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Dr. John Sherk, owner and president of Operations Laboratory reveals all of his HVAC technician career happiness strategies, income improvements and killer tech-happiness tips and tricks so you can get ahead of the curve with your HVAC technician career. Discover how you can create a quality negotiated agreement with your manager that works for you so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it’s coaching your kids’ teams, getting out there for hunting season, or just living comfortably at home with your family. Since 2010, he’s been consulting his many HVAC clients on how to develop and manage a culture that is friendly to tech-happiness, and here he openly shares his wins, his losses, and all the lessons in between with the community of energetic but humble HVAC techs, managers, and owners who follow him. Self-proclaimed “Technician Happiness Guru” you’ll learn about getting paid what you deserve, building genuine and loyal relationships at work and at home, recruiting winners (tip: they all already work for someone else), building a tech-happy culture, quality communication, skills mastery, optimizing performance, negotiating compensation, professionalism, , and productivity tips so that you create an amazing, tech-happy life without burning yourself out. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from John you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
00:02 Alright, welcome to the HVAC Joy-led podcast. I'm joined today by Trevor Matthews. Welcome Trevor. Hey, thanks for having me, John.
00:12 Alright, so, this is the refrigeration mentor. So Trevor, tell me a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and where you do it.
00:20 Yeah, awesome. I appreciate that, John. Well, my name is Sean Matthews. I'm from, originally from Cape Red Nova Scotia, Canada.
00:26 So the fire of the seas coasts you can, but now I just live outside Toronto and Canada. And yeah, my background is super market refrigeration for 20 years.
00:36 I've been diving in, learning, growing, getting better and helping teaching other people around the world how to be a technician in the supermarket industry.
00:46 Very interesting. So do you do regular comfort cooling as well? Are you, are you really in low town? I, I, I, I have a few courses, technical courses that are for commercial HFAC and, you know, some residential technicians can come to the courses, one of my advanced compressor courses, service and compressor
01:04 courses, but I focus pretty much on super market refrigeration and CO2 refrigeration. Yeah, very interesting. It makes me chuckle a little that you're in Toronto, and I'm in the Bayou in Louisiana, and we both have very different kind of values for 70-degree air.
01:20 Because right now, outside today, it's 92 and extremely humid, and if the comfort cooling goes down the whole business is going down.
01:28 There's no, there's no other way about it. So, so again, let's talk some more about what you do though. So, do you do online courses?
01:37 Do you do mentoring, like talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, my company's built around three pillars, training education and really mentorship.
01:46 I love personal development. I love teaching technicians how to be a technician, the technical zil, but also as well as how to make more money, how to be present with your family, because technical is very, very important, probably the top thing you need to do, but on top of that, it's the long hours
02:03 and the long days, so you really want to understand how to talk to your manager, how to ask for a raise, how to move to another country.
02:12 I teach a lot of that stuff as well, but my main focus is helping technicians get those technical skills, get them level up so they can get pay raises, or did they get the next level under a job, or they could even potentially start their own business.
02:25 And at all, whatever anyone wants to do, they can do it, but it's put into work. And so I teach them a lot of that, that's how to do that.
02:32 So in your company, is your buyer, the buyer of your services? Is it typically an individual technician, or is it the company the tech works for?
02:40 So there's three or four different strategies that work, so there are, I do individual courses. So where any technician from around the world can join, say, my supermarket or my CO2 program, where it's like, really technical, where we'll dive into videos, it'll be live with me, Q&As, they'll get quizzes
02:59 , they'll get assignments, my learning platform, and really challenge them out there. Another strategy is where a contract will hire me and they'll put maybe 50 or 60 technicians in a few different programs.
03:10 End users hire me where they want to put in some of their contractors, so they want to put them into my programs.
03:19 So there's different angles that we do. I can see in my neck of the woods, I have clients, I've never had a client who did not have a firm opinion about doing or not doing low temp work.
03:34 It's like either they're like we're in this business because you don't do low temp if you're not committed because you're in low temp and it's your daughter's birthday and you get a phone call you're going you're not you're not going tomorrow morning instead right I mean that's just how low temp works
03:47 yeah so I teach on strategies and how I do that for businesses so if you're a one-man show you got to go yeah but if you work with with a contractor and there's say 25 technicians or there's you know a larger companies there's ways around that that it's called non-negotiables.
04:05 And this is what you start out in the start of the year. This is what I teach a lot of technicians with refrigeration professionals, like at the beginning of the year, playing your journey for the year.
04:12 If you know your daughter's birthdays, today July 17 is on July 17, back in January say, on that day, I can't work.
04:20 Already, you know what I mean? It's already in place six months earlier. And so then when the time comes or either you get another technician to take cover you, you talk your boss to figure out someone else to cover that, you know what I mean?
04:30 So it's just learning how to, you don't say a day before or even a week before. You could already be as planned, like jobs are planned a month in advance sometimes, you know what I mean?
04:38 So it's teaching technicians to pave their own path. Yeah. And this is where from a technician perspective, you know, we talk about what makes life very great, great life for a technician on this podcast.
04:51 This is where the differences between companies show up. Because there are some companies where if in January you say, I need this day, it's my daughter's birthday, day, that day is set aside and that's fine.
05:04 There are other companies where you are what I call 10-year TED. You're the only guy in the company with 10 years of experience, and we got half a dozen other guys who have two years of experience.
05:15 And TED, I know you wanted to stay off, but this is our biggest client and it's their biggest gas station and couldn't you please and navigating that conversation?
05:30 Yeah, and I have people tell me that as well, and this is why it's called a non-negotiable, and then you notify, you don't do it a week before, you notify them, say these are my dates, and you gotta stick to it, you can say no, and there's some people, if the company can accept that, they're probably
05:48 not a company you wanna work for. Yeah, right. And it's this is kind of where the weed is separating from the chaff out there in the labor markets right now Because they are especially your companies that do low temp in the US There are a few very large national companies doing low temp that are really
06:04 Beginning to own the market. They're small guys too, but the small guy's doing low temp just about all of them I know only do low temp and so they're their business models built around you know, answering that phone call.
06:18 Yeah So another question I want ask about is, do you, when you get texts who are doing training from your content, are you getting a lot of guys in the first and second year, or are you getting a lot of veteran guys who were kind of sharpening the saw?
06:35 Yeah, that's a great question, and it all depends on the program. So I have contractors who are supermarket contractors, but they do both HVAC and supermarkets So low temp and they have a lot of guys in that didn't commercial each fact for say 10 12 years But they want to get in the supermarket size.
06:52 They will come into my supermarket program even though they have a lot of experience So it's teaching those those how to troubles you probably I have a lot of technician come into my more advanced courses like CO2 refrigeration a newer technology of refrigeration but I really try to I like having a mixed
07:11 group because my programs are live. I do have an academy that is a non-demand live. It's a mix which is a really great opportunity for someone who's just getting in or it's been doing it for a long time to restart up in those skills.
07:27 And what I like about my groups, if they're diverse, I can have a conversation kind of like we're having right now.
07:32 It's having a conversation about other people's experiences and talking about those experiences And how do you overcome that because the videos are great that I show the knowledge that I talk about are great But until the technicians go out in the field and actually do what we talk about that's where
07:47 the real learning happens So I mix a lot of the assignments that I have the technicians do with the field work because a lot of Work hands-on on people my or my courses are online, you know, so you only can learn so much online until you can go out and do it So showing them how to talk about how to do
08:06 it, showing them how to do it and getting them to go out there and get them to do it. That's really the game changer for the way I do my training.
08:15 Yeah, interesting. You know, because I studied technicians and that their commitment and their skill levels and their experience. One of the things that I think I, anytime on a topic like this, I want to encourage any first, second year tech.
08:30 As you're getting started, you know, even if you feel like, you know, comfortable and great, but now you're getting introduced to low temp, there's this learning curve that I call the grind.
08:43 Like, one of the things that technicians love about being technicians is when you're good at it, it's really fun. It feels great to be a technician once you're good at it, right?
08:55 Before you're good at it, it kind of sucks. This hard? It's not fun. It's hard. It's confusing. You feel dumb.
09:02 You make mistakes. And there's probably and that's what I'm going to ask you. How long is the grind when you're learning low temp?
09:09 And it's not going to be the same for everybody, but it doesn't, it doesn't even matter what in it could be residential, could be commercial, could be industrial.
09:15 The thing is is it all depends on how much work you're willing to put it. For me, it took me seven to eight years and I say seven to eight years that was in the field.
09:25 I wasn't even that good. Now I thought I was that good. It took me actually 15 to 20 years to master it like I'm awesome.
09:30 Honestly, I'm really good now I'm still learning. It's like I don't know it all for sure But I'm all I can go out and troubleshoot systems that I've never seen or worked on before because I understand So many different dynamics when I first started out nobody told me that you know training and taking
09:45 Taking more trainings every week every month every year is gonna be very valuable to me a lot of people said don't go to training Because if you're not getting paid for that's that's what people told me which was the biggest mistake And then the thing is is after I started learning that learning is important
10:02 and I want to learn everything changed for me at that point Yeah, everything changed I could troubleshoot faster. I could fix problems the first time I wouldn't fix the problem be like oh, I don't know how I fixed it But it's working.
10:13 It's like this is why I fix it this I did this this this and this and this was why and this is what I teach people Now that process even if you don't know how to fix something you break it down into small simple steps and when you break get down a small civil set, you can start to really digest that
10:28 information because that's all we're detectives. It doesn't matter what part of the refrigeration age factor we're a detective trying to find a solution to a problem.
10:38 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that thing you said, I want to touch on that again myself, of don't go to training if they're not paying you, that's crazy.
10:50 it's not crazy because you should be getting paid or shouldn't be getting paid or whatever. The pay isn't the point.
10:58 There's a whole career that you're building. I mean if you want to say I want to have a career but I'm not moving unless someone's paying me, you only have a job ever.
11:09 You don't have a career. Careers are things you build over time and you do things off the clock, that's this is part of it.
11:17 And this dynamic of really loving the work, it is very, I mean, I don't go deep dive into the brain stuff in it, but it's very deeply connected to being good at the work.
11:31 If you're good at it, unless you're limited in what you can do when it's boring, if you're good at it, then it's fun.
11:40 It's a blast. I hear this all the time. but you don't get good at it in one day, just at the end of the time, take every opportunity you have.
11:52 You know, look up refrigerationmentor.com and look at Trevor's stuff. Join the YouTube channels that have stuff. Do everything you possibly can to pick up as much as you can because they will become a tipping point when you love this work and it's worth the effort to get to that point.
12:12 and it definitely doesn't happen overnight, but it can happen faster for sure. If I was able to take some of my programs, when I first started out, it wouldn't have took me seven or eight years to be confident on call, I wouldn't have to be calling for validation at seven years, call my buddies up, oh
12:29 , do you think this is right? I did this and I checked this and said, no, you know, at your three or four, you're firing on all cylinders.
12:36 Yeah. But it takes time because it's not just going to one training. It's not like saying come to a one refrigeration mentor training and you're an expert.
12:42 It's continuing to go to training and you're you're doing the trainings. I've done I used to work at Copeland and I was a national trainer here in Kansas.
12:49 I trained all over North America tens of thousands of technicians and I did that training over and over two and three day training and every training I was learning something more and I've done it hundreds and hundreds of times while I was working for them.
13:00 And I still I still learn on compressors. I used to think I knew Compressor after 12 years, 10 years in the industry before I worked for Copa.
13:07 I knew nothing. That's changing compressors and working on them, changing valve plates, setting them up. But I wasn't doing it right because nobody around me knew how to do it exactly the proper way.
13:19 Right. That's a good point. That's the value of having someone like Trevor is, like, I'm going to use a sportsman afforded.
13:27 A couple of years ago, Toronto won the NBA championship with the Raptors. Yeah. So yeah, you guys had a good year that year.
13:34 So let's say I wanna get good at shooting free throws, right? So first of all, if all I ever do is shoot free throws in the game, I'm never gonna get good at it.
13:44 I've gotta take, shoot 100 of them in a row. And so I'm getting the repetition. But I also need a coach staying there next to me saying you're not doing it right.
13:55 Do it 100 times in a row the right way and then you're going to get good, right? So some of the value of having a Trevor in your life isn't just, he doesn't do the work for you, but he maximizes the value of the work that you're doing.
14:10 So when you're doing the reps, you're doing the right reps, doing them the right way and you're maximizing the learning curve.
14:16 Yeah, it's a good thing that I heard. I do a lot of personal development, professional development. That's really where I started to get good at a lot of stuff because I invested a lot of time.
14:25 But it's the one thing that I learned about Kobe Bryant when he was alive, what he would use to do, he used to get up at 3.30 a.m.
14:31 before all his team get up and he practiced two hours before the first practice of the day and then they'd be done at noon and then he'd produce third practice at the end of the day.
14:40 Why do you think he was the best is because he put the work in. He had tons of coaches, you know, it wasn't just he figured out he hired coaches and coaches and coaches.
14:49 And that's really another game changer in my life was starting to hire coaches and to to help teach me fast track before I was like, and that's kind of what I do in my programs, like a kind of coach, people ask questions and I challenge them.
15:02 It's like, I didn't think coaching was, why would I pay for coaching? What's the value in that? What's that gonna do for me?
15:10 Why would I spend $5, $10,000, $20,000 on a coach? That's crazy. Now I'll spend that no problem. You get the right coach and your life changes.
15:20 That's why I have refrigeration mentor and I'm training thousands of technicians refrigeration professionals, engineers, designers from all around the world is because of being coached.
15:29 This is this dynamic of coaching. we should camp out on this point for a minute because along with coaching is the topic of being coachable.
15:42 Right. And the technician, my friend, please know I'm here for your benefit. Please know my name is John. I'm your friend.
15:52 coachable. Don't be embarrassed when you don't know how to do something. Don't pretend you know how to do it or don't have done it once and tell people you have experience doing it.
16:02 Be coachable. Or frankly, if you've been doing it for 20 years, but someone else has been doing it for 30, and if they've got something to show you, be coachable.
16:12 There's guys like Trevor who are third parties, but there's a pretty good chance there's somebody inside of your company that will be happy to coach you if you don't act like you're offended that they're coaching you.
16:24 Yeah, I talk to technician all the time. I ask them like how often I say who's the top technician in your company or who's the top three?
16:32 Do you know them? Everybody knows the top. I know I wish I was like this guy. I was I asked them how many times have you taken them out to dinner?
16:41 It's been $150. $100 on lunch. Go and take them out for lunch. Never. Why not? You want to get some free advice.
16:49 Most of them will take a lunch or a dinner. That's a nice steak for to give some advice for sure.
16:55 And nobody's doing that because they don't know. So if you're listening out there and you know the top technician and you would like to have their skill level, maybe take them out to lunch once a month.
17:05 I'll say, listen, let's meet up here at this nice steakhouse. I'll buy dinner. I just like to pick your brain.
17:10 Yeah. I'll tell you another one. A lot of these guys who are good do side work on the weekends. right?
17:16 Tell them to go, you'll be their helper and you don't, they don't have to pay you. Yeah. Get out there, you'll get a whole, like a half a day, maybe a whole day with them.
17:26 While they're doing something simple, probably changing out some, some guys, five tons of puts us to my house. But you're there, you're building a relationship with this guy.
17:35 And it's, this is what, this is how you build careers. This is how you build key relationships. And it's going to those things pay off in ways you can't measure in the dollars from that one day right?
17:47 So if you can unhook yourself from now look I'm not saying go live your life for free but I am saying if you have the opportunity to build a relationship with a key person who could be your mentor don't only come at it in terms of how much I'm getting paid come at it as saying I will give up something
18:07 if it helps you in an exchange I want your coaching right that will build the right kind of relationship with someone oh yeah definitely there's always a sacrifice to two things especially as a technician we're away from our families we're by ourselves we work long hours and and really depending on where
18:25 you're at you're not getting paid enough especially in the supermarket industry I know technicians a lot of the market and paid what the amount of that they know.
18:34 you have to look at it, okay, I'm sacrificing this for this. That knowledge, yes, okay, you don't get paid for eight hours, it's $1,000 that day.
18:42 But maybe you will learn that one thing that makes you $20,000. You know what I mean? So that's the thing.
18:50 Like you save that customer on call, you learn about how to set up a unit, install a unit, how to write a PM you know what I mean?
19:01 Or, you know, sell, sell a preventive maintenance contract right at PM contract for your company. And now you now you can make extra money.
19:08 There's lots of ways around it. But we're not always taught that. And some companies don't want to teach that. But the best sales person at any refrigeration company is the technician.
19:19 They just don't know it. They say, oh, I'm not a salesperson. Just like I used to say, My dad does in sales roles and I still said, I'm not a salesperson, but we're the best salespeople and if you can bring more value to your company, you'll make more money because they can't get paid anymore money than
19:35 the amount hours you work. But if all of a sudden you land a big contract for them, you sell certain amount of equipment for them.
19:44 You become that salesperson for that company. Now you can do the role plus you make sales commission potentially and lots of companies are starting to do that now.
19:53 Yeah, yeah, I've heard of a couple of the big companies, Siemens, one of them, where they're really converting their concept of the account manager to being the technician.
20:05 Because the tech is the one who knows what's going on technically. And if the tech has the skills to have the relationship with the key person on site, then let's kill two birds with one stone.
20:15 As opposed to some guy, this is going to sound cynical. I don't mean this as insulting as that might sound.
20:20 But some guy who two weeks ago used to sell mattresses, who's gonna show up and do some kind of troubleshooting and then sell something, is really not the best approach to great customer service and producing an outcome that's a long-term relationship with a client.
20:36 Yeah, and I'm friends with some of the top CEOs and refrigeration companies and they tell me, you know what Trevor, if they bring more money into the company, I wanna pay them.
20:46 But they're not gonna bring more money just working, you know, the hourly wage. and they need to do that, that's part of their job.
20:52 But if a technician can bring an extra million dollars in the bottom line profit into a company, they're making a crap out of money.
21:01 You know what I mean? They're making, I do, I do. They will do that. They'll put more money into that person, be like, holy smokes, and I've talked to all of them, if you can bring more bottom line money into a company, you're gonna make more money.
21:14 That's just it. I have a funny story about that. I have a client from Houston, they're not my client anymore, it's good relationship with just the rent, it's course.
21:24 But they had a turnover in their controls department. And the guy who was running controls left and took a job, I don't remember, it was JCI maybe somewhere.
21:34 But so nobody knew who was left knew for sure what the guys in house could do. And so there were three other guys in that team and I happened to be there that day as a consultant.
21:44 And so we called a meeting and we sat down and we said, So just kind of tell us what you've done before.
21:48 And we sat there slack-jawed, listen to these guys history. You know, one of them, previous, well, I used to sell about a million, a million, half a year in controls jobs.
21:59 What are we doing now? Pulling chords. Oh, okay. Get to the next guy. What did you used to do? I used to travel the world for Siemens to what's the word initiate, new systems.
22:14 You know, start up commissioning. Yeah, do commissioning. Yeah, commissioning. Thank you commissioning new systems. And we're like Holy smokes. There's like gold in these dire hills.
22:22 We're just sitting here having to pull cords and You know that the and let me tell you what all those guys started making a lot more money With the point to to the point that once they were able to get out there and do the things that they knew how to do It was a whole new world for them no for sure
22:41 and I teach lots of people how to make more money people come into my course and they email me after I appreciate it.
22:47 But I'll get email sometimes three months later. It's like, I got a pay raise because of the course. Or I got a new job.
22:52 I landed this job that I always wanted. And it's not because of me. Honestly, it's because of them putting the working because they want to learn.
22:58 I can just show them how to fast track, how to fine tune their skills, how to have that proper conversation with that.
23:05 It's simple to get a job. Like I used to be real nervous at interviews. But if you know your stuff, you're gonna get a job.
23:12 If you talk to the right person, right? You can I get I always do this to some of the technician.
23:16 Oh, I'm going for a new job. We'll go in and surprise them You go talk about what's the sick say listen?
23:21 Well, I you know, my resume doesn't look very big at this point I'm only doing a few years, but listen, I understand how to troubleshoot compressors and I know this business We you deal a lot with compressors.
23:31 I know the six mechanical failures, you know, there's flood back They're slogging. There's overheating. How does that happen? Well, flood back happens when the meter into vice loses control and and floods back in the smash to the compressor.
23:40 So what we need to go is check the evaporate. We need to clean the evaporate. We need to check the airflow.
23:44 We need to check the fans. You know what I mean? Go in and talk like that. And then you're going to nail a job, break that in there.
23:51 Not worried about where you work before. It's what can you bring? What kind of value can bring to that organization?
23:56 So they can be profitable. So you can make money and support your family. And then hopefully over time, you build a relationship where you can move up that ladder if you want and then get a higher paying roles or maybe even move into partnership with that company.
24:10 Who knows? Yeah, I don't know how it is in your market up there in the Toronto area of Trevor, but down here it is becoming pretty common for very skilled technicians to make six figures.
24:23 It's just like the, you know, they're in demand. It's a supply and demand dynamic. And, you know, I had several years going to a meeting where the collective thought after the meeting was the day of the $50 an hour technician is here.
24:38 And so now it's not the guy who just walked in the door and thinks he's awesome. It's the guy who's actually built a knowledge base and skill set that he can really deliver.
24:46 But that's kind of the whole point of our conversation. Like that's the put in the time, if you want to be that guy, you can be that guy, but put in the time, get the coaches, get the training, put in the effort and it will happen.
24:58 Yeah. Well, if you, I tell anyone if they want to make six figures in refrigeration, you totally can. You got to just be better than what you were.
25:09 That's all. And how do you be better? You learn how to be better. You teach yourself how to troubleshoot. You learn the sales side of the business.
25:18 And you build a relationship with your organization as well as your customers. So your customers keep calling up and say, listen, I want John to come back here.
25:26 I don't want you to send anyone. I want John. And then all of a sudden, when you have 10 or 10 businesses and you're the only person that they want to come to, that's called leverage now.
25:36 Now this is where you go and talk to your manager and boss. So I'm this valuable. This is what I believe that we should negotiate on.
25:46 Yeah. Okay. Should it be like a per-dem. So maybe like it's a retainer, they pay you each month to stay at the company potentially.
25:55 It could be a profit sharing. It could be if you're bringing more work into those specific business or more money into your business, you get a certain percentage.
26:04 So there's different ways and strategies about it. But you just don't go in and say, like I used to say, oh, I want more money because I work 70 hours a week.
26:12 At the end of the day, it's a business transaction. You go to work, you work 70 hours. If they pay you 70 hours, that's it.
26:20 It's called a business transaction. And that's what work is. But if you go in and work 70 hours a week and you do your job, plus you bring in an extra $100,000 that month the bottom line profit, you know, there's leverage.
26:32 This was just, I'll give you an actual real-world example that with a client, they had a very, very, very good technician and he was constantly coming in and being like my value in this market keeps going up and they said, look, for us to keep you on, we have to go get work that only you can do and what
26:57 if you leave and now stuck with this contract and I don't have anybody to fill it and he was like, well, so they kind of worked through that and then negotiated that they paid him the rate that they were going to pay him but they had a preset bonus for another $10,000 but he didn't get it unless he stayed
27:15 all the way to December 31. And then the clock starts again in January, to do it again, right? They figured out how to align retention with a bonus and everybody's happy, you know?
27:28 Yeah, and that's the thing and there's lots of room for negotiating if you can bring value. And you've got to be that guy.
27:37 You've got to bring the value. Yeah, you can't just be the guy who's like, hey, you know, how good I am?
27:41 If they don't know how good you are, maybe you're not, you know, that's the, you got to put in the time and be that guy.
27:47 And it doesn't, and once again, it doesn't happen overnight, and you don't go in there demanding stuff. You go and you work with them and you prove yourself over and over again if they, and then if that company doesn't want to pay the value, there's other companies out there that will.
28:01 That's it. Or you go just go figure out how to start your own business, but that's a whole nother whole mother animal.
28:08 I think mechanical is expensive, but you can be done, can be done. And sometimes you just want to be a one horse mechanical and and be your, just be your own boss and you know that there's a version of that as well but but you're right I mean that that none of this is relevant until you put in the time
28:25 to get good at what you do and make a like a lot of a lot of programs some of the pro not a lot some of my programs too as I teach people how to build their own path and and that's something that's very important is understand where you want to go a lot of people don't know and that's the problem what
28:40 what goals that I have set Do I want to be a supermarket expert? Do I want to be a control expert?
28:47 Do I want to be a commercial refrigerator HVAC expert? When you start to write down some of your goals, it makes it easier.
28:52 Okay, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars by 2026. Okay, well, how do I do it? What do I need to do?
28:59 Okay, well, you got to break it down. So I got 12 months a year Okay, how much do we got to make per month?
29:05 Okay, well, if I want to make a hundred grand, I got to make at least eight thousand or nine thousand dollars a month to make $100,000 a year.
29:12 So how do I do that? Well, each week I need to make at least $2,500 a week. How do I make $2,500 and just break it down?
29:19 What do I need to do? And then you figure it out from there and then you work your way to that.
29:25 And depending on your market, some markets you can make more money than others. And that's just the way it is.
29:30 You go to work in downtown Toronto, you're gonna get paid a lot more than working in the middle of Northern Ontario.
29:36 It's just supply and demand. And you got to figure that, maybe you have to move. I had to move countries to get work.
29:44 So you know what I mean? So if you really want it and you'll pick up and you'll move, it's how bad do you want it?
29:49 And how much bad do you want to put the work in? And this at the end of the day is up to you.
29:54 But if you start to plan yourself out and plan those goals, your technical goals, well, I want to be proficient at troubleshooting compressors.
30:00 Well, what do you need to do? Well, I got to go learn cope. I got to go learn bits, so I got to go learn dance.
30:04 I got to go learn dyke, and you got to put the work in learn all those different ones and how do they work?
30:09 Because they all work differently. They're all in different systems. Yeah. It takes time. Yeah. And that the operative word and what he just said is plan, right?
30:18 Like, this is, we had a kind of terrific, I had a conversation before we started recording the podcast that many times it's just not typical for a technician to plan in the way that he's talking about it.
30:32 Most technicians did not think this is the line of work they were going to end up in. They just kind of ended up in it, right?
30:39 Very common. And then the life of a technician is very often someone's telling you today you didn't know this morning where you were going to be today.
30:47 So you're going to find out when you get there and it's a very reactive lifestyle for a lot of it, not all of them, but for a lot of technicians.
30:54 And so the idea of planning a five-year game plan three to five years, whatever amount of time, to build your technical skills and what you're going to do first and then what it's not It's not in your normal flow of things to prioritize, but it's very, very important, right?
31:12 If all you do is just wait for it to come up, you're just passing time. And look, y'all, the next five years is going to go out either way, plan or no plans.
31:22 You might as well make a plan and make use of those five years. Yeah, you don't even have to do five years.
31:27 Try a month. Try one week. Don't even try five years because I've done the same thing. I did plan but it wasn't for when I was doing a lot of planning because I knew I moved Australia back in 2009 I think and I knew I want to move there and I want to do refrigeration there because that's the only way
31:43 I could work there longer. So what did I do? I planned to move there. So I spent three years working and saving up money, working nights, working weekends, working holidays, working a hundred-hour weeks to get there.
31:55 And what did I do? I got there. I had a plan though. I had to get a visa. I had to work and figure out where I get visa.
32:01 I know I had to go to school and I had to take courses there because they do wiring different there, but I planned it.
32:07 You know, and that's what you got to do. If you want to buy a house, you can't just go and just go buy a house if you don't have any money.
32:13 So you got to plan. You got to save up. It's like anything. But the big thing is to start. So like I said, it doesn't have to be five years.
32:19 It could be this week I bring lunch to work every day instead of going out and buying lunch, buying burgers, you know, going to the gym.
32:29 Okay. This month, I'm I'm going to go this week, I'm going to go to Jim three times this week. Yep.
32:33 So I teach a lot of people on those personal development things, and it works. It's just hard. It's getting into those habits, like Jim Quick or James Clear, those guys who pick up James Clear to the atomic habits.
32:46 Talk about, you know, you know, you got two minutes, the two minute rule, just do it. If it's under two minutes, just go and do it because I have a lot of technician.
32:55 And I know for sure, I was a technician for over 10 years in the field. so I know I've been there.
33:00 I've been to the to the you don't know where you're going to be when you're going to be and making the excuses.
33:07 Well, I don't know where I'm going to be today, so I can't go to the gym. That's just an excuse.
33:11 You know, if you're working there long enough, you know where you're going to be most likely. You're in this city.
33:17 You know, you know, you're not state or that province is not like you're flying you to another province. Some technician do it.
33:23 Don't get me wrong. But you know you're in the city. So you may not know what side of the city you'll beyond.
33:27 But for example, if you wanted to go to gym, you put your gym clothes in with your bag. You buy a membership at a gym.
33:34 That's all over the city. So you don't have to go to the same gym each time. And then you figure out on the Tuesday or Thursday or Friday, I'm going to go on that day, go before work.
33:42 That's what I do. I got kids. So I get up at five o'clock in the morning to go to the gym, because I know I can't get in after that.
33:50 So it's just, yeah, it's just don't make excuses and just just do it. Yeah, well listen Trevor, we're just about out of time, but I'd love for you to just tell everybody how to get a hold of you If they say like man, Trevor sounds great.
34:04 How do I get started? Yeah, so I head to refrigeration mentors calm check out my courses there You can click on the contact button and reach out to me head to my YouTube channel A lot of free videos there Instagram LinkedIn connect with me on there.
34:18 There's tons of free information that I put out there so valuable. And then, yeah, check out some of my courses.
34:25 We've got supermarket academy courses, we've got CO2, we've got service courses, we've got compressor courses, we've got design courses, refrigeration design courses, we have tons of different stuff.
34:35 And we customize programs as well. So if you're a contractor and you have 10 or 15 technicians, you've got 40 technicians and you want to train them, I can build a private program just for you, exactly what you need tailored to what your technicians need to do.
34:48 And so that's what we do. We do a lot tailored courses that are on the equipment your technicians are working on or the systems your technicians are installing our servicing.
34:58 Yep, all right, so go check them out. He clearly he knows what he's doing and no man is wrong with.
35:04 He wouldn't have made it to this podcast if he didn't know what he was doing. So really appreciate the time he took today, Trevor, to be with us today.
35:10 Thank you, John. Appreciate it. And we will see you all next time on HVAC JoyLab podcast.