Talk With Mike Russo from Jersey Mike HVAC

And then the show starts in... Hey, for the guys that don't know, you are Jersey Mike from Jersey Mike HVAC on YouTube. Yes, sir. So my first question, let me change a few things on here so that I can see comments. My first question is, is Jersey Mike really from Jersey? I am. I grew up there. All I left when I was about, I don't know, 19, 20 years old. I traveled around the country. I worked in a lot of different states up and down the East Coast. I'm out in the Midwest now, right. but I made my way back to Jersey eventually. Thank you very much, Troy. And that's when I started the YouTube channel. And I just decided to name it Jersey Mike. I wasn't, you know, really trying to come up with anything brilliant. And even though I'm not there now, the name just kind of stuck. Okay. Okay. Well, for the guys watching, I know I started a little bit early. Oh, forgive me. Will you tell us how you got in the trades, like the background of, we talked about a little bit of it, how you got into it and then what you did in the middle and basically what you're doing now? So, basically, I knew as a kid I was going to be getting into the trades. I was always curious. I like to take things apart, see how they worked and everything. So, by the time... I hit high school age. We had a four-year vocational high school right there in town, so I went straight to that, and I studied HVAC and stationary engineering, and for those who might not know what that is, you're working with boilers generating steam for commercial industrial applications and that kind of stuff. After I finished the program, it was a four-year high school program, I decided to go to college. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to major in. I just wanted to kind of go for the major courses like physics, chemistry, critical thinking, stuff like that. I didn't really look at college like a ticket to anything in particular. It was just something I wanted to do. And when I got to the point they wanted me to start taking these like elective classes like history or basket weaving or something, I was like, that's it, I'm done, I'm out. I decided to go back into the workforce and I just happened to run into a friend that was doing HVAC at the time. They were looking for help and so I started there. I was a helper for a little while on an install side, became a lead, then I started doing service and I did that for about I want to say about seven years, seven, eight years, and at that point, I was still kind of young, like maybe late 20s, and I decided to start looking into the stationary engineering side, so I got in touch with a buddy I went to school with, and he was working for the local power company, it was union, you know, paid well, he was able to get me in, so I started working at the local power plant. Generating electricity for the power grid. So I was running this 12-story tall boiler, 3600 PSI of steam, putting out about 1200 megawatts of power on the grid, which when you do all the math on that, it's like. 4 billion BTUs per hour or something like that. So I was sold. I loved it. I figured that's what I'd be doing for the rest of my life. Man, that's a different kind of boiler. I've never seen anything like that. I was hooked, man. Was it coal-powered? Yeah, this was a coal-fired power plant. And it was during the Obama administration. There was all that environmental movements. Everything coal was shutting down across the country at the time. And the plant I was working at didn't survive. They ended up shutting that down. So I ended up going over to a combined cycle, which is all natural gas. And I ran that plant for a few years. And then they announced they were shutting that one down. So at that point, the only option I had to keep my job title was to start looking at nuclear. So I started taking all the aptitude tests. I passed. I mean, you've got to pass this whole battery of tests even to qualify to apply for the job. And at that point. I was qualified, I was just waiting for an opening, but I was on the clock because the plant was shutting down. And as you can imagine, there aren't a whole lot of those jobs that pop up. I mean, I think in the state at the time, there were like only 36 people that actually held that job title, you know, and they were all union, great benefits, great money. Those guys don't leave until they retire. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, let me ask you about that trip with the union See, we don't have union. Well, we do have union down here, but it's very limited. Um Getting a union job the first time, and how was that? I mean, did you have to go through an apprenticeship or anything like that? I didn't have to go through an apprenticeship, but it was a very long process. I mean, I knew two guys on the inside, one of which was my actual trade school instructor, and it still took me two years to get in. I mean, it was, it was. A long, long process. But once I was in, they didn't really have a formal apprenticeship program, but it was the gateway to keep moving up into, you know, the point, like I said, I mean, I got all the way to the point where I was at the doorstep of running a nuclear power plant. So, I mean, that had its own kind of, the company itself had its own structure. It wasn't really union, but. Yeah, that requires a level of technical knowledge. Like I said, I've never even seen a boiler that big. I maybe have driven by one. We have coal-fired plants down here. Yeah. All right. I want to get into like the last two videos that you put on YouTube. Yep. You were basically talking about the labor pool or the workforce or the young guys coming in nowadays. I'm starting I can't help but agree that some of the guys getting into the trades just seem like they would rather figure out some kind of way to be a full-time video game streamer or something like that. to They don't really want to put in the work. Um But then again, I do see young guys stepping up and learning the trade and coming in. now. And, you know, like I told you, it's like I think sometimes. All blue collar. Trades for going back forever have been making the same complaint that the young guys don't want to put in the work. They don't want to put in the time. So your videos kind of just sparked my interest about what is the labor pool like where you are? What it's like where I am is pretty much the same as everywhere else. I mean, I'm seeing the same stuff everybody else is. You know, I almost didn't do those videos. It's not the normal stuff I kind of do, but I thought it was something important because that video, from my perspective, it wasn't a generational thing. It wasn't about these particular kids or this generation in particular. I mean, we've had this problem, you know, kids being lazy and stuff going all the way back, several generations. It's nothing new. The problem I'm having, the way I look at this, is that the pipeline, the way kids come in to the trades has changed over the decades. It's totally different. And when you look at that structure of these kids coming in, they're at more of a disadvantage now than they ever were before. So when you find these kids coming into the trades and they're not getting the exposure they need beforehand to start off in the trades on the right step, Honestly, I don't think it's entirely their fault. I mean, it's the pipeline that's broken that's making it seem like they're worse than ever before, but they're not. It's just the way we're bringing them in. And to that point, it's not that I know this from experience, but I watch other people like Mike Rowe talk about things like this. And one of the things they mention is that shop classes have been basically taken out of high schools. Yeah. And that's. For some people, and it would have been for me, I was in these college prep classes all the way through. I didn't take shop, but it would have been an introduction to something blue-collar for me that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. Absolutely. There's this... I kind of read back on the history of this a little bit, and back in the early 80s, there was a commission put together, government people, Department of Education, industry professionals, and I think it was 1983, they put out a report that was called... A nation at risk. You could probably Google it, read it, but basically they were sounding the alarm bells on the quality of public education, especially at the high school level. I mean, they were saying it's mediocre. It's not good enough. It's not setting these kids on a successful path to go into college and all that. And so that's when you started hearing the push for college, college, college. Everybody's got to go to college and everything. And around 1990, all the states started passing new regulations, new, more rigorous standards for these high schools. And so these schools had to put a push on college prep courses and all that and to rearrange all their funding to do that. One of the first things to go was the shop classes. I mean, it costs a lot of money to run all that equipment in the school and it wasn't serving to meet those new standards. So that was the first thing to go. The problem is, is that those new standards also apply to four-year vocational high schools. And we're not talking about just one period shop class where you're building birdhouses. I mean, that's the purpose of the whole school. You spend half the day studying a trade. And with these new standards, those schools were at an even greater disadvantage and they just started closing down. You know, some of them completely transformed who they are. So what ended up happening is you have this whole section of society of kids growing up in households where they're not getting that introduction to the mechanical aptitude and everything. The shops are gone. John, you know, the... The trade schools started disappearing and what kind of swooped in to take the place were these for-profit. Trade schools with these short term programs, you know, and you know how that is. So it's a shame. Yeah. Yeah. They will take these people's money and not help them. Yeah. It's hard. Well, from my experience going through high school, I felt like the only option that was even remotely acceptable to anybody with any kind of aptitude was college prep and shoot for. Going to college, and so that's the path that I took. I thought that's what I should have done. I went into mechanical engineering, and I didn't complete a degree. I mean, I've got other degrees, but I didn't finish mechanical engineering, and that just didn't work for me, and what I have found in working in HVAC, I honestly think I'm happier doing this than I ever would have been. As a mechanical engineer, and I'll be honest, I haven't met a mechanical engineer that works for somebody else. I mean, there might be some individual people who work for themselves as contractors, but I haven't met one that makes the money that I do. Yeah. So I feel like I made the right decision. I kind of stumbled upon it. Okay. Um. It worked out this way for me, but I felt like going to college was the only option I had when. The truth is, if I had been led into the trades, I think I would have done great. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, in our generation growing up, that's what we were drilled into our heads. College, college, college. And, you know, a lot of people went that direction and found it wasn't really for them. And so, I mean, it doesn't surprise me a lot of people fell into the trades later on. I have found a few people through doing these talks that went straight into the trades out of high school. There are some that did that. They may have grown up in a family of tradesmen, and they were prepped for it that way. But, like, my dad was an engineer. His father was an engineer. Both of them mechanical engineers. My dad worked for DuPont or Westinghouse. Because if you're familiar, nobody's... We lived in the North Augusta, South Carolina area, and there's a place there called the Boom Plant. They call it the Boom Plant. Mm-mm. Pretending like they make nuclear bombs, they just make nuclear material for bombs. Yeah. And so everybody calls it the Bone Plant. My dad worked at the Bone Plant. First it was DuPont, and then it was Westinghouse. You know, I thought that was what I was supposed to do. You know, following those footsteps. Yeah, it's written. I feel like I'm much happier than I think I ever would have been sitting behind a desk designing something for somebody else to do. I like doing it. And in fact, my dad complained almost his whole career that his mechanics, who were earning money by the hour, were making more money than he was. And he would actually go out onto the jobs and try to run these cranes. He envied his mechanics, let's put it that way. Yeah. He did. Yeah, I've come to notice that a lot of guys, they did the same thing. They went to college, then they decided it wasn't for them. They went into the trades. And honestly, I think... That's what made them really good techs. They have that dual aptitude. They have that mental acuity to go to college and succeed there if they wanted to, but they also have that blue-collar grit at the same time. And I think if you have both of those qualities, you can really make a great living in the trades. You can. Let's just say I am happy with how things turned out. You know, I was the kind of person that. When I started working for somebody else, I wasn't just learning how to do my physical job. I was learning every aspect of the business where I was working. And I'm not just seeing that, hey, I'm billing out $4,000 a day. I'm seeing the good aspects of how they're running their business. I'm seeing the bad aspects about it. I'm putting those in the back of my mind, making notes not to do this in the future. And then one day I just said. I'm gonna go after my state license and it worked out. Once I got it though my employers started seeing me as a threat. One after another let me go and the last time it was like I didn't have any I didn't have any clients, I didn't have any customers, I didn't have any advertisements. I wasn't in the yellow pages or anything like that and my option was to go find another job. Or just actually start a business and jump in it with both feet. And because my wife was working, she was still making a respectable salary, I just jumped in. And if it weren't for, like, rental companies really helping me out and giving me business and helping me keep my doors open, it would have been rough. You know, honestly, probably those first three years, all combined, I may have paid myself, like, $20,000. Yeah. Yeah, I've known a lot of people that didn't really make a lot of money for quite a while when they first started out. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why I never made the full jump in. It was because, I mean, my wife would stay at home. I was the only person bringing home money to pay the bills. And it just seemed like really high risk. I couldn't imagine keeping that money coming in to really succeed at it. And so it always kind of scared me off. Thank you man. I really do appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks for watching all the videos. Like my dad, he wasn't just a mechanical engineer. There's another qualification, a little bit higher than that, called a professional engineer. You have to pass another test. He was a professional engineer, which means he could have started his own business if he wanted to, but he was always afraid of losing health insurance. And looking back, I felt like if he had just taken that step out and just done it, he would have lost that fear the first time he could bill out what he's really worth, you know, and that's, that's to me about being a business owner. I tell people, if you can start a business and that first time you bill out what you're really worth and you get paid what you're really worth instead of an hourly wage. Oh, man, it just feels so good. Yeah. It does. Like, for example, just doing a compressor, a regular residential compressor may cost the customer nowadays $2,500, $3,000. You're going to make close to $2,000 profit. Right. So that's what you're getting paid instead of four hours labor. Yeah. And that, to me, the first time something like that happened, it was just wonderful. I was like, man, this is... Yeah, you got to rush. A lot more. It's addictive, you know what I mean? Yeah. I've never jacked up prices. I've always tried to keep an honest price, competitive with the people who are doing a good job in my area, but an honest price with everything that I do. And if there's some guys that aren't in the trades and they hear that $2,000 profit, I mean, part of that's on refrigerant, part of that's on labor, there's part of it marked up on the compressor, it adds up, and it's a very technical job, and yeah, you're paying that much for somebody to do a good job on something that's very technical, so it's... Yeah, I mean, I was shocked when I... First, really got a good glimpse on what it takes to run a business. I mean, you have your average local shop, maybe 15 guys, 20 guys. And I mean, just the cost of running that business on a monthly basis, like 300,000 plus, you know, and everybody thinks that you're rolling in the money, but it costs so much to keep the doors open and keep everything going. Yeah, no kidding. I didn't. Because I work by myself, I don't have a lot of the overhead that some of those businesses have. So I have a higher profit margin. But still, even, for example, on a slow year, if I bill out like $500,000, it's going to cost me over $300,000 in everything that I'm buying, in my insurance, in my rent, in my vehicles, in workers' comp, and all that stuff. Yeah. $300,000 for a one-man shop just to stay open? That's crazy. It costs a lot of money. Let me see. What does Mr. Randy say here about Mike? Mike has helped me rethink some things while Curtis has shown me some things I've never seen before. I don't know. Is that good or bad? Some of the things I show on my videos are like roach-infested places. This is... I did a job today for... Well, he's a fan. And a customer, I've done an install for him, but he watches all my videos and he, he, he told me today, I don't know how you go in some of the places you go in. It just seems so nasty. And I told him, I said, the landlords for those places pay me the same rate and the same amount of money that you're paying me today. So I do it. Why not? I'm not afraid of a roach. I don't want to bring them home, but I'm not afraid of one. Yeah, I mean, it's just the nature of the trade. You're going to have days like that. I mean, I don't think you're ever really going to get away from it unless you're just not in the field. Yeah, you know, commercial stuff has its own problems too. I worked with one company one time. We did everything except, I would say, everything that would be like 10 tons and under, including walk-in coolers and freezers. Drink coolers and all that stuff in restaurants, and I saw some nasty stuff in restaurants. We did ice machines and everything into them. Oh, my. Now, that's some nasty stuff. Yeah, especially the restaurants, man. I've done quite a few of those. It's bad. Oh, Just changing a motor or bearings in a draft hood on top of a kitchen in a restaurant. my Oh, my word. Oh, man. It always seems like, I mean, no matter how many times you've been there, it always seems like when you go back, nobody's been there since the install. God. I mean, you can really tell. Oh, man. It can be rough. I tell people, try not to ever work at your favorite restaurant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It won't be your favorite anymore. No, uh-uh. I was working at a high hop once, and when I found out how many rats and roaches were up in that attic, I never went back. Here's a question. How long have you owned your business, Curtis? I have since 2010, so 15 years. That's the longest I've ever held one job. Before I opened my own business, I kind of hopped around from one company to another, and some of that wasn't my own decision, but sometimes technicians do that to get a raise. from one company to another, somebody offers them a dollar more, and they go over there, and three or four months later, they want to go back. I've seen that plenty, not just technicians. I've seen install helpers do that. As soon as they know how to install condensing in it, they're looking for $2 or $3 more somewhere else, and they usually get it, too. Yeah, I mean, it... Companies are so hard to find guys that have experience that it almost seems like these companies are just trying to steal guys from one another. Oh, yeah. It takes a dollar or two to get them. In some cases, they do. Yeah. They do. You just outright just steal them. They recruit them from other companies. Oh, yeah. I walk into a Home Depot half the time. If I have a company shirt on or something, the guys, you know, he comes straight up to me. He's like, are you happy where you are? You know? They try really hard to find people out there. Well, I've done the same thing. You know, when I was trying to grow my business, I would hang out at the part shop, and I knew who the good technicians were. I knew who they were, the older guys. And I would tell them, you know, hey, I can match what you're making now. But like we talked about before the show started, they were at a place that had healthcare and 401K, and they had been there for like 10 years. They didn't want to leave. Yeah. I mean. They were happy where they were. I mean, and those were the people that I was trying to get, the good ones. Yeah. I mean, I've noticed, I mean, most of the companies I worked for were the smaller residential companies, local companies and everything. And I noticed a lot of these companies, they kind of. They operate when in a way where they have one main guy, like the one service tech, you can always depend on them for like any kind of problem. And then most of the other techs are kind of like, you know, they're still learning and stuff like they could fill in a lot, but they can't do everything. And then they have that one main install guy who's really, really good. And then everybody else from that position is kind of learning. So they have those one pillar guys. And they do whatever they can to keep those guys. They pay them well and treat them well. And those are the hard guys to get because these companies depend so much on them. I know. Hard to pull them away. I can understand. I can understand. And we talked about this before the show. My problem was not just getting good help, but keeping good help. Yeah. There are very few people that work for me that I would actually hire again. I'm And one of them was a former business owner himself. starting He started a business doing under the house dehumidification. He was the only person around here doing it. And eventually realized that I wasn't going to be able to keep him. to speak. He himself was bigger than my company. Let's put it that way. And, um... So that one didn't work, and that installer, I had one installer who was a great installer, but he could never figure out surface work. He just could not do it. As much as I tried and I needed him to, couldn't do it, just could not do it. But most of the employees, though, that I've had have left in a bad way. I had trouble with guys doing drugs, wrecking vehicles, taking my jobs. Doing them on the side, talking my dispatcher into giving them calls that come through my phone for them to do for cash on the side using my van and my supplies. And I'm paying them. Yeah, there is a lot of that out there, man. There's a whole lot of it. I've seen plenty of it myself. And that'll break a small company that's trying to grow. Yeah. I mean. Talk about profit margin, that kills you. Oh, yeah. We had one guy, he wrecked one of the vans, man, and the insurance from that point on was just insane. You know what I mean? It just added that monthly cost that just stays there for, you know. Years. Yeah, yeah. I had a guy wreck one of my vans. He totaled it. That's Riley. Hey, come here. Give me that. He totaled one of my, I got to get that. Hold on. Give me that. Come here. I had an E250, and he was flipping with his phone and rear-ended somebody and totaled my van. And that person was the last person that I hired. When that happened, he wasn't just flipping on his phone. He was looking at his second phone because he was dealing drugs out of the van while he was working. When I figured all this stuff out, I'm like, nope, I've had enough. That's enough. We better leave that alone. I'm trying to get him to make an appearance. Have you seen Riley? Yeah, I've seen him in a couple of videos. The background there rolling around. Well, he's a card. That's what he was playing with. He decided this morning that it was time to get up about 4 o'clock in the morning. If you fight it, I mean, he's just going to fight you. He's going to lick you or put his paw on your face, go scratch on the door until you get up. So there's no sense in fighting him. Yeah, I had to put my dog up for this because if I let him out, man, he'd be sitting on my lap right now. Seventy 70-pound lap dog. I love dogs. Oh, I might put out a video tomorrow. I was at a house today. I filmed it, and the neighbor's yard was right, I mean, their fence was right beside me, and there's a full-grown male Great Dane in there. and he's got a four foot fence he puts his paws on top of the fence and stands up he could get out that thing anytime but when he put his paws on it and stood up i mean half his body's already over the top of the fence probably just as tall as you are that's a massive creature man thank god he was friendly to start once i register my HP Daniel be a little more More specific, I'll just talk once I'm ready. Do you already have your state licenses? Do you have your insurance? Be a little more specific. You need good help and a trustworthy bookkeeper. That's the next comment. And my bookkeeper is QuickBooks. Thank you. I trust QuickBooks. Yeah, they ain't going to steal from me. What money they take from me, I actually give to them in a payment. Here's another one. Do you ever plan on getting any bigger than you are now? I tried that and it didn't really work. We discussed it a little bit. I just couldn't get the employees that I needed to grow my business and keep them. Honestly, I make more money now than I ever did when I had employees. So it's just like this. I guess until maybe if I get physically where I can't do the work, then I might just retire. Bunch of comments coming in. Will you tell some of what you told me before we came on air about what you're actually doing now with the company you're working with? Right now, I was kind of put in a position where I'm trying to train guys as much as I can. I mean, I still I'm still out there doing installs and service and stuff like that. But we're trying to get all the guys to a point where, you know, we got a solid crew and I'm just kind of bouncing around. I'm doing training. I'm, you know, trying to get find ways for the company to run more efficiently. So it's kind of more like a managerial position. But I'm still out in the field and I'm still doing the work. So I get to mix it up a little bit and see all the angles of everything that's going on in the business and just try to make it, you know, as efficient and smooth as possible and try to get these guys training that they need. So are you able to meet them on the job and show them firsthand how to do what they're trying to do? Yep, absolutely. That's exactly what I do. You know, sometimes once in a while, I mean, we do have a training room that we're building in the shop and, you know, during the slow times of the year, the seasons will go in there, but we always try to do it out in the field as much as we can. I think I would enjoy that. Yeah. I would enjoy that. Nope, Ted Cook has not retired yet. Well, Ted Cook's not that much older than me, is he? You know who Ted Cook is? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. Is that the anti-DIY? Yeah, um... I'm turning 55 next year. I mean, he might be about 60, maybe. I don't know how old he is. He can't be too much older than me. I'm And Daniel has responded, how to market yourself. starting Start a YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah, that's honestly a good idea for starting businesses. I didn't start this channel to market my business at all. to If you notice, my business is. speak. Barely even connected to my YouTube channel. Yeah. What I did, I just said a little while ago, I didn't have customers. I didn't have anything when I first started. I went to rental companies, property managers all throughout the area, and they all got to know me personally. Handed them my cards and said, look, I will work hard. I do good work. Just give me a chance. And for some of them, it worked. And for some of those very first rental companies, I'm still working for those companies 15 years later. So they must have liked my work. And I think at that point, your work will speak for itself. You've got to be honest. If they give you a chance, you get your foot in the door, don't try to sell them something that you know they don't need. Yeah, I was out there for a while. I was doing estimates and bidding jobs and stuff like that. And I found that the more honest you are, the more knowledgeable you are. When you mix those two things together and people come to trust your judgment and who you are, that usually sells a job more than the price tag itself. So, yeah, I mean, if you're just honest and you try to be that person that they really want, that usually gets you a long way right there. Just that I have found that, for example, if you're presenting a lot of information, like if you're going to do a load calculation for every change out that you do and you get these graphs and charts and real professional looking stuff. I have found that that actually does not really help. No. What helps for me is if you have a relationship, even if you just made that relationship that day with the customer, if you can make that personal connection and they understand that you know what they need and that you develop a little bit of a trust, that's what makes the sales for me. Absolutely. Yeah. Trying to wow them with all that information. And yeah, it looks good. It's nice to have that stuff. And that can help with some jobs. I understand. What has helped for me is just being able to make that connection with the customer. Yeah. I mean, for me, it was just being able to explain all the options they actually had. You know, not trying to push them in one direction or another, just laying it all out for them, being honest about, you know, what it's going to take to go each direction they want to go and just let them make the decision. You know, that's usually all I needed. I had one customer contact me one time, and this is somebody who went, this is back when I went to church. Don't tell anybody I'm not going to church. Thank you very much, George. Somebody from church contacted me about, he thought he needed insulation under the floor in his crawl space. And around here, that's actually a debatable topic because some people say you do need it. And others say if you put in that insulation in the crawl space, it decouples the house from the cooling effect of the space under the floor, which stays about 70 degrees. And around here, cooling is king. We only heat a fraction of the year. So I found a way I could present that information for him to read that it didn't actually come from me. And he decided to just leave it like it was. A lot of houses are like that around here. No insulation. No insulation in the floor, let's put it that way. Customers that don't pay. Depends on who it is. There are some customers that I've never gotten my money from. To get your money from a customer, you have to take them to small claims court if they don't pay, and sometimes it's just not worth it. I had one customer one time that owed me $900 on a job. But he was like in the Coast Guard and he was stationed in Alaska and he had to be present for them to give him a court notice or what I'm not going to call it a summons because they don't actually maybe they do go to court. I don't know. But it turned out to be more of a job than it was worth. So I just let that one go. But like these own apartment complexes that I do sometimes, if they rack up a bill, they don't pay. Stop servicing them first and say, hey, you need to pay me before I come back out. And if they still don't pay, I take them to small claims court and get a judgment against them and get my money. You'll probably never work for them again, but if they're not paying you, who cares? Really, you do not need to send me anything. There's a lonely elderly lady. Well, thank you, man. I try, when I see elderly ladies, I can't help but think that's somebody's grandma. I try to treat them like I would want somebody treating my grandma. I do that to almost all my customers. And let's say there are times when I do get perturbed and I know it shows, but I try not to let that happen, especially if I start getting peppered with like 20 questions over and over and over again. And I'm like. That does get to me a little bit. I don't mind if you watch, but please just, just let me do my, you can stop with all the questions. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I never bothered me when people are watching over my shoulder and stuff like that. I mean, I'll invite them in and I'm showing how it works. I don't care, but it's, it's when. It's just a small talk and I'm trying to think a problem through that. That's what kind of always bugged me the most. Yeah, it does kind of get to you, doesn't it? I mean, like I said, I don't mind if somebody watches me. I don't know if you can hear me, but I'll... I'm filming my work and putting it on YouTube. I don't care if you watch. So, but yeah, sometimes I do. I'd say probably more than 50% of my work is for rental companies and they don't really want me talking to the tenants. Yeah, I've done a lot of apartment work. They don't want you to tell them, hey, this thing is going to die next week. They don't want you to spread that comment. They don't want you to tell them. No, not at all. So when I start getting questions from them, I do shut them down pretty quick. I'll be like, you know, I got it fixed. If you got any more questions, you're going to have to call the office. And you can see it in their face. They get pissed off. But what do you do? I can't talk to them. Yeah, no, I mean, you, you gotta, you gotta do what the, uh, the guy that's paying you. You're right. The property manager is the one I'm trying to make happy. So, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I do have a, some, something similar to this comment right here. I have people, I get there, I get there and five minutes later they're like, well, what's wrong with it? I'm like, I'm still working on that. You know what I'm saying? I'm, I'm pretty fast, Yes, but I'm not that fast, okay? Man, an old man. Well, Mike, where did you tell me you are now? You told me you're not actually in Jersey right now, right? No, I'm in Indiana now. Indiana? Just about an hour south of the Michigan line there. So it's probably really cold there right now. Yeah, it's a cold, windy day here. Did it snow on you recently? No, not where I am, but just a little bit north. There's a ton of snow up there. We just missed this. Here we're getting the wind though. That storm system down here just it's not a rotating storm down here it's just a line of storms blowing through and it came through about four o'clock this morning heavy rain everyone predicting possible tornadoes and stuff like that but it was just high wind and heavy rain for us yeah and of course it was 80 degrees today. Yeah, the weather's been a little weird here lately. I mean, just, I think, two weeks ago, we had one day it was 22 degrees, and then the next day it's 70 degrees, and it's been going back and forth, but... Yeah, it happens to us here. About a week and a half ago, we had 27 degrees, and then yesterday, the day before yesterday, it was 84. I'm Temperature swings like that, it can give you the flu. Oh, yeah. Wait a minute, what's this? What's this? Indiana, best thing to come out of Indiana is 65 cents. 24. Thank Better than Jersey, tell you that much. Well, I've never been through Jersey. I was in Maryland one time. That's the closest I've ever come to Jersey. I spent about a week in New York City, and we were there to ring in the new year, and it was, let me see. you. Was it 1990? We were ringing in 1990, and we were going to go to Times Square, do the whole thing, and it was pouring rain. Yeah. Pouring rain. So we watched it on TV in an apartment next to Central Park. I mean, it was pouring rain. The people that were there were just diehards. It was terrible. You got to be diehards to go there, man. That's... It's the most congested place on earth. It's, it's. I didn't even go there when I was living there. I'm like, I'll just watch this from home, man. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was going to be like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Let's ring in the new year in Times Square. But when it started just pouring rain like that, nope. Nope. Nope. Yeah. I mean, I'm from the south, and cold New York rain, I wasn't new. I didn't want any part of that. We got somebody here from Virginia. Hello. Is that chess time? Do you play chess? Yeah, I do play chess. Do you? Yeah. I'm not great at it, but I'm not bad. That's about how I am. Yeah. I can think about two moves ahead, two, three moves ahead. If I play anybody who can think past that, I can't beat them. Yeah, sometimes I have to stop. I mean, I'll play online quite a bit. The game's going good, I'm hanging in there, and then all of a sudden I make one bad move and it just completely falls apart. I get angry, man. I have to stop playing. I am. You can't get angry. Oh, well, you know something? I like to play, there's a board game called Axis and Allies. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. It's a very involved strategy game of World War II. Mm-hmm. And, um... I can come up with a great strategy, and you just know it's going to win. If I'm an Axis or the Allies, either one, I know how to win, but it all depends on the roll of the dice. And the dice just mess me up every time, and I get so mad about it because I had the best plan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoy games like that. I try to talk my wife into playing, but she says I'm a little too intense with it. I'm too competitive, right? What is this? Do you know what he's talking about? You ever thought about streaming live like to Twitch or Kick? Okay, I don't even know what that is. No, I don't know either. I know what Instagram and TikTok are. I mean that's about as far as I go and there's this new one on Threads. No, I'm not going to stream the whole day. No way. I need to be able to edit out some stuff, and sometimes you accidentally get the customer's face in the camera or something like that. Speaking of which, if you film stuff, what kind of camera are you using? I'm using a Canon M50. Is that what you're using right now? Yeah. Everything that I do is done with a sports camera, except for what you see right now. That's on my iMac. And I have just learned about shooting in the square mode. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. GoPro has almost a square sensor. Man, here's another one. Look at this. Y'all really don't need to do this. Thank you. I do charge a diagnostic fee for residential customers. I do. No, they do not pay before. They pay as part of the bill when the job is done. But you don't need to send me any money. Um, I charge a $70 diagnostic fee to residential customers. If it's like a rental company that gives me lots of business, I skip the diagnostic fee and just charge them labor. Let's just say we pretty much do the same thing. Diagnostic fee. It depends on the repairs. Sometimes we'll waive the fee. Um, and you know, if it turns into like a new install or something, that fee gets waived. Oh, yeah. In fact, if I go to a job and it looks like it's going to turn into a complete change-out, I don't charge them anything. Yeah. I give free estimates. Yeah. I'm like, I didn't fix anything, so I'm not charging anything, but please give me the job when you choose somebody to do the change-out. I mean, that's what I do. Yep. And that $70 diagnosis, I mean, that's really just the trip out there. Yeah, I mean, you're driving around all day long going to all these places. You got to find a way to pay for it. I know it. Just having the doors open, you're paying for gas, insurance, rent. So, yeah, you need to generate income. That's true. Well, thank you. What's your name, Cheston? Well, thank you. That was the whole intent for my videos. I said earlier that my YouTube is not really connected to my business. That's because I started the YouTube to teach others how to do what I, what I. The little bit that I know, let's put it that way, because I tried teaching my employees and it went in one ear and right out the other and I don't have any children, so I figured I'd just put it on YouTube and if somebody wants to learn, if it's helpful to somebody, it's right there. I've got over 1,800 videos of me doing what I do, so hopefully it's helpful. That's why I started the channel. Yeah, that's how my channel actually got started too, was completely by accident. I didn't even intend to start one, but I had a helper at work. He was struggling with low voltage control wiring. And you know how like when you're trying to train a guy out in the field, you're doing something one day and you try to show him that. You still got me? My screen froze. You look frozen, but I can hear you. Okay. Oh, wait, the battery's going dead on my camera. Yeah, the battery. Battery died on my camera. But anyway, like I said, I was stuck in this grind with this guy. You know, by the time we got back to another job where I was taught and teaching him the same thing, he already forgotten everything. So I made a video for him and I couldn't send it to him because my phone was, uh, it wouldn't send, the file was too big. So I just put it up on YouTube, not even really thinking about it, sent them the link. And that just started the whole thing. I realized there's so many people out there trying to learn this stuff. I just kept doing it, you know, and that's the only reason I had the channel at all. Yeah, there's a lot of YouTube channels out there where their primary focus is to make money, and let me see, their primary focus is to make money, and mine never has been, I mean, it's good to make money, and I like being able to cash in on some of that, but my focus has been to teach other people. You still with me, Mike? Yeah, I still hear you. I'm trying to get this camera back up again. All right, well, hang on a little bit. I'll pull up some comments here. Enjoy and appreciate both of your videos, guys. Well, thank you. I kind of enjoy doing the videos, to tell you the truth. I was starting to experience a little bit of burnout in my job and starting to film it and learning how to edit. I'm starting to learn. All the stuff that goes with that, like learning how to do the hashtags and learning how to make vertical and horizontal videos and all that stuff, it just added another level of technical stuff that I enjoy doing and learning, and it helped spice up my career. I was starting to feel a little bit of burnout. Okay. I don't think I'm going to get this camera going again. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what. It is already 8 o'clock, so why don't we just go ahead and sign out. Mike, I do appreciate you coming on. I enjoyed talking to you, too, and I think some of the guys enjoyed your input. You can put, um... Thanks for coming on, and hopefully we can try to do this again. I'm going to go ahead and end this, guys. Thanks for coming out and logging on to the show. Y'all have a happy Thanksgiving, and I'll catch y'all next Wednesday. I have a young guy coming on next Wednesday. So y'all know him for trade.