¶ Catching Up With Low Voltage Nation
Hey wire monkeys , Welcome to another episode of . Let's Talk , katelyn . Today we're catching back up with Low Voltage Nation . Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers , project managers , estimators , ICT personnel , even customers . We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world .
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So , as I said in the intro , there are many groups out there trying to make the low-voltage industry better , and low-voltage nation is one of them . I keep track of them . I keep track of all of them . Actually , I'm always in there talking to everybody because I want to talk to everybody in the low-voltage industry .
So I realized it's been a while since I've had them on the show . So I reached out to Blake and said , hey , we need to catch up , and he said , absolutely . So here we are . Welcome back , mr Blake Hermos . How are you doing , my friend ?
I'm pretty good . This is what . Round four , round five how many times have I been on this show ?
I've lost track . Actually , I think you've been on more than anybody else actually Probably man . We're the .
OGs baby .
You know it's funny , you did a social media post and I don't remember where I saw it , because that's the bad thing about being on all the social media platforms , because I see stuff but I don't remember where I saw it and you did a post , something about your low-voltage nation is the OG of vlogs and podcasts and I meant to call you out on that because
you're not .
Who's the OG then ?
The OG is a guy from . What is his name ? Gee , the name just oh , my name just went out of the head . He started recording videos on YouTube 10 years ago . Yeah , he works for Ideal , ron Kipper Ron Kipper , that's who it is . He did videos on Near and Crosstalk , far and Crosstalk . He hasn't been doing a lot of stuff lately .
When you look at some of those older videos , man , there's a couple of them that have like several hundred thousand views . I think there's one or two that might even have a million views . So he is the OG .
What's his YouTube account ?
Ron Kipper . I think Do search on Ron Kipper , You'll find him .
Yeah , but did he have a podcast ? I think that's what I was saying . I was like I was the OG podcast .
Well , my podcast . I'll give you that because he was only doing vlog and it's funny because here's the competition , here's the competitive nature . I can't talk to that . Here's the competitive nature of Chuck . When you typed that , I was like when was my first podcast ?
Yeah , you should have jumped in there , man . I love a good resin and roasted .
Yeah , no , no , you had yours out before mine , not by much , by like a couple of months or something , but you are the OG . But I'm the OG RCDD podcaster .
That is true , indeed .
I got to be best at something , something .
You're , the , you're the , you're the highest volume of content . I put up a landslide , like you got , like me and Bixie and like everybody .
I did a search the other day . Actually , when you're doing YouTube videos and you're putting in the keywords , it gives you the . I have one of those platforms that tells me how that keyword ranks right . So it gives you a score . And I put in Bixie , I was like 56 or 60 out of 100 .
So I was like , and it's funny thing , if you go to Google and you type in RCDD , bixie shows up first . But I think that's because they pay for that . I don't . I have not paid for anything on this platform , not one dime towards advertisement . Nothing is just pure flooding the market with content Brute , forced attack or game .
And so when you , when you type in RCDD and you pull the Google thing , I am all over that front page .
All wait , so you're on the front page of Google .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , that's awesome you should take . I wouldn't you be , thank you , but you know , you know I do need to talk , not not today , of course , you know , offline . First , I got to get some money coming into the podcast .
I'm working , I'm releasing my firestopping class video this month , by the way , and I'm doing another RCD study group next year to help you , yeah , but I want to . I heard you and , oh oh , quick tech . I t quick tech AV . What's his name ? Um , the Kermit Kermit ?
Yes , yeah , I watched your y'all's video where you were talking about social media and and you were talking about Advertising stuff and I was like you know , I've always kind of shied away from because I feel like that's cheating , but we have to listen to you guys , like maybe I need to , maybe I need to .
Yeah , yeah , no , everybody , if you want to grow , you got to advertise .
Well , maybe , maybe that's just me being cheap , maybe that , maybe that might be . You lose a lot of money .
You got to be prepared to lose like at least a thousand dollars until you learn what you're doing .
Yeah , because you know , as of right now I Am across all the platforms 12 , 13,000 people file audience members . I haven't looked at my number there recently . I want to say I'm coming in on 5,000 now . I think , hmm .
But the beautiful thing is I don't , I don't , I don't necessarily pay attention to the number of subs or audience members , because , number one , I can't for audio podcast . I can't tell how many subscribers I have , I can only tell the number of downloads .
Yeah , it's kind of weird , it's hard .
Yeah , yeah , exactly . But so I look at so once a month and I haven't put mine out this month . So I , once a month , I sit down , I compile all my views , all my impressions , all my downloads . Yep and Well . And then last month was the quarter . Last quarter I hit I was a 340,000 download views impressions across all the platforms .
And and the subscriber counts going up . Those numbers keep going . So to me , I don't . I don't judge myself against your journey . I don't judge myself against Kermit's journey , right , I judge myself against . How was I doing last month , right ? Yeah , because you guys are way better at some of the social media stuff .
I , you know a lot of my stuff is considered talking head stuff , although a lot of that's gonna change when I start doing videos up in the studio and start showing me building out stuff .
But you know you got a studio you're gonna build up like , do like a little lab .
You haven't been watching the show .
Dude , I like , I can barely like keep up with my stuff . I got my walk away . I'm like I try not to consume content . It's too much .
I haven't been on tiktok for like two weeks . I totally shut down tiktok . I'm not I still there , but I haven't posted anything off for two weeks . But yeah , I bought a um , a 12 by 32 pre-made shed and and they dropped it off in the property . We are dividing it in half . Half of it will be a Studio part before , like a farm sitter .
The other half is the podcast studio and I just had electric . I just had electric put up there this last weekend I was working on building out the wall to separate them . And then I'm gonna order on , probably this weekend , the three-quarter inch AC grave fire plywood to start putting up in the walls .
And then I've already reached out to a couple different Manufacturers for , hey , I need this , this and this are interested in donating it so and I can make videos of how to install it . Oh yeah , sure , Chuck will do that . So , so yeah , it's gonna be complete studio . Man , I'll have conduit in there .
So the left , you know , 490 degree bends I've you know , so we can do simulations , all kinds of stuff . Now I'm super stoked with it , man .
You know what ? I did see a piece of content on that and I think that's awesome . That's like my goal . Like you're ahead of me in that you've got the land too . Like I don't know , I've only got like a 750 square foot apartment . I'm trying to get like commercial space , but it's so expensive .
Yeah , yeah , that's a beautiful thing . Well , the shed cost me a chunk of cash , but Like , I said it's worth it , it's so yeah , absolutely , it is , absolutely , it is jealous . I can't wait .
I mean and again , that's my , my , my vacation days over this month and next month I am gonna be focusing on getting that fire shopping class published and put out there for everybody I got a couple of ideas for other classes and get that podcast to you to the point where I can start shooting up , because right now when I go up in , I record in it because
there's nothing in it . The audio is . Audio is terrible , terrible you know , but you know it is funny thing is you and I would catch that a Lot of other people wouldn't even wouldn't even do that .
I was doing an interview with somebody and and that was we're doing the audio check and video check before the platform , and he had a microphone in front of him and I said your microphones not turned on . He goes how can you tell us that ? You're just being picked up through the mic in your computer ? That's a check , your settings , yeah you're right .
Have you used the Adobe Podcast enhancer tool ? Have you used that before ? No no , is that in the creative ? It's all good , but you got to upload it to like a web browser . But they actually put it into Adobe Premiere . Okay , I think he baked into it , but it like it enhances the audio .
Like you can take the microphone built into like a camera and turn it into like listenable audio . It gets all the background noise out and Compresses it , adjust the levels . Yeah , it's the Adobe product , adobe speech enhance and that's that .
That's where I run , that's why I Struggles . You know we start talking about the compressor and I have a hard time taking out weird noises sometimes out of stuff and people think it's . You know it's easy to run a podcast . It's not . It's easy to sit down and talk to somebody .
Yeah .
But when you factor in all the other stuff . That's why I love doing interviews with people like you , because Normally I have the questions already all written out and sent to the customer stuff . But I know a you know you've done , you've talked in front of a camera force , I don't have to deal with that . B we just need a general outline .
We don't even need questions .
Yeah , yeah , we haven't even gotten to any , I know here we are .
here we are . What ? Ten minutes into the show , we haven't done the first thing . Oh Well , hey , that is what it is right .
Yes , sir .
So let's talk about 2023 . We're coming up closing out 2023 .
What happened ? 2023 is over . What is it ?
It gets faster as you get older . Trust me , trust me . And yeah so you guys have done a lot of stuff over the last , over the last 12 months
¶ Transition to Discord
. One of the things was you shifted to discord . Yes , love this . Let's talk about that . Why did you do that ? And is it ? Is it enhancing your , your , your pockets ?
Oh yeah , big , big time . So slack your . You were in the slack workspace , we're in you . It's kind of just died out . We would get like three posts like a week or something . It was just like with the Facebook group , go going to the side . It's like 63,000 or something and and it just overshadowed that .
So what we were finding is that somebody would post a question in slack and nobody would have an answer . They're like alright , did you ask the Facebook group and like so we'd always directly with the Facebook group .
So the thing is with with Facebook is that it's like that 25 to like an up and , like you know , 55 demographic , mostly male for our industry , 97% male , in case you're wondering what the breakdown is . But there's that , there's that 13 to like 25 demographic that we're not capturing with the Facebook community and slide , nobody uses .
I mean , people use slack for communities but it's more of like a corporate kind of enterprise kind of level situation and it's a great product but it's better for internal teams least in my opinion . But discord has much better community features . It has like a built-in community functionality . You can actually like monetize it with their with a built-in feature .
It has all these different roles you can assign and it has like onboarding so it puts them in the proper channel . So there's all these really things that discord really took into consideration and and Switching to that , we've gotten like we've got 600 members now . It's a lot more active than slack and we're capturing a lot of those .
The tick-tock generation the gen what is it ? Gen alpha and then gen what's the other one ? I don't go by those , yeah , whatever but yeah , we're capturing that younger demographic is what we're doing , so I love it . I did not like discord .
I was very resistant to it because I thought it was too confusing and like that's like such an old person thing to say .
It's like , oh , I don't want to learn this you hit the nail on the head right , because somebody reached out to me of six months ago and he said Chuck wise , let's talk handling , not on discord . I said I don't have the bandwidth , I just don't . I don't have the bandwidth . And they said , well , we'll create it .
And I said , well , if you create it , create a Friends of let's Talk cabling . Don't create a let's Talk cabling .
Yeah , yeah , don't , you don't hijack my brand .
Yeah , yeah yeah , well , it's not that I'm worried about him hijacking my brand although that is a concern but yeah , it's more importantly . If it is that way , if something gets said in that group , if it's titled Friends of let's Talk Cabling , they'll realize it's not the official discord of it . It's not me actually saying there's a disconnect .
That's why I said that yeah , and I just haven't pursued it , just because you're exactly . I'm used to looking at Facebook feeds , I'm used to looking at Slack feeds , you know , scrolling through TikTok , and the first time I looked at TikTok I was like we were talking about this right before I hit the record button .
I don't like change , I don't like having to figure out software , so I'm going to go with what's easy for Chuck .
But yeah , says the guy that had StreamYard . Now you use , you restream , and now you do Riverside and you're streaming to all these platforms . Like what are you talking about , Chuck ? Like you're like a pioneer in this industry more than me in some cases .
Well , no , see , see , see , you're mistake , you're mislabeling it . I don't call that a pioneer , I call that the strive for excellence , because I realize there's a certain vision that I want , and that first platform that I picked didn't help me get there .
It helped me , it got me , it got me in front of the camera , got me live streaming , but there were some , some functionalities that I wanted that that platform didn't have .
There you go .
That's kind of how I ended up on on Riverside . Yeah , and so far I'm absolutely in love with Riverside .
It's like with me , like I don't like getting on camera , but who else is going to do it ? Like I did it out of necessity , just to grow , just to grow the community and grow low voltage nation .
That was the reason why , yes , I was teaching a class in Ohio last week and somebody in the class recognized me from the podcast . Oh , yeah . And so we got talking to one of the breaks and and he said , man , you do so great . And I said that's funny . I look at those videos and I cringe .
And I said I said if you get me outside of this environment , you put me in a room with a bunch of people . I'm the guy sitting in the back watching everybody . I'm an introvert , outside of this , out of this function . I'm an introvert , not an extrovert .
I'm the same way .
And he's like I don't believe that . I said you need to come hang out with me next time I go to event where I don't know anybody , because you'll see me in the back of the room .
Yeah exactly , yeah , interesting .
So Discord has had a really good impact on the community .
Oh yeah , big time . Yeah , it's revived it in a lot of ways , moving from Slack for sure .
Yeah , there was one individual , because I've just started making a mental effort to be in your Discord space . Now you know me , I'm all over the Facebook space and we're going to talk about Facebook in a little bit .
I tag you in Discord because people are like is anybody else in our CDD ? Well , chuck and Lee , I always tag you .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . I have to go back and double check that because in other community platforms I do the same thing . I'm like , look , I don't have the bandwidth to be in , I know .
I don't expect you to be in there .
I don't expect you to be in there Platforms to . You know , if you need me to answer something , call me out or tag me in it and then that way , when I pop in , make it easy for Chuck Right ? So Pop says hey , chuck , you have new messages .
So I'll have to make sure I go back and look at those Discord ones because , like I said , I just started , probably , I think , over the last month , trying to get in your Discord and communicate more , and where I was going with that is I was talking to somebody posted a question about estimating or something and I responded back and then , of course , it went
back and I am very old school , here's an old school way . I found the guys hey , look , pick up the phone and give me a call so we can have to say we can talk about this .
What is that thing called ? Like what is it ?
rotary phone it's called a candlestick phone . I started collecting phones now .
That's old old school .
Yes , I've got another one . It's not the same model , it's a different model . But when I move into the podcast I'm going to run a cable between the two so that way when my wife needs to communicate with me , she can pick up the phone and ring me up in the podcast .
That's amazing . I love that .
Yeah , yeah . So anyway , the guy was asking some estimating questions and I was traveling , I think , at the time and I said , look , just give me a call . And so he called me and then you know , and finally we got , I helped him with what he was trying to do and then I , finally I got to talking . I was like , dude , I need to have you in the podcast .
I need because he's really good with like and his one of his techs lives 15 miles that way .
Yeah .
And he's like a jamblite , I think , or something I was like you're in the middle of nowhere , aren't you ? Oh yeah , yeah . I said , look , give her , find yourself up here , give me a call . Well , I'll meet you at the Cracker Bearer and buy you a cup of coffee . And there you go , the Cracker Barrel . Let's shift our conversation . Talk about training events .
So when you first did Louisville Dignation , you did that meetup where you guys built a rack and stuff like that . Yeah , that was cool . And then you kind of laid off because of code , like most other people did .
That wasn't cool , yeah , yeah yeah , exactly so .
Are you going to get back into training events ? Do you have anything on the radar ?
Yeah , so we've done some stuff with FOA . We did that scholarship . That was a big deal At least I thought it was and then we've done some other kind of meetups with training stuff around it , but yeah . And then we've done some online stuff with Fiber Wizards . So we do a lot more fiber than copper stuff .
I would like to do actually more copper , but I was in Atlanta last was this week .
It was this week I saw the social media place .
Yeah , wow , those was a couple of days ago . Went there to meet with Lee Renfrow with GoFar . He's done like 60 trainings , I think , across the nation . Cfot is mostly what he does for fiber optic association , so I want to get more involved Now that I don't have a nine to five job . I'm not sure if I told you , but I'm not a sales director anymore .
Oh , I did not know that .
I had to give it up , man . It was just like the money was really good , because sales is like where it's at if you want to make a decent living , but it was just like so time consuming and sucking my energy out .
That has to be either like super recent news or you haven't updated your LinkedIn profile recently .
Dude , I updated that LinkedIn profile . Like as soon as I sent my resignation letter , I updated my LinkedIn profile .
Because I could have sworn . Just looked at your profile , literally within the last I want to say last seven days .
This is like two weeks ago , this is my second , this is week two of freedom .
Well , I do live in the country , so the internet takes a little longer to get to me .
You need to get you some fiber optics , man .
I am running fire to the podcast . Oh yeah , there you go , yeah .
So anyway , so we're doing training events , we're involved . I want to host some and be actually the actual host of the training events , but that's a big part of Lowell-Boltage Nation . Are those training events ? It always has been .
Kind of like the Jacksonville event .
Yeah , well , what did we do there ? That was more like an outdoor networking , kind of like collaboration with .
Octaview . No , no , no , we went to what we did at Jacksonville with Optiview . You had a one day . Lee was there . He talked a little bit about fiber Optiview , talked a little bit about enclosures .
Yeah , that was like bringing your network outdoors , so it was like a lot of NEMA enclosure stuff and then how to like run the cable . Then we had some fiber discussions around it , so that was pretty cool . He had just anything that has to do with training for sure . Yeah .
So there's nothing on the calendar right now , but if anybody wants to collab on some stuff , even with your firestop stuff , I would love to get involved and we can promote that through the Facebook group and whatnot .
Oh , absolutely Absolutely . It's recognized for Bixie CECs . I have conducted the class on one-on-one a couple times , but I want to get it recorded and put it up on TGBL so I can get that whole passive income thing going and let it generate ?
Yeah , let me know , we'll promote it , whatever you want me to do .
Very cool , very cool , yeah , sorry
¶ Social Media and AI in Podcasting
. So courses I saw that you were starting something about like a , some kind of a social media class , or something .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . So well , the first well , yeah , that one's going to be released first and it is more of a how to become like a social media expert . I get like brand deals promote , Whether you work for a company , like an integration company , or in one of them , even a bigger company , you're on the marketing team .
Or if you want to become like an influencer , like I want to take what I've learned through low voltage nation and then bringing up low volt girl her rapid rise she actually did the video recording for all the courses . You may have seen them on LinkedIn . Yes , so , yeah . So I wanted to get that out there because I get so many questions about social media .
Like you and I , we jam about social media . Like that's usually like the main focus of our conversation . Like how do you do this ? Like what's the new technique ? Like what what's the new platform and all this AI stuff coming out . So there's a big , there's a big discussion within that around like AI .
So I tell you what AI has helped me out so much with my podcast .
Yeah .
So much . There's a lot you can do with it . You just have to know how to use it .
If you just put a generic search .
You're going to get garbage in , garbage out .
It's all about how you very surface level , very boilerplate kind of you can tell Right Right .
But if you , if you take the time and say something like act as a podcast host , interviewing uh pewee experts about such and such topics , give me , you know , 10 questions , 15 questions , blah , blah , blah , boom , we kicks it out . But what I really love about the AI , so I do . My audio goes out through Buzzsprout .
Yep , um , buzzsprout has an AI component in it that writes the description for the show . Now , I can certainly write the description for the show , but that's going to take five or 10 minutes . Yeah , it does it in seconds , yeah .
It's better than I do it . Oh yeah , and you read through it and you're like that is 100% accurate and 10 times better than what I could have done and 10 times Exactly .
And you , and usually where it messes up is like spelling the person's last name . That's just where it messes up . So I got to go in and fix that . And then boom , and then what I'll do . Here's another tip that I do quite often .
So once I got that audio because I published the audio first then I do the video that goes out and then I do all the social media posts . So what I do is I'll take that description that Buzzsprout AI made for me , and then I'll go to chat GPT and I'll say based on this show description , right Me , an SEO optimized short social media posts for LinkedIn .
Yeah , and it kicks it right out . I mean does it in seconds , so that that has streamed by my process so much .
Yeah , I always ask it to make like 10 , a list of 10 , like subject lines or whatever , or descriptions , and I can choose which one I want and fine tune it myself . So , yeah , I'm getting to do like multiple outputs at the same time .
Yes , do you do this ? Um , so again , I'm on social media . I'm on Facebook . I'm also in the Riverside group , the buzz about group , and I'm watching other you know . So people from buzz about the post questions . Hey , I'm doing this . Do you have questions for that ? Um , I even find myself answering stuff in there .
You know , people ask me how do you do this ? You know , are you publishing your audio and video ? So I even answered in there , but I'll be the first to tell you look , I am not an expert . I've only been doing this for three years . I am not an expert .
They're probably but you're ahead of at least like 50% of the people , and then you can train up those people as long as you're one step ahead of them and you're good .
Yeah , but my goal is not to be one step ahead of them . My goal is to get the message out more . That's that's my goal . I got you If I can help somebody else , you know , you know that's that's my motto . Is is helping people . So , yeah , all right . Any other courses you're working on ?
Yeah , so we're doing . It's like a low voltage essentials .
¶ Course and Certification Recommendations on Facebook
I don't know if you've seen in the Facebook group .
Uh , they all the people always come and ask like what courses should I take , or what certification should I take , or like , hey , I'm just getting started , I'm here to learn , and uh and on those posts on that point if anybody's listening and you and you see somebody in the Facebook group , uh , that comes in there to learn like help them or don't say anything
at all .
I do know what I mean . Did you see my response ? So I don't know .
Maybe there's , but there's multiple of these posts and I try to jump in and somebody did a post where they um , I can't remember what the question was , and then like and the problem is where I rarely see those posts right when they post , I usually see them like a day after and they got like 75 responses , and it's got 75 responses , unless there's something
horrifically wrong . I am not even going to post . Yeah , it's , it's , it's run its course . But I had to catch this one literally within like a couple of minutes of being posted and there's a response in there and and somebody , somebody posted a question it was about .
It was about , um , somebody asking about how to price something and you know that always brings out the trolls and uh , in the Facebook group , right , oh God , um . So the first couple of sponsors were yeah , well , maybe you shouldn't be in business if you don't have to price it . And I just kind of got in there and said , look , respect the journey , not .
So . Everybody started off estimating being perfect estimators . Right , respect the journey , give the guys some advice , period . And I just then I walked away from the microphone .
Just close your laptop .
You got to do that because if you don't , somebody's going to respond back , and then the natural human reaction is well , I got a response . Nah , I do the response . Close it . Turn on the TV . Watch TV with the wife .
Oh , but sure I do that quite often . Yeah , it's like I just throw the phone oh yeah , I'm getting .
I remember you and I were talking once a while back . You're telling me you had to turn off the notification on your phone because you're getting dinged so many times . I'm getting to that point now . I'm like that's what Blake was talking about , cause my friends , I mean five o'clock in the morning , ding , ding , ding my wife's like who's blown up your phone .
I don't know , it's one of the platforms , I don't know which one it is . It's one , yeah .
I tried to explain to my mom like I get thousands of notifications , yeah , dms and mess and EME , and just like it's insane . She's like who are these people ? Yeah , yeah , she's like are they harassing you ? It was like yeah , kind of , and then on top of that .
I'm on a , so I'm like , I'm on a , I'm on a , so our church has a , a text group set up for the men . There's like 20 some people in there , so I'm in that text group . So if somebody will post something , and then of course then then then 20 people will say amen , it's like a ding , ding , ding , ding , ding , ding , ding .
Oh no , it's like , and of course it always does it like right , when I'm like teaching a virtual class or recording an interview or something , I was like oh wow .
Yeah , so , anyway . So the low voltage course I want to put together just like an essential is just like this is how you get started , like here this is the difference between cat five and cat Say . This is the tools you need . This is how you address cable . I want to do something like super basic .
Yes , it'll be given away for free or a very small , small fee to cover , like , maybe , advertising cost or something . But I want to be able to get , get people that resource and then bring them into the community . So it'll be like a lead magnet . But also , based on what we've seen in the Facebook group , it is a problem that needs solving .
Yes , and , and the other problem is having people respond Professionally . Yeah , yeah , yeah .
Empathetically . Yeah , and it's like when people ask about hey , I'm just getting started , what tools do I get ? I just send up , I drop a link . I was like , here's all the tools , I'll see you do that . The ultimate tools list and it's based off of the feedback , all the polls that we've ran in the past and that's just like it's what the community suggests .
It's not like me , like trying to sell shit , even though I do get commissioned off of the Amazon links . It's actually the products that people use in the group .
Right , exactly , yeah , exactly . Well , since we're talking about Facebook , you said you had some push . You want to pull up . Let's bring up them posts and yeah .
I mean , we're 40 minutes into this , so I yeah , but the first , first five minutes was just setting up and stuff , so that's okay . Yeah , yeah , I got you . Yeah , so here's what I want to do . I'm going to share my screen . I'm going to try to get over to the , the Facebook group , and we've done this in the past .
So Mason Bortz and I did this a while ago where we just we review some of the posts from the group and give our feedback on it . So I wanted to just drill down . The first one is a pass through . I don't want to discuss whether or not you should use passwords .
Obviously , this picture right here , this guy had a problem Looks like maybe some water got into it and shorted out , and that's that's a common issue with passers . Well , supposedly , and that's the caveat to using a little short out , because the wires are exposed at the ends of them , yep , but anyway . So what do we do with these posts ?
Let's make a decision . Do we continue ? And for the next 20 , 30 years , when pastures are still a thing Like , do we still let people ?
Well , here's the here's the here's the double-edged sword with this . If you , if you put the hammer down , no more posts on pass through connectors . The people who will join your Facebook group a year from now won't gain the knowledge .
Exactly , yeah , I love them .
That's the challenge , yeah , but on the flip side of that now you've got people saying , pass through again , or you want to pass through to get into pay or something like that .
And like here you go . So David Louise or whatever , oh good , this again .
And that's yeah , yes .
But people will respond like pass through suck , or you know RJ45s are for . You know people that know how to do it properly .
People are passionate in our industry about certain things . You know , hence Milwaukee Packouts .
Yeah , all right , we won't belabor this too much , but it did get 10,000 views , so it like it gets views and it's good knowledge to have and it's fun sometimes .
Well , and that's , that's the other side of it too , right , you know , because you're getting the those 10,000 views that's driving people to the community .
So yes , and the only time a post go viral is if it's like a cable fail photo or something like kind of .
I've used some of your cable fail video posts in my ticket .
Oh yeah , yeah , it's free game , go for it . Yeah , I encourage using this content . Next one so this one had a question . So , falco , he had a question about using a vehicle , a personal vehicle .
Oh yeah , my thought on this is don't ever do that the wear and tear and then you don't have the logo on you know , don't have the branding of the company , it just depends If you're , if you're a W two , absolutely do not use your vehicle . What are your thoughts on this ?
So I actually had a company vehicle before and I've also had a vehicle allowance before . The problem I have is , if you're working as W two , as an employee of the company , they should give you a van right ? Because , like you said , it's all about image , it's all about marketing , it's all about consistency .
Smaller companies that may not have gotten to the point where they can afford to give a van to all of their project lease . They're going to give them the option . Look , we'll pay you mileage . From a technicians perspective , that might sound really cool . I'm getting 60 something cents a mile . That sounds good . Dude , you will tear up your vehicle .
Yep , tear up your vehicle .
You know , go on job sites and get in like nails in your tires and absolutely , absolutely , absolutely .
So while it sounds , you know , like a good deal , I would shy away from a big time . And the reason those small companies are doing this ? Because they can't afford . It's cheaper for them to pay you mileage than to you know , because usually when you have they got , they got put you on the insurance policy and you know it costs a ton of money .
So from a company perspective , they're saving money until they can get to the point where they make more money . But as from a from a technician perspective , I would , I would run the opposite direction If somebody wanted to pay me mileage for , for a work truck , work truck .
Yeah .
Now , like I said , if I'm a , if I'm in sales or like a QA inspector or somebody's not using you know , I'm just driving from the office to a customer side . I'm not hauling ladders or equipment . So I've got , I've got like a Pontiac Bonneville right , I used to have a Pontiac Bonneville .
I'm okay with that because you're just , you're just driving it , but a work vehicle that you're going to be beating the heck out of , no , I would run from from mileage reimbursement .
Yeah , he made an edit to this post . It said this was apparently a far spicier debate than I thought .
Imagine that you never know here .
Are you new here , Falco ?
You never know what people are going to be offended by , or have a very staunch opinion that they must let you know what their opinion is .
Yep , all right . Next one , this guy , he is 36 years old , he weighs 215 pounds . He doesn't specify what his height is , so that's very important . Yes , so he's asking about work boots and because he has all sorts of pain he has , he's uncomfortable and yada , yada , yada , lower back , knees and all that . So obviously , everybody's different genetics , whatnot ?
Physical ability , height and all that . And there's there's a lot of great responses 160 , 187 comments . My response is I didn't respond to this , but I have Timberlin boots . I actually love those and I walk like all day long with them . Actually , have them on right now .
I'll walk miles and miles and I got the steel toad versions , but these are the regular ones , but Timberlin actually makes some really comfortable ones , so I use those in the field . But also take care of your , your , your health . Get in the gym , do some like light weights . You know if you're just starting out like this is like you said .
This guy can be seven one .
Yeah , yeah , seven , one , two , 15 is nothing If he's four foot six .
that's different .
Different story , yeah , and .
I'm . You look , I'll be the first to not throw that stone at that glass house , because I'm probably not in the best shape , but I have a farm , so I'm always moving , doing , shoveling , doing some , oh no , you yeah for sure , but I , but I also like to eat .
You know when we , when we harvest those pigs , dude , I love having a good pork chop from from from pigs we harvest . So I , you know , I'm a big old corn fed country boy .
Let's leave it at that , my appetite making those TikTok videos , don't you ?
Yeah , oh yeah . My advice when it comes to shoewear buy the best that you can afford . No kidding , yeah , I used to work when I first got in the whole having a job thing when I was 18 , actually seven , no , actually . I started when I was 15 . My dad had a gas station . I got a work permit and he always bought
¶ Footwear Recommendations and Training Advice
the shoes . I don't know if they're even around anywhere . They're called nap KNAPP . Never heard of them . Extremely expensive , lifetime guarantee , though Very comfortable and but they're , they're , they're dorky work shoes and I used to make fun of them all . The time that I finally bought a pair myself , I was like dude , this is like walking on a cloud .
Yeah , yeah , like nerd , like wait a second . These are awesome yeah .
So you know , and then when I started having a family and started having kids , I went cheap . Oh , I'm just going to go buy the , the , the $20 boots from Walmart . That last literally like what ? Two months , you know , by the best you can , I'd a pair of those Walmart specials like the steel ballmarts , yeah . Yeah , yeah .
So now all I ever wear is baits , baits boots . I picked that up from being in the fire department . Those boots for me I've got . I usually . I usually retire my baits boots not because they don't feel comfortable anymore , but because I have a tendency to wear , wear . I'm not a shoe hound .
I don't have one pair of shoes to wear with this outfit , another pair of shoes to wear with another . I've got a pair of boots , a tennis shoes and a pair of Crocs . So yeah , I do . The Crocs are great for taking your the animals in the morning , cause you don't have to lace up the boots . You put on the Crocs .
You go out and take your animals .
you take the Crocs off , you don't bring anything in the house , that's all I use them for . But I will wear a pair of shoes into the ground and baits boots consistently , always last me two years and I when I retire them . It's not because they're falling apart , it's not because they're not comfortable anymore .
It's usually because I've worn it to dig holes , walk into pen and whatever that . I can't wear them in a dress environment , cause I also wear baits boots . When I teach in face to face classes , I wear the same boots .
Yeah , yeah , exactly .
Cause I'm not a shoe hound and so usually for me it's like okay , this boot no longer can can reside in both realms the farm realm and the and the professional realm . That's usually why I retire them .
So yeah , I'm seeing a lot of people respond with red wing . I've never had a pair of red wings , but I've heard nothing but good thing about red wings .
They're also kind of , they're also , they're out there , you know , for as far as expense wise and stuff .
Yeah , seems some people say Timberlune as well . And then one person posted the red boot . I don't know if that's .
I have no idea what that is .
It's even seen that it became like a meme or kind of like a trend of people on TikTok wearing these . You didn't see that ?
No , I haven't seen that the thing is , if you go with good quality footwear , if something happens to it , most most they can be repaired by most shoemakers . You can just take them to your local shoe repair shop and they'll fix it for you , put new soles on and stuff , and that you know they'll last you a lot longer , a lot longer than that .
That $20 pair of boots that you bought from Walmart , and if that's all you can afford look , I'm not knocking it , because I've been there myself . You know , when I was raising six kids , you know you had to put money . You had to buy either by groceries or by boots . I'm sorry , the kids are going to eat , right , the kids are going to eat .
I'll wear a pair of boots to let them have holes in the bottom if I have to , right , but get the best that you can afford . Good advice .
All right . Next one this guy . He has three years experience in the field . He's making $30 an hour in the Bay Area , which is like probably poverty level at this point . I'm not sure I know it's expensive there , and so he's looking for suggestions on training and certification . This is your domain . I think I responded to this guy actually , Did you really ?
I think I did .
I think I did , yeah , so here's my advice . Here's my advice . Well , first off , like you said , $30 an hour , while you could live like a king in Florida , on that the Bay . That's a different story , right ? Because you're paying what ? $4,000 a month for rent for like 300 square feet . I love the fact that this guy wants to be a continual .
I'm assuming he's the guy because I can't read the verbiage , but I do remember the post . I love the fact that this tech wants to be a continual learner . They understand that they have to invest in their career . Kudos to that person with that kind of attitude . They will go leave some balance in this industry . Leave some balance .
So , when it comes to training , my first recommendation is be a magnet to anything about the industry . You can get free training from Cable Installation Maintenance Magazine . They have their webinars . All of the manufacturers have free training . There's free training on Bright Talk in low voltage all free . All you can do is invest time .
All you can invest time and if you can , if they have the ability to give you a certificate of attendance , get that and save that . That's the first place I would go . Then you start talking about the certification path . There's three ways they can go . Three ways they can go , and I love all three .
I don't think any one's better than the other most of the time . The first one is the JATC centers , the Joint Apprenticeship Training Centers in the Union . Earn while you learn . I've seen their training programs . I've seen their low voltage program .
I was at the NECA Philly thing a month or two ago and the majority of the people I talked to were JATC instructors . It's a great program . It's a great program and you don't have to pay for that class . That's the best thing about that . Problem is , there's a whole another hot topic on the Facebook forms Union versus non-union .
I'm not even going down that round , but I'm just saying the JATC is a great opportunity to learn and not have to pay while you learn . Actually , you earn while you learn . I think there's a statement that's a great option . Then it leaves us with the two big elephants in the room you have Bigsy and FOA . Foa has a really oh sorry .
Back to the free training one . There's free fiber optic training on YouTube . Good free fiber optic training by who ? If you look up free two-hour fiber training , you will find a video by John Bruno . It works for FIS fiber instruments and sales . Great instructor . I put him up right up there with Lee . That's the level I put , john Bruno .
I think I've seen this video .
So that's another free option . So now it leaves us with FOA and Bigsy . If money is a concern , if you have them to pay , my recommendation is to go with FOA , because you could literally just study the material and take the test and be certified . For what ?
50 bucks , I think something like that you don't necessarily have to take that class To get a cert .
Yeah , and when you look at FOA's curriculum versus Bigsy's curriculum , the fiber optic curriculum , you get a more complete picture with the FOA Because you're getting inside plan , outside plan , cable TV , the whole nine yards , the Bigsy fiber training program . It is excellent , don't get me wrong . I'm not trying to say they got different niches , that's what it is .
So they're going to be focused more on fiber optic inside of the building or between office buildings and stuff like that . That's what they're really geared towards . Their training towards . Their training , is excellent . It's just as good as FOA . It's also pretty expensive . Yeah , that's so .
You know , if you take a , if you take a week long course with Bixie , you can expect between two and three thousand dollars Depending on the course and a bunch of other stuff .
And but now , when you know when you guys are , am I taking the training to learn or am I taking the training so I can get a piece of paper , so I can get a better job or I can respond to bids ? This is where Bixie edges out FOA . Bixie has higher name recognition . Yep and so people with them , certifications . You know customers , they get that .
Well , we you'd be Bixie certified . You have to follow the Bixie codes . I love that . The big see codes Learned . If some encodes stands the best practice first off , because Bixie is not code , yeah , yeah , right , but you know they had the name recognition in the market .
So if you , if you're looking to make more money and you're working in the Commercial building space , then probably the big see certification gonna be better . If you're working in the cable TV space , the FOA certification probably gonna do you better . So so there's , there's . You really got to look at what your end goal , what you're trying to do .
We're trying to go with your career to determine which certification to work best for you , because I love all of them . But my answer , my question , depends on when I talk to the person . That's why I rarely will tell somebody .
If somebody asked about , about that kind of question vague , I'll say call me , let's talk so I can figure out where you're trying to go first . Right , because if you're going from point A to points B , I'm not gonna send you through point W first to get the point B .
Right , I want to make , I want you the time that you invest in training want to be as quick and easy as fast as you can , and that's why I said I need to know the information I can determine . Is Bixie the best route for you ? Is , is FOA the best route for you ? Because what some ? Some scenarios one's better and some scenarios the other is better .
It just kind of depends .
Yeah , and it depends on if your employer will pay for it .
That's a big one . And if you're not working for an employer who's not willing to to increase your skill set , to make you more billable , you might want to ask the question why am I still at this company ? I mean , they may have other benefits that might be keeping you . They might have super great health benefits .
You might really like who you work for because they're they're mentoring you . Okay , those are valid reasons , but if everything else is all equal and a company's not willing to invest and making me a better person so that can be more marketable for the company , I'd have to ask what other areas are you not investing in ?
Yeah , for sure and how we're competitive , how competitive it is right now for getting texts like you . Oh yeah , as an employer , you've got to do something . That's one . That's one of . It continues .
It is an employees market right now , absolutely .
Oh , big time . All right , next one . I think it's the last one . It's kind of a funny one . I'm not sure why I put this in here , but this guy he's in a ceiling . So if you're listening on the podcast , it's a ceiling and there is a huge . Is that a wasp ?
That's what I thought it was . I thought it was a wasp . It looks like . It looks like mud wasp .
Yeah , and I think you said , like the customer said , the exterminator couldn't find it . What kind of an exterminator ? I Don't think they actually hired an exterminator , they just kind of said that it's your typical , it's your typical view .
Above the ceiling tiles . They've , you know , they got a bunch of Insulation laying on the tiles and they got the cables laying on top of the insulation and the the ceiling is literally , I'd say maybe what ? 12 , 18 inches above that , and then there's an opposing wall that you're looking at as a big old . What mud wasp nest right there .
Yeah , it's funny cuz this shows you the my nature when , when I saw this post , all I really saw was , hey , that cable not being supported .
That was the first thing we like . What is this cable mess like ? Oh ?
Why they're talking about exterminator not supporting cable took me . It took me 30 seconds to realize that there was that insect nest on that back .
Well , yeah , yeah , yeah , that's funny .
So have you ever encountered this kind of Predictment in the field , or what insects and rodents and stuff . Well , you live on a farm , so I'm sure . All the time man , yeah , yeah , how would you recommend this instance is inside ?
How would you recommend taking care of this callback the exterminator .
Yeah , if I saw any activity , I Would , I would back out and let it start . The exterminator take care of it . Yeah , a lot of times You'll find , especially with with mud wasps they're not there . If it's , if it's an inactive one , dude , just man up , grab a . Grab a trash bag , open it up , put it around and close it , tie it up . That way it's done .
When a winner chicken dinner , yeah , you know you're there to do a job , but if there is activity , and or if I were , if you have a Predisposition to an allergy to insect bites , then yeah , call the professionals
¶ Importance of Safety in the Workplace
. Yeah , sometimes you gotta do what you got to do to just to get the job .
Yeah , when you're doing like residential or any type of work when you've got like multiple service tickets , you know , in the same day you got to get shit done . And that's what I did for a few years and my encounter with these things is the first time there was .
It was a nest inside like a door , like a hollow door , and I Guess the nest was inside that door . So like we're trying to change up like a strike electronic strike See these boss just coming out . So I'm like , oh god , I gotta get this done .
So like I walk up to the first first one that comes out , comes and lands on my nipple and stings me in the nipple . Oh , we got the job done . We went , we went back and got some like the spray and sprayed it down .
But in the second time yeah , but we want me to check something really quick . If you're doing that in an office environment , you better be super cautious , because my wife is a reactive asthmatic and If she was and she worked in an office for many , many years if they cleaned with Clorox it would send her into an asthma attack .
Yeah .
Spray anything in a commercial office building .
You better check and ask first this this was a strip mall and an exterior door , so we were outside .
Okay .
Yeah , yeah , it was like to a like a utility room , right yeah , so there were people around .
Yeah , and when I said you got , sometimes you got to do what you got to do , I was specifically only talking about this example . You hear that attitude a lot about safety . There was a post on I Can't remember it was low voltage nation , if it was telecom techs , if it was one of the other forms , but where somebody was they ?
They were standing on the top rails of a scissor lift , looking right down , yep , and and then something in the post , somebody said , yes , sometimes you got to do what you got to do . Do when it comes to safety .
I lost an uncle because of an , a scaffolding accident , because safety and I'm telling you right now my life is not worth that job getting done that post .
I almost put it in this list , but I didn't want to expose that person .
Even though they're exposed , they expose themselves on the internet , which is very bonehead to do it , don't you know , one thing it gets me is when somebody will post something that they know is Going to cause controversy , but then they'll do it as anonymous user .
Yeah , if you're gonna put that out there .
Be mad enough to take the heat .
Yeah , there , there is this one . If this person's listening , they'll know what I'm talking about there . They posted some on Instagram or is like OSHA what they were like doing some like sketchy shut a lift or whatever like that . I have like a ladder on like a lift or like I don't know what it was and and then so I I change .
I had like all these Instagram accounts like ones I don't use anymore , from like previous projects , so I changed it to OSHA Texas , put the OSHA logo . So I got in the comments . I'm like what's up , fellas ? They ended up taking the post down . I felt bad , so I hope he's not listening .
That's funny , oh , that's . I definitely have a comedian . I was , I love watching comedy . And and there's this one guy talks about how he sponsors social media posts and so , like somebody would say , oh Well , walmart , because you're doing , you know politically this , this of this , I'm no longer gonna be shopping at your story .
He would create a account called Walmart corporate . Respond back to them .
Okay , bye , yeah , yeah , that's funny , that's awesome , yeah . So the second time I was on an extension ladder , like way up , installing some cameras , and they were coming out from .
They were in the ceiling , they're in like the scat , like the Above the soffit , and they were coming out of this camera and we had all sorts of issues with these cameras , like all the squirrels and rats in the apartment complex chew through all of our low voltage cable , like almost took down the entire system , mm-hmm .
And so I'm on this extension ladder , here come these washed and I'm way up there . They start stinging me . I'm like , oh god , it's , I'm dead , I'm , it's over . So to your point , like safety first , regardless , like don't , don't do dumpsters , even it comes to like being that high up .
Yeah , you know some people take the the unfortunate attitude that you know well corporate safety . There's just this here to save a buck and and it is to save a buck . But I , like I said , like I said , my , my life is not worth standing on top of that . You know , step lad on top of that scissor lift . That's wobbling .
You know I'm sorry If it's gonna danger my life . My goal with my loyalty is to my kids and my wife . It's not to the company , because the company where's loyalty there ? Don't get me wrong . But my higher loyalty is to my family .
And if I can't come home or if I fall off the Extension layer because I got stung by a bunch of wasp and and now I'm a cripple , what good am I to my family ?
Yeah , and if you look up the stats of like how many like work related injuries and deaths are like this and go on Instagram , you can see there's like entire accounts that are dedicated to like OSHA violations . Yeah , just like , go and see like the outcomes of those and then you'll think twice about doing something like I said , I lost an uncle .
He was a . He worked for a scaffolding company and he was actually the Safety officer for that company and he was checking in scaffolding coming back into the office and he was standing on top of some scaffolding and the scaffolding fell over and fell on top of him , crushed him .
Oh shit .
Yeah , so that's you know . Yeah , I take safety pretty serious and I don't . I cut people slack in a lot of areas . Safety's not one of them . Yep , safety is not one of them . All right , Well that man it's been absolutely fantastic . Yeah , that was great man . That hour went by pretty fast .
It sure did . I loved it I .
Appreciate you coming on the show , my friend .
Yep Talk soon .
That's it for this episode of today's podcast . We hope you were able to learn something . Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content . Also , leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications . Until next time , be safe .