Electrician U

Some People Suck - You Don't Have To!

• Electrician U • Season 2 • Episode 114

Share episode

Dive into the challenges of service calls with "Some People Suck - You Don't Have To!", where Drake poses the tough questions and Dustin, Master Electrician from Electrician U, provides the answers. This episode is packed with stories and advice on handling difficult customer interactions—from overzealous clients who won’t leave you alone to navigating cluttered homes and dealing with non-paying customers. Listen as Dustin shares his experiences and strategies for maintaining professionalism in awkward, challenging, or hazardous situations. Whether you’re a seasoned electrician or new to the field, this podcast offers valuable insights into managing the unpredictable nature of customer service in the electrical trade, all while keeping your business’s reputation intact.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed!

Dustin:

From childhood, we're taught essential subjects like math, history and science. However, practical life skills often aren't covered, unless you have a proactive parent to teach you how to pump gas, do taxes and navigate bus schedules. Similarly, as an electrician, you learn the technical skills wiring houses, replacing receptacles, hanging fans but what about the unexpected challenges that aren't covered in school? What's going on? My friends? This is Dustin from the Electrician U podcast and Drake, and today I don't actually know what we're going to be talking about, because Drake won't tell me.

Drake:

Yes, today we're going to talk about the unprecedented world of service calls, where electricians enter the personal space of clients, and how to handle various situations that service electricians frequently come across from the awkward to the dangerous.

Dustin:

So, like customers that stand way too close to you inside the bubble of my personal space, yes, All right to you, yeah, yeah, inside the, the bubble of my personal space.

Drake:

Yes, all right, uh. So I'm going to ask uh dustin a bunch of questions and I want him to answer it with advice and possibly utilize actual scenarios. Number one how do you manage clients who insist on helping you or continuously shadowing you during a job?

Dustin:

oh bro, that's the most annoying of all. Hey, let me know if you want any help. Nope, I don't want any help. Man, go back to your kitchen, do something like I don't need you helping me. Um, there are the customers that want to quote, unquote help because they want a cheaper price. So it's more like they didn't they helped. So, like you're gonna work, you know, do a deal with them on the price. Nah, man, I, man, I ain't doing that. Um, the other thing is like a lot of customers don't actually know how to use tools or anything like that. They're just bored. And they, they really do want to help you. Um, I don't let people help because my license is on the line. So the liability line that I draw in the sand is if something were to happen to you because you're helping me, I don't want there to be a lawsuit. I don't want any loss of revenue that I'm, you know, from being out here. It's just stupid. Um, so no, I don't want any help.

Drake:

So what do you do when that starts to happen?

Dustin:

Uh, I just tell them, cool, I'll let you know if I need anything.

Drake:

Okay, but what if they like start shadowing you or start talking to you and then like how do you, how do you tell them in their own house, can you please go away?

Dustin:

I don't, you don't know that's so. That's the thing is like you have to draw a line of respect, right?

Drake:

And it's huge Right, you're in their house.

Dustin:

Yeah, and you're a professional Right, so for you to be watched, it shouldn't bother you that much. Yes, it's annoying because, like, you're constantly thinking about them watching, but when you get to be good enough at what you're doing, that doesn't bother you anymore. And a lot of times when you start working in like commercial and industrial environments, you're going to have maintenance people around you, following you around, letting you in rooms. They're going to be asking you questions, talking about stuff. So you just kind of get used to having people around that want to know what's going on. If it gets to be to the point where it's like super annoying and they're kind of impeding you, yeah, you could just say, hey, can you give me a few minutes? I need to look at stuff, I need to open things up and I don't want, I don't want anything to happen.

Dustin:

So this is going to be live electrical yeah, like you're being a distraction yeah, no, I wouldn't even say that I would just say I just for liability's sake. I want to be able to open all this stuff up and not have anything happen. So I, just to be safe, would you mind giving me a little bit, and then I will come to you and let you know what's going on cool cool.

Dustin:

So if you kind of use safety as the bs, that you have the diplomacy, yeah, what you don't want to do is be like, bro, get away from me. Yeah, you're gonna lose the customer, you're gonna lose a job and maybe that doesn't matter to you, maybe you're like fine, I don't want to do work for this person anyways. But you got to think about your reputation. When you treat somebody a certain way, they're gonna have a reaction and whichever way that reaction goes can have multiple other reactions afterwards and people talk. You know so like it sucks a lot of times to have to walk the line, but that's what makes you be professional, rather than just some hack out there. Doing stuff is once you understand, I'm an expert in my field. I'm a professional. I take pride in what I do. Part of that pride is treating people with humility and kindness and respect, because that is what a professional would do.

Drake:

Yeah, that's all good advice, all right. Number two what's your approach when you arrive at a hoarder's house and need to navigate clutter to address the electrical issue?

Dustin:

oh dude the way people live in their homes is far different than you're gonna see. People manage, manage their businesses. You go to a dentist's office or something like that. Sure, they might have an electrical or mechanical room that's got a panel in it and it's a little cluttered because people just throw stuff in closets. But when you get into a hoarder's house, there is literally everything that's ever existed on the planet, from floor to ceiling, wall to wall in every room. And you again, you can't be rude and be like oh my God, you're a messy person, right? Because they probably have a disorder that's causing them to be this way.

Dustin:

The one thing that I wish people did was to think about the people, the trades, that are coming into their house and make space and clean things out so that there's access, but that does not happen. Most of the time it doesn't happen. It's on you to have to move things around. You're on the clock, though, so you're charging by the hour, so if it takes you a little while to clean their mess up and then you have to explain to them at the end, well, yeah, I mean, this whole place was cluttered and you know there's stuff everywhere, so I just had to move everything out you know, they're gonna understand.

Dustin:

Do you ask them if you can move their stuff first? Yes, I always do that. At first I wouldn't. I always wanted to be the, the, the kind, good, friendly. You know, I'll just do anything, it doesn't matter. But uh, I've had apprentices break lamps, you know. So it's their stuff. They put the stuff there. Um, and usually when I go out and do a service call, if I, if I'm like giving an estimate, I'll tell them like, hey, there's a lot of stuff in the way and we need to work over here. So I don't want my guys moving your stuff and breaking it. I need you, before we come back out here, to make these certain areas clean. Yeah, doesn't even have to be clean, just get the stuff out of the way so you can access it. Yeah, and I usually tell them too, we can move this stuff for you, but I'm a very expensive mover. So if you want to be charged for us having to move everything around, I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to take your money, you know.

Dustin:

I say that like jokingly, so it's like friendly, yeah, but then they get it immediately Like no, I don't want to pay for you to move this stuff, man, but yeah, definitely don't be a jerk man. Being a service electrician, that's part of the. The skill set is like how do you finesse attitude? Yeah, how do you finesse like dealing?

Drake:

with human beings. I mean, that's that's what this is all about. Yeah, right, it's. It's hard because, you know, for people who are hoarders, they're a lot of times attached and protective of their stuff. Yeah, so like you going to move it without asking them? That's a horrible idea, you know. And then sometimes, even if you're asking now, they're worried that you're going to break that. And if you break it, then so what? What do you do? If you break something in somebody's house? Pay for it. You just pay for it.

Dustin:

Yeah. So you just say hey, I'm really sorry, I will you know. You can either invoice me for what that thing is and I'll happily pay for it. If my guy puts a foot through a ceiling, same thing. I'm going to find a drywall person, I'm going to have them come out there, I'm going to take care of it.

Dustin:

Yeah, and as the business owner, I'm even going to show up with them. I'm going to come out so that the customer sees me taking care of this. So it's no problems. I don't want some drywall dude coming in and asking the customer all these questions about stuff and they don't know and they're already pissed off, right. So I would bring somebody in and be like hey, we did this, take complete ownership over it, apologize profusely and then handle it and don't just like linger about and wait for stuff. This is their house, they're living in and they are very emotionally tied to their house. So again, the professional first.

Drake:

Talking, emotionally tied to their house.

Dustin:

So again, the professional first talking about emotionally tied. What about dogs and pets? What do you do about dogs and pets? Obviously, lizards and fish don't really matter. Dogs is a weird one. Um, I'm a dog lover. I have two pit bulls and a Belgian Malinois, so I have like three what are seen as the most aggressive dogs? Yeah, they're big too.

Drake:

And fluffy and puffy.

Dustin:

So with me. I understand dogs. I think I was a dog in a former life. I usually say that if I'm petting a dog, you know dogs come up to me wagging all the time. I'm like you know your own kind. Get over here, you know. You kind of smell like one. Yeah, so I don't have issues with dogs. However, not every dog on the planet does not going to have an issue with me. Right, dogs are very unpredictable and even a poodle can do a lot of damage to a leg. So in general I just I usually tell people to put their dogs away, say I'm an absolute dog lover, I have three dogs, but just to make sure for your dog safety and for my own, please put the dogs away.

Drake:

Yeah, it's always kind of like coming up with something like friendly and maybe quippy and and funny and then be like but I need this to be taken care of. Yeah, like I love dogs, but I need them to go away I also love my legs.

Dustin:

Yeah, I love my legs, I love having two of them. Yeah, I mean, I've been bit by dogs on jobs and they like there were some border collies. Border collies are another brand of breed of dog that are, um, they're really skittish sort of like. They're high intensity, high energy. They're cattle dogs, so they're always assessing herd mentality and trying to bite at the ankles of stuff to get them to go back in the the direction that they want them to go. Yeah, so they're corralling and controlling um things. So a lot of times border collies will end up coming up behind you and biting your ankles and you just don't even see them around and I've had that happen before.

Dustin:

I've had poodles. I had a german shepherd. This was stupid. I went and did a estimate at a guy's house and he was a pool guy. He like he um sold pools, installed pools another tradesman you know. So I figured he kind of got it went into his house.

Dustin:

He had a mama german shepherd and a dad german shepherd who just had a brand new litter of puppies and they didn't think about it, they didn't think to put them away, they were protective. That mama lunged at me and snapped at me. I almost got my arm, didn't like grazed my arm, and just like attacked me, man and, uh, again, didn't like hurt me or anything like that. But it was the. Both the husband and the wife came out and immediately they were like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm like, can you please put your animals that are have a fresh litter of puppies away? Yeah, and they apologize profusely. But something you know, people don't think about it. A lot of times they're just like, oh, welcome, come in, this is our family, my dogs. But, um, yeah, it's like, can you put your children away? Yeah, yeah, I will.

Dustin:

When I've got my dogs and somebody comes up to the door, I always leave my dogs out. I don't know who's coming to my door. Yeah, I'm from texas. We're just a little bit more like on guard about our property and stuff. So I want people to know that we have these three dogs and, depending on who comes to the door, you know like if somebody's coming into work, um, we'll have a technician come in to like, cause I'm a rental right now. So, um, we'll have somebody come in and do maintenance and my dogs will be there.

Dustin:

And as soon as I see like, oh, you're here to do work, let me go put my dogs up and I go make sure that they're up in a room. They put them in their kennels, like I have two barriers to try to get through to get you know, but just the respectful thing to do is put them away. But it's really easy to just tell somebody like hey, uh, you can even make up a lie and say you're terrified of dogs, even if you're not, if you're like I've had some bad experiences, I've been attacked by dogs and I'd really, uh, respect it if you would put the dogs away please yeah, um also, if you're working on a live panel and you got some dog that comes up, starts barking at you in the middle of you, like in the zone you know, it could scare the living hell out of you?

Drake:

yeah, in the same respect. What do you do about children? Same thing, same thing yes, I don't want your child biting my no, but you might run into a situation where there's, like you know, six year old, five year olds running around and, like, really interested in what you're doing. Of course you want to be friendly with them, but what happens when they start to impede on safety? Like, would you just go to the parents and ask them like, what would? What would be your?

Dustin:

Oh, I would tell them. So that's the thing. Here is like you command a certain amount of respect as a professional, so a lot of people are terrified of being confrontational and they assume that being confrontational means you have to be an asshole. But that's not true. Right, you can tell somebody. This is the way things are and I need you to do this in a kind way. Sure about it. Just say, hey, I love your kids. I think they're amazing little human beings. Preface a little bit, but I need to do this and they can get killed if they're around me while I'm working on this stuff and I just don't want anything to happen. So please take your kids and keep them, and that's a, you know, that's a. That's a totally understandable way to react. Now, usually, again, kids love me and when I come into a house and I see little kids, I'm always like, ah, what are you playing with? Can I play with your trucks with you? You?

Drake:

know like, and suddenly you're talking about minecraft for an hour.

Dustin:

Yeah so the kids tend to want to be around me. Yeah, but because I had that interaction in front of the parents, that it shows I love their kids. When I tell them, hey, I just want your kids to be safe, I don't want they might get shocked, then they always just comply with that because you're painting the picture of their kid getting hurt rather than saying, hey, your kids are annoying. Or like, oh, could you put your kids away? I'm trying to work here. It's just the finesse thing. It's how you talk to people. It's yeah, it's a respect, yeah, yeah, you can show people respect and then tell them what to do and they will do it because you're being respectful about it.

Drake:

So shifting a little bit, how do you handle situations where previous electrical work is so poorly done it poses a safety risk? I know that's kind of vague, but fix it, just fix it. And I mean, what if you run into a situation where it's just like you know they have a switch that's not working and then when you open up the switch it's a lot more, how do you go about like telling them, hey, this is a bigger problem, do you just? You just say it as it is.

Dustin:

Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean like a switch in my mind. When I open up a switch, there's not going to be anything in there other than a coiled up snake or something that would be that dangerous for me to be worried about.

Dustin:

Um, but yeah, if there's some kind of like hazards when I walk into a situation, I am so incredibly honest on every level. Yeah, I don't want them ever thinking that I'm doing something shady, Like I communicate everything. So if I walk into a job to estimate it and it's like a remodel or something, and, um, somebody's like, hey, can you give me an estimate on this? And I walk in and I'm like Holy crap, this is a nightmare. What I tell them is like there is a lot more going on here and I can guarantee every wall that I open up is going to be a rat's nest of crazy.

Dustin:

So this is going to probably cost more than I can actually give you an estimate for. Um, I don't know how much it's going to cost and I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by giving you a price and then it's 10 times more. So I don't want to just make something up either. In jobs like that, I would charge time and material. I would say this is going to charge as I do it and I'll just keep handing in invoices as as things go.

Dustin:

But usually if something's that hazardous, I would tell them like look you, what you have here is a really huge hazard. There's a really, really big problem. So before I proceed and do anything, you need to understand like this is the parameters of this and this needs to be fixed immediately. You're more than welcome to get some other electricians in here to get their opinion as well, but I think that this needs to be handled immediately and it's probably gonna cost you around this. So I try to be just as transparent with people as possible. It's always a better idea to maintain your respectfulness of their fears and not feed them too much information, right? So if something's scary, don't make it so scary, because then they're going to be terrified in their house all the time. Handle it professionally, you know like um. Don't freak out yourself. Keep yourself composed and handle the situation and show that you have an answer for all of their problems.

Drake:

And you'll get the job Kind of going with that. What do you do if a project becomes more complex than anticipated? How do you bite your ego and tell the customer that you might not be able to do this? I know that might not happen to you, but when you were younger, like oh no, it did.

Dustin:

Yeah, so I haven't. This is the one thing that people don't think about. Like people look at me like I'm this whole super electrician. I'm not dude, I'm just an electrician like any of the rest of you guys out there, I got a certain level of experience. There's people that have 10 times the experience that I do and I I look up to that with respect, but there have been things that I have tried to do, especially as a brand new business owner, that I was way over my head and I didn't know what I was doing. But I need the money, and so I was just like I can figure anything out. You know that was my attitude. I got phone numbers to some old school cats that can help me figure stuff out. So I would dive into things that I didn't know and I would say 99% of the time I just figured it out. I'd sit and look on forums and figure things out. But there's this one job in particular that I'm so embarrassed of and I've never told anybody this.

Dustin:

I got a backhoe and I'd always driven heavy equipment Like I was always the heavy equipment guy on every job or every company I ever worked for, cause I loved it. It was like playing in a sandbox, you know, yeah, but I was never in a heavy equipment operator, I was never licensed, you know, I didn't have proper training. I had Texas ranch, you know, grab the tractor and dig in kind of training. And so I was probably 29 and I got this job and brought a. It wasn't a backhoe, it was a mini excavator. And so this the job was to um, go, dig up a certain portion of the backyard, install some stuff, run some underground cover, it back up pretty easy, just moving a service, and it was an overhead service that needed to get changed to an underground service. So we had a manhole. Manhole is like a big concrete hole tube that you stick in the ground and then all the conductors from the utility come into that thing. And I had done them working at another company, but I hadn't, like, done the entire thing from beginning to end all by myself.

Dustin:

So some of this was like, when I got that, that a mini X there, I was just like, okay, I'm gonna have to drive this down a hill through a Rocky cliff sort of situation. That was dangerous and the whole thing was going to be, you know, sideways, and I was terrified that it was going to flip over as it was. I told the contractor there cause they were doing backyard work. They were like building this massive deck and all of this stuff, kind of like terraforming the entire backyard. So I told them I need to get in here with the mini x first, so it's clear as possible for me to go dig all of this, put my underground in and cover it. I get there the day of and they have the entire backyard torn apart.

Dustin:

So now a clean way to drive a mini x is even more dangerous because there's like 15 trenches that were there, that weren't, or that are there now that weren't there. So now I'm having to drive over trenches and my tracks, you know, falling in, and I'm having to use the bucket to like lift the front end of the tracks over and pull the whole machine over these trenches and then spin around and then use the bucket to lift myself up over trenches. But there's other trenches there. It was just just a dangerous situation. It wasn't like a single trench, it was like they had. They had dug all of these piers and beams and stuff. So there was just. Basically it was shot to shit. Right, it was a landmine of man.

Drake:

Yeah so.

Dustin:

I get in there and I look at this and I talked to the GC and I'm like, bro, I told you not to do this. I have to get back here. How the hell am I supposed to drive this now? Like this is stupid, this is insane, we're going to get this thing stuck. It was muddy as hell and so I told him.

Dustin:

I was like I'm not doing this, I'm backing out of the job, sorry, like I told you what I needed and you completely screwed it over. So I'm gonna have to wait until you're done with all of this stuff beforehand. And he's like no, you can, can't? There's people living here? And I'm like that's not my problem. You know, with a gc you can be this direct with the customer a little bit different in their home. So, anyways, I was like no man, I'm taking this thing back, so call me when you guys are done. He runs out to the truck once I get in it and he's like I will do this, I will use the, the mini x, and I'll dig all of this stuff for you.

Drake:

And I was like all right, cool, go for it man you want to do that.

Dustin:

And uh, he started doing it and did a pretty piss poor job of it. And uh, even he was like, yeah, I can't do anything with this. And I'm like, yeah, this is totally fucked. Not only did I have to dig the trenches, but I had to dig a manhole in the ground and those things are probably I don't know like four feet, uh, four to five feet tall, and all of texas is bedrock. It's not just digging dirt, you're having to hammer. So it's just a lot of work to do, yeah.

Dustin:

And so at this point I was so irritated and I felt so stupid for taking on operator work and not being experienced enough to just handle any weird fucked up situation that would arise. Um, so I was just like, so ready to walk away from this Ended up, that guy couldn't do it. And then the homeowners got involved and they were pissed off that we couldn't get done with our work. They were pissed off at the GC. I was pissed off the GC, it just created this whole big problem. But what I did to handle it is, I called another electrical company that specializes in underground work. I just got a name from some other master electrician that, like these guys can handle anything. This is all they do all day, every single day. And so I called them. He gave me a price. I told him the situation. I was like I got in over my head. Uh, you know, I can operate, but I can't operate at this level. And now the whole backyard Swiss cheese and I'm just scared to go in and do anything about it. And here it's got lights, there's a time limit, there's people living in the house. I just need fucking help Get me out of this problem. Yeah, and so he gave me a super fair price and, uh, was honest, respectable, came the next day, did the entire thing, put it all back together, done perfect work, saved the day, you know.

Dustin:

So, in talking to the homeowner um, the homeowners were, you know, pissed about everything, and I was honest with them too I like, at the very end, I sat him down and I was like okay, so I need to tell you something, I need to be honest with you. I said I got in over my head. This is something that I should have been able to do, and I got heated and I got pissed off because the job didn't go the way I wanted it to go. In all reality, somebody that's a professional equipment operator would have been able to handle this and did yeah, but that was not me. So I just want you to know that I got into this job more than I should have and they were so appreciative they're like the fact that you're willing to admit that and be that respectful about it like seriously, thank you. I was like yeah, yeah, and like either way, we got somebody else in to handle it and they were so appreciative.

Dustin:

So, like there's going to be weird times like that in your job where you are in over your head and it's your job as a master electrician to find these solutions for stuff, even if it asks, if it includes asking more experienced people for help, like even now with electrician you stuff. There are things I still don't know, but I have enough people around me that I can reach out to certain people and be like yo, you're an electrical engineer. What does this mean? You know? Can you explain this? And I have no problem admitting that I don't know something. That's the thing. A lot of electricians. There's a lot of machismo out in the field. It's that's in every field humans in general.

Dustin:

We have a hard time admitting wrong but the trades are like everything has to be right, everything's inspected. You got to prove your rightness and your quality of work and you fail an inspection, so there's like this need for validation sort of thing. So there's a lot of ego that goes with admitting you're wrong or doing things wrong. But yeah, if you're, if you can start developing the internal feeling that when you're wrong it's actually okay, because now, once you find out the right way to do something, you're never wrong again.

Drake:

Yeah, you're that much smarter.

Dustin:

Yeah, you know. So, like, collect things that you know, but be honest with people, man. Be super, super honest because, at the end of the day, you're never going to have somebody that's going to be able to come back on you, against you, say that your word doesn't mean anything, that you're dishonest, because there's going to be thousands of people that can back up the truth. Right, you know, and I'd rather be in that position, be a little uncomfortable being wrong over here, so that the legacy of me is right.

Drake:

Yep, that's important. Let's shift gears again. It's important. Let's shift gears again. Have you ever encountered a client who seems more interested in you personally than your electrical services? Oh yeah, how do you handle that situation? In general, maybe not, how did you, but how would you, or both?

Dustin:

You always have to keep professionalism as your shield. Yeah, even if you're interested to the. The time and place for two people to interact in that manner is not during a professional business meeting. A change of of goods and services. You risk losing everything if that goes south and nowadays people are a lot more sensitive to everything on the planet. You could say something that you don't even mean to be a way and someone takes it a certain way. While you're wearing your company's logo on your chest and you're representing a thing, always be cautious of what you are representing. Are you representing that? You're this, this suave. You know electrical player suave, like are it?

Dustin:

does the logo on your chest have sexuality to it and does it need to? No, no, you're there to do a job. So it's one thing if somebody is kind of being flirtatious with you and you're being a little flirtatious back and stuff like that, but trying to maintain professionalism and it requires grace, dudes, it requires grace. It's one thing to like have somebody be interested and then get your number or get their number, but then finish the job. Do the work be professional?

Drake:

Yeah, and then afterwards you guys start talking or whatever, right because personality too, like a person might just be flirty by nature and has nothing to do with you yeah, now you made an assumption, right, you're hitting on somebody in their house and, like you know, like you got to be super careful.

Dustin:

um, so I would always err on the side of being professional, because nobody can disrespect that Somebody may hit on you. You don't have to be a jerk and be like gross, get away from me. But you, you know, just kind of like bat it, smile and maintain be a pillar, be a pillar of electricity. That is why you are there.

Drake:

Okay, two more questions, and these are as business owners. As a business owner, how do you deal with customers who refuse to pay? When does it become worth pursuing legally?

Dustin:

You know, what's really interesting is I have yet to have a single customer that wouldn't pay yeah.

Drake:

Ever pay? Yeah, ever. I've had a couple piano students who I let go more than a couple months because I've known them for so long and then all of a sudden it was on the third invoice where I'm like, hey, you know, this needs to happen and it was straight up sorry, can't do it. And we're talking three hundred dollars and to get a legal team on that it's more than $300. So it's not, it's not worth it, which sucks. I mean the bridge is burnt with me and this student and it sucks because I was part of their lives for five years.

Dustin:

Yeah.

Drake:

So emotionally it hurt more than financially. But in a electrical job for you, thinking about it, what would you say?

Dustin:

Well, there's a lot of. There's a lot of like rights that you have as a contractor. You can put a lien on somebody's house so they can't ever sell their house until they cleared the lien. Okay, and a lien is the money that you are claiming that they owe you. So you can have a tax lien. Right, you owe taxes on a house. So if you try to sell the the house, you got to pay that tax lien. Or if it's foreclosed on, obviously, like there's still a tax lien, somebody has to pay that. But there's things that you can do. You can go to small claims court but, like the amount of money that you're going to spend getting a lawyer to get a certain amount of money back, it's got to be quite substantial. So this would be a better question to ask somebody that's got a 300300 million a year company where they probably run across this situation all the time.

Dustin:

But in general, when you're just dealing with human interactions between two people, most of the time, when you take money up front, I'll always take 50% up front. So that, I guess, is maybe it's not fair to say that I've never had somebody not pay. I've always gotten mine and insured that I do. I've had things where I've had to work with people on payments because they couldn't finish paying and I was super understanding about it. But I'm also. I very quickly develop a rapport with people so that they feel like they're my friend. And it's not even anything I intend to do, it's just when I go to somebody's house, I actually care.

Dustin:

I don't just front Like I care, I do spend time like talking to their kids, I do pet their dogs, I do like check up on them, like I'm a very involved, caring human being in general, and I do that with my customers as well. So most of my customers feel like it's an affront to when I've been super great to them to screw me over, right, and because I'm always so forthcoming with everything and honest about this is how much it's going to cost. This is what's going on. I include them in everything. There's no side, you know, and I always ask too, like if something expensive comes up out of the blue, I'll say, hey, this is what's happening and it's going to cost more. Now, is this something you can even afford before I proceed, cause I don't want there to be a weird thing at the end where you can't pay this. You know, I kind of just preface everything that I'm doing but even still you never ran into.

Drake:

You said you worked with somebody with like payment plans yeah, yeah, I would have somebody that's just like dude.

Dustin:

I ran into a situation they felt comfortable enough being honest with me, because I was, you know. I just treated him a certain way and I'm like no worries man, like well, let's figure this out. What can you afford? And, you know, can you make this happen over the next four months? And they're like, yeah, for sure, and they followed through on it. Yeah.

Drake:

So working with payment plans, I've definitely done that as well too.

Dustin:

Yeah, I mean you gotta be reasonable, like stuff happens in people's lives, people's lives.

Drake:

Yeah, money is hard, humans are difficult. Yeah, you know, life is, life is weird.

Dustin:

So yeah, just as uncomfortable as it is for you to not get paid for that job Cause you have people you have to pay and it like hurts you. Yeah, they're just as uncomfortable cause they literally don't have the money. Yeah, you know it's a bummer, they're probably phone is getting cut off. That school has a board of directors and you know they're going to pay their bills. It's just sometimes weird things happen and lawsuits happen, but, like most of the time with commercial, you don't have an issue with it. When you're doing service calls, the bills are usually smaller. You're going in and doing something and directly getting paid. When you're in new construction or where you're in, you know like you're doing a large project, your bill's going to be monster, but the customers usually know about that ahead of time and and you're collecting a lot of money upfront to make sure you don't get screwed out of something.

Dustin:

But yeah, you just have to evaluate, like, is it worth me taking legal means to go chase after this? How much is it going to cost me? Lawyers are not cheap. No, a $200 lawyer, $200 an hour lawyer is a cheap lawyer. You know. $300 an hour an hour. If you're gonna get like a board certified 20 year super baller lawyer. You're talking 500 or more an hour, yeah, and that's who you want, and so that's every hour. They talk to you on the phone. That's putting emails together, writing up all the documents. I mean you could be talking a 10 to 20 000 retainer just to retain them as your lawyer, and then they start pulling money out of that over time. But you could be spending fifty thousand dollars to chase five hundred, yeah. So sometimes you just got to chalk it up to an alum and walk away it sucks.

Dustin:

You can record things as losses. So, um, if you have an accountant that does all your bookkeeping and does your taxes, you can write things like that off if you had some kind of loss. If there's ever a loss like theft or anything like that, you want to file a police report because you have to have receipts that something happened. Yep, um, but keep really really great records, um, document everything. Try to do everything in writing and not just, you know, verbally over the phone no, but that's good to know too.

Dustin:

Uh, for the losses and stuff if you have a loss or if you get something stolen, to report it yeah, because it's like you're not going to get that money back, but it's at least tax money that you don't have to pay to the government right, you don't have to get taxed on it.

Drake:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good, all right. Last question how do you handle unsatisfied customers to protect your business's reputation and ensure service quality?

Dustin:

um, I think there's kind of a common thread in everything that we've been talking about today and it's just like be a respectful human being and understand that these are people you're working with, and it takes every kind of people to make this world go around. You're not going to get along with everybody, but how you conduct yourself matters when those things are happening. What about?

Drake:

crazy unsatisfied customers.

Dustin:

So if I had, so there was a job. I actually recorded this on the Journey to Master channel years and years ago. We got fired because two people had working for me. They were like an hour late, didn't tell anybody they were gonna be late, just showed up, dropped materials off and then left and went to lunch for like an hour hour and a half. The customer called me, pissed. They're like you said you were going to be here at this time. You're not even here. I thought you were going to be the one doing the work. You're Dustin, you're the guy.

Dustin:

I'm like well, that's not how electrical companies work. Like we have people that go out and do things and like I'm over here at one job, you know. They're like I don't, we don't even want it, we don't want you to do the work. I can't believe. You guys were an hour late and then just went to lunch. I'm like you're right, that was, that was stupid and I'm going to go jump them for that. So we got fired. They were like so scared that I was going to just come unglued and I didn't. I just said hey, man, like how we treat people really, really matters, and if you're going to be late. You got to sit and call these people and tell them what's going on, and if you're late because of something you guys were doing, then you get to a job. Why wouldn't you have grabbed lunch on the way, first and foremost? Grab lunch on the way, eat a sandwich. I'm not saying don't take your lunch break, but or at least call me and let me know what's going on. Or take lunch a couple hours later.

Drake:

Yeah, Like get a bunch of stuff done like hustle and then go get lunch.

Dustin:

Yeah, you've got an already heated customer. Yeah, like all right. So we just got fired and here's what I'm going to do. I was a brand new, you know. I was in my yes man, like got to get all the five star reviews thing, and so I went, I dropped everything that I was doing and I went over to the house and knocked on the door and they were home and I said, hey, I'm really sorry, cause that's not acceptable behavior.

Dustin:

And I sat down and I talked to my guys about all of that. They understand what. What happened. I'd like the chance to do this work for you, but I'm not going to charge you anything for it. And they're like, really, I'm like, yeah, I mean, it wasn't that my. I think it was like putting some recess cans in and, like I don't know, hanging a couple of fans or something. It was probably like 800 bar, not thousands, yeah yeah. So I was like uh, I just I want my reputation to stand for something, and what happened with the guys? Stuff happens. That's not my reputation, though, and I want the opportunity to work for you, to earn your business in the future and earn a good reputation out of your mouth to other people, moving forward.

Drake:

So you put all the cans in the wrong spot?

Dustin:

Yeah, I smashed every fucking window in that house, no, um. And they were like, okay, that's fine. Yeah, and when we came all three, you know, we all came and did the job like on a saturday or something they volunteered to come out and I was like, now I'll pay you guys for it, like this is something I'm gonna eat, but I want you to understand I'm eating your mistake, I'm eating this. And so they, they just out and we did the work and, uh, we had such a good time with them joking around, laughing about stuff, talking about life. We got done with the, with the, with the job, and they paid me in full.

Dustin:

I didn't even ask. I was like are you guys satisfied? Do you feel like I rectified the situation? And they're like, yeah, this was really outstanding. This is 180 degree difference. Like this is what I had been told about you. Is that you're like this dude, you know? Yeah, so they just handed me money, nice, paid me in full for it. That's awesome. And then, from then on out, the reputation saved. I'm not suggesting everybody go out every time a customer is pissed and do work, right. I'm just saying, in that situation, I felt like there was something I could do as the business owner and like save that yeah, as a business owner.

Dustin:

If you can do it, yeah you know, you know skin on my back to go in for a saturday and like fix a right thing that we screwed up eight hundred dollars of time. You know it's the, maybe, the, the cost of the materials and stuff but I'd already bought them, so I was gonna be sitting there out with that, yeah so yeah, time is, time is money, but on a saturday sometimes it doesn't matter yeah yeah, no, that's awesome yeah, just try to.

Dustin:

I don't know, man, like, going into business is different than just being out in the field every day wearing tools. Yeah, you have to wear an immense amount of hats, you have to become good at a lot of things that you didn't otherwise have to be good and now you have a reputation and everybody under you has where's your reputation represents you. So be careful who you're hiring and how they act. And, like I always tell people, when I'm on a hire somebody, I always look for their character and I hire character. I don't hire skill. I can train anybody to put in plugs and switches, but I can't train humility and responsibility and respect and all of those things. Yeah, the one thing you got to realize is that, like, people are people and I I think people kind of go through the world expecting that everybody needs to be their friend. It's just not going to happen.

Dustin:

There's so many of us that, like y'all watch these videos right, you see the comments. There's people that are hateful to me. There's people that are hateful to everybody. Everybody that I talk to that's a content creator. Everybody that I talk to that's an electrician. They have bad situations with people that don't go, they go sideways. People talk bad about them, people hate them, people treat them badly. This is life. This is how how it works. You think, once you leave high school, that high school's done.

Dustin:

But it's not now it's just the people that you have to like financially depend on these relationships high school is just the younger version of life yeah, it's like the free play version where there's not a lot of rules and quests, but now you get in the adult world you got quests that depend on uh, relationships, people.

Dustin:

But just understand, like when I see a person I don't look at them as a snapshot, I don't say like this person is just this way and that's who they are. People change every day and over years change and develop. Somebody that might have been like a complete loser or whatever when you were in high school might be like the coolest human being on the planet. They might have gone through some of the worst things humans have ever had to go through to get where they're at. So when I look at somebody I just realize everybody's got a story. And I was looking like I was in class last night and I was listening to my biology professor talk about stuff and she's a nerd biology professor. You know like she's a super loves it.

Dustin:

Yeah, and nobody laughs at her jokes. It's kind of like she's kind of like a a mom grandma transition. You know she's like fifties, so she's like she's telling dad jokes but they're like mom biology jokes that nobody understands and it just made me crack up. Yeah, I'm like you're a. You're a human. You've experienced so many things. You've got a PhD over here and an ED, which is like a PhD for education master's degree. Like you've done really impactful things in like the ocean with you know sea life and stuff like that.

Dustin:

So when I see people, I actually ask them a lot of questions because I want to know what their video is. I don't want to look at them as a snapshot. Yeah, any way that somebody is acting in any one moment is just circumstantial about that moment. Yeah, there are people that are d-bags, you know, and they just that's just how they show up. But there's always a reason underneath everything as to why people are being the way that they're being.

Dustin:

Absolutely, it allows me to have a lot more understanding, so that I don't allow them To push me off of my path of who I am. I don't let somebody else make me change who I am to react to them and, like you know, driving through traffic I don't get pissed off, I don't get road rage. I'm not going to let somebody who's like probably cutting you off because his wife's pregnant in the hospital. He's trying to get there, but you don't know that. You just think this dick cut you off. You know I don, because now I'm letting them pull me into their shit, right, and that shows I'm not stable within myself. So, like, just try to be a pillar in who you are and how you show up and if you can maybe say less or smile more or think before you say things, if you're in a really weird situation with somebody.

Drake:

That's always important.

Dustin:

Yeah, that's all I got Awesome. Take care, guys. Be kind to one another and try to I don't know be the best version of yourself everywhere you show up, and things will just go better for you. It's true, love you crazy fuckers.