so David's kindly uh going to do a q and a session our students are all behind the
camera they'll ask a question David will answer we've don't what a question is going to be so
this could be interesting and we know the rules at college we can't bring on my best behavior
if it cuts at any point you know without a small issue that's what i would suggest
okay then so we're going to open the questions up so have you got a question for me
so what's the best advice you can give to these learners about trying to get an apprenticeship uh
obviously it's difficult um there's i'm not sure what it's like out there for apprenticeship places
i know personally uh i'm unable to say one at the moment because i'm not able to expand the business
at present for various reasons but i do get people um asking me if if there are apprenticeship
opportunities and the thing to do um really is to try and set yourself out from all the other
applicants that are saying asking for the same sort of places and one of the things that i get
i'll get something like an email come in um saying something like hi i'm brian i'm on
level two at warwickshire college have you got any apprenticeships and it'll
all be in lowercase it'll have sent from my iphone written underneath it
and uh it won't be to me personally i've obviously sent it out to everybody and you think well
comments and you've just sent that from your table at the pub haven't you you haven't put any thought
any effort into it you're not really applying to me it's just a generic application um and i always
try and respond um personally to every application um because i know what it's like to to send out
scatter shot emails like that and not get any response it can be disheartening so i tried to
send a personalized reply saying unfortunately i can't take anybody on this time um and um
that's right that's my final thought so you can't tell at the moment but you did say to
me off camera that you have people also ask for work experience experiences that's it
i do always save them if no better opportunity comes along no better option comes along then
you can come out for some work experience on the van to see what the life is like to play
with the tools just have experience of obviously you've done stuff in the classroom environment
but to see it out on site and to see how uh my colleague nigel land interact with customers
and also the uh if you want to see that sort of thing the the the other side of
running the business the paperwork side the certification that you might not be involved with
at this sort of stage um quote preparations invoicing all that sort of stuff it's all it's all
open now i'm quite happy to show off any of that kind of stuff to anybody who wants to see it
um but uh by the same token although i i put out those sort of personalized responses
and make that offer i never get anything back from them saying oh thanks very much for that
uh wow and and i would say that if someone's taking the time to respond to you if you put
something out there and they and someone whether it's a big company or a small one if someone's
responding to say thanks for your uh thanks for your inquiry but we can't take anyone on
at this time do go back to them and say thanks for getting back to me would you consider keeping me
on file in case any opportunities arise in the future because obviously from a personal level
whoever that person is whether that's one man bandish like me or whether it's someone at a
larger firm saying like clarkson evans who may be working in personnel or something if they
if they're after people in the future they're more likely to look at what applicants have come in and
and someone who's sent in a very short request via their phone while they're half cut down the
pub isn't going to stand out against the the nice polite person who wrote in and asked to
be kept on fire and who showed genuine interest in the companies i want to work for your company
uh addressed it to a particular person at the company perhaps or at least mentioned
the company in the in the application so that it didn't look like it was just a scatter shot
and if you link that with maybe that you've done a bit of work experience with them maybe
a week two weeks every other friday or something like that and you're on record they'll go well
remember when we had x on work experience that was 18 months ago might even be a case of just
looking back and thinking that person was really good we're in a different position now do you ask
for that as well if you say you know if you're asking for whether they have apprenticeship or
apprenticeship opportunities do i ask them if even if they don't is there any opportunity for um work
experience there because it's something to put on your cv and again you're all in competition not
only with each other but with all sorts of other colleges around uh and if you can set yourself
out you've got to sell yourself and set yourself out slightly higher against anybody else who's
making the same application if you can uh get your foot in the door so to speak and be somewhere
where you where you can show you've got some skills on the tools or you can um do something
useful then as gas said if an opportunity arise in the future they're more likely to say oh let's
get let's get brian in rather than let's get yeah someone fresh just having to write that week yeah
really good question i think that's a really good piece of advice i think we're moved away
from the generic text or hopeful email we know that we've got a bigger process to go through
for us who are trying to gain an apprenticeship and stuff we've been working with you as well so
any other questions then let's have another one so question here what made you want to start youtube
okay so the question was what made you want to start to youtube david i'm questioning whether
it was a good idea now i must admit that well let's link that to the day's money you're not
earning today and the diesel that left your van as you drove all the way to us and back again yeah
it's um i have to admit i've been very naive with youtube i i thought what i what i've always done
since starting the business is i've written articles from my website blog articles free advice
articles because what i want people to do customers potential customers in my area
is to when they're googling to find an electrician or whatever it is to uh oh this guy looks like
well it looks like he knows what he's talking about even if he perhaps doesn't end it but um
if they can see that you know that i've got some passion and some interest in in it then
it again it's like it's the selling yourself thing again putting yourself above your peers
someone looking at the content on my website will hopefully be swayed more than
um joe blog's electrical who says very little on his and who doesn't sell himself
and it was all part of that really and in my naivety i did think that uh if i if i
did a few chat things on youtube just again to sort of sell myself as a person so that anybody
looking for someone to rewire their house whatever some larger job perhaps we think
we don't need to look around anymore this guy looks like he's he's the one for us he looks
like he he can do the job he seems to know what he's talking about you find that the early videos
are a lot more sort of obviously stiffer and formal and that's just because that i assumed
at the time i would have perhaps 20 subscribers and there'd be local people and that you know no
one would be paying any attention to anything i said but what seems to have happened is that um
people uh in your sort of um situations the sort of people who are learning about the
industry looking to break into it they seem to be becoming the audience and as from our
point of view that's that's why we pick you up because you're the first person to
have the art fault detection device and try and get a trip you're the first person to install
an spd that i found and that was in your own house so it's those things that we're trying
to bring to life when and you were first to those other people have done it since and that's where
we went to your youtube channel to pick those up so whereas it started off as maybe as a marketing
tool yes it's actually developed into a little bit of a training tool as well i believe it has it's
sort of naturally developed that way and i didn't it wasn't my intention but i'm quite happy for
it to be there as long as people think i've still got something relevant to say but also um i do it
for my own benefit because if you take something like spd obviously as an installer out there i've
got to get my head around what the new regs are yeah i haven't had a lot of experience installing
sbds it's not really been on the radar yeah for someone who deals mainly in domestic work as i do
until 18th edition came out so i've got to get into my head what are these things how
do i install it because i've got to comply with these regs i need to know what i'm doing out there
so i'll take some time to put the research in and make make the video or write the article for the
website and then in the future when if i haven't used that technology for a while it's been a while
since i've done it rather than have to research it all again and go uh yeah i've already got an
article that i wrote on this or i've already got a a video i've done on this and i can
remind myself and every now and again i do need to re-watch my own videos just to remind myself or
re-read my old older articles just to remind myself why why why is this the case here which
regulation was it that that said that i had to do it that way and rather than look at it look at a
bit in the regs book i can go back to previous research if you like so it's got a selfish
point of view as well as a marketing point that's refreshing for me so as we sit in front of these
learners you're saying to yourself you're training yourself you're producing the material for your
own personal reference as well as giving it to everybody else because you're constantly invested
in your own training your own learning that hasn't stopped since you become an electrician
no it doesn't that's that's fantastic and hence the the member of e5 as well which is always
nice to see yeah that we continue in that learning process of passing that learning on as well which
is obviously a lot of that and also of course i don't know if my interpretation of these things
is right with things something like afd someone will tell you very quickly on youtube youtube's
full of experts and if i uh if i put something out on a public forum like youtube saying
that this is what my interpretation how i'm doing it then others can obviously can jump in and say
that you go right and that has happened i have in the past said something that that was wrong
and someone picked me up on it in the comments and i said about regulation whatever says this
about that i'm right they're right yeah i've been getting it wrong and interestingly in the in the
regs books i highlight stuff i find interesting i know it's very sad but you're in the right company
well they pointed it out it was something i previously highlighted so it's obviously
something i've read in the past and thought oh that's interesting and then forgotten because
no one can retain all that information in that dreadful technical document um
you know and if they can well i don't want to be having a point with them so you know it's
you can only squeeze so much in there and you will forget some of it if you're not
working in that particular part of it all the time so really good question marketing first training
second personal development as well and continued revisiting your own personal developments
really good reason why i did his youtube channel let's take another question what made you start by
yourself so why did you start working for yourself uh i i'd run a pretty uh previous business
i was never an uh electrical apprentice my apprenticeship was in the communications industry
many moons ago is that breaking news um i don't know i think i've said it before okay i can't
remember anyway um so i i was never an electric bro i've always worked in the technical industry
one way or another with telecommunications electronics um information technology various
fields both permanent and contract i had run a previous business in the early 2000s doing that
so i had some experience of running a business before where i was a contractor being sent all
over the place and then i worked for a few years as a permanent employee
and i did a lot of work that was office based until i decided to move and basically i'd had
enough there was the the the job i was in had a future they said you can stay but we are we are
downsizing there there are voluntary redundancies going um your job's safe but i thought you know
what i think i'll just take the money and run at this point so i um i wanted to to go into
electrics first of all because uh i viewed it as a slow moving field something that doesn't change
an awful lot which as you get older change becomes harder which is interesting because
we were talking earlier about all the the new smart tech stuff coming in now i i want to keep
that to arm's length i don't want anything to do with that because that's the kind of fast-moving
thing that i wanted to get away from so and i'm selling it as a dream to this lot because they're
i've got no interest in learning something new i'm quite able to pull cables and i'm quite happy
with how electricity works and how i can wire up somebody's house and perform installation
and fault finding work i don't really want to or need to get into a new line at this point
so i did it because i viewed it as
something that i could transfer my skills into obviously i knew there was going to be a lot of
training involved i knew it was going to cost me a lot of money i put about 14k into getting
the business going it's not cheap a lot of people think oh electrics is easy it's not like plumbing
where you need a van full of pipe bending stuff and or gas safe or gas we need your gas safe so
electrics and some vd screwdrivers in the boot of your car but you can start off that way but
you'll quickly find that there's an awful lot of kid i've got a transit out there chock full of
stuff it is yeah and thousands of pounds spent invested in equipment in office processes in
materials and marketing and all sorts of other things that you don't want to spend any money
on accreditation as well as nic eca which that's about 1500 quid a year just blown on accreditation
um so it is it can be an expensive game to get into um and the advantages
i did it because i i wanted to be my boss again that's the one i like
um i wanted some control over what i was doing i knew it was gonna be the last career choice i
would be going into it's this until i fall off the ladder now uh or get zapped by that zappy thing
over there that we're just playing with earlier until until i make some stupid mistake that's it
um it is very hard work work running your own business it does occupy all of my time usually i
get to the end of the day and i'm on the computer doing the office work for a significant period of
time and then i play fortnight very badly for a short time very bleary-eyed and then i go to bed
and wake up again the next day it all starts again but it takes up all my weekends all my evenings
uh i'm surprised i find any time to make these youtube videos to be fair we'll take one more
before we go for dinner so let's have that last question then folks will we go for dinner
what direction do you think the electrical industries go
wow how long we got so which direction do we think the electrical industry is going in
well as i say there are places you can specialize
you've always going to have that that core industry which is the bit that i want which is
the cable pulling the fault finding the installation generic installation work
there are some exciting new fields so if you're interested in that sort of thing
like renewable energy technologies and like smart home technologies um charging we talked
about earlier as well we did yeah some of them are more awkward to get into than others i i was
mcs accredited for solar pv a few years ago didn't last long the paperwork's a nightmare
i've not got into car charging i've done the course um but then i looked it up and found
the paperwork was a nightmare um and so just clarify this because we did off camera it isn't
installing the car charging units a nightmare it's the customer wants a grant from the government so
they either don't pay or pay really little for it and that becomes the contractor's responsibility
to draw that funding down unfortunately yeah the government uh they try to make it
so that the there's no chance you can rip off the customer and they try and make it so that you can
so the customer can get financial incentives for these sort of things renewable technologies car
charges that sort of stuff but they don't have to make it difficult for you as an installer to
jump through all the hoops to offer that to your customers so installing something like solar pv
not a problem installing some of that car chargers electrically easy but being able to do it in a way
that produces the paperwork that the client needs in order to be able to get money back
from the government is a nightmare and it's all geared up to larger companies very difficult for
a small contractor like myself i might only do a few a year yeah to keep up and maintain the
requirements for it so what i'm saying there is the background paperwork on a large firm would be
done by clerical and the installation team goes out and does um solar panels photovoltaics they
do car charging units they do ground source heat pumps anything they can get a grant
but of course the paperwork isn't being done by the the small contractor that becomes another job
and david didn't want to get involved we're not talking about certification paperwork obviously
that's easy it is the government work but um it depends what you want i i don't do industrial work
i know my limits and that's that's not something i want to be into uh mainly i'm domestic i'm quite
happy with that it makes for a fairly relaxed day for old man nigel and maybe we have our pub lunch
if we can and uh you know we don't we we're trying to bust a good we try and grow the guts rather
than bust them these days but it depends on what what you if there's a particular aspect of it that
you think oh that's exciting that's something i want to be into especially like if you're into
computers for example then the smart home stuff may be your cup of tea i don't want anything to
do with myself but if there's some area that you think that rather than just house bashing that
that could actually be quite good for me to get into and to make a bit of cash out of and i'm
going to go for it that's good so i'm sure we'd all like to thank david for those words of wisdoms