SPECIAL EPISODE: WiseUP Podcast and Mentorship Programs

This big thing is great for me to meet with it . You talk to on the phone all the time and you don't necessarily see them all the time , right ? So , anthony , thank you , welcome to the list . Okay , no , thanks for having me . I really appreciate it . It's great to be here in person . You know , getting to a collaborate with you at big C .

2024 went to conference Uh , it's , it's so good to be here once again , you know . You know , 2019 reshaped the world right , I hate to say the new norm , because it's coming back as we see . Uh , there's people in this , in the crowd here , and I'm so thrilled to be here and a part of it , as We've been doing great things this past year .

We went to big C fall conference in Vegas and it , it , it started , it ignited the fire under people's , you know what , and I'm really proud of what they're doing and only see great things in the near future . So I'm a man of my word . Well , no , technically I'm not , because I told you I'd give you your questions by sunday .

Yeah , and here we are , on Tuesday and I will give you the questions right now , right off the top of my head , shooting from the hip . You ready ? Here's the two subjects I want to cover . First , I want to cover the life of a content creator in the low voltage industry . Okay , you should be able to talk about that .

I think I can , and also then talk about mentorship . I think I can do that as well . There we go , so let's , let's start off with life of a content creator . So tell us briefly about your podcast and why you got into doing your podcast . Oh Well , just a back paddle . Before the podcast came wise components .

Um , many of the people here in this room today we work with . Wise components has been a stocking distributor of layer one infrastructure since 1975 and before that , mainly components , various components to help with , uh , primarily medical manufacturing facilities globally . Uh , since the 1930s .

Um , I got involved with wise in 2007 , 2017 , and , uh , since then , I'm trying not to break anything , you know . So , uh , uh , the the company has been going strong for so many years without me screwing it up , um .

So when I came on board the first year , I kind of just Sat back , fly on the wall , hoping that , uh , I got to meet so many wonderful people which I did and see what they did and why People kept coming back and back over here and you're out .

Then , in 2018 , we contracted um seo content creator and writer , and he exposed us to all these wonderful things and aspects search engine optimization , newsletters , podcast , blog and I and we were totally oblivious to that side of the business , right , we didn't know what that means to educating the masses , right ?

So the initial reason to starting the podcast stem from creating um the newsletter , the newsletter and when we were getting newsletter I think when we first started it went up to about 16,000 subscribers I said , wow , I didn't think we had that many things to write about , but Apparently we did , mom . So I said we might have some things to talk about .

So we created the wiza podcast where we're interviewing manufacturers , owners , reps , contractors , design , engineering's , talking about standards , codes , uh , different product sets that are coming out , things that they believe are benefits to you know what , what it is and , uh , the other thing .

I was laughing to myself because when I talk to people at parties , like many of us , cable monkeys in the industry , wire monkeys , wire monkeys we have a lot of monkeys .

So when we talk to people at dinner parties , they say we're in cable and they go oh , so you work for cable vision and it's like there's so many wonderful facets from design , implementation and you know the vendor manner , the logistics aspects of it .

So , with that being said , I had this platform that we helped create and WiseUp was able to say hey , if you're in the healthcare space , education space , financial space , it doesn't matter , because Layer 1 infrastructure is so vital . It's the fifth utility and people have to see what it's worth and and that's what we're trying to do .

So it's not like , because we're a stock industry , we don't ever talk about wise components in that way . We're always saying it's about educating the masses . We're not talking about you know , act now , buy now . That's not what it's about . It's about basically talking about the features , functions and benefits , how to make it a little simpler .

Why not use this product versus that product or give it a shot and brand recognition to help people understand . So that's why we created the in our pocket . Who is your target audience ? So right now it's varying . We do have statistics . So I will say who's listening to us first is probably 18 to 35 years of age .

Right , and as I look in this room , I don't see a lot of 18 to 35 years of age our target audience . It varies as we're projecting our message to the masses .

So it's not just 18 to 35 , but that's who's listening to us , because that's who has the Spotify , that's who's listening to , that's who's listening to all the different media streams that we're on , whether it be Apple or Google or , however , how you get your podcast right . So you say , you say that that was that your current audience .

Was that who you were trying to reach when you started it ? No , who are you trying to reach when you started ? So , if I look around the room that we're in sitting today , I just wanted to reach out to the masses and hit the masses , but it opened my eyes to understand that the masses are aging . You know , myself included , been doing this a long time .

I started as a contractor , work my way through the manufacturer chain and now , you know , proud owner of a distribution company . So as I look around again the room . There's a lot of bull guys and there's a lot of gray hairs around this room . We're not too many youth in here .

So it's really my goal is to help not only educate the people that are in the industry , but also educate the people that are not yet in the industry and understand that there's hey , listen , money to be made and you give it a chance . So I , you know I found the same thing with my podcast .

Well , although my podcast , I initially targeted that audience , but I was . So I was in the the standards work group this week at Bigsy and Bob Harding the guy runs at . I was talking about how the industry is aging out and how do we attract younger people , and this is one of those ways to do that right .

So so you had you probably had visions of glory , of getting in . I'm gonna be a content creator . I'm gonna be famous , infamous . What is one thing that you that you didn't expect to be or have as a podcast or a content creator ? You weren't expecting .

Well , what I wasn't expecting , how hard it was gonna be , I would say , because we constantly are not only identifying guests to come on the show , but topics of discussion like what do we talk about that's , you know , interesting to so many people .

You know , right now everybody has a computer on at their hand , so I could google just about anything that I need to . So why am I gonna listen to something that you're putting out or I'm putting out , right ? So you have to make it appealing to the messes messes , right .

So that's the the biggest thing that I find it's it's very difficult to keep content creation part , and we do a lot of due diligence .

My team and I , we think about what's to come up with and what's hot topics like if I'm talking to a consultant , it's not just about the design aspects , it's not maybe laws that are coming into effect that could help our conversation ? That's being , you know , noteworthy . So that actually brings up a good point , right ?

So people always ask me how do I come up with content ? I'll talk about that when you switch seats , right . But I think if you just have , if you just listen and watch , the content comes to you . Yeah , it comes to you . Now see , you got a team . You got a team , so you have a little bit easier than most people . I don't have a team . I'm spoiled .

You are spoiled , right ? So how many episodes do you put out ? You do ? Was it a weekly ? A monthly ? Yeah , so we do like we're not as active as let's talk cable and , I'll be quite honest , we do a season episode .

So we re-syndicate our podcast , so we do probably anywhere between 12 to 14 a season and then we take snippets of each one of those episodes and we re-syndicate it through various channels because , again , as I look through the room today , a lot of these people are probably on LinkedIn , but not a lot of them are on TikTok and a lot of the people that are

18 to 30 years of age they're not on LinkedIn .

And to get youth into our industry and preserve the things that we have already done and achieved , we need to be on those other streaming platforms and put aside any differences that we might have from a you know others news feed . Yeah , that's exactly what I told Bob and the group you gotta go where they are and they're not on LinkedIn .

They're not on LinkedIn . They're not on LinkedIn . I could tell you from hiring people that are young , 25 years of age when they came on board they're not LinkedIn subscribers and I see from them even when I'm in the office and we have a pickup counter .

So a lot of times when we're doing promotional videos , you know , giveaways , like you know , we have a giveaway today . We're doing these giveaways . The guys that are in the field , they have no clue about that it exists .

So what I started to do is , in the pickup windows , I've been printing out the QR codes and saying , hey , register here , so that the guys that are in the field matter too . You know , it's not just the CEO sitting at the desk paying the checks , it's the guys that are in the field . You know , terminating the connectors .

So we feel that it's important to , you know , generate attention through various media streams . All right , so let's shift our conversation to mentoring .

Right , one of the reasons the industry is aging out is because people like you and me haven't been so great Well , not necessarily you and me specifically , but our age group hasn't been good at passing along information to bring other people up to the ranks . Right , yeah , little guarded , that's a great word . I like that word . I like that word .

Keeping it close to the desk , right , exactly right , right , so we know that Bixie has a mentoring program . You and I are both on that committee . Do you think the industry is doing enough mentoring .

I don't think the industry is doing a good enough job about it , because many people are just doing their job and going home and , you know , punching that clock to some degree and they feel like it's not my job and they're not looking , you know , forward , thinking they're just saying , whereas the way I look at it is like I have so much to be thankful and

grateful for all that I have , you know , achieved in this industry , and it comes from people that looked out for me Up the ranks , you know , from my father-in-law , who was with AT&T for 30 plus years and I had great managers , contractors that I worked for , manufacturers that I worked for .

I was very fortunate , I had good leadership in my roles that I held over the years . So let me ask you this what can we do to help educate or open the eyes of the people who are just treating it as a job and realize look , if you wanna , because everybody wants to make more money , everybody wants to have the nice car , the nice house or whatever .

What can we do to open the eyes of people like that , to make them realize you can't treat it as a job . You got to treat it as a career . Well , and that's the biggest thing , right , if you explain to the individual it's not a job , it is a career and that the fact is . It's so important that you preserve what you have achieved over the years .

Like I could think back to in my short career how many companies I impacted , where financial institutions and data centers around the world , and I could say , oh , I proudly had something to do with the success of that implementation and I want that preserved . I don't want that to be poo-pooed on right . So the way I look at it is twofold .

One , I wanna pay it forward because along the way I wasn't self-made . Somebody helped me along the way at every step of the way , so I was very fortunate . So I wanna pay it forward . And two , for the things that I did work on and I did achieve . Well , I want that stuff to be preserved .

I want the next generation to understand that they too could have what I have and it will be so good if they just open their eyes and understand . It's not just about content creation , right ? It's not everybody's gotta be an influencer and we do a crazy silly dance , right ? Oh , so I gotta cancel my dance now .

I had a dance step all set up for the bar guys , yeah , yeah , no , it's so much more than that , as you know , and you've been doing an amazing job , but it's these collaborations that we need to continue .

There's so many people out there that do content creation and then there's people that do it for , I think , the wrong reason , right , and so I think people like us we're doing it for the right reason . If you're doing it to be famous , if you're doing it to make money , it will burn out and you will not last long .

So when we first started five years ago is when we started and I generated some attention , some attraction , where advertisement companies were coming to us and saying , hey , you wanna promote Brand X product , and I'm like , no , it has nothing to do with the IT community .

So why am I gonna talk about a little blue pill , right , and I'm talking about cable , so it doesn't make any sense . So that's why I probably could sell out and make some good money doing it , but I already have a thriving business that helps that aspect of it and , as in , my reasons for doing this is like most of my reasons are to pay it forward .

Nice Pleasure having you on your show and you need to come up with a good restaurant that we can go eat next time I come to your area . Yeah , no , food is very important to me , so if anybody's in the Northeast , let me know and I'll help you out . He's proof , proof to the food , yes , yes .

So that concludes this episode and I hope you have fun If you're here at Bigsy . If not , look at the Bigsy Mentoring Program . We have more mentors and mentees , so look them up and join . Till next time . Knowledge is power . 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 .