Andrew Brown w/ Trades Media – DT 412

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dirt Talk by BuildWitt

Episode: Andrew Brown w/ Trades Media – DT 412
Date: January 29, 2026
Host: Sam (BuildWitt)
Guest: Andrew Brown (Founder, Trades Media)

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Overview

This episode of Dirt Talk dives into the urgent challenges, realities, and opportunities facing the skilled trades in America. Host Sam sits down with Andrew Brown, founder of Trades Media, to discuss bridging generational gaps, tackling workforce shortages, and how tradespeople—often overlooked—are the backbone of disaster recovery and national infrastructure. The conversation, rich in both personal stories and industry insights, explores what it will really take to attract and retain the next generation of skilled workers.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Andrew’s Origin in the Trades: From Ground Zero to Purpose

[01:20–12:40]

• Andrew’s life-transforming experience at Ground Zero after 9/11. Originally aiming for a tech career, Andrew recounts being drawn into volunteering alongside tradespeople and first responders during the aftermath of 9/11.
  • “There was something inside me to say, I don’t want to sit around and not do anything. That’s not my personality. I’m always a doer.” — Andrew [01:47]
• Tradespeople as “Second Responders.” The trades play a key role in long-term disaster recovery, yet their work and sacrifices often go unrecognized in mainstream media coverage.
  • “The news cycle covers it for five to seven days... but then that is only when the work begins. There’s then years, decades sometimes, of work after that that has to happen just to get whatever that community is back to zero.” — Sam [06:51]

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2. Fulfilling Work – But Invisible

[10:54–17:00]

• Fulfillment through skilled trades. Andrew and Sam stress the purpose and meaning that tradespeople find in their work, contrasting it to the limited coverage and public perception.
• Discussion of Andrew’s decision to leave a budding IT career to start a tool and safety company focused on serving the broader skilled trades.
  • “People don’t realize that tradespeople work side by side with first responders. In some case, thick of the storm...” — Andrew [04:21]

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3. Decades of Underlying Workforce Issues

[15:54–19:58]

• Nationwide shortages are not new. Both speakers emphasize that the crisis in skilled labor is not a surprise; industry veterans have noted worker shortages, stagnant wages, and recruitment difficulties for years.
  • “For every five that leave, only two come in. Right. We all know that.” — Andrew [17:42]

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4. Honest, No-BS Trades Promotion: What Works and What Doesn’t

[19:04–22:19]

• Andrew discusses his viral videos and authentic approach to telling the truth about wages, quality of life, and the day-to-day realities in various trades—rather than simply encouraging everyone to join.
  • “Things are fucked up. I agree. And it’s connecting the dots of...you have workers who are not satisfied because they don’t make enough, they have mental health issues. We talked about this; there’s drug addiction. There’s a lot of things going on...” — Andrew [19:04]
• Sam criticizes oversimplified recruitment campaigns that unrealistically hype up money in the trades without addressing the deep financial and lifestyle challenges new workers face.

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5. The Money Gap: Wages, Quality of Life & Mismatched Perceptions

[25:08–37:21]

• The reality of apprentice vs. fast food wages.
  • “They look at apprentice wages and they see it’s $16–18 an hour. Right. I can go to work at McDonald’s or Chipotle for $21, $22 an hour inside.” — Andrew [26:12]
• Regional discrepancies, overtime, long commutes, and sacrifices not reflected in “sticker” wage numbers.
• Stigma and challenges facing women in the trades—from PPE to harassment to work-life balance. The speakers highlight the need for companies to move beyond tokenism or PR gestures.
  • “They've worked their whole career to just be one of the people doing the job.” — Sam [38:51]
  • “Women only make about 4 or 5% in the trades...” — Andrew [36:17]

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6. Who Are the Trades Really For? Not for Everyone.

[32:51–44:15]

• Sam urges honesty that trades careers are not universally suitable and shouldn’t be marketed to everyone indiscriminately.
  • “I think part of it is like, not just bringing people in, but bringing the right people in. Because anybody that's worked in the field knows that, again, it is. It's not for everybody.” — Sam [47:33]
• Physicality, problem-solving, and personal fit discussed as critical factors.
• The evolving discussion about gender, diversity, and meaningful support (i.e., beyond Women in Construction Week PR stunts).

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7. Entrepreneur’s Journey and Business Owner Dilemmas

[47:49–56:01]

• Transitioning from tradesperson to business owner: different skills, rare to be suited for both.
• The false idol of entrepreneurship—many who pursue ownership are unhappier than when they were in the field.
  • “I know a lot of former tradespeople that have become business owners that are miserable. That hate it.” — Sam [50:03]

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8. Wages, Economics, and the Harsh Math

[51:30–75:16]

• Industry-wide themes: low wages, lack of respect, unpredictable booms and busts.
• Wage data discussed (e.g., welders’ median wage $26.49/hr, but significant regional and trade-specific variability).
  • “If you work 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year...you make, yeah, you’re in the 80s (thousand/year). You're not swimming in money.” — Sam [73:08]
• The impact of private equity and rollups. Concern that business consolidation won’t improve life for workers and may erode core values.
  • “When a company's acquired... Very rarely are the people within that company better, better off. Rarely.” — Sam [61:49]
• The potential of employee ownership (ESOPs) to empower and transfer wealth to the workforce.
  • “He did the same thing, turned into employee owned. He said it was the best thing we ever did. Best thing we ever did.” — Andrew [68:38]

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9. The Generational Divide & Recruiting Gen Z

[80:10–85:54]

• Gen Z has different motivations: “instant gratification,” desire for purpose, paid transparency, feeling connected to mission and values, and clearer paths for advancement.
• Business owners need to fundamentally change their approach, showing up at schools, being honest about the ups and downs, and emphasizing true opportunity while openly discussing challenges.
  • “I pushed them back. I said, they're not lazy. Again, they have different motivators. It's not how you used to do it. This is a different generation.” — Andrew [83:50]

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10. Responsibility: Leadership Must Step Up

[85:54–104:40]

• Real, sustainable change must begin with company leadership’s self-reflection, not external blame or PR campaigns.
  • “I think 90% of the responsibility—the lion's share of the responsibility—is on the shoulders of the leadership, existing leadership within the industry.” — Sam [88:14]
• You can't delegate recruitment and culture change; the most effective organizations have leaders directly involved in championing the mission and showing up in the field and in the community.

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11. Call to Action: Real Stories, Real Impact, Real Change

[104:45–end]

• The conversation closes with both Sam and Andrew urging companies and industry vets to get involved, to share authentic stories, and to invest in the people—current and future—who will sustain the nation’s infrastructure and quality of life.
  • “Just talking about all the good stuff is not going to get us there.” — Sam [105:53]

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Notable Quotes

• “There isn’t one fix, but it’s getting business owners, getting people in the trade sort of together and finding sort of that happy medium of what’s going to result in fixing the overall problem.” — Andrew [20:10]
• “If you’re waiting for me to inspire the next generation... we’re not going to get there, man. No way... Everybody in America within this world [needs to be] talking about it.” — Sam [94:48]
• “It’s got to start from the top and work its way down.” — Andrew [97:42]
• “If you're in the next generation and all you do is just religiously show up on time every day. You're ahead of 90%.” — Sam [88:14]
• “If you want to be a business owner, first you need to walk in those footsteps of actually doing the work.” — Andrew [48:07]
• “We've got to get people more money somehow... as a business owner, economics, like there's been way more times through business than not, we haven’t been able to pay people as much as we've wanted to...” — Sam [70:44]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Andrew’s 9/11 story; Trades as ‘Second Responders’ – [01:20–12:40]
• Seeing the reality of skilled trades in daily business – [15:54–17:32]
• Viral content and ‘the feedback’ from the field – [19:04–22:19]
• Wages, quality of life, what’s broken in the pipeline – [26:12–30:38]
• Gender, trades, and what real inclusion means – [36:15–44:15]
• Work-life, financial unsustainability, and apprentice catch-22 – [51:30–56:21]
• Private equity, employee ownership, and the risk to the trades – [60:14–72:22]
• Recruitment, Gen Z, and modern motivators – [80:10–85:54]
• Industry leadership: Taking real responsibility and action – [85:54–104:40]

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Conclusion

Sam and Andrew pull no punches in this episode, challenging comfortable narratives about the trades and insisting on real, sometimes uncomfortable, conversations about money, lifestyle, generational change, and industry leadership. Their call: If infrastructure—and society—is to be rebuilt and maintained, the trades must be publicly valued, realistically portrayed, and led by leaders willing to look in the mirror and act. No top-down policy or PR blitz will suffice.

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Find Andrew Brown:

• Social: @andrewbrowntrades on TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram
• Podcast: The Lost Art of the Skilled Trades (Spotify, Apple, YouTube)

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For more: Visit buildwitt.com for resources, leadership training, and summit details.

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This summary aims to provide an engaging, accurate guide to the episode’s themes, highlights, and action points, including accessible entry points for anyone considering or invested in the future of the skilled trades.

Transcript

[Sam]

This Dirt Talk podcast episode is with Andrew Brown, who's the founder and host of Trades Media, an organization dedicated to growing the trades through attracting and developing Gen Z. After decades of running a nationwide safety supply company, he made the plunge into promoting the trades full time. Odds are you've probably seen his stuff online. I've been watching his stuff for years now. It's really good. And it's not just the buzzword trades type promotion. He really gets into the nitty gritty of what the heck the problem or problems are. And I really appreciate that. So I was very much looking forward to this conversation. I had a great time and I hope you enjoy it. Here it is. How long do you usually go?

[Andrew Brown]

My sweet spot is probably 40 to 60. Somewhere in that realm.

[Sam]

Okay, sweet.

[Andrew Brown]

Depending on the conversation.

[Sam]

Goes right on. All right, we'll see how it goes with our podcast today though. I wanted to start, based on last night's dinner with a very light and easy topic, which is 9 11, where.

[Andrew Brown]

Just go right into it.

[Sam]

Just go right into it. That is where you said your foray into the trades began. You painted the picture a little bit last night, but tell the story as to how you ended up at ground zero. But then I just wanted you to also like really paint the picture of what the heck was happening there, what you were doing, that kind of thing.

[Andrew Brown]

I wanted to be a high tech technician, right? My goal was to be a programmer, a network administrator. I was a tech nerd. Really, realistically, that's what I wanted to be. And I was living in New York City at the time. I'm 23 years old, just a kid, sort of right out of college. And 911 happens. And I remember the day obviously vividly, as most people do. And I remember my friend was in one of the World Trade center to towers, got hit. He was fine, he made it out. But something, there was something that was inside of me to say, I don't want to sit around and not do anything. That's not my, that's not my personality. I'm always a doer. And I remember vividly that a friend of mine from Rhode island gave me a call. He's like, and this is a handful of days. And he's like, I'm gonna come in, we're gonna go down there. I'm like, what? And he ended up coming into the city. And he comes in the city in his big blue truck with an American flag on the back. And he's dressed up as a tradesperson. He's got the overalls on, he's got a hard hat and he's got overalls and a hard hat for me. And all of a sudden I find myself now going down the west side highway with him from checkpoint to checkpoint. And I remember stopping at these checkpoints and people were cheering because they thought we were helping down there. Now remember, I'm just a kid. The hell am I even doing?

[Sam]

Early 20s.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah. 20, 23. What am I even doing? And I remember them cheering us on and I remember them throwing in toothbrushes and food. And we got down to the World Trade center area and it's one of those things people ask me like, how did you get down there? I said it was divine intervention because something was pulling me down there. It sounds a little bit cheesy, but it was now that I reflect back on it and we make it down there. Now I'm standing on the World Trade center where it once.

[Sam]

It was probably one of the most restricted areas in the world at that point. Yeah, you couldn't just drive down there and go hang out.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

And these like, these are like military checkpoints. It's not.

[Andrew Brown]

Well, it was a little bit loosely open.

[Sam]

Okay.

[Andrew Brown]

All right, so.

[Sam]

But it's not the local mall cop.

[Andrew Brown]

No, you know, no, no, no, no, no. But there were people obviously in, in the trades, different trades down there, helping iron workers. Welders were there. And there's a picture that I have. In fact, there was no digital. It was just like a snapshot. I have a picture of me tradespeople in the background and the smoldering smoke from the trade center. And the entire day I was working back to back with first responders and tradespeople. And you talk about a life changing event. Here I am just a IT technician wanting to go that route. And the entire day I was helping find survivors. And the thing is, I saw what tradespeople were all about. And people don't realize that tradespeople work side by side with first responders. In some case thick of the storm, the aftermath of the storm, they're right in it. And it was like one thing I just, I left that day and I just had this feeling in my stomach. I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, my path doesn't make sense. And really, for months I had sleepless nights, but in between that, I literally quit my job in it. I slid over my two weeks notice. So much so because I felt like this is not my path. And I had sleepless nights of how am I going to give Back to the people that I saw at 9 11. And that's where I formed a tool, equipment and safety business with my brother for the last 24 years to provide tools, equipment and safety gear to plumbers and welders and carpenters and all Vukala skilled trades. That was my way to give back. And I always hearkened back to 911 because of what I saw. I also saw that some of them were working unsafe. You know, if you read the stories about some of those individuals didn't have the right protection on PPE on. Oh, they have, you know, today, fast forward. Some of them had cancer and they have respiratory. And it's like the safety side of it stuck with me as well.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

That's why also I went into the safety side.

[Sam]

Yeah, it was like an environmental catastrophe as well. It's so sad what happened to all the people that worked down there. I thought a lot about this too. I haven't. I haven't been any. Anything like that. And God help me, I hope I never am. I have been to multiple fires. I went to paradise, which got wiped out by fire. I went to Altadena, which got wiped out by fire. I've seen flood recovery, I've seen tornado recovery. And every time it's really interesting because the news cycle covers it for five to seven days. And all the imagery is of the first responders, the fire departments, the National Guards people, whatever it is. But then that is only when the work begins. There's then years, I mean, they're still cleaning up New Orleans in 2026. There's years, decades sometimes of work after that that has to happen just to get whatever that community is back to back to zero. Not even. Not even back to where they were, just back to zero, just to clean the place up. And I talked to my friend Alan about it months ago. He did a lot of the cleanup work in la and he's done a lot, probably more firework than anyone else in California. His company, and he said they call them second responders. Like there's first responders there to rescue people, of course, in the heat of the moment. But then the tradespeople, they're the second responders and they're actually the ones that are there for the years following to get the place back on its feet.

[Andrew Brown]

But that's not publicized. It's not.

[Sam]

No.

[Andrew Brown]

You kind of know it, but it's not. Like you said, it's five to seven days of coverage and then boom, it's done. And then the people come in who are doing the work, the heavy lifting, it's something you don't see.

[Sam]

And it was really interesting when I went to Altadena in February, so it was a few weeks after the place completely burned. Palisades got most of the coverage, but Altadena got obliterated. The place, the whole place just obliterated. And I thought it was all the same thing. I didn't know there was a whole other area of LA that got torched. Like, whole other 5, 10,000 structures got torched in this one area. And you go there and it was weird. Like, it was just a few weeks after and. And you show up and there's like a few, you know, National Guardsmen kind of standing on different street corners to prevent just, like, borderline looting. But all there was in the community, there were a few people sifting through the ashes of their homes, which is just heartbreaking to see. And then there were, I mean, a shitload of utility trucks, dump trucks, crew trucks, all sorts water, you know, water services, all sorts of tradespeople. I mean, just smattered across the entire community. And not a single camera anywhere. I was at the very first cleanup of the very first property in Los Angeles. It was a Sunday morning. Not a single camera, not a single person. It was just a crew of maybe 15 people that were all in Tyvek suits cleaning up a school, first of thousands of properties they would clean up in the following months. And it just, again, for me, it was like. For you, too. You probably have this feeling of, like, gratitude for the opportunity to even tell that story, because it's like, well, if I'm not here, they're just doing it. They're not doing it for the fanfare. They're doing it because it's their job, it's their responsibility. But there's no one even talking about this.

[Andrew Brown]

No, you know what? This really. It's interesting, what you said about, obviously, tradespeople, it's not publicized, but tradespeople. It's fulfilling work. It's fulfilling work. And that's something that doesn't always get spotlighted, that what you're doing, you're turning the power back on because you're a lineman, right? Or you're welding or you're doing plumbing. Whatever trade that you're in, there's a fulfillment aspect behind that. But I really got a sense of the trades. It's funny. Not funny, but it's. I'm just thinking about this moment, about going back down to the World Trade Center. I haven't been down there in 20 plus. Years. And I. Look, I'm from New York. I lived in the city for 14 years. I just never went back.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

And I didn't go back until this summer. I went back to the Freedom Tower with my wife. And it was just an eerie feeling of sort of kind of being back. And it's all built up. If you've been there, some people have been there. It's a beautiful, you know, the museum and the waterfall, everything they put in there. And I remember going through the museum, and it just kind of brought back memories. And I went through. I spent like a couple hours there going through that. And I remember seeing all the pictures of, like, the iron workers, welders. And it started to, you know, I started to not remember, but sort of just ruminate about, like, how important, again, tradespeople are. But they don't necessarily get the publicity, and it's not like they need the publicity, but those are the people that are rebuilding things. The things that keep us. People that keep us running.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

That's not always a topic of discussion. We talk about it sometimes, but it's not always publicized.

[Sam]

Very rarely is it. One of my favorite pictures from. There's a photo gallery online of thousands of images from the 911 cleanup. And it is just. It's unbelievable. I mean, you saw it. But these images, they're unbelievable what's happening there. But then one of my favorite images to come out of that, whatever it is, tragedy is, putting it lightly, is the iron workers on top of the Freedom Tower with the. Topping out with the American flag.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Looking out over Manhattan. And it's like. It's just a group of like, 10 guys that. They've just been slamming steel together all the way up till eventually they weren't quite there because the. The tower went on beyond that with the antenna, whatever. But 1776. 1776ft. That, to me, is like, this is what it's about. Like, this is. This is what America is about. Going down there, too, is if people haven't been down there, I couldn't recommend it more. It's. It's one of the few places I've been that, like, the air is heavier in a way. I don't know how to totally explain it, but, like, it's. You can feel if. Even if you didn't know what it was, you can. You can feel the weight of those few city blocks. Yeah. It's. It's unlike anywhere else I've ever been. Like I said, I was just there again a few. A few months ago.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah. I Can sort of echo that. I just, you know, just not being there for so long. But just people get a sense of like this is what. It's difficult if like my kids would go down this very different. Cause I didn't live through that, just through my stories and things that I've told. But if you kind of live through it and especially if you've been down there. I was down. It's a very different, very different experience. I was having a conversation with an IBEW electrician, Josh Nieves, I think last year, and he was talking about how, how he watched them put the antenna on the Freedom Tower. Like it was an aha moment for him to see that firsthand. And it was just, it was like, wow. Like we rebuilt the World Trade center with the Freedom Tower. And I'm watching this thing go up and it was just seeing him light up talking about this, it was a, it was definitely an experience for him.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, we really got kind of went deep on that conversation about the Trade center and stuff.

[Sam]

No, it's, I mean there's thousands of stories there, especially from the tradespeople there, that are just wild. Just wild. Yeah. So that, yeah, that's, that's a wild way to get into this whole world. You have a safety supply, online, e commerce type business for decades and that allows you to then see the trades in a very broad sense probably. I mean that's a really unique experience. The amount of stuff you probably saw.

[Andrew Brown]

Yes. And it's the day to day of speaking to plumbers and welders and carpenters. It's not just one trade, it's all trades throughout the country. It's not just the tri state area or the west coast, it's throughout the country. And just being on the phone day to day with these individuals, but also having deep conversations about what's going on in your trade, you know, listening of 20 plus years about, you know, we have a shortage of plumbers, we have a shortage of welders, we're not paid enough. The wages, you know, all the things that you and I know about finally sort of bubbled up over the years.

[Sam]

But when did it start to bubble up, would you say?

[Andrew Brown]

I think it was always there. Yeah, it was always there. Look, I was doing my day to day stuff and in my business, but I knew that I was always, I always had this sense of like, I don't know, I don't want to say weak spot, but like something for the trades. I always knew I wanted to do something more. Right. This was one way to obviously fulfill that need of, like, helping.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

But I think over the last five or six years, I started putting out content about the trades.

[Sam]

But when. When did you notice there was an issue?

[Andrew Brown]

I knew there was an issue for years.

[Sam]

For years?

[Andrew Brown]

For years. This is not like whether I was talking to someone 15 years ago or the last four or five years. There's always been those. The same problem about the shortages. Yes, it's been amplified.

[Sam]

Sure, it's gotten worse, but, yeah, this wasn't anything that snuck up on anybody.

[Andrew Brown]

No, no, it's. We all know there's a. There's a shortage out there.

[Sam]

Yeah. Right.

[Andrew Brown]

For every five that leave, only two come in. Right. We all know that. But if you're asking me when it was, I had the aha moment of like, when did I have this epiphany of like, of trying to give back? I think it was just built sort of over time. I think it just had us stacked on top of each other and it was just like, I want to do something. And it's more so of a passion and a mission behind that to really inspire the next generation to get interested in working with their hands. That's what I kept thinking about for years. But it really. Even though I was putting out content, it was really about three and a half years ago. We talked about last night where I literally turned on the camera and I said, welding is a dying career. And I started throwing statistics. And it was one of those viral moments. And once I got over the vanity metrics of that particular video, I understood how important these topics are, even though I've heard them now. I'm getting the feedback from the people who are in the field. I'm getting feedback from the business owners, all the comments, all the engagement and understanding, more so of what's really going on out there.

[Sam]

And what was the feedback?

[Andrew Brown]

Things are fucked up. Things are fucked up. I agree. And it's connecting the dots of, look, you have workers who are not satisfied because they don't make enough. They have mental health issues. We talked about this. There's drug addiction. There's a lot of things going on on the trade side. Then you have the companies who are saying, we just can't find anybody and nobody wants to work hard. And there's this mismatch from the company side to the trade side and these. I saw that through that first post and I started getting more intrigued of like, how can we fix this? Because it's one thing to get out there and start being rah, rah, rah, let's go into the trades, which.

[Sam]

There's a lot of people doing that.

[Andrew Brown]

Let's do this. You can make good wages.

[Sam]

And I don't find it very helpful, frankly.

[Andrew Brown]

No, there's a piece of that.

[Sam]

A piece.

[Andrew Brown]

And people get all charged up. And I totally understand that, but what the hell are you going to do about it?

[Sam]

Sure, right, yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

But what I do is I connect those dots by people in the field and this is people, this is real time of what's really happening out there. The engagement and the content that I put out is not a vanity metric for me. It's more. So what the hell is going on out there and how can we fix it? And getting everybody together as a community to work together. Because there isn't one fix, but it's getting business owners, getting people in the trade sort of together and finding sort of that happy medium of what's going to result in fixing the overall problem. But there's not one thing that's going to fix that.

[Sam]

The top question I'm asked is, what does Bill Witt do? Our purpose is to build the dirt world's next generation. The dirt world is the companies and people building the critical infrastructure and supporting those who build our critical infrastructure that we need to live the lives that we do. Our business is much bigger than me. I run around the world building our brand. But the business itself does two things. One, we help develop the next generation through our product called Billwhit Important. It's a daily training and development platform that about 300 civil construction companies are using to not just make their people better workers, but better people. And of course, we have the 2026 ARIAT dirtworld summit. The best opportunity to develop yourself and your teams as leaders. So check us out. Billwhit.com book a meeting with us and we'll talk to you soon. Yeah, and I definitely agree with that. It's a very complicated issue and there's like a hundred things. But it's interesting too, how you got there, because you're not a trades guy. You didn't. You weren't wrenching on stuff for a few decades and then, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna start talking about this. You said you initially got into video stuff by doing commercials for your business. Yep. Yourself?

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Which is great. I mean, that's how it. That's how it starts. That's the way to go. Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So then you at least kind of knew how to talk on a camera. Kinda. Where did you, like, initially? Where did you get the Numbers, you were using the Internet, the statistics.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, variety of the bls, obviously doing deep research, speaking to different companies, also just sort of getting the feedback from the individuals, you know, speaking to the individual organizations. It could be a Fortune1500 or you know, a small business owner talking about those statistics. So it's more so of a perspective of what I've been seeing, but also matching it up with what the public is saying out there. But you're right, I'm not a tradesperson and I want to speak to that because. And same with you, you didn't come up. Right. And we had a great conversation about that last night is that we have a different perspective on this. Right. We're not in it, we're outside of it, we're looking in. And I feel when you're inside of it, sometimes you can't see it. But when you're outside perspective and you're looking in, you might have a different way of viewing things and have a different way of possibly solving that. So I feel I connect the data points between what's going on out there through the content because I really study. I know we were talking about comments and engagement. I really get back to people in, in the comments.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

Like I really understood, I read through the lines of what people say, but people are struggling with shit.

[Sam]

Well, and it's, it's, it's, it's interesting you say that because I've found the same thing. I've like sure, there's numbers that everybody knows, but then there's that anecdotal evidence that I think is just as, if not more valuable and more relevant. And it's allowed me to sit there and, and just like, just notice some of these like gaping holes that no one's talking about. You know, just like even the health and well being of people in the industry and how it's just not at all even talked about, not even prioritized. An industry that depends on the bodies of individuals doesn't talk about the bodies of the individuals. Which to me is again, I don't, I don't completely understand it. But like once you're stepping back, it's just like staring you right in the face. But it's not in the numbers necessarily either. It kind of is, it kind of is, but it's, but it's not at the same time. So you can also see some even, you know, dollars and cents. Like I, I think you've done the same thing, asked people, or at least I've asked people why they've Left companies or the trades in general.

[Andrew Brown]

Why is that? What have you seen?

[Sam]

Money number one. Of course. Money. Money number one. And yet every recruiting campaign for the trades talks about how much money there is in the trades. So I'm like, huh, I don't. This doesn't. Math. There's something, there's something that doesn't add up here, or even, even your observation. That is me. The same thing. I have people writing me every single day. How do I get into the trades? I can't. I can't get.

[Andrew Brown]

Right.

[Sam]

And then you've got a thousand business owners here saying, ah, we can't find people. It's like there's a. There's this chasm here that's so, so obvious that we've got a bridge and that. But that's why I'm optimistic at the same time, because it's like, no, people do want to work. Yeah, people do want a sense of purpose. People. These employers do need people. We've got to go build stuff. There's this, there's this future in building. We just need to connect the dots. It's not that hard. It is, but it isn't.

[Andrew Brown]

There's this argument out there about apprentice wages versus fast food wages. And I want to make this point, is that when kids who are thinking about getting into the trades, and this is not the people who necessarily. These are the people who look at the wages and say, no, this is not for me. This is. A good percentage of people is. And you already spoke about why people leave is because of the wages. They look at apprentice wages and they say they see it's 16 to $18 an hour. Right. I can go to work at McDonald's or Chipotle for 21, $, 22 an hour inside. I don't need to be in the elements, I don't need to be in the heat, I don't need to be in the cold. Yeah, why would I even start? And then it depends who was in the conversation. You have people like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't want to be in the trades because of this. Why would I want to do that and spend four years and maybe get a small pay raise? Which is untrue because obviously every year you, you work your way up and then you become a journeyman in your field. But then on the flip side, you have people saying, well, I'd rather just make more money up front. And then there's other people who say, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is the. How are you going to level up working for McDonald's? Four years from now, you might be still making 21, $22 an hour, but as an apprentice, you're going to be making more money and you have a future. So there's a lot of people saying one thing of like, I don't want to get into trades because of the wages. I'd rather go work somewhere else. And there's people who say, yes, you can start making more money. And then you have people who are in the trades for 25, 30 years who say, yeah, you can make really good money if you work hard. Like, there's a handful of things going on here that's throwing people off.

[Sam]

But also the union environment is the minority of the trades in the United States. Significant minority. And so that's, and maybe that holds true in New York. Great wages in New York, yes, but.

[Andrew Brown]

Cost of living, though, you're going to.

[Sam]

Be, well, cost of living. Sure, but not in South Carolina. Like, and how is there a discrepancy of like $40 an hour for the same work between two different states? Like, that's the discrepancy. Like, it's a huge discrepancy between most other markets.

[Andrew Brown]

Sure.

[Sam]

Like, you go Virginia, south, dude, even Pennsylvania. Good luck. Good luck. Like, it's, it's completely different. And so that's, that's too, it's like, I think that's part of it. And then, all right, McDonald's. But you've got, you know, one of the big deals was ups. They did just lay off like 10,000 people because of this deal. You know, economics. Go figure. No one saw that coming. But they're making 40 something dollars an hour. As a UPS driver, I'd be looking at that. I'm like, I'm probably gonna go be a UPS driver. Like, honestly, that sounds better. And that's, that's exciting. I'm fulfilling a purpose. Every day is a little bit different. Like, I'm interacting with people. Like, yeah, I might actually do that over this. Or, okay, I might be able to make more money in the trades. But if I go to work at an Amazon fulfillment center, I'll make 20 something dollars an hour. I'll at least know where I am every day. Same spot. I have a, you know, I have fixed hours. I don't have to work nights, I don't have to work weekends. I only work 38 hours a week. I'm in air conditioning every day. So that to me, it's like, you know, I don't really want to be driving two hours unpaid every day. Unnecessarily. Like that's part of it too. It's even beyond just the dollars and cents. Like there's a. There's a quality of life factor as well. And I know, I know a lot of people in the trades even, like it's just not talked about. Even the amount of travel that you do, the amount of to and from every day that's not paid just to get to your job. I mean, for a lot of people, it's at least an hour one way. Yeah, at least. And if you're doing six days a week, which a lot of people are, that's 12, 15 hours a week, you're not getting paid for just commuting. What do you do about that?

[Andrew Brown]

Well, I'm just thinking about the automotive trade. A lot of people are leading the industry in automotive because the wages are not there. People that are trying to get into the field have to spend thousands of dollars on tools and equipment. They don't necessarily get it. When you join XYZ company so the money to buy the tools and you're only making 20, 25 hour, $25 an hour. And if you work for a manufacturer also, they sort of set the bar of how long it takes to take a transmission out. And if it takes you longer, you're still being paid for the same amount or shorter period of time, you're still making the same amount. There's a lot of people who are leaving the industry. So every single trade has its problem. Whether it's automotive or it's civil or it's plumbing or it's welding, it's an issue. And the trades are freaking hard. I know we're not in the field. Let's just make sure that everybody realizes that. But it's not an easy job. It's not an easy job. It's not for everybody. But it's the fulfillment aspect too. You might be working for Amazon, it's great. And you're in air conditioning. But is it fulfilling work and the likelihood of your job being replaced by a robot or AI Pretty high? It's probably pretty high.

[Sam]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

About coming knock on my door and going to my crawl space. We'll see. Sure, we'll see what happens. But I do feel the trades has a long Runway, a longer Runway to not be hindered by AI. Think it will help it. But if you're just coming out of college and you're just spent 100k on an education and now you can't find a job, I almost feel like the white collar work and the blue collar Work are flipping in a sense that now the blue collar work is the next, I always say, not the next millionaire, it's the next billionaire. If you're a business owner, one day it might be far fetched, people say. But I, I put it out there because I feel like there's a tremendous opportunity for those individuals.

[Sam]

There is, there is. I'm very optimistic. But I, I also, there's a lot of glamorizing going on right now that I think has no business in this world. Like, it's still not for everybody. No, it's still miserable. It's still hard. We need people to do it. It's a specific kind of person though. It's not for everybody. And because these companies need people, they're trying to make it for everybody. It's not for everybody. It should not be for everybody. And like mathematically it just doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. And even, even, even, even. It's, it's like the, the, even the, the men and women conversation. Well, we need more women in the trades. Okay, I'm all for that, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend to protect people's feelings, most of them in the office. That women are going to be 50% of the workforce in the trades. That's completely unrational, irrational, that's completely unreasonable. Men are built, they, the trades favor men because physically men are better suited for the trades. And somehow that's crazy to say, but it's like, it's not crazy when you go out to a site and you see what these people are doing. Not that a woman couldn't do it, but a 240 pound dude makes for a better iron worker. You know, sorry, I just spit all over the table. But it's like, like some, some guy that's a 240 pound dude is a better iron worker than me. I'm 140 pounds soaking wet. Like, like a big dude. Like you just, you've just gotta muscle your way through some. I don't think that's going away anymore. And so like that's, that's where some of the conversation for me starts to unravel too because it starts to get disjointed from reality. It's like, wait, wait, wait, hey, hey, hey. The trades is a great opportunity. You can make good money. You will have a sense of purpose. You will build the world around you. You're not probably prone to any kind of disruption with AI. I just don't believe that you're working alongside great people, so on and so forth, but it's not for everybody. And there's a lot of people. It's not for. And, and you can't, you can't really have that conversation either, though. But it's like. But that's, that's what, that's why the people that do it are so proud. Because it's like when you're in a ditch, a trench, fixing a water main break on Christmas morning and it's freezing out and everybody else is warm and cozy inside, like, you got to have that, that craziness to you. You've got to be a little screwed up. And you have to have that, that, that confidence, that swagger a little bit, that's like, yeah, I'm the motherfucker that's out here, and if it weren't for me, none of these people would have fucking water. Someone's got to do it. It's not fun, but someone's got to do it. And here I am.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And that builds immense pride. 100% immense pride.

[Andrew Brown]

When I speak to most tradespeople and I always ask them, number one, a question, I ask them, are you a problem solver? Yes, I am a problem solver. I like solving problems. I like fixing things. I like building things with my hands. I have a mechanical ability. I have a technical spark. There's something about that person. That person is not a desk job. They don't want a desk job. They maybe don't want to do what you and I do. They don't want to be an entrepreneur. They want to work. They want to fix things, they want to build things. There's nothing wrong with that. Everybody has sort of their lane.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

To go back to your question about women. Yes. Women only make about 4 or 5% in the trades, give or take, whatever trade it may be. When you talked about an iron worker, it made me think about Jamie McMillan up in Canada, who is an iron worker. And she talked about, and I had her on my podcast, she talked about being the only woman, woman on site and the harassment she had to deal with. The PPE, like, everything, things have changed over course of 15, 20 years. Like, if you would throw culture around on a job site, 20 years ago, people would look at you sideways, but today it's a little bit different. But she was able to work her way into the industry. Right. And she's giving back and she's helping women who are struggling, getting into the trades or struggling in the trades and dealing with that shit, how to cope with that. And things to do, but she is successful in what she's doing. She's not your typical 240 pound, you know, guy who's, who's on the job side. She's, you know, and she does great work.

[Sam]

She does, yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

So you have actually a good amount of women who are doing wonderful things in different trades. I mean, I can rattle off like 50 different women in different trades and.

[Sam]

I hope everybody understands where I'm coming from. If you're a woman that wants to do it, have at it. Like, I'm just, I'm some dude that doesn't do shit. Like, like who am I to even say what, what they can and can't do? But yeah, it starts like, the whole narrative starts to unravel when they're also like the show ponies and, oh, we're trying to get to 50, 50 here. When it's like, but why? Like, what, what can't this like it to me? And then the woman thing too. It's like, well, most offices are run by women in construction. Like, without women, the whole office environment would unravel. There wouldn't be paychecks, there wouldn't be permits, There wouldn't be equipment, There wouldn't be taxes filed. There wouldn't be bids submitted. There wouldn't be any of that. Like, the whole thing would unravel. The whole place falls apart. That's really important too. Like, that's, that's a big component of this as well. It's, it's just like I go, I gravitate to this. Or safety is another thing that drives me nuts because it's like, I think it's starting to be skewed into something it's not. And it doesn't. Like, the conversation doesn't represent reality. Like, I've met a lot of women in the field. They just want to fucking work. They don't want to talk about how they're women and women in construction, you know, like, get out of the way.

[Andrew Brown]

Let them do that.

[Sam]

They've worked their whole career to just be one of the people doing the job.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Like, I don't want to be on a pedestal. I don't need to be. I've, I've actually worked my entire career to not be on the damn pedestal because day one I've shown up and I'm different than everybody else. I'm already standing out and I've tried to get myself away from that by getting shit done.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So again, it's, it's. I'm the last person that should be talking about it. But I start to see the conversation go in these, in these weird ways that don't necessarily represent reality. And it's like, cool, yeah. Should we have more women in construction? Great, I'm all for it. But then there's also 7 million unemployed men within the United States that are not looking for work, that are just surviving on welfare right now. Like, why don't we also target them? I don't know, like, if we really need people, we don't need 7 million people. There's 7 million able bodied, working age men within America that are just surviving off welfare currently. They're not looking for work, they're not unemployed.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

They're not in that statistic. They're just there. Why don't we go after them like two, you know.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, Mike. Mike Rowe talks about that quite often about those 7 million. I forget who the statistic or the book somebody had written about that subject. But I want to just turn back to women for a quick second. Is that women still deal with obviously a lot of stuff. Right. They still have the old adages of women can't do this and why are they here? I remember speaking to a plumber named Paige Knowles. She's called Plumber Paige. And she was talking about when she shows up, she's a residential plumber. She shows up, she knocks on the door, the husband answers the door and he's like, yeah, she gets the, you know, like, why are you here? You know, there should be. Should be a man at the door. Like, you're gonna fix my plumbing? There's still a lot of that and she's gotta work through that. But I think that type of stuff is easing now. Yeah, that stuff is easing, obviously due to social media and the people that are showcasing their work. Like, it's more accepted than it once was. So I think it's getting better, but I still think there's a long way to go, a long road ahead of that. But she was talking about that just like Jamie McMillan as an ironworker or Paige Knowles as a plumber. You know, pick any trade and put a woman in it. They have their stories about their struggles, what they're going through, but yes, they just want to do the work. You know, don't glamorize it. And. But we need to be supported.

[Sam]

Well. And I think most of it's on the company. And this is also why I get upset, like, because all these companies are saying, well, we need more women in construction during Only Women in Construction Week, of course. And then and then, and then it's like, okay, what are you doing about that? How are you, how are you getting more women in construction? Well, they just have to, they still have to work 80 hours a week and they still have to work nights and weekends. And, and they still have to start at 4:30. You know, like everybody else. We're for equality. They have to do what everybody else does.

[Andrew Brown]

Sure.

[Sam]

Okay, so you're not going to modify your business for, to really attract women, make any kind of difference whatsoever. So what happens when a woman, Typically women are the caretaker. Women on a gender basis are the only ones that can have children. They can, they're the only ones that can be pregnant. Which is crazy thing to say in 2026, but I think we're getting back to reality there. So say they have a child. Like, there's a lot of appointments, doctor's appointments for child. How do they, how do they, how do they wrestle that? Okay, they have a child. Daycare opens at, at best seven, closes at three. How are you doing that? Do you have on the job daycare now? Now they have three kids of different ages on different schedules. How do you manage that? Like, and then, now you're expecting the woman to then just work. Like, daycare is really expensive, probably $15,000 a year, probably more in a lot of cases. So now, now she's just working to then put her kids through daycare to not be with her kids. Like, a lot of it starts to fall apart when you, when you look at. Okay, so you're, you're expecting them to be here and okay, they're just as capable. Great. But like, but then the whole kids thing enters the equation. How are you solving for that? So what happens if they have kids? Oh, this. So they just shouldn't have kids. Like, and I know there's certain scenarios where you can probably make it work, but to also think that we just, we just need. The conversation begins and ends with we need more women in construction, but we're not going to do anything about it otherwise. Like that to me, it drives me nuts. It's like, no, that's completely unreasonable, completely irrational.

[Andrew Brown]

Right. It has to go deeper than that. And it's not just we have the right PPE for you or we have a designated, you know, place where you can go to the bathroom or work life.

[Sam]

Those are all good starts.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, it's good starts.

[Sam]

Better than nothing, right?

[Andrew Brown]

I don't, I don't think that. Again, I don't think there's one answer there. I think companies need to sort of redefine how they support women. It's a good start, but I think there's a lot more that can be done across the board.

[Sam]

There's a lot more that has to be done if they want it to happen. That's the reality. Again, no one talks about it. You throw the whole kids thing into the equation. It blows the whole argument out of the. It blows. It makes none of it work. And then you're like, so explain it to me, how does this work? But it so clearly doesn't work. Like, it so clearly doesn't math. And until you explain that, like, I watched it here, I'd never really been around pregnant women before. You know, I've been in my twenties. But then you become an employer, you start to employ men and women. And then certain women, they're younger, some here, they're having kids. And even just like how time consuming having a child is a pregnancy that's like a very consuming eight months. And it's a very physical experience. It's very time consuming. The amount of appointments and all the stuff you have to do for pregnancy. I had no idea. Again, I'm a dude that's never been around and I'm like, I have no idea. And the whole time I'm watching it for the first time, I'm like, how do they do this with a normal job? Like here they can I have an appointment this afternoon. Like, great, cool. It's not a conversation. It's just do whatever you need to do. But if you had the standard two weeks off a year with X amount of sick days and then you're pregnant, how do you do that? Yeah, I don't even know how. I don't even. Trades aside, I don't even know how you do it at a normal job.

[Andrew Brown]

Right. It's challenging. It doesn't matter what industry, whether it's.

[Sam]

Trades or your corporate trades conversation, it's like, how would you work at a bank and be pregnant? I don't even know.

[Andrew Brown]

I understand. And we are two dudes and I have two kids and I know kind of what my wife went through, but I didn't. I was just on the side. I wasn't. And lived the experience. But I completely understand what you're saying. But again, I don't think there's one fix here.

[Sam]

No, there isn't one fix.

[Andrew Brown]

The things that you're saying are kind of known things, but no one has really come to the table and been like, this is how we're going to fix it. This is a Good start. We can start here with PPE and this, that and work life balance. And you get a certain amount of time off maternity leave. But it doesn't fix the problem.

[Sam]

Right.

[Andrew Brown]

I don't think we're gonna solve it right.

[Sam]

On this podcast, we're 100% not gonna.

[Andrew Brown]

Solve it, but at least we're, you know, we're bringing it. Bringing it to light.

[Sam]

Yeah, I. And that's at least what I'm trying to do. Like, again, I hope people are taking this in the right way. I'm all for people in the trades. Yeah. I don't care who they are. But I also. I don't want to be. I don't want to paint an unrealistic picture, because I think that's the worst thing we can do as well, because then you're drawing people into the trades that shouldn't be here. Men, women, whoever they are. It's not even a gender thing, but you're drawing people that shouldn't be here. And that's not good for them. That's not good for the trades. It's counterproductive as well. Like, the only branch, the United States Military, that's been hitting their recruiting goals consistently is the United States Marines. They're the only branch that says, this ain't for you, man. It's not for you. You've got to be a crazy son of a bitch to be in these walls. But go figure, you get the crazies that come around are like, oh, so you don't think I can do it? Yeah, well, I'm gonna show you.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Like, those are the kind of people that we're trying to attract and we need. And so that's also. I think part of it is, like, not just bringing people in, but bringing the right people in. Because anybody that's worked in the field knows that, again, it's. It is. It's not for everybody.

[Andrew Brown]

No. But you have to walk in those footsteps to get to, let's say, if you want to become an entrepreneur. Right. We talked about this of people who are in the field, who are technicians, who want to be a business owner. You can't just go be a business owner and not have worked in the field. If you're in construction.

[Sam]

No.

[Andrew Brown]

You can't even relate to anybody. How are you gonna be relatable?

[Sam]

No.

[Andrew Brown]

Right.

[Sam]

But you don't also need to go do, like, a decade.

[Andrew Brown]

No, but you gotta go. You gotta go. You gotta go in the trenches. You gotta understand what they're going through.

[Sam]

You get it pretty quick.

[Andrew Brown]

But still. But still. Right. But if you're gonna make the leap from a technician to an entrepreneur, there's a whole different skill set that's involved there.

[Sam]

Yes.

[Andrew Brown]

It can't just kind of walk in and decide that I'm going to be a business owner. And a perfect example, we talked about this last night of a friend of mine who was an elevator technician. He was a technician, and that's what he did. He just fixed elevators for his family business. And all of a sudden, his father died like that, and he became the owner overnight. Now he's got 20 employees. He's now went from technician to owner. He was almost, like, screwed and obviously had to sign up for business. He got into, obviously, Vistage. We talked about that. That group and understanding how to run a business, that type of stuff. But a lot of people want to be an entrepreneur, especially in any business. But I'm talking about the trades is that first you need to walk in those footsteps of actually doing the work. Then you need to learn the skill set of actually running a business. It's completely different skill set. And it's not built for everybody. Just like the trades are not built for everybody. It's like, entrepreneurship is not built for everybody. People need to find their lane. And it's okay if you want to work with your hands. It's okay if you want to find a fulfilling job and fix xyz. You know, some people are not looking to make a million dollars. Some people don't want to have aspirations of having a Lambo in their garage. Like, everybody's got a certain sort of barometer of what they want to do and how successful they want to be and how you want to push it. So I can't say, like, don't do this or don't do this. Like, I don't know what that person wants, what the result. Well.

[Sam]

And I know a lot of former tradespeople that have become business owners that are miserable.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

That hate it.

[Andrew Brown]

Because it's fucking hard.

[Sam]

Well, it's hard, but it's hard. But it's not for them either. Like, they think that's the next step oftentimes, which sometimes it is. But they're. They. They're miserable because now their whole job just went from. They're not on the tools anymore. They're on the phone and they're looking at a computer and they're doing paperwork, and they're like, this ain't it, man.

[Andrew Brown]

Right.

[Sam]

There's a lot of people that I've seen going that direction, which I don't think is good for anybody either. What, like, what's the conversation in the comments? Because you do. That's what I've noticed about you. Because when I first started seeing you, it's like, all right, yeah, he's talking about trades. This is good. And then nowadays there's a lot of people talking about trades. It was in the Wall Street Journal. Like, it's starting to get mainstream, which is great in a lot of ways. It makes me sweat a little bit in other ways, like we've talked about. But then you started to really dig in on this anecdotal information. You're one of the only people I've. I've seen talking about how there is this question of dollars and cents that still just is unreconciled for the most part. Like, what are you hearing? What are you seeing? What is the reaction to even talking about this kind of stuff?

[Andrew Brown]

Pick a trade, any trade, right? So if you're looking at welding, according to weldingworkforcedata.com, we need 320,000 welders by 2029. That's about 81,000 welders every single year to make up the gap. The Average wage is $26.49 across, median wage. Right. So in the comments, there are people, I want to be a welder, but I can't make enough money.

[Sam]

And that's what, probably $60,000 a year.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah, 55. $60,000 a year. But then there are people who work on the pipelines and they make over 100k or. I was having a conversation with Nate Bowman. I hope I'm saying his name. You know, Nate.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

Welder.

[Sam]

Yep.

[Andrew Brown]

And he was saying, we were talking about the wages, and he's like, I have two, three jobs. I gotta do what I gotta do. I don't just have one job. I gotta make ends meet. And he hustles and he does his work and he does his social media and he works, you know, but welding, in that case, people look at the wages and they say, this is not for me. I'm not being respected. I'm not making enough money. It's not safe. There's not the right ppe, which is not true, because obviously it's come a long way when it comes to safety. But what's really going on in the comments, whether it's plumbing, welding, carpentry, or anything, is that there's a clear distance between business owners and people in the field from what people are seeing in the field. Like, I'm thinking about the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley. Farley, he came out and he said our bays like, like we need X amount of automotive technicians. And he was boasting about the.

[Sam]

Well, and it's, it's like Ford, the UAW and the factory workers get all the press, but the technician level at the dealers.

[Andrew Brown]

Exactly.

[Sam]

They're in deep shit.

[Andrew Brown]

This is when it got fired up sort of in the comments. And I had done a video on this based upon somebody else's post, but it was like you had all the automotive technicians being like, what the fuck? Why would he say that? Why would he come out and say that you can make X amount of money when you only get paid a certain amount of money? And so you have sort of corporate America business owners saying one thing and then you have the technicians and the people in the field saying another thing. So there's a huge gap there and there has to be a way to kind of have some sort of happy medium between that. Again, it's a loaded conversation with a lot of different dynamics there. And again, it's not something that could be solved overnight. But where I kind of put the pieces together is looking at what's happening real time in the field, what business owners are saying and working to get them to at least come to the table to have that conversation, to get to the right answer.

[Sam]

Yeah. So when you tell business owners though, that while this is what they're saying, they're not making enough money, then what did the business owner say?

[Andrew Brown]

The business owners say, well, there's only a certain amount of money that we do make sure. Just because we charged. Like for instance, I'm thinking about if someone who owns a small plumbing business and they send a guy out to do residential work, they'll charge at minimum 2, $300 just to show up. Now, does the business make 2 to $300 in profit? No, they still have to make, they still have to pay the technician to pay the taxes. They have to pay for the, the, the insurance on the truck. There's a lot more that's involved in that. And I understand it because I've seen both sides. I've seen sort of what the trades are doing, but I also see the business side. I understand the business side of running a business and what it takes to be profitable. Sure, right. So I see both sides, but I do feel that a lot of times that the people in the field don't get necessarily what they're, the work that they're doing, even though it's fulfilling, they're not necessarily getting the wages that they should. And that's kind of what I see mainly sort of in the, in the comments is, is the wages. It's the work life balance. It's the. I'm not respected enough. I'm just here, I show up, I do the work. And why am I doing this? It's any trade and it is.

[Sam]

There are those common themes between all the trades. It seems like. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

There's not just one trade, but then there are, you know, you look at like for instance, electricians in the boom with AI in the data centers. We're talking about data centers and people are saying they'll make a killing over the next handful of years, become an electrician.

[Sam]

Sure. But it's a boom.

[Andrew Brown]

It is a boom. Just look like any other boom.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's a boom if I've ever seen a boom. And that's one that like. And no one can explain it. Which again, make hay while the sun's shining. But then it's like the pipeline guys. You make really good money when you make really good money. And then they can tell you get out of here at any minute of any day with no recourse whatsoever. And that's just how that game works. And so you better, when you're making good money, you better be stashing some of those nuts away.

[Andrew Brown]

Yes, yes.

[Sam]

Because if you got some big finance payments and a mortgage, et cetera, based on that income.

[Andrew Brown]

Correct. And that's not always taught about.

[Sam]

Almost never taught.

[Andrew Brown]

It's never taught. It's not taught in schools. And if the company doesn't say anything, yes, you make money and you blow the money and then you're broke again and then you need to go find more work.

[Sam]

And I think that's all this time.

[Andrew Brown]

Right. But that's not spoken about either the.

[Sam]

Financial side of this, which, And I think that's part of it. Like, I think it's partially the wages, but it's partially the inability to manage finances as well. Because people just aren't taught that. It's not their fault. They're not irresponsible. Their parents didn't teach them because their parents don't know how to manage finances. School didn't teach them. Are you kidding me? Their employer, if their employer don't. Doesn't teach them, they're not going to learn. But, oh, that's their, that's their, that's their problem. That's their responsibility. Well, but they don't know. Like, you can't, you can't blame someone for overspending. That just doesn't know that like most people, even if you ask them how to explain. Explain a mortgage to me. How does your mortgage work? No, how does your 401k work? No, like, no one can explain it. That's by design. The whole system is designed for people not to understand it, so they can extract money. But I think that's part of it too, is like, even if I can't pay people more money, me as an employer, I can at least educate people about money and how it works and allow them to be more effective with their money because that's in their best interest. And what's in their best interest? Is it in my best interest or. You'd think so. This hasn't happened in civil. It's a little bit here or there. It's definitely happened though, within homes, H vac, plumbing, electricians, et cetera, roofing, the whole private equity thing. I think that's also a giant problem. I like. I don't think maybe there are some private equity folks out there that are really here to make the world better. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't met many of them yet. And good for them. They're here to play a game. They play it really well. But I feel like that's also part of it. Like there's these vehicles now that extract money from this industry that hand it to somebody else. It's foreign companies, it's public companies. I'm not demonizing this, but it is reality. The money doesn't stay in, the money goes somewhere else. Public companies, private equity, like, there's some. There's some vehicles there that are like, really starting to have an influence in this world, especially because of the retirements. So they're able to just snap up business after business after business after business. And in the. I know in the home world, a lot of them are still marketed as a local business, but they're private equity. And. And like, I think that's part of the. Not that we can do anything about it, but I think that's part of the issue as well, is, is now you have these vehicles coming in, leveraging the trades for. For money. Sure. Paying these guys whatever they are and then taking the rest of the money and going on down the road.

[Andrew Brown]

Right. Well, they need a return on investment. But I see this quite often and I remember having this conversation a couple months ago at a show and there were. It was a plumbing event, but I was listening to how these business owners are being approached by private equity. Some of them have already sold, but A lot of them are getting approached, but some of these are people who are 65, maybe 70, they've slowed down. The business is maybe worth five or six million dollars. This is my nest egg. This is it. Like I'm getting my check and I'm leaving.

[Sam]

I'm not faulting them because there's nothing wrong with their whole life for that.

[Andrew Brown]

Look, if you run a business, when you start a business, you need to think about your exit plan. Yeah, right. If you're not thinking about that as a business owner, it's going to bite you one day. So I don't blame them for doing that. But what happens to the industry as a whole now? It's all rolled up, you know, all these H vac or plumbing organizations that it's all about profit, profit, profit. What happens to the, the worker, what happens to their life, what happens to their wages, what happens to their work life balance, what happens to their insurance, their 401k? Does it get better? Does it stay the same? Does it get worse? This has been going on for quite a while, but it's interesting to get the perspective of the business owner who's looking to sell and then get the perspective of the people in the field. And that's where this starts to pop up in the comments as well.

[Sam]

What's the perspective of the people in the field?

[Andrew Brown]

Unknown. What's going to happen? There's a big question mark there.

[Sam]

I, and that's I, I have the same question mark and I'm talking a little bit about out my ass. But I haven't seen when a company's acquired. Yeah, Very rarely are the people within that company better, better off. Rarely. I haven't seen it very often, especially when private equity starts sent to the conversation. I've talked to people recently that have sold the private equity, the business owners and they are miserable.

[Andrew Brown]

Well, they lose control.

[Sam]

Well, they lose control but they're still handcuffed to the joint by the golden handcuffs for the next three years, four years, five years, whatever it is. And now their job is to manage based on a spreadsheet to go create this return on investment for then the next flip. At the next flip they probably make more money than the initial sale.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So. And it's a huge sum. Good for them. But then they're just like, I mean some of these people are miserable. Yeah, I've heard that like all life has just been extracted from them. Like the, what they, they created and loved, it's just gone. And it's like, oh man. And again I I'm. I'm all for people making money, but when it starts to. When it starts to infiltrate, like food, water, shelter, infrastructure, and the future of our country, that's where I start to get like, no, like, I get. You guys have done great here, there, everywhere. And I understand you've gotta. You've gotta. You've gotta finance your next vacation home that you spend three weeks a year at. That's great. Go do it somewhere else. Like, we've gotta keep this train on the tracks or else the whole thing unwrap. Like, we're starting to now mess with the fabric of society. And that's. That's what starts to. To that. That's what starts to worry me. It's like, hey, hey, we can't be doing this. But. And again, it hasn't happened too much in my world. My world, quote unquote, being infrastructure some. But I know in the residential market, it's everywhere. Yes.

[Andrew Brown]

And it's only speeding up.

[Sam]

It's only.

[Andrew Brown]

It's only speeding up. Like most. If you speak to most or a lot of business owners, most of them have had a conversation or two already. Somebody's knocked on my door thinking about it. I'm not sure I'm getting to that age. I just had somebody who I was speaking to who's. He's like, I started thinking about this when I was 50. Now I'm 60. Now I'm really thinking about this.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

Like, I'm thinking about the next step here. But it's wild what's happening. But the thing is, what happens to the worker? Like you said, it doesn't get any better. Like, for instance, with BuildWit, you built a company and it has its core values. You showed me the core values. What happens if private equity comes and buys your company up and you're here for three years, the next three years they tear down your core values, which they will. Yeah. How would that feel? You built this whole thing up. Yes. You're getting a check, but at the end of the day, everything that you've built is sort of being taken over by someone else. And it's all spreadsheet oriented. Right.

[Sam]

Well, and that. And that. And so that's where I start to ask. Because I'm grateful. I grew up around money. I've seen it. And it's like, it's fine, but it's not. It's fine. Like it's not extraordinary. And. Do I want a plane? Yeah, I want a plane. All right, sue me.

[Andrew Brown]

Get me.

[Sam]

But like, to. I. Yeah. Watching These guys, it's been interesting. Again, I'm just this guy in the, in the stands and I'm not criticizing, I'm just observing. These guys, they'll sell their company. You know, they'll make whatever $100 million, whatever it is. Like some of, some of these sales are big, big money. I mean private equity, especially like the, the life changing money. Yeah, but, but the, the, the, the sums they dealing is like, I mean, yeah, we just raised our next 23 billion dollar fund. It's like, where's the 23, 23 billion dollars. That's a lot of money. Where's that coming from? Like, yeah, we don't even look at deals under a hundred million dollars. Like shit. And they have to distribute it quickly. Like they have to go do a hundred deals, they'll go make a hundred million dollars. Awesome.

[Andrew Brown]

Great.

[Sam]

They'll pay taxes on it, whatever. It won't actually be hundred million dollars. And then this company ends up private equity. Say you've got, you know, 153 people working at that company. They're all still there, they're all still making the same wage that they were the day before it sold. And they will still make that same wage a year after it sold. You know, it's just like the person doing the work, nothing changes for them. And you could argue it gets worse. And that's where like I struggle to reconcile that in a lot of ways. Now instead of just sitting here and pointing out problems, a model that I've thought a lot about in civil construction that I think has a lot of promise is the employee owned model.

[Andrew Brown]

Okay. Yeah.

[Sam]

And it only works in a non union environment. So there's that complication. But like I said, a majority of, of the US is non union within this world and, and it does work in a union environment, but you can only do it with salaried individuals. So I've seen it done that way as well. You can't do it with the field, but that's a model I've seen that actually works really well in which the ownership sells the company to the employees over a certain period of time. And then based on their wages and the amount of time they work at the company, they accrue shares of the company and then upon their retirement their, the company purchases those shares for oftentimes a lot of money. Like it's, it's a significant sum of money. Yeah, that to me is like, okay, that's, that's a big deal. Like now you're starting to restore the middle class in some ways, which I think is essential for us to succeed long term. And then that company is also not paying income tax. So there's a huge tax advantage for the business. And you can then leverage that cash that you would be handing to the government. And I think most people hopefully are in agreement that, like handing stuff the government nowadays doesn't. Doesn't exactly go as far as it used to. You know, instead of handing the government, you can use it to grow your business, reinvest in your business, reinvest in your people, which then grows the company, which then increases the share price, in theory, which then makes everybody better off.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And that I've seen is, is an extraordinary model.

[Andrew Brown]

I like that model.

[Sam]

It's not the magic bullet.

[Andrew Brown]

No, it's not. But also it really depends on what type of business that you're running and what you want and what you want to accomplish. Do you want a lifestyle business that's just going to pay you a good life? Do you want to reinvest in your business? Right. To grow your business, you're scaling your business, you're reinvesting money back into the business, but you need to invest in your employees. Those are the people that got you there. If you're just taking all the money out and you're not, obviously, you know, setting the company up where they're also thriving as well, eventually things break, people leave, they don't feel respected. They're not. This is not about giving somebody a $2 raise. This is more than that. This is more so about living and breathing your core values and what you stand for. The mission that you're on. You're on your mission. I'm on my mission. And you want the right people on the bus in your company to follow you. I was speaking to a construction company up in Maine and he did the same thing, turned into employee owned. He said it was the best thing we ever did. Best thing we ever did. We fixed everything we built. We fixed our mentorship, we fixed our training. We teach employees how to save money. It changed everything for us. So if that is a direction that some companies are taking, I think it's an advantage if you can get. Get there. But the employee feels empowered. Yeah, right. Versus just going to work. And you're just an employee and you have the owner and the owner is making good money, but you're not getting the money and you're not being treated right. I think it's a great model to at least see if it's possible.

[Sam]

Oh, and personally, I would be looking at the employee owned companies, first and foremost, if I went back to construction those I would potentially only go to work for an employee owned company at this point.

[Andrew Brown]

Because you've seen it.

[Sam]

Yeah, right. And I want to be part of it. Yeah. Like I don't just want to work for a wage, which I want to, I want to pour into something which. Which I think goes a long ways.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

I'm not saying that's again the magic potion. I've just like to talk about potential solutions. I have seen that as one of the ways that in the civil construction industry they've started to get people more money, which I think is essential. Like we've got to get people more money somehow. And I also understand as a business owner, economics, like there's been, I mean, way more times through business than not, we haven't been able to pay people as much as we've wanted to because of our business, because of our growth, because of our cash situation, whatever it is, it's really hard. And the margins within construction, within the trades oftentimes are slim at best. Slim at best. But we can't also sit here and just be victims of our circumstance. We've got to do something about it as an industry as a whole. Because no one's coming to save the day. No one's coming to save the day. There's nobody that's looking out for us. And that's also my point to contractors. Just like, listen, we're all trying to beat each other up here. You all think you're competition with one another from workforce standpoint. You're not, man. You're in competition with every other industry in the United States. Do you think they give a shit about us? They depend on us every day of the week. They don't give a single shit about us because their priority is their workforce is their business. And they are far more consolidated than we are. And they are going to continue to whoop our ass as long as we let them. And as long as we act like the guy doing the same thing that I am down the street is my enemy, it's not going to work.

[Andrew Brown]

Right, but you're always going to have the problem of trying to find that worker who's making $23 an hour. Yeah, right. In your, in your sector. Right. And we talked about that, about raising the wages that someone should make about. I think you said about 80k. Correct me if I'm wrong. If you want to get that individual, like you need to work your 60 hours.

[Sam]

I mean, I. So yeah, so I Did the math. The average within this world is $23 an hour by calculated by three different metrics. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. On a. On a. It's a median on the United States average, $23 an hour. If you work 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that's a lot of hours. That's a lot of hours.

[Andrew Brown]

A lot of hours.

[Sam]

A lot of hours you make. Yeah, you're in the 80s. You're in the 80s, which I would say is livable. But again, you throw kids into the mix. Right.

[Andrew Brown]

Well, it also depends where you are.

[Sam]

It depends where you are. But. But anywhere you're living now, you're making 80s. Like, even on your own, you're not swimming in money.

[Andrew Brown]

No.

[Sam]

You're not driving a BMW M3, or at least I hope you're not, because if you are, God help you. Yeah. Financially, that's not a good decision, but. Yeah. You want to buy a house. You want to have kids. You want to have more than one kid, like, two kids, which is still below the number that we need to grow any kind of population in the world. That's still under. Like, I've thought about that myself. I don't make that much more. I don't make that much money. I'm sitting here, I'm like, yeah, I'm saving a little bit right now, but it's just me. I'm renting above somebody's garage. I'm not good to go. I'm not good to go. And then my parents, like, when they were coming up, I think a house was. To get a house, the average was. I don't know how the math works out, but it was like one seventh of their income was. Was how much? Maybe on a monthly basis, like the payment to service the. The mortgage. And now it's between 3 and 4/7 of your income to just have a house. How does that math for anybody, like, the trades aside? It doesn't math. And so, yeah, if I'm not making, like, $80,000 a year and if I want a family. Mm. How do I do that? I don't know. And there's a lot of people doing it. I don't know how they're doing it, though. Like, how. How. How does it. Math and everything's just getting more expensive. And then what? Like, I. I don't. I don't. I don't know. And I want to get it to a place where the trades are some of the most paid people. They should be some of the most paid people in the country. Because they're the ones keeping the whole thing together. Why aren't they the ones making the money?

[Andrew Brown]

Right.

[Sam]

Why aren't the way they want stacking it up? They should be. The money's there. We just passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill. That's twice inflation adjusted. The cost of the entire United States interstate system twice trillion dollars. Who's better off in the trades? We just spent more. There was more government stimulus and spending in the past five years than ever in human history. Who's better off? Well, I don't know.

[Andrew Brown]

Well, if the US infrastructure is a C minus, how do you get to an A plus if nobody wants the job and you're not going to pay them? Right. Right. Just like you said, you can't make ends meet. You talked about your situation depending where you live. If you live in New York, you live in Boston. Right. In the major cities, yes, you make more money, but it's the cost of living and the taxes and everything in between. And it doesn't matter if it's the trades or it's a different sort of industry. This is a much wider problem. Yes. Is everything more expensive? 100%. 100% has. And you talked about houses, a typical house back in the day. I remember my father was talking like it was like 60, $70,000. Not freaking mind blowing. Like you put your money in the bank. You were making good amount of interest too. Right. You just left it there.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

And it doesn't now if you think about it, it's much harder today because of how expensive. Like if, if you're moving to a neighborhood and the home is a million dollars and the taxes on that. Like you start to think about the numbers and what you have to clear.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

In order to.

[Sam]

And a million dollar house now isn't crazy. Like that's not a McMansion crazy.

[Andrew Brown]

But I think, I think Aaron, I think it really depends what kind of lifestyle that you're looking for. Right. If you're, if you're looking to, if your work is about mission driven passion and it's not about the money. There's that side of it. But then there's people who just want to make the money and pull the money out and just have a great lifestyle and go on vacations and want the expensive car, the M3 or whatever it may be. But I think there's more to life than that. And I thought about that in my 20s I was more kind of driven towards money. Now it's more driven towards mission and Passion.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

So I make money and make ends meet. But.

[Sam]

Yeah, but, but which. Which is great. But again, like, if I want. If I want a house with a yard so that I can have a dog and my kids play in the backyard, even, that's a lot to ask right now financially, like. And that's where this whole next generation coming up is like. But I'm not even asking to live the dream. Like, I just want a house with a yard, you know, And I just want to see my kids. Like, it's not crazy. It's not a lot who can do that for me. And it's like it's this shrinking window of opportunity, which is really demoralizing as well, which is, I think, partially why a lot of people have just left the workforce. It's like this whole thing's gamed against me.

[Andrew Brown]

I agree. But you also thinking about when it comes to a tradesperson versus somebody who went to college also, if you didn't go to college, you're kind of starting ahead of the game, that you're not taking out loans.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

And you go to school and it's six figures. You're coming out of the workforce or coming into the workforce. Maybe you can't find a job. Maybe you're making 40, $50,000 you're behind and you've spent four years trades, you're making money right away, you're earning, you're learning in your apprenticeship. Yes. But if you look at sort of the graphs of somebody who went to college and somebody who's been in the trades, they are making money right away. Sure. Right. It depends how far you want to take it. You know, if you want to be a master in your trader, journeyman or a business owner, but you're not being weighed down with all that debt that somebody who is went to the college route and trying to dig out of that hole, who also went to graduate school, who also got a mortgage, who also started a business, now you can't get above. You had a butt of water.

[Sam]

Yeah. Good luck.

[Andrew Brown]

Good luck.

[Sam]

So when you. When you speak to people, I'll watch the time. Because, I mean, you do your show too. I could talk. I could talk about this shit all day. When you speak to people, you speak to probably most of the time, business owners, maybe sometimes a mix of students, etc.

[Andrew Brown]

Yep. Gen Zers.

[Sam]

I'm kind of mixed now too. But speaking of business owners, what do you tell them?

[Andrew Brown]

Which part? How to reach the younger generation or.

[Sam]

They're sitting there in the audience like all these kids Suck. I can't find anybody to work here. What do I do? I need welders, I need plumbers, I need.

[Andrew Brown]

Those are all understanding. It's understanding Gen Z, it's understanding that age bracket of 13 to 28 and understanding they're a different generation. Right? They have different motivators. Your baby boomers, your Gen X is a very different generation. How they came up versus Gen Z. They're in a different world with AI technology. They have many different options. They can be in tech, they can be in AI, they can be social media influencers. It's a very different approach. Also Gen Z, and I see it with my kids as well, is that everybody wants it today. They don't. They don't have delayed gratification. You know, it's going to take me four years to be in a print. I don't want to do that. I can go online and start a YouTube channel and start making money because I saw Mr. Beast and he's got 400 million subscribers. Yeah, that's what I want. So you're contending with that, Right? Also, those business owners might not be reaching the younger generation at a young age. What are they doing to reach the younger generation? Are they showing up at schools? Are they having those kids come on a job site to showcase exactly what they do? Show them what a path looks like in working with their hands. Not every kid that they bring down is going to want to go into that path. Some of them have a technical spark, some of them have a mechanical ability. Maybe out of 20 kids, maybe two kids would be interested, but that's a win. That's another two kids who might be interested in working with their hands. But it's also understanding the motivators of Gen Z. Right? Gen Z, yes, the wages are very important, but also they want to feel connected to your organization. And I'll go back to the core values of working for an organization. Like they want to feel that they are working for something that's sort of to some degree, mission driven. Right. Why am I here? Why am I doing this work? What is it doing? I'm working for an organization that's trying to make things better. But I'm also working and fixing a school because I'm creating education for kids or I'm building a bridge, a tunnel, a road for people to get to and from work. I'm doing fulfilling work that needs to be. Those things need to be talked about. That doesn't necessarily come true. Also, a lot of kids just don't know how to start and the thing is there's so much information out there that it's overload and it's all scattered that they actually quit before they even start. And I see this quite often, 16, 17, 18 year olds who are like, Andrew, I. What trade should I go on? Andrew, I can't get anybody to call me back. Andrew, all these companies are asking for three to five years experience. So I said to business owners and I said, what is your zero experience policy? What about the kids who have the soft skills? They just don't have the technical skills. They just came out of trade school. Are you willing to bring those people and train them, mentor them? And a lot of businesses said, no, I don't. I want somebody who, who can start off, who has experience because we don't have to train them.

[Sam]

But no bad habits. They want experience, but they don't want any bad habits. They want an open mind.

[Andrew Brown]

Exactly. And then it's the whole. I remember somebody saying at a function somewhere and somebody said, gen Z is lazy. And I pushed them back. I said, they're not lazy. Again, they have different motivators. It's not how you used to do it. This is a different generation. You're just not understanding how to reach them.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

They want their paid transparency. They want to know what the ladder of success looks like.

[Sam]

Well, and who made the bed that everybody's sleeping in?

[Andrew Brown]

Exactly.

[Sam]

Like, who did this? What generation did this? Oh, shit, wait a minute. It was you guys. Like, weren't you the parents?

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

It's like, wait a minute, come on. And now we're getting blamed. Hey, wait a minute.

[Andrew Brown]

Look. You're also dealing with going back to instant gratification. When I was younger and I was watching a show, it was a week later that I had to wait for the show to come on. I had to wait for commercials. Right. I had a. And I'm, I'm throwing out silly examples, but like when I went through a toll, there was no easy pass. You sat online and you waited and you gave the cash in. Like, that's a different generation, right? Today everything is sort of instant gratification. I want streaming, I want it now. I want that video, I want this. I want my overnight package for Amazon. Like, everything is at your fingertips. No one wants to wait. So why am I going to spend my time in a path of the trades necessarily doesn't pay a lot of money on top of it's going to take me four or five years, I got to go through that. So there's a lot of competing things that are going on between the business owner and the people in the field. But business owners need to get a better grip of understanding of the younger generation. And that's why I do these talks and I bring them through a five step playbook of how to reach that younger generation and to see how to connect and sort of speak that language. Because if you don't and you think that they're just lazy on their phone and they show up late, that's not the case. You need to evolve.

[Sam]

Well, if you think that you're going to lose, yeah, guaranteed 100% it's that I'm now even, I'm not even there to like convince people anymore. I'm just like, this is the world and we can sit here and complain about it all day, but this is the world. So are we going to continue? Like I'm to the point, how long do we have to sit here and complain about this stuff and blame everybody else but ourselves? Like how long are we going to do this until we're going to accept responsibility and say, okay, fine, I can't influence the whole next generation. You know, that's outside of my, my area of, of of influence. Go figure. And most everybody, it is as well, I can't do that. But, but what I can do is I can be better, I can be a better communicator, I can be kinder, I can train and develop people. You know, there's a lot of things I can that don't even cost me money that I can do. And the construction companies in our world that are winning, they have leadership doing all of that. Go figure. Like their leadership's not blaming anybody else. Their leadership's not hanging out with their arms up in the air like, ah, you know, just whatever their leadership's, oh man, you know what? We actually suck. I need to do better. And then they're doing better and then their whole company does better, their team does better, they're recruiting the next generation. Yep. Yeah, it starts with that. And that's where I think the solution to this entire problem starts actually is the leadership within the existing industry. It's not on the lap. There is a responsibility the up and coming generation has that is working hard, that is being worth the information they're being given, that is being worth the opportunities they're given. That is showing up on time. You know, that's simple stuff. There's a responsibility there.

[Andrew Brown]

You'd be surprised. It's not that easy. But yes, those are things that it's expected.

[Sam]

If you're in the next generation and all you do is just religiously show up on time every day. You're ahead of 90%.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

That's all you need to do in a lot of like to already be ahead, but there's a responsibility there. But I think 90% of the responsibility of the lion's share of the responsibility is on the shoulders of the leadership, existing leadership within the industry.

[Andrew Brown]

But they need to look themselves in the mirror.

[Sam]

Yes. And it starts with them.

[Andrew Brown]

Them. And being self aware of the things that you're doing is affecting the industry. Is it gonna change overnight? No.

[Sam]

No.

[Andrew Brown]

Is getting on video like you do and I do gonna help? Sure. It'll make an impact. It's not gonna, it's not gonna all of a sudden it's gonna change overnight, but at least it gets people thinking. And every podcast, every stage that you and I are on, we're making some sort of impact and chipping away. Right. And changing people's perspectives. And we need to set sort of the younger generation, Gen Z, up for success because the older generation is going to retire. This generation is going to be the workers and eventually be the business owners.

[Sam]

Yes. And so the onus is on this generation. But in the future still, I still think like, especially guys retiring and then just leaving the industry, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We need you more now than ever. Like this is when we need you more. We need you pouring back into this world before you leave, you've got to leave everything you have with us. If you take it with you, it's gone forever. And that's, it's also confusing to me when like a business owner, they'll sell their company and then they'll go fall for the trick that is like a diversified portfolio or like real estate development or whatever it is. And then all their money just marches off into some far off land and none of it comes back to investing in the industry. And I get, they've invested in the industry by building a company, that's great. But like, but wait, bring some of that money and experience back here. Like pour back. Why don't you invest in the fields that grew the harvest to begin with? Like, don't, don't take it over there. Take some over there. Great. But bring a lot of it back here. We need more investment. And like we're all sitting around waiting for the government to do something. Well, I think we can all agree the government is not going to do shit, man.

[Andrew Brown]

Waiting for a while.

[Sam]

We are going to be waiting For a very long time, very long time, the federal government is not coming to save us. State governments are not coming to save us. And some are better than others. There's some great programs, like State of Georgia is just doing incredible things and their skills. Usa and so on and so forth. But even from a trade school standpoint, a lot of people, the conversations like, oh, we need more people to go trade school. And then you see it on LinkedIn, like, everybody's like, yeah, trade school, yeah. And then I'm like, in our world, show me the trade schools. Where are they? Well, the higher education system killed, murdered most of them in the past 10, 15 years. Most of them, a huge swath of them shut them down. In our world, a trade school, it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. So again, it's like shirking responsibility. Like, yeah, we just need more kids to go trade school. Okay, I did my job. I, I inspired the next generation. It's like, no, no, dude. Like, you have to train your people. You have to develop your people. If you're not recruiting and developing your workforce, you will not have a workforce at a certain point in time. That's just, it's, it's, it's on the wall. It's not even what I'm saying, what you're saying. It's just in the numbers.

[Andrew Brown]

Like, look, the math doesn't lie. Numbers don't lie. And, you know, you hit on a point of like, trade schools, but also kids, Kids need to know how to work with their hands. And that really starts with, like, a shop class, right? A lot of the shop classes have been taken out of schools. People, obviously, at an older generation, they remember taking some sort of shop class of working with their, with their hands. And that least gets somebody interested about, you know, building or fixing something. Even if you don't go into a trade, at least you can fix stuff around the house. You can be, you can, you know, you can fix drywall or you can do something in your boiler or, like, you could do things around the house. Most of my friends, they can't screw in a light bulb because they weren't really taught to do that. But I feel like we put shop class back into schools and at least gets kids interested of like, hey, okay, I understand about working with my hands. I'm comfortable around power tools and that type of stuff. I think we made a big mistake by pulling a lot of that out. And obviously that went to other things about getting kids going to college. And, yeah, I know we can go down A whole nother path in that. But it set us up for this, really. The shortage kind of what we're seeing on top of other things. But that really well and set these.

[Sam]

And like, again, like, yes. And. And I, I don't think that's controversial at all. Like, everybody would be like, yeah, that, that was a pickle. I wish I had shot class growing up. I didn't have it. But, like, to think that we're gonna get it back into every high school in America within the next two years. Probably not gonna happen. Yeah, like, we've got more money to send overseas, first and foremost. Come on, we've got some foreign wars to fight, boys. Like, we can't. We can't build our next generation. Government's not going to help here. It's like, we need every contractor going to every school in America as often as possible. And, like, it's not that hard to sell the trades to kids. It's the coolest thing in the world. Like, especially you show up with a bulldozer in the parking lot. It's cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, at career day, you're kind of like, you know, low key, flipping all the lawyers off. You're like, yeah, screw you guys. Yeah, cool, cool documents. Yeah, it's cool, guys. Oh. Oh, is that a nice suit? I've got a bulldozer. Like, it's not that hard for a kid to be like, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. A bulldozer going by and just the clickety clack and the smell of the dirt and the diesel and the grease and the sat like this, the sensory experience. Like, I could do that as a job. Are you kidding me? This is unbelievable. Or I can go fix cars or I can go, I mean, do all kinds of. It's incredible. The trades are incredible because it's so broad. It's this enormous spectrum of all these extraordinary things you can do to serve society. But I think until companies are like, pushing it, pushing it aggressively, pushing it to every school in America, we're not going to get there as well. And that. And that's also a point that I make when I'm talking. I'm like, if you're waiting for me to inspire the next generation or you to inspire, like, if that's up to us, we're going to do our part. Yes, but we're not going to get there, man. No way. It's a. It's. It's. We're not going to get there until Everybody in America within this world is talking about it. And it's, it's, it's. There's been a lot of progress made over the past even year, which has been really interesting to watch and exciting. Sure. But like everybody's got to be talking about it and talking about it and talking about it and talking about it because this narrative has gotten so far past us.

[Andrew Brown]

Right. Well, this is exactly why I keep showing up and stay consistent. You know, the thing is it takes 10, 15 tries for someone to listen. And if you do, if you stop after the third or fourth time because you're not getting the feedback from people, you're not doing your job right. So, you know, people like us. So just keep banging the drum and banging the drum and getting it out there. Eventually people start listening again. I go back to, are we going to fix it overnight?

[Sam]

No.

[Andrew Brown]

But it gets, people start to think in that way. Not every business owner is gonna wake up tomorrow and gonna be like, I wanna change the world, I wanna change it. Slowly evolves. Slowly evolves. But again, it's chipping away on getting it out there on social media and podcasts and speaking on stages across the country of starting that conversation, getting it in that direction.

[Sam]

Well, we don't need businesses owners to wake up and wanna change the world. Even no one has to change the world here. It traumatic. They just need to wake up and say, there's a better way to do this. That way starts with me and I'm starting that journey today. What's one thing I can focus on to do a little bit better? Maybe I need to get healthier physically. Maybe I need to figure my shit out mentally. Maybe I need to communicate a little bit better. I haven't been to a school in three years. Damn.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

I haven't been into the field in three months. Damn. Like, it's not dramatic stuff that has to happen here. It's really not. It's not. And it's not stuff that people. It's not top secret. Like, I'm not this great thought leader. I'm leading. No thought whatsoever. I'm just saying, like very obvious things here. But I really, the more I think about it, that's why I threw my talk away. That I spent all year building in December last month is like, it's not about companies, it's not about teams, it's not about groups. It's about the leaders, the leadership of this industry. That's where it begins and ends, period.

[Andrew Brown]

Well, it's got to start from the top and work its Way down.

[Sam]

And everybody knows it. But everybody else wants another solution. Don't give me a solution that has to do with me. Give me, Andrew, give me. How do I, how do I go? And you've probably talked to a lot of business leaders, too. How do I get on social media? How do I tell stories this and that? And I'm like, well, the best place to start is not hiring anybody. Is you doing it. That's it. And the companies that have been most successful in their messaging, and I wonder if you agree with this, most successful in their messaging and have had the best presence online, have leadership 100% bought in, either involved in it or completely green flag, go do whatever you want to do. No resistance.

[Andrew Brown]

The ones that are investing in that, telling the stories, you know, the video testimonials, the day in the life, what it looks like to work in your organization, are the ones that are succeeding. But a lot of them don't want to do that.

[Sam]

A lot of them don't want to do that.

[Andrew Brown]

They don't want to, they don't want to do that. They just, you know, it's. That's not what I want to do.

[Sam]

And that's fine. Like, they don't, they don't have to be the face of the organization, but they have to be completely okay then with giving away the control and letting someone else do it. But that, again, that's where it starts to get sticky. And I'm just, I'm just a guy that's been the most successful brands in the industry. The companies that are recruiting the best, they have leadership, 100% oftentimes participating in being out there as a face of the company. Because like it or not, if you're the guy, I'm sorry, you, you, you are the face of the business. That's how it works. Someone has to be. And if it's not you, you've got a green light, someone else. Yes. And then you've got to stay out of their way.

[Andrew Brown]

Yes.

[Sam]

If it's not one of those two things, I haven't seen it succeed. Otherwise.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah. Well, you got to decide if you're the brand ambassador. Do you want to put your face out there? That's not for everybody.

[Sam]

It's not.

[Andrew Brown]

A lot of people don't want to do that. I don't have a problem doing that. I actually enjoy doing that. I don't mind being on stage. I don't mind being, I don't mind. Not a lot of people just can't, can't do that. But the Ones that are. The ones that are transparent, the ones that show more, you know, authentic stuff, are the ones that are succeeding. And it's the, the. It's the ones that kids point to and be like, yeah, that's the one I want to work for.

[Sam]

Mm.

[Andrew Brown]

I want to work for that company.

[Sam]

Yeah. There was a. I worked for five different civil contractors while I was in college. And there's one I. There's only one I talk about. There's only one leader I talk about. He gave me my first opportunity, Rich Pearson. But I'm still sitting here talking about him 12 years later, 13 years later. I don't even know the guy. I don't even know the guy. I don't even know where the hell he is. I know nothing about him, but he was the only senior leader that I saw out in the field. I didn't even interact with him out in the field, but he was out there. And he wasn't even out there. Every day he'd come up, you know, every few weeks he was out there, though. I worked harder for him than anyone else. I still talk about him. I still think about him. Out of all those companies, great companies, I didn't see another senior leader out in the field. It's like, that's where it starts. That's it.

[Andrew Brown]

It's easier said than done.

[Sam]

It's easier said than done.

[Andrew Brown]

Easier said than done.

[Sam]

Oh, I've fallen victim to that 100 times over. In a business, you get walloped, dude.

[Andrew Brown]

Exactly. You want people to see your perspective. They want people to see and change and adapt. But it doesn't happen overnight. It's just a slow burn and it could be frustrating at times. Sometimes you want to give up, but.

[Sam]

Well, I doubt it. Yeah, but again, I think, I think the change we're pointing to, I've seen. I mean, you've probably seen companies do this too. They. They get it. They have leadership that's finally like, look themselves in the mirror and they're like, yeah, I need to do better here. That's where. That's where it begins. And I've seen that. That's the only way it happens. I've seen it. I've seen. But very traditional companies, it starts with the leader looks themselves in the mirror and says, I need to do better. I will do better. I'm going to start doing better today. They start chipping away by very simple, in very simple ways. And in just a two to three year period, their entire business is dramatically different.

[Andrew Brown]

But you gotta want to do.

[Sam]

You have to Want to do it. Yeah. And you have to. You can't go appoint, you know, the HR director to do it for you. It starts with you, but then they're making more money. They're attracting a higher quality of individual. Yes. They're turning over far less people. They have better quality leadership. Their people are making more money as well. They're having more fun.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

I've never met one that's like, man, this. I went down this path, like, I guess it's good for my people, but it sucks. They're, They're. They win first. They win first.

[Andrew Brown]

But you need to be, you need to. As a business owner, you need to be around that. You don't just. Sometimes you have that aha moment. You look yourself in the mirror and I need to change. But sometimes it's getting around other business leaders that are doing this. Yeah. Finally, finally, it, like, rubs off on you.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

And then you say, I'm gonna make that change. And it slowly changes in your organization. Things get better. And after a handful of years, like you said, overall, the company is better. Training's better, mentorship's better. The people are coming in, higher quality people. And, you know, the retention's there. People don't just leave after three to six months.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Andrew Brown]

Because you change the organization that comes from the top, comes from the person who's, you know, who's the business owner, the leader.

[Sam]

Again, that's the only. I've seen it attempted in all different ways now and again. I've really thought about this, especially over the past few months. Like, they, they want to change, but they don't really want to be the one to do it. So then they hire somebody and they're like, you do it, but I'm still going to be looking over your shoulder a little bit. And you, you know, you have the authority. But, like, but, but, but, but still, I'm going to be looking regional. It's. And it doesn't work. It doesn't work. I'm glad we brought this home in a more productive way. I can sit here and talk problems all day. That's. Sometimes I spend all day in the problems. And it's not a very healthy place to stay. You've got to, like, look at them, think about them, and then, okay, where do we go? I'm glad we brought that home. Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

Look, it has to be spoken about. And sometimes these topics are, you know, they can get fiery and the conversations are good to at least start the conversations to make an impact and get better.

[Sam]

Well, and this is this is stuff I talk to people about all the time on the phone and, you know, lunch, this and that. You just. But you don't hear it in typical conversation, but you hear it in the comments. You know, you. When you're.

[Andrew Brown]

You.

[Sam]

When you're talking to as many people as you are, it's, It's. It's very clear what some of these issues are. And it's like, we've got to talk more. That's where I've transitioned again. I'm going to be a. A voice for the trades. I love the trades. I told you at dinner last night, I could sit there in a lawn chair and watch any trades person doing anything. Skilled, tradesperson, anybody. Skilled. Really, really skilled. I could watch them work 12 hours, not be bored once. I'm just. I'm in love with this world, and I'm so in love with it because I could never do it in a million years. I'm not a trades person.

[Andrew Brown]

You have an appreciation for it.

[Sam]

I have so much appreciation for it because I would be nothing without these people. And they're doing stuff that I couldn't even dream of doing. But just talking about all the good stuff is not going to get us there.

[Andrew Brown]

No.

[Sam]

And if everything we were doing was good, we wouldn't have this issue. No.

[Andrew Brown]

You got to be real. Yeah. Have the real conversations.

[Sam]

So you've got it. Yeah. You've got to be on both sides. And then, you know, once you are on both sides, you can start to. Okay, well, then here's a path forward. Here's what we got to do. And I just. The more I study it, the more involved I am, the more I believe it starts with leaders. Not a novel concept.

[Andrew Brown]

Baby steps. We'll get there.

[Sam]

Anything else before we wrap up?

[Andrew Brown]

No. I feel the same way you do, and I feel the same way you do about the appreciation of looking at plumbers and welders and carpenters. We talked about this last night of me sitting with my H Vac guy. He's fiddling around with my boiler for an hour, and I'm. I'm talking to him. And I'm also looking to see what he's doing because I'm interested in it. You know, this is. For me, it's. It's not just a mission, a passion. But I love the work. I love how things work. I love machinery. I love how things are fixed. I love how roads and bridges and tunnels are put together. And I think. I still think it's a great option for somebody who's really Handy wants to go down that path, doesn't want to go the typical college path. It's not an option B. It's not for the bad kids, it's not for the ones that screwed up. It can be a fulfilling, it can be lucrative, depending on which path that you go. But I think it's for the right person who really wants to make a difference, Somebody who wants to feel connected, who wants to rebuild our infrastructure. But finding the path within the trades, that really kind of lights you up. And you just, you need to find that sort of passion. If that's for you, then sign up again. Just like you talked about the military, it's not for everybody. Trades are not for everybody. But if, if you want to go down that path, then there is a lot of trades that you can go into.

[Sam]

Yeah. Well, and even, like, even saying tradespeople is like, you're very much at risk for way painting with a very broad brush. Yes. Because you could, you could be a horrible welder, but be a great painter. You know, like, there's, there's, there's so many different things within this world. And that's what. When I talk to kids, I'm like, you have to go try stuff. The businesses are going to want to keep you because it's in their best interest. As a teenager, as somebody in your 20s, it's in your best interest to find what really gets you going. And the odds of you finding it right away are very slim. You've got to go taste the rainbow. You've got to go try a bunch of stuff. And then once you find something that's like, ooh, this is pretty cool, then you start, like, go broad. And then you start to. Okay, I, and, and, and I'm, I don't just enjoy welding. I'm actually, I think I'm better at it than most people, naturally. Like, I'm. I think I'm just kind of picking this up more like my, my beads. Looking good, dude. Like, you know, and, and, and I think that's when the magic really happens. Those are the people that end up being extraordinarily skilled. They're not just the people that have worked hard. They've also matched who they are as an individual up with their trade.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And that's when the magic happens. Like, that is, it is magnetic. Like those people. Oh, my gosh. Those are the ones that I'm really just enamored by because it's like this individual. They're not, they're not just, they're not just in a Trade. They're a. They're a craftsperson. Like they're, they're an artist in this. It's just beautiful to watch one of these people work. That. That also is all in on what they do. And I think that's also the goal here is not to just end up in this world, but to find your place in this world.

[Andrew Brown]

Yes. And I'll tell you one last story because you were talking about finding your passion. And I remember watching this kid, Jordan, and I was at the Fabtech show and the American Welding Society has this massive trailer. They have about five Lincoln virtual welding machines. And I remember this kid, he was a young kid. He's with his parents. He's never done anything in the trades. And the machine, you can run a bead. And I remember him picking up the torch and he ran the bead and he got like 80 out of 100. He lit up, his parents lit up. And now he's thinking about going down that path. And it happens that young that maybe he's just naturally good at that. Will it turn into a welding career? Maybe. Maybe another trade. But it was interesting to see that at a young age and there's so many experiences and you know, people have at a young age that have seen something on a job site or work side by side with their parents who were handy, whatever it may be, and they decided to go down that path and they found their passion and that's their superpower.

[Sam]

Oh, and I think going back to the responsibility here though, I think the onus, it comes back to business owners and leadership. Like it's our, it's our responsibility to develop the people we need for our business. But if they're not right for our business, like they shouldn't be discouraged either. Like if somebody's not naturally a welder, they're just really struggling. I'm a welding business owner. Like I still should be incentivized to go help that individual go find another path to explore within the trades. Sure. Like my incentives should still be to make the overall trades better. That's like, that's the pipeline. That's the recruitment and training pipeline, ultimately. And I know unions have a role to play, Trade schools have a role to play. But it still comes down to employers at the end of the day. And I think every employer should want to train and develop their people, but every employer should also be like listening to their people, watching their people and trying to understand their people to see, because they should want people that are very aligned with their business. They'll perform better that way. And those that aren't, it doesn't mean they suck oftentimes. It just means they're in the wrong place. And so if we can help them find another potential place as well, that's a huge win for the overall industry, which is a huge win for everybody.

[Andrew Brown]

Yes, it's a win win for everybody. That's it.

[Sam]

Well, cool. Well, thanks for coming. I enjoyed it. I knew I'd enjoy it. Yeah. Surprising.

[Andrew Brown]

Yeah. Good. Good conversation all around.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Andrew Brown]

These things need to be talked about.

[Sam]

Yeah. Thanks for sitting down. How do people find you?

[Andrew Brown]

So I am on, on all social media platforms under Andrew brown trades, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram. I have a podcast called the Lost Art of the Skilled Trades, which you'll be on as well, that comes out every Wednesday, and Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube. But if you're interested in getting in the trades, if you're listening to this, send a DM to me. I'm always interested in trying to help you try to identify what trade that you want to be in. But if you want to go down that road and you have the mechanical ability that might just be right for you, awesome.

[Sam]

Well, Andrew, thank you, Sam.