out how to get business. So what I did was
[45:26] Speaker 1: I started businesses for all of my friends and people
[45:30] Speaker 1: that were serious, so in case my business didn't do
[45:34] Speaker 1: good and they were better at other things in business
[45:37] Speaker 1: than me, if their companies are doing good. Now I
[45:41] Speaker 1: get work from the community that I built within my
[45:44] Speaker 1: own community. Like my friend called me today. Shout out
[45:48] Speaker 1: to markets and Platinum kids. He called me today, he said, vinced,
[45:52] Speaker 1: I need help. I literally have over ten installs that
[45:55] Speaker 1: I cannot do. So I was like, okay, I'll do
[45:58] Speaker 1: one install a day for you. Now, this is a
[46:01] Speaker 1: friend who I started a company for, whose company is
[46:04] Speaker 1: just growing so big that now he's giving back work
[46:07] Speaker 1: to me.
[46:08] Speaker 2: So I figured out that this is the best way
[46:11] Speaker 2: for me.
[46:11] Speaker 1: Instead of paying for leads or doing other things, I
[46:14] Speaker 1: get jobs from all my techs who I started companies
[46:17] Speaker 1: for who I trained. So we kind of have built
[46:21] Speaker 1: our own community within our community to help generate work
[46:24] Speaker 1: for each other. So that's one thing that I would
[46:27] Speaker 1: tell people to start doing, you know, building with your
[46:29] Speaker 1: friends and your community because everyone has a different type
[46:34] Speaker 1: of luck and everyone has a different situation, and then
[46:36] Speaker 1: they could bring it back to the table, you know.
[46:39] Speaker 1: So COVID, I believe, really woke up a lot of
[46:42] Speaker 1: people in that realizing when the world stopped, I was
[46:46] Speaker 1: still working. I never stopped working a day through COVID.
[46:50] Speaker 1: You know, people would leave the money on the floor,
[46:52] Speaker 1: but I would still pick it up, you know. So
[46:54] Speaker 1: it it's just a wonderful thing. So now I have
[46:59] Speaker 1: a community of people were hey, evinced I got a
[47:02] Speaker 1: job here, I got a job here. I'm calling people, Hey,
[47:04] Speaker 1: you go do this, do that, So we're all kind
[47:06] Speaker 1: of working together.
[47:08] Speaker 2: I think that's the best way to build it.
[47:09] Speaker 1: But you have to use every avenue, leads, minority businesses,
[47:16] Speaker 1: government contracts, go door to door.
[47:20] Speaker 2: See.
[47:20] Speaker 1: One thing about me was my process was different because
[47:23] Speaker 1: I spent ten years in sales before I became HVAC tech,
[47:28] Speaker 1: so I had mastered.
[47:29] Speaker 2: The sales game.
[47:30] Speaker 1: I took all the sales training from all the companies
[47:32] Speaker 1: I worked for. I let that all develop in me,
[47:36] Speaker 1: you know, and I was the number one sales rep
[47:39] Speaker 1: at mostly all my companies, so I had a great
[47:44] Speaker 1: rapport with customers. I knew how to talk to people.
[47:46] Speaker 1: I could go into a racist house and by the
[47:48] Speaker 1: time I come out work, we're best friends. So I
[47:51] Speaker 1: knew how to take rejection and you know, channel all
[47:56] Speaker 1: these things to make them positive.
[47:58] Speaker 2: So that kind of helped me out too.
[47:59] Speaker 1: So anybody with a sales background would be great in
[48:02] Speaker 1: h fact, because you're selling all day long.
[48:05] Speaker 2: That's really no matter how great of a tech you are.
[48:08] Speaker 5: I just wanted to follow up with that because what
[48:10] Speaker 5: you just said at the end, that was what I
[48:11] Speaker 5: was thinking about the whole time as far as sales,
[48:13] Speaker 5: because that's everything that you said. It reminded me a
[48:16] Speaker 5: lot of me being a financial advisor, like what we
[48:20] Speaker 5: used to call a circle of influence, so like we
[48:23] Speaker 5: would work with accountants and lawyers because their clients needed
[48:29] Speaker 5: financial services. So like you, circle of influence would be
[48:33] Speaker 5: a general contractor, right, because as they build a home,
[48:36] Speaker 5: they're going to need to refer the work.
[48:39] Speaker 3: And then, like you said, the door to door.
[48:41] Speaker 5: We used to call that like cold calling, where you
[48:43] Speaker 5: just randomly call a business, so just walk into a business,
[48:46] Speaker 5: so cold cold canvassing was actually walking into it. Yeah yeah,
[48:52] Speaker 5: and then referrals. But that's brilliant as far as so
[48:58] Speaker 5: it all connects, It all connects. But that's something that
[49:01] Speaker 5: I think any business, but especially it sounds like in
[49:05] Speaker 5: this business for sure, you don't just do one thing
[49:08] Speaker 5: and say I'm gonna do this to get lead, right,
[49:10] Speaker 5: like you got to do everything Facebook ads, Instagram ads, whatever.
[49:14] Speaker 2: Even your truck being written up. And let me tell
[49:17] Speaker 2: you guys something too.
[49:19] Speaker 1: Instagram is so great because look I got my West
[49:23] Speaker 1: Sinster Community College job from somebody that saw me on
[49:26] Speaker 1: Instagram and said, hey, bro, I see how you're teaching
[49:29] Speaker 1: these kids out here.
[49:30] Speaker 2: You'd be perfect for this job. I went there and
[49:32] Speaker 2: got the job.
[49:33] Speaker 1: I get so many jobs from text that called me
[49:36] Speaker 1: every day, Hey, Vince, can you come help me with
[49:38] Speaker 1: this job?
[49:38] Speaker 2: I go there, they pay me.
[49:40] Speaker 1: So it's just like you got to really just put
[49:42] Speaker 1: yourself out there and show people what you do and
[49:45] Speaker 1: they will slowly gravitate to you. I get a lot
[49:48] Speaker 1: a lot of work from social media, you know, and
[49:53] Speaker 1: it builds a brotherhood and a friendship, you know.
[49:55] Speaker 2: I have so many people.
[49:57] Speaker 1: When I started posting ah trac posts, really I gained
[50:01] Speaker 1: I had two thousand followers. I gained five thousand followers
[50:05] Speaker 1: in like a month and a half. Two months, literally
[50:09] Speaker 1: like every day I was just gaining like three hundred
[50:10] Speaker 1: and five hundred followers. So I saw the algorithm and
[50:14] Speaker 1: what was happening. I was putting up a post, I
[50:16] Speaker 1: would get like a couple hundred thousand views on it
[50:19] Speaker 1: or something like that. So I was like, Wow, people
[50:21] Speaker 1: are really interested in age racing. There's a very, very
[50:24] Speaker 1: big community. I have two business partners right now that
[50:28] Speaker 1: are females. They both have their EPA and they run
[50:31] Speaker 1: the offices, ones in Florida and ones down here. They
[50:35] Speaker 1: have never went back to work for about three years now.
[50:39] Speaker 1: They've been living off of this. So even for females,
[50:43] Speaker 1: if you are a female and you want a supplemental income,
[50:46] Speaker 1: you don't have to do the work, but you could
[50:49] Speaker 1: run the office and have everything else set up.
[50:52] Speaker 2: Because most guys need a back office. They're not good
[50:55] Speaker 2: with it. Most blue collar guys were doing ahe racking.
[50:58] Speaker 1: They always have either their white life or someone in
[51:00] Speaker 1: the back office doing the work, or the business is
[51:04] Speaker 1: really in their name a lot of the times, you know.
[51:07] Speaker 1: So there's a lot of females that you could work
[51:10] Speaker 1: from home. You don't have to quit your regular day job.
[51:13] Speaker 1: All you need is a computer and the phone. Just
[51:15] Speaker 1: do the scheduling and do the billing and that's it.
[51:19] Speaker 1: That have the guys go out and do the work,
[51:21] Speaker 1: and you will make a large profit.
[51:23] Speaker 4: I need you're bringing up a I mean, that's a system, right,
[51:27] Speaker 4: like that's everybody all in something we know a bit about.
[51:31] Speaker 4: I'm wondering when you talked about the truck number one,
[51:35] Speaker 4: how expensive it is it to get the truck because
[51:37] Speaker 4: I'm starting the business and when I show up, what
[51:40] Speaker 4: are the tools that I need?
[51:41] Speaker 1: Right?
[51:41] Speaker 4: Like, I'm not just showing up to the job with
[51:43] Speaker 4: the empty van. I see my electrician comes, my age vactine.
[51:48] Speaker 4: That truck is loaded with things. I'm like, how do
[51:50] Speaker 4: they know exactly what to get and what should be
[51:53] Speaker 4: inside that truck?
[51:54] Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean I'm definitely I can't.
[51:56] Speaker 1: I could say I'm a tool fanatic, like I like
[51:59] Speaker 1: to buy everything that makes the job easier. Now, for HVAC,
[52:04] Speaker 1: hand tools can be very expensive. Toolbags. I mean I
[52:08] Speaker 1: use veto Propack. They're out of Connecticut. They're great company,
[52:12] Speaker 1: great bags. Those bags go from two hundred dollars to
[52:14] Speaker 1: six hundred dollars just for a toolbag. You know, good
[52:17] Speaker 1: hand tools. You're gonna spend maybe a grand or two
[52:20] Speaker 1: on just good hand tools. But good gauges are going
[52:24] Speaker 1: now from six hundred to fifteen hundred dollars for gauges.
[52:29] Speaker 1: We were doing a lot of soldering and a lot
[52:33] Speaker 1: of braizing in the past, but now everyone's using pro press.
[52:37] Speaker 1: You know, you'll see that going on now probably for
[52:39] Speaker 1: some of your homes and things. You know, they're using propress,
[52:41] Speaker 1: which cuts out the time and a lot of material.
[52:45] Speaker 1: You just like, like you guys could put in a
[52:47] Speaker 1: water heater so easily. You just put a pipe in
[52:50] Speaker 1: a coupling, you put a machine on it, you press it,
[52:53] Speaker 1: it's done, it's sealed. So they're making things so much
[52:56] Speaker 1: easier now where you know you have to have these
[53:00] Speaker 1: I would say the average.
[53:01] Speaker 2: Truck probably has about.
[53:05] Speaker 1: I mean, as an HVACT Tech you probably got about
[53:08] Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars and thirty thousand dollars worth of tools
[53:11] Speaker 1: could be on your truck at any time. A plumber
[53:14] Speaker 1: could have anywhere from sixty grand worth of tools on
[53:17] Speaker 1: up in their truck at any time. You know, So
[53:20] Speaker 1: you definitely need your tools. And that's what goes into
[53:23] Speaker 1: the whole job. When you're charging, it's your your truck
[53:26] Speaker 1: has to carry the tools to the job. You got
[53:30] Speaker 1: to get to the job, you know, So all that
[53:32] Speaker 1: plays a factor in what you're being charged to at
[53:36] Speaker 1: the end of the day.
[53:37] Speaker 5: So, yeah, talk about the seasonality of your job. For
[53:42] Speaker 5: entrepreneurs like this, this yeah might be like the summer
[53:45] Speaker 5: is a great season.
[53:48] Speaker 1: This summer, the summer is the time, baby, This summer
[53:52] Speaker 1: will make you think that you're like the richest man
[53:56] Speaker 1: on earth, but it will end.
[53:59] Speaker 2: I mean, but some is so great.
[54:01] Speaker 1: I mean, just as a small contractor, not even a
[54:05] Speaker 1: major company's as a small contractor, you could easily do
[54:08] Speaker 1: like eighty ninety grand in the summer, you know, just
[54:11] Speaker 1: one hundred grand in the summer, which if you don't
[54:14] Speaker 1: want to, then you don't have to work in the winter.
[54:17] Speaker 1: You know, you can budget yourself out. It's all how
[54:19] Speaker 1: you want to live. But the summer is the absolute
[54:22] Speaker 1: best time for an HVACT type. And the reason why
[54:25] Speaker 1: is we sell free on. Freeon is like the dream.
[54:31] Speaker 1: It's like the gold, the gold you guys were finding
[54:33] Speaker 1: on the streets. That's the gold. R twenty two is
[54:37] Speaker 1: a free on that that's been phased out. That freeon
[54:41] Speaker 1: you could sell anywhere from two to three hundred dollars
[54:44] Speaker 1: per pound. So we're selling gas every day per pound.
[54:49] Speaker 1: And it's the most beautiful thing. Like your air conditioning system,
[54:52] Speaker 1: you're gonna need five or six pounds of free on
[54:55] Speaker 1: in it. So even if I fix it, then you
[54:58] Speaker 1: still have to pay for the free on. If you
[55:00] Speaker 1: need gas. That's another thousand dollars right there. So It's
[55:05] Speaker 1: imagine going to every house and they need free on,
[55:07] Speaker 1: and it's like one thousand dollars every house, two thousand dollars.
[55:11] Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable.
[55:12] Speaker 1: You know. Our four ten A was another free on
[55:15] Speaker 1: that was new. That's about one point fifty maybe two
[55:18] Speaker 1: hundred dollars per pound. The new gases out now, like
[55:21] Speaker 1: for your guys's homes and stuff, would be R thirty
[55:24] Speaker 1: two or our four to fifty four B.
[55:27] Speaker 2: Those are the two newest gases out now.
[55:30] Speaker 1: What we were using in the past was R twenty two,
[55:33] Speaker 1: which has been out for the last twenty or thirty years.
[55:36] Speaker 2: We were using that.
[55:37] Speaker 1: That got phased out because they said it had too
[55:39] Speaker 1: much chlorine in it and that was depleting the ozone faster.
[55:44] Speaker 1: So we went from R twenty two to our four
[55:46] Speaker 1: ten A now to R thirty two and R four
[55:50] Speaker 1: to fifty four B.
[55:51] Speaker 2: But the gas, okay, I mean.
[55:54] Speaker 1: Just this week alone, I probably made like three or
[55:57] Speaker 1: four thousand dollars just off of free on.
[56:00] Speaker 2: Okay, I'll put into perspective.
[56:03] Speaker 1: A can of four ten a cost about two hundred
[56:05] Speaker 1: dollars to fifty Let's say that's for a thirty pound
[56:10] Speaker 1: can and if you're selling one pound for two hundred
[56:15] Speaker 1: dollars or one hundred and fifty dollars, I mean, it's
[56:20] Speaker 1: it's like the Golden eras back. It's like it's like
[56:23] Speaker 1: the gold Rush. In the summer, it's literally you cannot
[56:26] Speaker 1: stop making money.
[56:27] Speaker 2: Sometimes. I almost feel guilty sometimes, Like me.
[56:30] Speaker 1: And my brothers, we used to have a contest every
[56:33] Speaker 1: day to see who could get to five grand the fastest.
[56:36] Speaker 2: And then we get to five grand, we'd chill out
[56:39] Speaker 2: for the day.
[56:40] Speaker 1: You know, by that time it's about ten o'clock at night,
[56:44] Speaker 1: but you know, or eight o'clock at night.
[56:46] Speaker 2: So it's just the summertime. It's just the best.
[56:49] Speaker 1: If you're gonna get into this trade and you want
[56:51] Speaker 1: to make money, you start in the summertime, and I
[56:54] Speaker 1: guarantee you you'll never turn back. Winter's a little bit harder.
[56:58] Speaker 1: You can make a lot of money in the winter,
[57:00] Speaker 1: don't despite the winter. Oil We make a lot of
[57:03] Speaker 1: money with oil gas forced air heating boilers. It's a
[57:07] Speaker 1: lot of money, you know. But the summertime, for me,
[57:11] Speaker 1: it just seems like people just cannot live without ac
[57:16] Speaker 1: When it's high, when it's cold, people kind of tend
[57:19] Speaker 1: to try to get warmer. They'll snuggle up, they'll get
[57:22] Speaker 1: an extra blanket, they'll live for a day or two.
[57:24] Speaker 1: But a lot of people who have health conditions, a
[57:26] Speaker 1: lot of elderly people. I just worked for a lady yesterday.
[57:30] Speaker 1: She had a hard condition and there's no way she
[57:32] Speaker 1: could live without air conditioning. There's just no way. So
[57:36] Speaker 1: you know you're wanted. It's a great trade, you're respected.
[57:40] Speaker 1: You take pride in fixing things. As a young black
[57:44] Speaker 1: person or anyone of color, it's a respectful job.
[57:47] Speaker 2: You could feed your family with it.
[57:49] Speaker 1: I mean, it has just brought so much joy to
[57:52] Speaker 1: my life that I'm just overwhelmed, you know. With I
[57:57] Speaker 1: try to just bring as much forth to everyone that
[58:00] Speaker 1: I can with it, because it can change your life.
[58:03] Speaker 1: If you just hone in on one thing for one time,
[58:06] Speaker 1: I guarantee you it'll change your life.
[58:11] Speaker 6: You definitely are an essential worker.
[58:14] Speaker 4: You talk about the amount of income that you can
[58:16] Speaker 4: make the five thousand dollars race with you and your brother.
[58:19] Speaker 4: I wonder, as an entrepreneur, how are you managing money right?
[58:23] Speaker 4: Like you've been doing this for a while now. How
[58:25] Speaker 4: have you when you get money for the first time,
[58:27] Speaker 4: it's okay, But you've been doing it for a while.
[58:29] Speaker 6: How has that process been for you?
[58:31] Speaker 2: Well, you know what, that's a very good question because.
[58:36] Speaker 1: For a while, coming from where I came from with
[58:38] Speaker 1: the streets and then going into the business world, I
[58:41] Speaker 1: always thought it was just the fact that just stacking money,
[58:44] Speaker 1: you know, just stack up as much money as you
[58:46] Speaker 1: can and this and that.
[58:47] Speaker 2: Until you guys really came around.
[58:49] Speaker 1: We didn't really know about like financing and investing when
[58:53] Speaker 1: Rashad first came to my house. The reason why we
[58:56] Speaker 1: went with Rashad because we were just blown away, like
[59:00] Speaker 1: he was just so meticulous and on point. To be
[59:03] Speaker 1: honest with shot, I didn't understand a lot what she
[59:05] Speaker 1: was saying, but my wife understood the mutuals and but
[59:09] Speaker 1: we were just so blown away, were like how is
[59:12] Speaker 1: this guy so young and just so militant and like,
[59:16] Speaker 1: I mean, you were just so on point that it
[59:20] Speaker 1: was just like raisor sharp.
[59:21] Speaker 2: So you know, that's just one credit to you. But
[59:25] Speaker 2: what was the question you were saying in how.
[59:28] Speaker 6: You manage your money?
[59:29] Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, so we didn't really know. I didn't really
[59:32] Speaker 2: know how to manage money.
[59:33] Speaker 1: This is one thing that I'm kind of upset about
[59:35] Speaker 1: because I got kind of house stuck, you know, three
[59:39] Speaker 1: four thousand dollars mortgage, kids, college businesses. I was just
[59:45] Speaker 1: so happy just to be maintaining on a certain level
[59:48] Speaker 1: that I never really got into that point of investing,
[59:52] Speaker 1: and then we didn't know how.
[59:54] Speaker 2: We didn't know.
[59:55] Speaker 1: Hey, you know, if you take twenty grant and put
[59:57] Speaker 1: it here, it's gonna matriculate and it's gonna We didn't.
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: I didn't see that concept. So I didn't really manage
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: a lot of money well. But I lived a good
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: life and I went through I learned now you know
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: on what to do. But if you're in this trade,
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: like I know, a lot of plumbers and guys are
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: in this trade that I'm doing very well in the
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: stock market because they're able to just do a job
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: for thirty grand and just shove that in the market
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: and then make it back tomorrow or make it back
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: next week, so it doesn't really hurt. So for guys
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: in this trade, it is good, you know, once you
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: understand it to do a lot of investing because you
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: can make the money so fast, you can make it
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: right back.
[1:00:37] Speaker 4: How old you got to be, though, like I'm thinking now,
[1:00:40] Speaker 4: the first deal you got was cash. How often I mean,
[1:00:43] Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure now is billing in its electronics and
[1:00:46] Speaker 4: payment processing. Yeah, having that back how important is having
[1:00:50] Speaker 4: a structure.
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: But you got to have your team.
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: You know, you got to have a good accountant, You
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: got to have your back office. You know, I'm not
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: that computer literate, so I really depend on my back off.
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: It's a lot and you start to realize things like
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: like when I got my first military contract, I was,
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: you know, psyched up, oh five grand, ten grand a week,
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: twenty But then when the taxes came on it, I
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: realized like, oh, I might have been paying these guys
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: too much, Like I could have cut back because nobody
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: sees that part at the end, you know, it's taxes.
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: So you got to really you got to really stay organized.
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: You got to have a focused team. You can't do
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: everything yourself. Once you get to a certain point, you've
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: got to really pay to put the right people in,
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: you know, in areas to help you.
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: And you know I used to. I think I used
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: to use ADP.
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: For payroll sometimes it's good to I think they're a
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: good company that used to organize.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: Our payroll for us.
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: I mean, I remember even T T was there helping
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: us a few times. You know, office was crazy, you know.
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: So you've got to have a good office crew. You
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: got to have people that are smarter than you, you know,
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: around you to really handle a lot of this business
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: for you, because you know you're out in the field.
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: It's hard to manage both. You really can't do both
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: be in the field and be doing everything. No matter
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: what programs you get or things to help you. You
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: need an actual person that you know you can guide to,
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: you know, help you guide you through the process, you know.
[1:02:20] Speaker 5: So I'm glad you mentioned about the women because you know,
[1:02:23] Speaker 5: I'm building a home right now and my whole painting
[1:02:25] Speaker 5: crew is women.
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: And I was talking to the boss yesterday. She's a woman.
[1:02:30] Speaker 5: And yeah, definitely play attention to detail, for sure, but
[1:02:33] Speaker 5: usually you wouldn't expect that from laborers. You wouldn't expect
[1:02:37] Speaker 5: to see female laborers. So I'm glad you said that
[1:02:40] Speaker 5: because there is a space in these trades for women.
[1:02:44] Speaker 5: And that brings me to my question as far as
[1:02:45] Speaker 5: one of the most I guess the most important thing
[1:02:47] Speaker 5: is hiring employees, right, So how do you go about
[1:02:50] Speaker 5: hiring employees. Are they seasonal workers? Is it like per job?
[1:02:56] Speaker 6: Like?
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: Are you have them year round?
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: Like?
[1:02:57] Speaker 3: How's that?
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: Well, to be honest with you, guys, this is what
[1:03:00] Speaker 1: happens in the age fact trade because I've been hiring
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: people from about twenty eight years old till I'm fifty
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: two now, so I mean I've been hiring firing all
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: walks of life, Black, white, Asian, grown men, young men.
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: So what I've learned is this.
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: They're going to It's hard with age fact because when
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: you hire somebody, you have to almost really look into
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: their soul as far as integrity, because when you're going
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: from every house making a couple thousand dollars at every
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: house you go to, it's very hard for another person
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: to look at that, and a technician to look at that,
[1:03:39] Speaker 1: and then that's when the resentment comes in and that's
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: when the problems started. So me personally, at this stage
[1:03:47] Speaker 1: in the game, I don't like to hire anybody really
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: over twenty five years old. I hire guys from eighteen
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: to twenty five because a guy from eighteen to twenty
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: five making a thousand to two thousand week, they're on
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: top of the world. But once you get to thirty
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: and into your forties and you start having real life bills, mortgages,
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: kids could be getting married, divorced, whatever it is. That's
[1:04:11] Speaker 1: when you really need to start making your own money
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: as far as whatever you feel you deserve, because I
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: can only pay you but so much, and you're going
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: to watch me make so much and it's not going
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: to make much sense to you after a while, and
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: then that resentment starts to go into the work, and
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: then you're not as nice to customers.
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: It starts to just bleed out into the situation.
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: So I like to stay between that range because a
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: lot of grown men in certain things that you have
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: your grown man problems, but I can't solve them all
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: from my company. I can just pay you what I can.
[1:04:47] Speaker 1: I can't you make all your problems go away. So
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: I noticed that the resentment comes in if we're the
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: same age and you're working for me, and you know,
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: it's it's very hard that I've learned a lot of
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: people can't really, you know, take it to just stay
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: in their positions, stay in their laning and grow as
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: you can, you know. So I like to stay in
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: that range. But you got to look for guys. I mean,
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: I've been through it all. I have guys that were
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: coming on time and just bs all day. I would
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: have guys that would come in late. But there are
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: some of my hardest workers.
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: You just got to kind of look at people and
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: look at their integrity and see like are they loyal,
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: are they honest?
[1:05:28] Speaker 2: You know, I'd just rather have a loyal and honest person.
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: If you got to collect three thousand dollars in cash
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: and you have my truck van, my keys, my company card, like,
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: I have to be able to trust you with the
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: wide variety of things. We have to almost be a family.
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: I don't like to just hire workers. Once you're working
[1:05:45] Speaker 1: for me, you're in my family. You're coming to Thanksgiving dinner,
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: you're there at Christmas. This is a family thing. So
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: I've seen many different techniques and things with hiring people
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: and friends, strangers.
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: Some people want to just come to work just for
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: that day, just to make some money. They're not really
[1:06:04] Speaker 1: into the job. You have those types that just need
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: to just make some money. You have some types that
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: are coming just to infiltrade to figure out how are
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: you getting jobs? You know, and then they'll work for
[1:06:16] Speaker 1: you for a little while, and then you know you
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: won't see them again, you know. So there's all different
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: types and you just have to really look at a
[1:06:22] Speaker 1: person and just see. You know, sometimes you'll hire a
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: person and they have too much problems in their life,
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: too much desperation, or you know, they always got an excuse.
[1:06:31] Speaker 5: You know, let me let me ask you this, because
[1:06:33] Speaker 5: this is something that's relevant to the times that we're in.
[1:06:35] Speaker 5: Because even though I'm building a home, none of my
[1:06:37] Speaker 5: workers are American. Do the workers that you see that
[1:06:41] Speaker 5: you're hiring or you see from the hiring pool, what's
[1:06:45] Speaker 5: the percentage of them?
[1:06:46] Speaker 3: That's actually great question, I said.
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: Say right now, because you know, this trade for a
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: while was locked down with Irish, Italian and Germans.
[1:06:53] Speaker 2: They had it on lock.
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: So right now, the Caribbean people are heavy, heavy in
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: the trades right now, and they're unstoppable and they're really
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: great Latinos and Hispanic people. You got to understand all
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: the immigrants are already coming to America with the trades
[1:07:12] Speaker 1: sheep rocking.
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: I mean they've been.
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: Doing this since twelve years old. Thirteen years old, so electrical,
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: you know, they've been doing it for so long that
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: they're just no, see they're bred with hard work.
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:07:26] Speaker 1: Over here, even though we're hard workers, we don't really
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: understand hard life, you know. So people that can endure
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: a hard life waking up having to go and to
[1:07:39] Speaker 1: the river to get water or do this that, and
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: they endure that life and they come here, they look
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: at our hard work as like it's kind of a
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: joke to them, you know what I mean, because the
[1:07:50] Speaker 1: tools and the things that they have to do their
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: work with, we're just so far advanced. It's just like
[1:07:57] Speaker 1: we're you know, so I see that the immigrants are
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: are really they're going hard with it. You know, they're
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: really their work ethic is just so great. You know,
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: they don't want to take breaks. They want to get
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: the job done. You see the progress going on. But
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: definitely Caribbean people, men and women, Latinos, just everyone right
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: now into the into the trades.
[1:08:22] Speaker 3: Or what about black? What about black people in America?
[1:08:25] Speaker 3: How black? What's the percentage you think.
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: Of in the in the trade?
[1:08:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a there's a large.
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: Group of black I would say a percentage wise in
[1:08:38] Speaker 1: the trade right now, there's probably about thirty or forty percent,
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: you know, fifty percent coming in. There's a lot of
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: black and people of color in the trade. It's just
[1:08:49] Speaker 1: that a lot of people aren't going to the ownership position.
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:08:53] Speaker 1: They're just stick really, you know, they want to get
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: in the union, work for the union for twenty eight
[1:08:57] Speaker 1: years and get off easy or this or that. No
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: one thinks that they could do the ownership position because
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: of them being an HVACT ticker, being black.
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: I never looked at it like.
[1:09:09] Speaker 1: That because, see, I was so used to doing big
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: deals with the Ginsburg brothers and developers and things for
[1:09:15] Speaker 1: my sales jobs that you know, I never had that fear.
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: A lot of people have fear of owning a company
[1:09:22] Speaker 1: because they're going to be looked at as less than
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: or I can't go charge someone fifty thousand dollars, you know,
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: they're gonna look at me like I'm just some. But
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: I've never had that perspective, so that that never bothered me,
[1:09:36] Speaker 1: you know. But there's a lot of people that the
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: market is flooded right now with. If you go into
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: the supply houses and the companies now you're seeing more
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: and more and more black and Latino people in there.
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: Now more than ever. Like and if this was nineteen
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: sixties or seventies, we would you know, there wasn't really
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: much out there. Into the seventies eighties, a few people
[1:10:01] Speaker 1: were here, but no one was owning companies. I can't
[1:10:04] Speaker 1: think of one black company owner in Westchester. Well, now
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: there's all self bau. He's a contract But that's just
[1:10:14] Speaker 1: up until lately, Like growing up, there wasn't there.
[1:10:17] Speaker 2: There wasn't anyone.
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: But now there are a lot more people coming into
[1:10:21] Speaker 1: the contracting and plumbing. There's a lot of black plumbers
[1:10:25] Speaker 1: that are emerging now, a lot of black plumbers, and
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: they're doing very well. And you know, h tract as well.
[1:10:31] Speaker 1: A lot of electricians too, now, you know, because that's
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: what it is. The plumbing and the electrician license is
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: a big license. It's a little bit bigger than the
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: h fact situation. That's why they walk around like they're
[1:10:44] Speaker 1: the big dogs in the room and you can't tell
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: them nothing and where they.
[1:10:47] Speaker 2: Say it goes and I know because they have the license.
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: They went to school for a certain amount of time
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: and they paid like three or four grand just to
[1:10:54] Speaker 1: take that test. You know, depending on what type of
[1:10:57] Speaker 1: plumber or electrician you are, so they're kind of like
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: the heavyweights. But yeah, for the most part, to be honest,
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: I mean, I love my I'm not you know, I
[1:11:06] Speaker 1: love my race and everything. But I haven't had too
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: many black just regular American employees, just really, you know,
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: one in few. You know, it's just something. I don't
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: know if it's the work ethic or how they were
[1:11:21] Speaker 1: brought up. But Okay, my guy, now I took him
[1:11:24] Speaker 1: from eighteen, he already had the mentality of a thirty
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: year old the way that he was brought up.
[1:11:30] Speaker 2: I give him the truck.
[1:11:31] Speaker 1: He's not joy riding, he has a company car, he
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: doesn't spend any extra money. He comes to work on
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: time every day. He's helping out his family, He's helping
[1:11:39] Speaker 1: out everyone. He already has the mentality. He doesn't go out,
[1:11:42] Speaker 1: he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't do anything.
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: He doesn't want to party. He has the mentality of
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: like a grown man. You know, at eighteen twenty, you know,
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: years old. So it's all where you. You know, your
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: mentality is in your perspective.
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: I think with it. But a lot of.
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: People of color are coming into the trade, and you know,
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: not a lot of people are happy about it, but
[1:12:03] Speaker 1: we're here now. You know, it's nothing you could really
[1:12:09] Speaker 1: do about it. Now you know everyone's in the game. Now,
[1:12:12] Speaker 1: it's like fair game right now.
[1:12:15] Speaker 4: When you speak, I hear the experience when you're talking
[1:12:17] Speaker 4: about guys with joy riding, when you're talking about the
[1:12:22] Speaker 4: the idea of hiring from a certain age demographic, there's
[1:12:26] Speaker 4: a lot of experiences there. Talk about some of the
[1:12:29] Speaker 4: things that you've seen that you want people to avoid
[1:12:32] Speaker 4: so they don't make the same mistakes, right like your
[1:12:34] Speaker 4: experiences don't have to be relived.
[1:12:36] Speaker 6: What are some of the things to avoid if you're
[1:12:38] Speaker 6: in this space.
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: You know, when you're hiring someone. Definitely, if you get
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: those guys that aren't humble and they're telling you I
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: could do everything I can, I'm the best and it's
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: the best of that, be very careful with that until
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: you've actually seen them do something. You know, that's a
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: lot of mistakes that I made. You know, I used
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: to talk to guys and they used to tell me
[1:12:59] Speaker 1: how great they were, and I never really saw anything,
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: and I used to go off of that. So definitely,
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: if someone is telling you how great they are, you know,
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: try to see a couple of jobs or a couple
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: of things. I think just sometimes over investing into certain
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: employees or certain things, and then they're having hidden agendas
[1:13:23] Speaker 1: or things like that.
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: You know, I would say, you know, just things like that.
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: I mean, I've done so many different tricks within the
[1:13:34] Speaker 1: company to get money. I mean, I can tell you
[1:13:36] Speaker 1: a story. Once I had a tech and he had
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: a girlfriend. He was African American tech. He had a
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: white female girlfriend and she had no job. And I
[1:13:47] Speaker 1: hired her and I did a marketing scheme. What I
[1:13:50] Speaker 1: did was I sent her out there with him and
[1:13:52] Speaker 1: I told her, I said, listen, every house you go
[1:13:55] Speaker 1: to tell them that your father owns the company. And
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: then I ran a contest every week to see who
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: would sell the most maintenances every week. She brought in
[1:14:05] Speaker 1: thirty five hundred dollars every week from just telling going
[1:14:09] Speaker 1: to a house and saying, my father owns the company.
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: You know, this tech is here to fix your job.
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: She sold three. I ran a contest every week. I
[1:14:19] Speaker 1: had to bother champagne. I had money, three trucks on
[1:14:22] Speaker 1: the road. Nobody could ever beat her, and she had
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: no HVAC experience.
[1:14:26] Speaker 6: You know, so.
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: Sometimes you got to mix it up. Sometimes you got
[1:14:30] Speaker 1: to do different things. You know, you don't have to
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: run around like I'm the boss, I'm the owner, you know.
[1:14:36] Speaker 2: I like me, I never do that. I'd never tell
[1:14:38] Speaker 2: anyone that I own the company.
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: Sometimes customers are like, you know, you're just working too much,
[1:14:44] Speaker 1: like you're sure you own the company. I'm like, you
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: think i'd be out here if I own the company,
[1:14:47] Speaker 1: like you know, so I always play the humble role.
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: I always try to just stay in that worker's position
[1:14:54] Speaker 1: and stay humble. But you can mix it up. You
[1:14:57] Speaker 1: can do different things, Like you don't have to be
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: the face of your company. You can make somebody else
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: project that image for you, and you know, you could
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: still be in the background. Like me and my brother,
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: we would have it set up in our phones. I
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: would have his number as my boss in my phone
[1:15:13] Speaker 1: and he would put me in his. So whenever they
[1:15:15] Speaker 1: would say, hey, call your boss, I would just call
[1:15:18] Speaker 1: my brother. He would pick up and then he would
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: already know what to tell the customer. So, you know,
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: we never acted like we were the bosses of anything.
[1:15:25] Speaker 1: You know, and you'll never get a tip.
[1:15:27] Speaker 5: So and that's insightful, especially with the white girl to
[1:15:33] Speaker 5: the job that she said around.
[1:15:35] Speaker 1: Five hundred every week and to the point where the
[1:15:38] Speaker 1: guys were like, Vince, you can't beat her like I
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: think they beat her one time.
[1:15:42] Speaker 7: You know.
[1:15:43] Speaker 1: And that was a great way for me to pay
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: the payroll because my payroll was like five grand a
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: week or more. So if I put a contest up
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: for them to just sell maintenances where it sells the
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: most maintenances gets a big surprise.
[1:15:57] Speaker 2: That helped me just to pay payroll too.
[1:15:58] Speaker 1: So that was a good method of just trying to
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: make payroll every week, which I took pride in always
[1:16:04] Speaker 1: making payroll every week, you know.
[1:16:07] Speaker 2: So that was very important to me.
[1:16:09] Speaker 5: Talk about government contract, can you say, you like explain
[1:16:13] Speaker 5: that process of like what you went through, what you
[1:16:15] Speaker 5: had to do, you know, the RFP, talk about that
[1:16:19] Speaker 5: whole thing.
[1:16:20] Speaker 1: Well, okay, the government contract, to be honest, came at
[1:16:24] Speaker 1: a point in my life where I was really going
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: through a lot of family wise and just financially wise,
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: and to be honest with you, I really came to
[1:16:34] Speaker 1: a point where I just got on my knees and
[1:16:36] Speaker 1: I just prayed to God. I was like God please
[1:16:38] Speaker 1: like help me find a way, like I don't know
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: what to do anymore, like you know, and to.
[1:16:45] Speaker 2: Believe it or not.
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: A couple of days later, I got a phone call
[1:16:47] Speaker 1: from a weird number and it was a company that
[1:16:52] Speaker 1: had the contract for all the military bases in New York,
[1:16:56] Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, New Jersey, everywhere.
[1:17:00] Speaker 2: They asked me.
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: They said, hey, would you think about doing the maintenance
[1:17:03] Speaker 1: for us? And I was like yeah, And there was
[1:17:06] Speaker 1: like how many units? They were like, well, it's like
[1:17:08] Speaker 1: eleven hundred units will give you, Like I think it
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: was like one sixty per unit. And I just like
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: jumped on it from there and that lasted for a
[1:17:17] Speaker 1: couple of years. It was great money. And then from
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: there I looked into getting my cage number. I got
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: everything certified.
[1:17:27] Speaker 3: Federally cage number.
[1:17:29] Speaker 6: What is that cage is?
[1:17:30] Speaker 1: Like it's like a number that can give you access
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: to like government contracts and things like that, you know.
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: I got my minority business license with that also helped,
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: and I just started I would have my office just
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: go through every certification for government contracting, federal contracting on
[1:17:56] Speaker 1: the city level, and we just started going through everything.
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: I mean, I got connetison certifications, contetison certified.
[1:18:04] Speaker 2: So the more certifications and things really helped.
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: But government contracts are so good because they really pay
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: on time, Like Uncle Sam pays on time every week.
[1:18:15] Speaker 2: That money's there like guaranteed, you know.
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: So that was a really good way of it helped
[1:18:21] Speaker 1: to uplift me back up, just making like a couple
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: like one hundred thousand or so just off of maintenance.
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: We weren't fixing anything. We were just doing maintenance. And
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: that's another big thing is that maintenance is a big
[1:18:33] Speaker 1: part of the industry. You don't have to fix anything
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: to actually make money. We make money off of maintenance
[1:18:39] Speaker 1: every single day. You know. I just did a condenser
[1:18:42] Speaker 1: cleaning yesterday for four hundred dollars, you know, to wash
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: and clean the condenser. You know, that was a great
[1:18:48] Speaker 1: money you know. So maintenance is something that I mean
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: you have to do in your home. You have to
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: do periodically to keep your equipment up. So like especially
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: free for you guys, Like mainance is going to be
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: a really big key to preventative maintenance for you to
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: stop a lot of uncostly cost you know, you have
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: to do preventative maintenance, changing filters, washing units, whether it's
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: winter or ac it plays a very vital part that
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: could save you a lot. So I, you know, I
[1:19:18] Speaker 1: made a lot of money off of maintenance contracts with them.
[1:19:22] Speaker 1: I didn't really haven't got anything.
[1:19:24] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:19:24] Speaker 1: Another great thing to get with the government contract is
[1:19:27] Speaker 1: your eight A certification. If you can get your eight
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: A certification, which und just a couple of tax forms.
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: Away from that is when the government gives you contracts
[1:19:38] Speaker 1: for no bidding, you will get I think it's two
[1:19:41] Speaker 1: or four million dollar contracts automatically. So if anyone out
[1:19:45] Speaker 1: there is listening, if you can get your eight A
[1:19:47] Speaker 1: certification for h TRACK, that's.
[1:19:51] Speaker 2: When you're on your way.
[1:19:52] Speaker 3: Is that the minority business.
[1:19:55] Speaker 1: No, that's the minority business is the mb MMBE and
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: and you have the minority Women's Minority Business.
[1:20:02] Speaker 4: No.
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: THEA certification is a is a government certification that certifies
[1:20:09] Speaker 1: you to get these big government jobs.
[1:20:11] Speaker 2: But it's no bidding. It's no bidding like, oh you
[1:20:14] Speaker 2: got to put in a bid.
[1:20:15] Speaker 1: They will award you a contract for a certain amount
[1:20:19] Speaker 1: of millions, three or four million dollars and it's whether
[1:20:22] Speaker 1: you could do the work or not, you know, so
[1:20:25] Speaker 1: you have to put in a lot of paperwork.
[1:20:27] Speaker 2: So this is another thing. Guys.
[1:20:28] Speaker 1: While you have to have a back office and you
[1:20:30] Speaker 1: have to have females involved, you have to have someone
[1:20:34] Speaker 1: that can do paperwork. I have people that do extensive
[1:20:38] Speaker 1: paperwork that I just cannot fill out, you know, And
[1:20:41] Speaker 1: once you have someone that can master these these PaperWorks,
[1:20:45] Speaker 1: then you can get in. They're trying to stop you
[1:20:47] Speaker 1: with the paperwork, you know, they're like, Okay, you have
[1:20:50] Speaker 1: a chance of an eighta government contract, but you got
[1:20:54] Speaker 1: to do this much paperwork.
[1:20:55] Speaker 2: But if you get it done, then you're in the game.
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: So it's just really doing that paperwork sometimes, sending in
[1:21:02] Speaker 1: your tax forms, sending in all your stuff that you.
[1:21:06] Speaker 2: Have to give them, and stay on top of it
[1:21:07] Speaker 2: and it will work.
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: I mean the other day I got a job from
[1:21:11] Speaker 1: the minority business website. A guy called me up. He said,
[1:21:15] Speaker 1: I only want to deal with black businesses, and I
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: went to Brooklyn. I did a big job for him.
[1:21:20] Speaker 6: You know.
[1:21:20] Speaker 2: It was cool. So these things do work.
[1:21:22] Speaker 1: You have to One thing that they set in sales
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: is if you throw enough shit against the wall, something's
[1:21:27] Speaker 1: going to stick. So you have to just put yourself
[1:21:30] Speaker 1: out there, like you got to plaster yourself in your neighborhood,
[1:21:34] Speaker 1: like right now, my neighborhood in Greenberg, I should have
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: my entire neighborhood on lock, like literally, But I didn't
[1:21:41] Speaker 1: really market my neighborhood because I was trying to go
[1:21:44] Speaker 1: to so many bigger affluent areas, you know, the Scarsdale's,
[1:21:48] Speaker 1: the Jerseys, the big areas, you know, because that's really
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: where we make most of my money is and the
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: more affluent areas where you don't really have too much problems.
[1:21:58] Speaker 1: But had I concentrated on my residential, middle class area here,
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: I probably could have did a lot better, to which
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: I still am. I still am going to do that.
[1:22:08] Speaker 1: But you know, it's just a great time for the trade.
[1:22:11] Speaker 2: Man. It's just great man.
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: If you're a female male, you know, it's the time
[1:22:17] Speaker 1: if you're looking for a second career, if you're looking
[1:22:19] Speaker 1: to retire and you just want to get into the
[1:22:22] Speaker 1: trade and just work on your own, you know, do
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: one job a day, two jobs a day.
[1:22:27] Speaker 2: You're still going to make what you were going to
[1:22:28] Speaker 2: make for the week on a.
[1:22:30] Speaker 4: Regular I actually evince obviously going through the home building
[1:22:35] Speaker 4: process and purchasing a lot of the equipment that goes
[1:22:38] Speaker 4: inside that home. What are some of the best systems. Example,
[1:22:42] Speaker 4: we were trying to figure out the water heater situation.
[1:22:44] Speaker 4: I call one of my boys, He's like, Navian is
[1:22:46] Speaker 4: a great company, so we went that for the water heater.
[1:22:48] Speaker 6: What are some of the best systems that you're seeing
[1:22:50] Speaker 6: that you're.
[1:22:51] Speaker 2: Navion and you have Renigh. This is what I've learned
[1:22:57] Speaker 2: over time and a lot of time in the industry.
[1:22:59] Speaker 1: I've installed all of them, Train, Carrier, good Men, all
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: the brands. Now, Carrier started the air conditioning business pretty
[1:23:09] Speaker 1: much that was like the only company at the time.
[1:23:12] Speaker 2: So Carrier is very big.
[1:23:14] Speaker 1: The high end brands are Carrier, Train, what was you say, Carrier, Train, Lennox.
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: Lennox is very big, and all these companies are right
[1:23:27] Speaker 1: here in Westchester too, in Elmsford. So but what I
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: notice is this a lot of the high end brands
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: you could buy, which is great, But if a tech
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: comes to your house and doesn't really have those parts,
[1:23:40] Speaker 1: they're going to be hard to source. They're going to
[1:23:42] Speaker 1: be very expensive and you're going to pay double. A
[1:23:46] Speaker 1: regular brand like a Goodman, which is an American made brand,
[1:23:50] Speaker 1: it's a very strong brand. It's all how the equipment
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: is installed and how it's maintained. You know, you don't
[1:23:57] Speaker 1: want to go too low and some you don't have
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: to go too high. It's almost like clothing, like sneakers.
[1:24:06] Speaker 1: It's almost like Nike Reebok and they're all sneakers and
[1:24:10] Speaker 1: you could wear them and get to the same places.
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: But what do you feel really comfortable in? You know,
[1:24:16] Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's really hard. I would say
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: to stick with a good mid level brand and just
[1:24:25] Speaker 1: take care of your equipment. But if you come to
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: me and I say, well, Rashod Troy, this is the
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: carrier set up for you.
[1:24:32] Speaker 2: Guys.
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: Carriers the top brand, they're the top level. This is
[1:24:36] Speaker 1: the price for that, And I say, well, this is goodman.
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: It's the same size, the same tonnage, the same bt us.
[1:24:43] Speaker 1: It's just a different name, you know. And the parts
[1:24:47] Speaker 1: are on the higher end brands, they're definitely gonna cost
[1:24:50] Speaker 1: you more, and they may not have them readily on
[1:24:52] Speaker 1: your truck.
[1:24:53] Speaker 2: You want to get a brand that everyone is.
[1:24:56] Speaker 1: Comfortable with and parts are easily ready avail ball and
[1:25:01] Speaker 1: they're able to source. You know, a lot of customers
[1:25:03] Speaker 1: go into really high tech German boilers, bagarius boilers and
[1:25:08] Speaker 1: very high tech stuff. And the more high tech you
[1:25:11] Speaker 1: get is the more chances for things to go wrong.
[1:25:14] Speaker 1: If you're gonna buy a washing machine right now, it's
[1:25:17] Speaker 1: better you buy a washing machine with all that computer
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: stuff out of there and get you the one with
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: the turn knob and the knobs that turn, and that
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: one's gonna last you longer than the ones with all
[1:25:27] Speaker 1: the computers in them.
[1:25:29] Speaker 3: So okay, before we I got this is an important question.
[1:25:33] Speaker 3: How do you know how to price?
[1:25:34] Speaker 5: Because even for me, like you know, we big different contractors,
[1:25:37] Speaker 5: and a lot of times, honestly, it's like who has
[1:25:39] Speaker 5: the best price in full transparency, Like it'll be like
[1:25:43] Speaker 5: somebody putting in glass and it's like, if this one
[1:25:45] Speaker 5: person is seven thousand dollars cheaper than another person, that's
[1:25:48] Speaker 5: the determined if fact of what I'm going to use.
[1:25:50] Speaker 5: But that doesn't necessarily always mean that that's the best.
[1:25:53] Speaker 5: So I know, as a business owner, you don't want
[1:25:56] Speaker 5: to race to the bottom, but you also don't want
[1:25:58] Speaker 5: to price yourself out right because there's always going to
[1:26:00] Speaker 5: somebody that's going to be cheaper. So you, as a
[1:26:02] Speaker 5: business owner, how do you know this is the right
[1:26:05] Speaker 5: price to charge. And I'm gonna stand on this or
[1:26:08] Speaker 5: I might negotiate. If somebody wants to negotiate, I might
[1:26:11] Speaker 5: lower it. How do you how do you determine that?
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: Well, there's so many deciding factors. You almost got to
[1:26:18] Speaker 1: be able to read your customer right away. You've got
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: to be able to read the whole situation. You got
[1:26:23] Speaker 1: to be able to read the room, like very very quickly.
[1:26:30] Speaker 2: Me personally.
[1:26:31] Speaker 1: I mean, normally we charge one thirty five an hour
[1:26:34] Speaker 1: to show up, you know, for the hour.
[1:26:40] Speaker 2: My pricing.
[1:26:42] Speaker 1: Let me see, Like, let's say it's a water heater, right,
[1:26:46] Speaker 1: and it's a water heater job. Water heater costs twelve
[1:26:51] Speaker 1: hundred bucks or one thousand dollars, And you're saying, I like,
[1:26:55] Speaker 1: I want to.
[1:26:56] Speaker 2: Charge you now to do this water heater job.
[1:26:59] Speaker 1: I want to charge you twenty five hundred or close
[1:27:03] Speaker 1: to three grand, you know, And you're like, well, Evince,
[1:27:06] Speaker 1: I can get it for two grand.
[1:27:07] Speaker 2: I think at that point, once I talk to you
[1:27:11] Speaker 2: and I explain to you the situation, and I.
[1:27:17] Speaker 1: Give you the knowledge and the education part side of me,
[1:27:21] Speaker 1: where you see that you're getting a vast amount of
[1:27:24] Speaker 1: information and knowledge to where you just start to get
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: so interested in trusting me that I don't think my
[1:27:33] Speaker 1: price is really going to matter at that point. But
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: like certain things, I stand on, like just because at
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: this point, like let's say a boiler cleaning, if you
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: say cleanness for two hundred dollars, I may not do
[1:27:48] Speaker 1: that anymore because I know that for four hundred dollars
[1:27:53] Speaker 1: and six hundred dollars you're going to get the full deal.
[1:27:57] Speaker 1: You know, you kind of almost get what you pay
[1:27:59] Speaker 1: for in this trade. But I do stand on my
[1:28:02] Speaker 1: Okay prime example. You just asked that I finally met
[1:28:05] Speaker 1: my first big whale a developer.
[1:28:07] Speaker 2: Recently.
[1:28:08] Speaker 1: I finally met my first big guy and he asked
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: me to give him a bid for a big, swanky
[1:28:14] Speaker 1: Manhattan apartment in the village.
[1:28:17] Speaker 2: It's not even an apartment. They owned the whole floor.
[1:28:19] Speaker 1: Like every apartment owns their own floor, third floor owns
[1:28:22] Speaker 1: one person owns the whole third floor another person. So
[1:28:27] Speaker 1: he asked me to give him a bid. He had
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: seven bids. I gave him a bid on two water
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: cool units. I gave him a bid for forty six thousand.
[1:28:35] Speaker 1: He called me back. This guy's been in the business
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: for forty something years. Big Russian developer, big guy. He
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: builds bills in Times square everything. He said, Vince, I'm
[1:28:45] Speaker 1: gonna tell you something. He said, I've been doing this
[1:28:47] Speaker 1: for a long time. He said, I had seven bids.
[1:28:49] Speaker 1: Everybody came in at fifty eight thousand, fifty seven thousand,
[1:28:53] Speaker 1: and fifty six.
[1:28:54] Speaker 2: You came in at forty six thousand. He said.
[1:28:57] Speaker 1: There was another bid that came in for forty one thousand.
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: I said, why didn't you go with the bid for
[1:29:02] Speaker 1: forty one thousand? And he said, personally, I could look
[1:29:06] Speaker 1: at people and I could tell whether you know what
[1:29:08] Speaker 1: you're doing or you don't know what you're doing. He said,
[1:29:11] Speaker 1: the bid for forty one thousand came in. They were
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: cheaper than you, But he said, I don't trust in
[1:29:15] Speaker 1: my heart that they really know what they're doing. He said,
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: I would rather pay you more because I just trust
[1:29:22] Speaker 1: and know that you're going to do the right thing.
[1:29:25] Speaker 1: So that's when I learned really the art of value selling.
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: You could sell yourself to a point where it doesn't
[1:29:32] Speaker 1: matter anymore of what the price is or what everything is.
[1:29:36] Speaker 1: People want to be involved with you and they know
[1:29:39] Speaker 1: that you're going to see the project through. So that
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: taught me a valuable lesson just recently that you can't
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: be too high and you can't be too low, but
[1:29:49] Speaker 1: you've got to also sell yourself with that price. So
[1:29:54] Speaker 1: the guy with the glass who's seven thousand, he might
[1:29:57] Speaker 1: you got to go with your heart reaction. He may
[1:29:59] Speaker 1: not have giving you that feel that he's really there.
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: But the guy for nine thousand, you might see their
[1:30:06] Speaker 1: setup and be like, nah, you know, they look official
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: and they seem right, and you know, you know, but
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: when you're just concentrating on just trying to get the
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: cheapest thing, then you're going to get the cheapest thing,
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: you know.
[1:30:20] Speaker 2: So that even taught me a lesson recently.
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: So I'm glad I came in just at the right price,
[1:30:25] Speaker 1: and moreover, he saw the value in me, you know.
[1:30:30] Speaker 1: So I think once you really sell yourself as a
[1:30:33] Speaker 1: person and what you can do, and you're talking the
[1:30:36] Speaker 1: right things, you're able to connect with people.
[1:30:39] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:30:39] Speaker 1: One thing I used to always get teased that growing
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: up in high schools was the way that I talked,
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: because I talked very proper and growing up around a
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: lot of my friends and stuff, I used to always
[1:30:49] Speaker 1: get teased. But it has helped me out in the
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: business world to pronunciate and enunciate and to talk with
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: a proper you know, uh.
[1:31:02] Speaker 2: You know, yeah vernacular, you know. So you know that
[1:31:06] Speaker 2: has helped me a lot too.
[1:31:08] Speaker 1: Also when I call customers on the phone, when I
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: get to the house, they're like, are you the same
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: guy that's on the phone, And I'm like, yeah, you know,
[1:31:16] Speaker 1: it's me. They're like, you sound you know. But I
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: think that I think everything plays a part. How you look,
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: how you act, your walk, your talk. Your customers can
[1:31:26] Speaker 1: smell fear, you know, and once they smell that fear,
[1:31:30] Speaker 1: you're over with. So you have to have that that
[1:31:34] Speaker 1: you know, that aura about you that you know, that
[1:31:37] Speaker 1: savoy fair, you know that.
[1:31:41] Speaker 6: A little swag, that swag with you.
[1:31:44] Speaker 5: Well, evince Man greatly appreciate it. I think that this
[1:31:48] Speaker 5: was extremely insightful conversation.
[1:31:51] Speaker 2: Here.
[1:31:52] Speaker 5: You know, it's one of these things, like I said,
[1:31:54] Speaker 5: it was long overdue as far as for us to
[1:31:56] Speaker 5: have a conversation with somebody in the trades, and I'm
[1:31:59] Speaker 5: glad that we was able to have the conversation.
[1:32:01] Speaker 3: Or you did a great job for you boy University.
[1:32:04] Speaker 3: So that was that was like the testing ground to see,
[1:32:07] Speaker 3: like you know, for the big shells the report.
[1:32:11] Speaker 2: Now you made well I didn't come dressed for the
[1:32:14] Speaker 2: drip report.
[1:32:14] Speaker 5: But you no, no, you actually trussed exactly how you
[1:32:18] Speaker 5: That's actually if you were to ask me, that's how
[1:32:20] Speaker 5: because that's what we're portraying, right, Like you you got
[1:32:23] Speaker 5: the uniform on. That's smart, So you actually dressed. I
[1:32:27] Speaker 5: was actually just thinking that, like you, you dressed exactly
[1:32:30] Speaker 5: how you were supposed to dress for the conversation, because
[1:32:33] Speaker 5: that's the conversation that we're having, right and there's there's
[1:32:35] Speaker 5: millions of people that's trying to figure it out, that
[1:32:39] Speaker 5: might not have went to college, that's struggling, that's trying
[1:32:42] Speaker 5: to and it's like there's opportunities out here. And like
[1:32:47] Speaker 5: I said, this isn't just us saying it is a
[1:32:49] Speaker 5: billionaires and corporations. They're saying, like in the age of AI,
[1:32:54] Speaker 5: one thing that's still going to be here and still
[1:32:56] Speaker 5: going to be thriving is trades.
[1:32:59] Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a huge report with Dario who's the
[1:33:03] Speaker 4: CEO of Anthropic, and they asked him the skills that
[1:33:07] Speaker 4: his company are not going to the road and HVAC
[1:33:12] Speaker 4: was one of them, plumbing was one of them, Nursing
[1:33:14] Speaker 4: was one of these. Are in high demand professions that
[1:33:16] Speaker 4: are going to pay well. A lot of the ones
[1:33:18] Speaker 4: that are going to be disrupted and interrupted with high
[1:33:21] Speaker 4: degree professionals. Lawyers, some doctors, some health professionals. So this
[1:33:25] Speaker 4: is a spot on and the fact that we know
[1:33:28] Speaker 4: somebody that's from our neighborhood. This is not like, oh
[1:33:30] Speaker 4: I can't see it. We've seen it happen in our neighborhood.
[1:33:33] Speaker 4: So kudos to you.
[1:33:34] Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Man. I appreciate that.
[1:33:37] Speaker 5: And I'll just you know, I actually so I had
[1:33:41] Speaker 5: this whole thing planned out because I wanted to see
[1:33:42] Speaker 5: how you did on UU University. That's because somebody is
[1:33:46] Speaker 5: good at what they do, that's what I learned. That
[1:33:47] Speaker 5: doesn't mean they can communicate what they do. Yeah, and
[1:33:50] Speaker 5: that's two different things. And that's not wrong with that.
[1:33:52] Speaker 5: Everybody's not made to actually communicate publicly. That's fine, but
[1:33:57] Speaker 5: it's always great when you can communicate publicly and false.
[1:33:59] Speaker 5: So wanted to see what you did on U I University.
[1:34:02] Speaker 5: You passed that test and then and then that was
[1:34:04] Speaker 5: like the gateway to earn your Lesia. But I did
[1:34:07] Speaker 5: say a spot if you're interested this year for invest Fest,
[1:34:10] Speaker 5: definitely want to have a conversation about the trades.
[1:34:14] Speaker 3: So if you're interested, you know, we'll love to have
[1:34:18] Speaker 3: you there.
[1:34:22] Speaker 1: I ask you just to say, you know, invest Fest
[1:34:26] Speaker 1: needs a little blue collar action. You know, absolutely, you
[1:34:31] Speaker 1: don't want to scare away the blue collar guys because
[1:34:34] Speaker 1: you know they think, you know, it's big business this,
[1:34:37] Speaker 1: but you know we're here.
[1:34:38] Speaker 2: You know, we need to have them feel comfortable, especially
[1:34:41] Speaker 2: in Atlanta. Man. I mean all the h fact guys
[1:34:45] Speaker 2: and the trade guys.
[1:34:46] Speaker 1: That are out there, carpenters, just construction guys, everybody like
[1:34:50] Speaker 1: you know, they would like to feel a little bit
[1:34:53] Speaker 1: warm there too. You know, not the big stage, the
[1:34:57] Speaker 1: big stage, but you know, if we can get on
[1:34:59] Speaker 1: any you know, little small stages, that's.
[1:35:01] Speaker 4: You know, small stages. There's no small stages here. Okay,
[1:35:04] Speaker 4: there's only big stage. And that's why it's the point.
[1:35:07] Speaker 4: So what I'm saying is now is like once they
[1:35:09] Speaker 4: see this episode and they see you, I just hope
[1:35:11] Speaker 4: you prepared for NonStop questioning because people are going to
[1:35:15] Speaker 4: be so inquisitive because now they see somebody that looks
[1:35:18] Speaker 4: like them, especially so in the what's indias, and yeah,
[1:35:21] Speaker 4: we need to see somebody that's doing it at a
[1:35:23] Speaker 4: high level.
[1:35:23] Speaker 6: Man. So again, super proudly love.
[1:35:25] Speaker 2: To be there. Man, just let me know.
[1:35:28] Speaker 1: I'll be there and I would love to talk to them,
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: and I would love to inspire the next person, because
[1:35:32] Speaker 1: someone's going to get inspired and someone's going to do it.
[1:35:36] Speaker 1: Someone's going to say, Okay, I'm going to follow the
[1:35:38] Speaker 1: process and get it done. And if they need help,
[1:35:41] Speaker 1: I'm here. You know, I'm in the helping process of
[1:35:44] Speaker 1: my stage with my career. It's not that much. So
[1:35:48] Speaker 1: you know, I just want to see somebody else do it.
[1:35:50] Speaker 1: You know, somebody else like the black sheep of the family,
[1:35:53] Speaker 1: the people who've been in jail or drug abuse, that
[1:35:57] Speaker 1: you've had the checkered past. I want those people to
[1:36:01] Speaker 1: just hone in and just say I'm going to show everybody.
[1:36:04] Speaker 1: I'm going to be that person that's going to break
[1:36:06] Speaker 1: the mold. And you know, I'm going to show them
[1:36:09] Speaker 1: that I could do. I could buy a house, I
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: could do, I could live that American dream. You know,
[1:36:13] Speaker 1: I know it's there for everybody. It's just finding that
[1:36:16] Speaker 1: path to the income.
[1:36:18] Speaker 5: You know, So what what's your what's what's your Instagram?
[1:36:22] Speaker 5: What's the website? What's all of that information?
[1:36:24] Speaker 1: My Instagram is Vincent underscored, Taylor Underscore HVAC Services. You'll
[1:36:31] Speaker 1: see me under basically Vincent Taylor HVAC Services. I'm on
[1:36:36] Speaker 1: there on Instagram. That's pretty much mostly what I use.
[1:36:41] Speaker 1: I don't really use too much websites or anything, but
[1:36:44] Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram mostly.
[1:36:46] Speaker 2: You can see me on Facebook too as well.
[1:36:49] Speaker 3: And what what if somebody wants to hire you, Like,
[1:36:51] Speaker 3: what's the area that you cover?
[1:36:54] Speaker 1: Well, I'm licensed for New Jersey and Westchester. I also
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: have some licensing in Connecticut. I pretty much cover everywhere
[1:37:03] Speaker 1: that you know I can go to to help you
[1:37:05] Speaker 1: or if you have licenses for that area area yeah,
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: Tri State area, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, you know yeah,
[1:37:16] Speaker 1: Tri State area.
[1:37:18] Speaker 6: We got to make sure you locked down Greenberg.
[1:37:20] Speaker 3: Now do you want me to tell the Halloween story
[1:37:22] Speaker 3: or no?
[1:37:23] Speaker 2: Oh?
[1:37:23] Speaker 7: Man, Rasha, this guy? Can we have a positive note?
[1:37:29] Speaker 7: I don't know what happened with that Halloween thing, but brooding,
[1:37:37] Speaker 7: it's all love.
[1:37:38] Speaker 1: But a good a good see you doing great? And
[1:37:43] Speaker 1: you know what I want to say? Congratulations on the
[1:37:47] Speaker 1: green jackets. It was actually two So Troy, I'm telling
[1:37:51] Speaker 1: you this, Rashad. There's a Jamaican saying good friends are
[1:37:56] Speaker 1: better than pocket money. And you got a good friend
[1:37:59] Speaker 1: right there, so you know, definitely, I just look at
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: a jeans jacket, but I'm trying.
[1:38:05] Speaker 2: We don't get you.
[1:38:07] Speaker 6: We don't get you there.
[1:38:07] Speaker 2: I'm gonna get the green jacket. What jean jacket in Oh,
[1:38:12] Speaker 2: the jean jacket is just a blue collar jacket.
[1:38:14] Speaker 6: You know.
[1:38:15] Speaker 2: I'm still a blue collar. But I'm getting there.
[1:38:17] Speaker 6: All perfect, perfect, get my green now.
[1:38:22] Speaker 5: I appreciate it, man, Definitely insightful conversation. I'm glad that
[1:38:25] Speaker 5: you know, we had the conversation. And yeah, man, see
[1:38:29] Speaker 5: you at investments.
[1:38:30] Speaker 2: Definitely all right, bro, appreciate all right.
[1:38:34] Speaker 6: Gosh, well number one that was.
[1:38:37] Speaker 3: That's been real. Okay, we'll see you guys next week, please,

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