← Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How Service Businesses Can Stop Losing Skilled Workers
00:35:52
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- [00:00]
A
So we're actually certified directly by the epa. So you can get your EPA us without a proctor. So no scheduling you go through. We take pictures and videos of you as you go through the exam and then we like prove that later someone reviews all of that. So no, no scheduling, no extra cost. It's really easy and accessible. So we have epa, we have Nate. So we just did a partnership with H Vac School. We're actually bringing to bringing on all H Vac School content onto the Skillcap platform, other courses out of all of those videos and like building out a really comprehensive suite to actually be able to get certified in a lot of those fundamentals. Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of. We have a bunch of trade school diplomas so that are accredited through. I said so you can actually come in and get a trade school diploma in H Vac. Humming electrical all through the app. I always tell us when we first started we were like one star in the App Store, in the Play Store. People had all these issues with our app. Now we have almost 5000 reviews with like 4.9 stars.
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B
Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.
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C
Upfrog is the OG when it comes to pricing transparency online. They find system replacement leads through paid ads and have developed an entire system to drive those hard to find system replacement placement opportunities. Nurture the leads and book them into sold systems before your team arrives to
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B
help you grow your business.
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D
Hey, I'm Krista with Marketstorm and we work with home service companies across the country. Quick question. If another H Vac or plumbing company in your area starts influencing homeowners before they ever hit Google, who gets the first call? By the time someone searches Plumber near me, they've already been researching the problem. We use AI to detect those early intent signals and put your brand in front of them. So when they do search, your name already feels familiar. Visit Marketstorm AI or text us at 213-575-5448.
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B
Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery podcast. I am one of your hosts, Tersh Blissett, sitting virtually next to my co host, Joshua Crouch. And we have Ruchir here with us today from Skillcap, which is an online training and accreditation service. Certification. Yeah.
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E
We're challenging you this morning.
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B
Yeah, right. And, and if you're watching this and you can see Josh shivering over there, we're recording this in January and we're going through Like a snow apocalypse type thing. In Savannah, it's like 17 degrees and snowing. We got like 4 inches of snow last night, which is wild. It's been years since we've had snow here. And Josh is in Phoenix and it's like 85 degrees over there.
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E
So he's not 85. It's in the, it's in the 20s, which is cold for here. This is why I moved out of Wisconsin, to get away from this, but it's following me.
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B
Richie, you're in New York, right?
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A
Yeah. It's also super cold here. I, I back to New York from California like last year. It's my first winter in forever. I'm also dying.
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B
Yeah. So you're, you're not excited about this either. So, so here it's, it's usually hot and humid where Josh is. It's hot and dry. Yeah, we just want, we just want some heat, warm sun. Whether it's humid or dry, it don't matter. Just get rid of the snow.
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E
Even Yesterday at like 11 o' clock, we had a, a break and I took our, did our first workout of the day outside a walk with my wife and I was all bundled up and had a hat and gloves on because it was like really windy yesterday. So. Call me a baby. That's okay. I'm good with it. I just like the heat now.
- [03:25]
B
Well, it's funny because you and I, we left Colorado last week and I mean, you dipped out and the snow had just got started. Really? There was a little bit of snow on the ground when you left. Between the 12 hours of you leaving and us leaving, it's like four inches of snow. I mean four, like a full, a full foot of snow down dropped on the ground. It was wild how much snow was dropped. Anywho, that ain't got nothing to do with what we're talking about today on today's show, but I wanted to give a little reference. If you see Josh over there shivering during our, during our interview. But with that being said, welcome to the show. And can you give a little background of yourself and what the whole premise is behind Skill Captain?
- [04:13]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So if Skillpad is a training platform for the skill trade. So we have about 1500 hours of training, simulation based training on H VAC, plumbing, electrical and appliance repair. And we've trained about 300,000 people over the last few years. And so my background kind of got into the trades in a, in a unique way. So my, my senior year of college, I did policy research on the BP oil Spill and training was one of the biggest issues that caused the spill. And so built out a company out of college building online courses and simulations to train oil and gas workers to prevent oil spills. And so I grew that company quite a bit. Then I went to business school a few years ago at Stanford. When I came out, it was Covid and everyone was getting laid off in oil and gas. And so these people making, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year going to work at grocery stores because they just didn't realize what other industries needed mechanical skills or needed electrical skills or had job shortages. And so, and if you look at it at a macro level, I did a lot of research. This has been happening since the 70s as like people have been laid off from industries like coal and manufacturing in the US They've gone into minimum wage jobs and it's brought the average income for blue collar folks like down like 20, 30% since the 70s. So what I started was basically how do you make it an easy way for folks to reskill and like get into industries like H Vac, like plumbing, like electrical, that have massive worker shortages and a lot of similar skills to other industries. And um, so that's really what we started was like, hey, trade school is really great for a lot of people, but it can be really expensive and you have to leave the workforce for a year or two years to go to school full time. So what if you could build a platform that used simulations to, you know, emulate real world experience as much as possible and give you all the same certifications you would get in a traditional trade school? And yeah, that's how scalecat came to be. And we've just, it's been almost four years and we've just grown and adapted a lot since then.
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B
Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah, the fear of like the, when layoffs come from factories, it's like, where am I going to go and still be able to make money? Because like here in Savannah we have like international paper, we have Gulfstream. And these jobs are known for like cherry picking kids right out of high school. So like, I remember all my friends, they would go to, not all of them, but a lot of them would go to like work at Gulfstream. And it was an amazingly paying, paying job without having to have a degree. Like you said, they could be making multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year without having a degree. And then a layoff comes through and all of a sudden these guys and gals who have been working this assembly line, working like doing hydraulic presses and stuff like that, things that they've learned over the years. You know, we gradually, over the period of maybe 10 or 15 years you went from maybe you started out at 17 an hour and now you're at $40 an hour, $45 an hour or, or something like that. And then like they work four tens and then they'll work Friday and Saturday too. So. And they, and they're doubling up time and everything else. Well, I know people who are like, man, I really hate my job. Like I hate doing what I'm doing, but I ca, I'm stuck because I can't make the industry somewhere else. Exactly. With my quote unquote skill set. Even though like we know like mechanically inclined to. You can do a lot of other things. But formal training wise, they only had the training they did at Gulfstream or International Paper or Georgia Pacific or something like that. So then that like that skill set doesn't compute over to a different like say H Vac. Yeah, it's, it's, it's massive because like I literally went from Arizona Chemical or being a mechanical engineer over there at a chemical plant to being a service technician and it was just, you know, night and day, different about everything. And I didn't know anything about air conditioning at that time. So for me to say, hey, look, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to go back to school, to trade school while I have, you know, maybe a kid on the way. I think whenever I left I got a mortgage, you know, married, like, oh, I'm just going to quit my job and for a year or two years go to a trade school and it's just not feasible at all. So this is, this is legit. I mean it's a great idea.
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A
Yeah. So that's kind of the, that's our vision and that's what we've been working towards is how do you, how do you make that transition easy and how do you get new people into the trades as easily as possible?
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B
And so that's, it's $10 a month. Right. For no matter what.
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A
Yeah, yeah. So we, we really, our whole, we started off free. So our initial business model was, I
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B
mean I do like a free 99. I know that's a good price plan for me.
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A
Our, our, the original model was free for folks who want to break into the industry and then companies pay to hire folks through the platform. And parts of that work, parts of that didn't work. It was just really hard to compete with like an indeed on a jobs Platform side. And so we started charging. But I think our whole focus as a company is how do we keep that cost as low as possible for everyone. And so yeah, we started $10 a month. There's some like more higher level plans for companies and folks who want to train larger workforces. But yeah, basic idea is how do you keep this as accessible as possible? If folks reach out and they can't pay, they want a scholarship, they need help. We do that almost every time. And so that's what's up. Yeah, so that's what we're all about. And just how do you, how do you build a really great business with really great content and you know, brings folks on everything while keeping training really, really affordable for people?
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B
How do you feel like you're doing like the time frame? Like, like how can you tell how well people are absorbing the content? I guess.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, it's a good question. So we get all sorts of students on the platform. Right. So we'll get people who are like middle school or high school parents are putting them through this. We'll get people fresh out of school want to get into the trades to their first kind of like replacement or equivalent of a trade school. Then we get a lot of people who are already in the industry who want to grow or upskill. So we get a lot of maintenance techs who want to learn each arc very. We get a lot of work at a lot of companies. We want to build out apprenticeships and grow their technicians. And then we get people later in life who want to reskill or get get into the trade. It's surprising how many people we've gotten recently from like white collar jobs. So folks in like marketing or finance laid off now, anything that's going to
- [11:31]
B
get replaced by AI.
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A
Exactly, exactly. Crazy are like the farthest thing away from getting replaced.
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E
That's until the Tesla robot or the test OpenAI robots start taking over the world.
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A
Yeah, even then I think like computer vision and robotics are so far away. There was an article, I think the Wall Street Journal recently.
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C
What's.
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E
So what's so far away in your opinion?
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B
Five years?
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E
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Like, are we, are we talking like 2000s, are we talking like 2080 when we're all dead? Well, maybe Church and I are.
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A
That's how cool you before me, it's, it's such a mystery. I think maybe like I don't know at least it's really difficult to tell. Right. But at least I think 30 years.
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E
That's why I asked you. I figured. Yeah, this is like, this is like tersh asking you a dad joke. And everyone's like, I don't know what to say.
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A
Yeah,
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B
speaking of factories, what do you call a factory that makes good products?
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A
A factory of goods. Like a goods factory.
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B
Oh, that's a good.
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A
That's, that's what we thought of.
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B
Yeah. Look at that response. This not, I would say a satisfactory.
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E
So freaking lame. It is way too early for your shenanigans. It's only like it. I mean it's not early early here. I've been up for a couple hours now, but it's, it's only 7:30 here. I don't do well on early morning calls. Church knows this, so he schedules podcasts early in the morning just to mess with me.
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B
If I was messing with you, we'd be doing that 6am you're not even
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E
awake at that time.
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F
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- [13:19]
B
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- [13:20]
F
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- [13:52]
C
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E
How do you know? Honestly, personally, I'm actually surprised. I've never heard of skillcat prior to this. So how do you guys get the word out? Like what kind of channels and stuff do you guys get?
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B
The word out.
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E
So people that are looking for a change in career can find you guys.
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A
Yeah, it's a great question. So for a while, we were really focused word of mouth. So because we were free initially, then we're $10 a month. Like, we just got a lot of folks all over saying, you didn't have
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E
a huge marketing budget when you were free.
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A
One marketing budget when you were free.
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B
Funny how that works.
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A
Even now, we don't really have a marketing budget. We're starting to do a lot of social media. But, you know, the basic premise is if you make a product that's really valuable and meaningful to folks, folks will share it. And so people talk about us all the time on Reddit, right? Like, there's like, a lot of, like, people post about us all the time on social media. It's all about how do you build a great product and then get people to share? Because in this industry, in the trades in general, like, people just don't trust, like, folks who are, like, heavy marketing and, like, you know, download this, download this, download this. It's all about, like, what is. Like, it's a soft sell, right? It's like, hey, someone used this. They actually got a job. They learned a lot. They benefited from this. Like, we have a lot of companies reaching out to us because they hire people who went through Skill Fat and then know a lot. So, like, that's actually one of the reasons Brian or initially reached out to her, we were talking about this earlier is because he had some folks who he hired who had gone through the platform and gotten certified. And then. And then we also get companies that come off a lot, who, they hire techs, they know so much more than anyone else. And it's like, where'd you hear about this? Where'd you learn? And it was skillcat. And so, so far, until the last few months or so, we've been really about word of mouth and just, like, spreading the word. Now we're really in growth mode, so trying to go on more podcasts. You know, I heard this is the. This is the place to be. If you want to. Want to spread the word.
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B
This is the place to be.
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E
This is the only show that you need to be on, though. I'm just saying, like, it's the only.
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B
Yeah. And Jen. Jen's in the comments, too. Have you. You've been on Jen's show, correct? I know that she. She does Skill Cats, right?
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A
She's actually Jen. Jen was one of our first students. So this was like, a couple years ago. Brand New and like, I just call someone who downloaded the app and is on the platform and it's Jen and she is, like, so excited about the platform, has so many ideas and feedback and I really feel like, like, as Jen's grown with H Vac chicks, we've also grown with Skillcad and, And we've been supporting each other for forever.
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B
So that's really cool. I like, I like hearing it and I like seeing the stories.
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E
That's the power of community and tertiary. And I, I mean, we, we see that all the time because of one stuff that we try to help people with just because of our network and stuff. But the, you know, people listening to this, this isn't really about this episode. But you guys got to get involved, you got to talk to people, you got to network. You got to go, you know, go to some of these events sometime. I know some people are like, well, it's kind of a waste of time. Well, it's a waste of time. You don't do anything if you don't talk to anyone. You stay. You stay to yourself. And the power of network and the power of your. Your tribe and community pays off dividends. So when you need something all of a sudden, oh, yeah, I know someone. I know someone. You just constantly have someone that you can. You can get answers to those questions. Which is pretty cool that Jen was one of your first students when you guys made the transition to the trades.
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A
Yeah, I literally just called her out of the blue and I, you know, she gave us. She like, she, like, said she loved the platform. She made a video for us. I think that video helped us get funding and it's helped us grow so much. So we're always very grateful. Grateful.
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B
Very cool. Well, shout out to Jen for that. That's cool.
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E
That's cool. I. I'm curious. You mentioned we kind of glossed over it because we started talking about robots and stuff. But you're seeing a trend of white collar workers getting in and wanting to learn skills in the trades, which I don't think there's any hope for me church. So just don't even think about it. Don't sign me up. I don't think there's any hope.
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B
I'm not even gonna waste my time.
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E
We always joke because there's. There's an award. I don't know if I can. It's right down there. It's not hung up on the wall for a reason yet. And then that picture right there is also not hung up on the wall.
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B
It's Just leaning against the wall?
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E
Yeah, it's just leaning because I don't, I can, I can figure it out, but it's gonna, I'm gonna put a few too many holes in the wall, and my wife doesn't really like that. So I, I'm, I, I was actually a, a mechanic in the Air Force many, many, many years ago.
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B
But you can tell that's why I
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E
always had a supervisor walking over me, make sure I didn't do something dumb.
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B
Josh, where's your 10 millimeter? It's inside that F16 somewhere.
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E
Yeah, the one that's in the air right now. That's why they call them lawn darts.
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B
Louise, you're terrible. Josh, I was.
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E
So, Richard, you, you've seen a trend that way. What, what do you attribute that to? And what, I mean, where do you, Is there like certain channels or things like that? You're seeing like, people all of a sudden, like, this area is coming?
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B
Is it regional? Like, are you seeing it?
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A
No, I mean, I. So I think at a high level, like for years, people just not gone into the trades, right? And there's been this like, horrible, completely wrong perception in society that trade jobs are lower paying, worse quality, you know, inferior to office jobs. It's just so wrong, right? You make more money in so many trade jobs than you do in so many college required jobs. Right? There's so many coming out of college making 250, 250k in debt, and then you come out and make 40k a year.
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B
True.
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A
And like satisfaction is way higher in the trades. Like 80, 85% of people in the trades love their jobs versus something like 40, 50% on average in a lot of office. Because they're like. And you can also, like, if you want to make a lot of money, you can also do that in the trades, right? I'm sure a lot of the folks you guys talk about in your podcast, like, you know, you can become a millionaire in the trade. What? Like, there's such a shortage and AI is not going to take your job. And so I think you see a lot of, and it's a very social job where you meet people, you interact with people. Like, I just connected. So I think people are just realizing that, right? A lot of folks or Gen Z are coming onto the scene, you know, seeing a lot of white collar jobs getting replaced by AI, seeing a lot of misery and depression that people have. Like, work from home is not, not great, right? I mean, maybe, yeah, you can get injured or you can get hurt working a trade job, but Depression is pretty awful and like you see so many people depressed and white collar and office jobs.
- [21:05]
B
So especially if you're an extrovert and they got you trying to work from home. Yeah, you're going to go stir crazy. I will tell you, me being an extreme introvert, if you could give me a job where I never left the house, oh man, I think I'd be your best employee as long as I'd have to go work with Josh, be around him all day.
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E
You would have been fired a long time ago.
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B
Not if I was your boss.
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A
I think it works for some people. But like, even for folks who are introverts, there are things about trade jobs where you actually like accomplish something completely in a day. You can, I mean a commercial job, you don't even have to interact that much with true, you know, people you don't want to deal with. Right. You like, you talk to a customer, maybe you like get in there, you like fix the problem and then you're like focused on what you love doing all day.
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E
And so the white collar, I mean some of those, some of those jobs are, they're fairly monotonous. Like back before I was, I got into the trades and stuff, I was, I was always good with numbers, data, statistics, analytics.
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B
Did you go to school for accounting or something?
- [22:08]
E
Well, so, so I got in. I thought maybe like, maybe accounting because numbers, you know, everyone needs numbers and all that kind of stuff. But man was boring. No, no offense to any accountants or bookkeepers or any like Mo, if you're watching this, Mo's our bookkeeper for all of our businesses. You're fantastic at what you do. But it was boring for me. It was just very monotonous and maybe it was the role I was doing and because I wasn't like a full accountant, it was more of like an accounting clerk position. But I stumbled into the trades because a contracting company needed an, an accountant. I wasn't a great accountant, just I was a little bit better accountant than I was mechanic, but not by much.
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B
So we're setting this bar low.
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E
But I, I stumbled into the trades and then like to your point of like every day is different. The interaction, some of those things, like I just kind of fell in love with it. I of fell in love with the grind a bit.
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A
You complete something right. So I, I, Brian actually reminded me this book and I like, I recommend this to everyone. I'm like halfway through, but it's called Shop Class of Soulcraft. It's about like, there's like a dignity of work where you, like, have all the aspects of work and you finish a task to completion versus, you know, some. A lot of office jobs, they've taken out a lot of the creativity and thought and like, ownership out of the work, and you're just a cog in a machine. Right. And so this is one of the reason trade jobs are so incredible, is you actually, like, you feel the satisfaction of completing something all the way through.
- [23:30]
B
You get that dopamine hit from, like, you. You've gone in the air conditioning wasn't working in the house. They're freezing cold. You're like, oh, it's just a dirty flame sensor. Boom, boom, boom. Swap it out. And then it kicks on and you're the hero. Hit the dopamine, hit on to the next call.
- [23:50]
E
There's something I always felt like our technique, especially when we had this, was back when I was in Wisconsin, and we would have, like, really cold weather snaps for like, two weeks or extreme heat and stuff. And we. I always felt like our technicians, like, they had, like an imaginary cape on. They just felt like they'd walk out of someone's house after fixing a complex problem and just feel like a million bucks. Like they just solved the world's. All the world's problems, at least for one person. Yeah. And they would. Even when we were busy, you know, even though it's like, you know, hey, you've run a bunch of calls, you've been out late, like, go home. They were just like, no, give me another one. Give me another one. Like, they just. That. That. It's like that craving of that dopamine. Which is funny. Cause I'm reading Atomic Habits right now. I literally just talked about, like, the Q craving and reward response and reward thing in the book. And it was all about that, you know, that the dopamine that you get when you think you're going to get a reward, not necessarily when you get
- [24:44]
B
the reward, but the anticipation. The.
- [24:47]
E
Yeah, the anticipation of it, which is the. The anticipation of completing that service call, making that homeowner so happy, getting that great review. It's not really about the money. It's more about the.
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B
The.
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E
The feeling that they get. The money's a. Obviously a great thing. Trades to it is helpful, paid pretty well.
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A
No, people are happier. Right. Like every survey you see, people are just happier in the trade, in the trades, and just nobody realizes that.
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B
And so I'll tell you, the time when we're not happy is whenever it's 157 degrees in the attic and we're Doing a maintenance call. You're like, why am I in this attic? That's when I'm not happy. I will not take, I would not recommend taking the survey during the middle of summer.
- [25:27]
E
Yeah, take it when it's, take it when it's 55, 70. Like that.
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B
That's funny. Thomas in the comment section over here said has he has a business degree, has been doing 8 this H vac for too long, some would say. I don't know. I don't know how long too long is but so I left in. Started in 05 and then I left in 2012 for a year. And the whole time I was like, man, I'm wasting a talent. And then I like it.
- [25:58]
E
Do you feel like a magnetic pole pulling you back to the industry? I feel like that that happens with people that they try to get out, they find their way back. It's just no matter what, like then
- [26:10]
C
there's always opportunities, right?
- [26:12]
E
Because there's always, especially with the short is like if you have skills or some time in the trades, like everybody's always hiring. So like when you need jobs, like it's much easier to get a job here. You don't like. I look at the positions that I hire for, for Relentless Digital. I have a. I'm looking for a Google paid search specialist right now. I have 200 applicants in a week that I have to sort through. Like it's like. And I'm looking at pieces of paper and long form questions they're answering, trying to figure out like who's going to move on to the next step. Like that's nothing hard thing to do. Like it's not like I get to meet them and do some of those things. But it is tough.
- [26:48]
B
Thomas, you put in there 41 years. Are you 41 years old or you've been in the industry for 41 years? Because that's kind of like me. I'm 41 and Josh has been in the industry for 41 years. So I'm just kind of comparing the difference there. He also mentions that motivating techs starting out has always been an issue over the years. Do you have any kind of gamification or any, any kind of, anything like
- [27:14]
E
that, something that you've seen that's helped?
- [27:17]
A
I think two things that worked well when we work with companies on this one, we have a series of assessments that are kind of gamified assessments to validate if someone actually has mechanical aptitude to be a technician. And that doesn't mean like you know how pulleys Work. But that means like, can you read the instructions and follow directions and like learn on your own?
- [27:37]
B
Let me tell you this story from back in the day. And I say back in the day, it's probably been about five years ago now maybe. Yeah, five years ish ago I went to hire a guy and I. It was his ride along portion of the interview and he comes up to the technician that he was doing a ride along with and, and he was like, man, I need a different drill bit. That's what he said. Need a different drill bit. He wanted a 516 Chuck. He had a 516 Chuck in his hand. He wanted a different one because he said the one that he had tightening the screw in and he needed it to come out. So he needed a different, different drill bit is what he said. And at that point, that was not the first situation we ran into.
- [28:21]
E
I don't think this is going to work.
- [28:23]
B
That's exactly the conversation that I had with him. I pulled him to. I, I took him off the job and I took him to a Starbucks for a coffee and I said, hey man, look, you just don't have the mechanical aptitude for this job and I don't want you to get hurt on a roof. You don't know that you can swap the drill and you. And not only that, that was like the second day of ride alongs with him. And he'd been watching Justin the other day use the same tools. I was like, man, you just. This ain't gonna work out for you there, bud. And so he was gone from there.
- [28:58]
E
You, you, you did the, the noble thing and let him down softly.
- [29:02]
B
Yeah, over a coffee, a Starbucks coffee.
- [29:05]
A
I mean, that's the thing. I think it's more and more common. We hear it actually. Like people don't know left, like righty tighty, lefty Lucy quite a bit from like, especially like companies hiring maintenance tech. They're just like folks. A lot of the, you know, a lot of my generation, the next generation are just like, you haven't worked that much with your hands. And so part of it is you want folks who have that aptitude part of it, like, if you don't have that, you should be able to learn, figure out those things on your own. And so, yeah, that's definitely a big piece. And then, yeah, getting people excited about the job. And so like, I think virtual is like simulations, like meeting folks where they are so not like long training sessions where it gets kind of boring. But you know, micro learning on your phone, that's like fun and interesting and entertaining. So that's.
- [29:51]
B
Is it easy to. Is it. Is the program easy to use on the phone, or is it better to use it on an iPad or something?
- [29:56]
A
No. So we started, like, kind of on a computer. Then we've shifted where we still have a web version, an iPad version, but almost everyone does it on their phone because, like, folks go in and out of the field right there, you know, so we've stayed away from anything that requires more than a phone because it is a lot. You know, you meet folks where they are. Right. So they can go through and do stuff easily.
- [30:16]
B
That makes sense. And you can do E. EPA 608, right?
- [30:20]
A
Yeah. So we're actually certified directly by the EPA, so you can get your EPA through us without a proctor. So no scheduling you go through. We take pictures and videos of you as you go through the exam, and then we, like, approve that later. Someone reviews all of that. So no, no scheduling, no extra costs. Just really easy and accessible. So.
- [30:39]
B
Yeah, that's cool. That's worth the $10 a month right there. I mean, that's crazy.
- [30:43]
E
You're still good. That. Yeah, absolutely.
- [30:46]
B
What are.
- [30:46]
E
What are their courses and stuff? I mean, we didn't talk about, like, the. The. The span of courses and stuff you guys have. Like, if people are interested in, you know, we're talking about EPA and so H Vac stuff. But what other courses you guys have available for people?
- [30:58]
A
So we have epa, we have Nate, a lot of Nate courses.
- [31:01]
B
We're.
- [31:02]
A
So we just did a partnership with H VAC Schools. We're actually bringing to. Bringing on all H VAC School content onto the skillcap platform. Oh, that's dope. Putting together courses out of all of those videos and, like, building out a really comprehensive suite of. Actually be able to get certified in a lot of those fundamentals.
- [31:20]
B
Every time I see something from Brian or from H VAC School, it's like, man, I just can't keep up with the courses they're putting out there. They.
- [31:28]
A
Yeah, it's a huge energy thing just to take all of their content and build it into courses. But their team is brilliant and it's been really great to work on that. Yeah, there's a bunch of core. We have a bunch of trade school diplomas so that are accredited through iset, so you can actually come in and get a trade school diploma in H vac, plumbing, electrical, all through the app. And then, yeah, a lot of plans for the next year, so building out a lot more certifications, looking at pulling in a lot More licensed Training and license CEUs onto the platform for folks for their contractor licensing.
- [32:00]
B
So are you saying that you would be able to get your state license through the program?
- [32:05]
A
That's the idea. At least all the training for it. So we're working on that right now.
- [32:09]
E
Okay, that's really cool.
- [32:11]
B
That's.
- [32:11]
A
We're all about listening to our users. So I think for us, when we always tell us when we first started we were like one star in the App Store, in the Play Store, people had all these issues with our app and now we have almost 5,000 reviews with like 4.9 stars. So.
- [32:25]
B
Oh, that's good.
- [32:26]
A
Listening technicians give a lot of feedback and then, you know, nobody's shy. And so what's, what's the average length
- [32:33]
E
like some of these courses and stuff? Because I know sometimes like when I sit down, I see a course, I'm like, oh, video's an hour long. I'm like, like to commit an hour. Sounds first world. Right? But yeah, it's still, it's like when you have a lot to do, you're like, I have to block out all distractions for an hour. Which sounds, it's a lot more challenging than it sounds like when you say it out loud. But what does it look like on a normal course as far as like some of the videos and some of the training?
- [32:59]
A
So I'd say average course is probably around that long. But everything is split up into short topics. So you can go through and like do a 5, 10 minute topic anytime you want and then like you make progress and you go towards that goal. So I think something we're still figuring out. Right? There's definitely a preference everyone has for shorter, you know, more bite sized stuff. And so I think the general thing is like they're like these larger learning plans. You split them up into courses, put those up into topics that are like really easily digestible and short and interactive and you know, it's a work in progress. We're always trying to get better, but that's the focus. How do you make things very applied and very interactive? So. So folks get a lot of value out of it.
- [33:39]
B
That's what's up, man. And for those who haven't caught on yet, what's the URL?
- [33:44]
A
You can go to skilltat.com or skilltat app.com. okay. Yeah, so that's awesome.
- [33:49]
B
That's cool, man. We appreciate you hanging out. Is there anything else you want to share before we wrap things up here?
- [33:54]
A
No, this sounds great. Download the app, let us know if you have any feedback, if any of you are at AHR or symposium, we'd love to see you there. We'll be at lower booth at symposium and I'll be at the H VAC school booth at hr. And we have a big announcement coming out later this week, a new initiative focused on getting young people and kids into the skill trade. So. Okay, we'll be announcing that.
- [34:16]
E
That's cool.
- [34:16]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see you. I'll see you at H VAC School symposium here shortly. And yeah, if anybody has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to the team. You can reach out to Josh and I and, and we can forward the message to you.
- [34:31]
A
I mean, my email, if you want it, is roots here. R U C H I r@skillcap.com so if anyone has any questions, concerns, anything, just, just reach out.
- [34:41]
B
That's brave. That's brave of you.
- [34:45]
A
You get. You get a lot more good than you get the bad.
- [34:48]
B
Yeah, that's true. That is true. So Josh's email is.
- [34:52]
E
Nope, just end stream. His cell number is. Don't worry, I probably won't see that anyways, so. Yeah.
- [35:01]
B
You home? Richard, we appreciate you hanging out with us, but I'll see you. I'll see you here shortly.
- [35:07]
A
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
- [35:08]
B
All right, if anybody has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to Josh and I until we talk again next time. I hope you're a wonderful and safe week. We'll see you later. Good.
- [35:20]
G
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with a business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.
- [35:52]
H
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A
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