Build a Successful Career in Building Automation

In this podcast episode, Chris Guyatt, a building automation expert, and Lia Lamela, talk about the lucrative and evolving field of building automation. Chris outlines the business potential, emphasizing the importance of branding, marketing, and understanding electrical controls.

He also shares a step-by-step learning path for newcomers, stressing the significance of hands-on experience and foundational knowledge in electrical schematics. The electrical industry is changing. Chris explains learning is about long-term success in building automation careers.

Chris helps electrical businesses develop the skills, knowledge, and understanding required to deliver automation & controls projects in the Smart Home, BMS (Building Management Systems), and Industrial Control Industries.

Connect with us:@sparkylifeoflia
Connect with our guest Chris: @beeautomation

Chris Links:
https://beeautomation.co.uk/training
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisguyatt/

Sparky Life Supports:
National Memorial to the Women Who Worked on the Home Front Foundation

Here's Raya and a little about her memorial
Congress approves Women Who Worked on the Home Front Memorial
Here's the link to donate.
https://marnie-kenney-sfg2.squarespace.com/checkout/donate?donatePageId=63d1d506217f9e44111ecfea

Apply for Skilled Trades the Mike Rowe Scholarship
https://www.mikeroweworks.org/scholarship/

Financial Advising for the skilled trades: email Jennifer@PlatinumWealth.net
websitewww.PlatinumWealth.net

Music by https://www.purple-planet.com

Transcript

Chris (00:00:00) - There's a business side and it's like what you put in, you get out, you know? So just example, like the last project that I did, it wasn't a massive home. It was like a medium sized, medium sized home. It was a locked on project. The whole project value basically my time doing the design, the panel build, the testing, the programming and all the hardware in the panel and like, like light fitting switches, etc. that was like 50 K and if I remember correctly, I think like the hardware was about 30 K, so 20 K was basically what I took from that for my for my time and profit.

Lia (00:00:43) - Not bad at all. Very good.

Chris (00:00:49) - So it's pretty good. Obviously you've got a like you got to take some time to get to a point where you can get that in consistently, like certainly in the smart home market. Like you've got to sell, you've got a market, you've got a brand yourself. Like you cannot expect people to just give you work.

Lia (00:01:12) - Welcome to the Sparky Life podcast. I'm your host, Lia Lamela, and here I share skilled trades conversations with those I've met along the way. Originally, when I started The Sparky Life, I wanted to share the unseen heroes, the trade tales that many people aren't even privy to. And I wanted to create a safe space for women in the skilled trades. I also wanted to debunk some myths regarding the skilled trades, and open people's eyes to all of the opportunities the skilled trades has to offer. Personally, my whole life changed when I started a career in the skilled trades and I learned it's not just a career path, it holds life lessons and keys to success. But now, Sparky life has evolved much like a construction site. You never know what you're going to get with a Sparky live episode, but somehow, in the end, it all comes together, building a better understanding of the skilled trades opportunities. Join me and the Sparky Life guests every Thursday, where we are here to help you create the sparks in your life.

Lia (00:02:33) - Today's episode will help secure your career path. Ensure you will always have a job. As we learned with Covid, what could happen when your job is not considered to be essential? I told a close family member of mine recently that I want to share with others to help them navigate a successful career path. First passion comes from doing and mastering a craft or skill. A lot of us, including myself, confuse passion for seeing a role model in a career and then thinking, wow, I want to look like them. I want to do it. They're doing. I am passionate about the career as a singer, as a lawyer, as a doctor, without ever working a day in the field before. This is a mistake. Number two don't listen to career advice from others. Now, isn't this ironic as I am giving career advice? What I mean to say is you need to look at the facts about careers and not opinions. People's perspectives are based on their experiences and with all good intentions. What made my father, my uncle, my aunt, successful in their careers when they were my age, might no longer be valid.

Lia (00:03:59) - Today, it's important to investigate what careers now in this moment are growing. What careers are on the cutting edge? This is where you want to investigate career paths you think you'd be interested in. This is why today I want to share with you, along with an expert in his field, the opportunities in building automation, the building automation market size is estimated at USD 201.0 8,000,000,000 in 2024, and growing at a 10.55% projection. This is a revolutionary career path. A building automation technician requires no college degree, and in the United States, beginning positions start at 63,000 to 77,000 a year, with the potential in five years to see a six figure salary. Our guest today on The Sparky Life, Chris Guyatt, is a building automation guru. Originally, he started off his career as an apprentice engineer, and it took him over 12 years before he finally got the opportunity to work in automation industry. And this was due to him following a traditional path which involved university. He has discovered. After working across the three main industries for building automation, which are smart home automation, building management systems and industry controls, Chris wants to help others by saving them the most valuable thing on this earth time, and help fast track people interested in the building automation career path.

Lia (00:05:52) - Today, sit down with the master himself, Chris Guyatt.  Chris, I'm a big fan of yours if you haven't caught on okay? I love what you're doing with building automation. It's where I started my career and I don't believe that enough people know about it. And that is one of the reasons why I wanted you on Sparky life. Because this career path, this opportunity is just incredible. There is so much. You can do with this. So many places to go and no one knows it exists. Not to mention we're just getting more and more. It's happening more and more. It's just elevating more and more. This isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So. I would like you to talk all about what the hell is building automation to begin with, and how you can get involved in this type of career.

Chris (00:06:54) - Yeah, I agree with exactly what you're saying. It's it's such a booming industry that so few people. Well, I think more people obviously getting to know about it now with like the hype around smart homes and all the rest of it.

Chris (00:07:07) - But yeah, it's there's a it's a booming industry, loads of opportunity and yeah, a big shortage of decent engineers. I hear it every place I go, every place I've worked, there's not enough engineers. And interestingly, I was speaking to a guy on Instagram the other day and he said that he heard somewhere the average age for a BMS engineer. So a building management system engineer, or I think in the states where you are, it's more bass. So building automation system. Yeah, the average age of engineers in this space is like late 50s. So, you know, again, it's just showing there's so much opportunity for new people to come in. The demand is growing and it's why wouldn't you. It's such a brilliant industry. The it's not just building automation. It obviously covers the commercial side. So like you know like leisure centres, hotels, multi dwelling units like apartment blocks and flats, malls, shopping centres like every commercial building needs building management, whether that's managing like the Hvac.

Chris (00:08:17) - So heating, ventilation, air conditioning that's typically what you'll have. Every commercial building will at least have that. But then there's like security access lighting, blinds like it just stacks and stacks and stacks. So you've got that on the commercial side, and then you've obviously got the smart hive or home automation side as well in terms of like the building automation umbrella. And I think there's it's quite important to distinguish between the smart home sort of buzzword smart home, which has become a big thing in the last 4 or 5 years. And home automation. There's there's definitely a difference there, which I think people need to know. So home automation is much more in line with like the building management side of things. But we talked about in the in the commercial space smart home I would class and. This is only my opinion. So, you know, people might disagree with me, but like the smart home stuff I would say is more like the internet of things like your consumer products, like your ring doorbell, your high thermostat, your Philips Hue, you know, they're kind of off the shelf, one off solutions.

Chris (00:09:31) - And yes, I know they have a lot of ecosystems that you can bring in together. And you you can make them communicate between themselves. But you know, they're not they're consumer grade stuff that go out of date quite quickly and they're not complete holistic solutions. So I think that's important. Also, another sort of nuance in the home automation smart home side is you've got the BMS side again, similar to what we talked about, and you've got the AV side as well. So I think traditionally, certainly in the States, in the UK it's been more like when you talk about smart home and home automation, it's more people think about AV audio visual. Yes. You know, I mean there's there's more it's more around sort of media systems, cinema rooms, having speakers in multiple rooms, that kind of thing, maybe like an intercom system. And then you may tag some like CCTV into that. So that's another thing that's important to sort of distinguish. You've got like the AV side and then you've again you've got the BMS side which is maybe more around the heating ventilation, air conditioning.

Chris (00:10:44) - Sorry I've gone off on one layer. Bring me back to your original question.

Lia (00:10:50) - No, no worries, no worries. I find it all extremely fascinating. I started off my career as an apprentice electrician, and that's how I was exposed to building automation. And I absolutely fell in love with building automation now. I don't think people really realize what we're giving to the community with building automation. Can you talk about the benefit of it? What are what are we really doing there?

Chris (00:11:18) - Yeah, so I think so. Just can you just hold that question and come back to it? Because I'll lose that because there's a point kind of feeds into that, that I missed, which I wanted to mention. And that is the skill set of electrical controls. Right. So this skill set electrical controls, which really it doesn't really underpin the AV part of home automation or smart home that we talk about. But electrical controls, that's core skill set. It underpins the commercial side, the building management, the building automation and and also home automation.

Chris (00:11:56) - When you're using things like controllers, like PLCs, that systems like locks on use and use, not so much control four and seven. They're more sort of computer process based, but things that use PLCs or systems that use PLCs. Yeah. So the commercial space. Some systems in home automation. But also you've got the industrial sector which is and I know it's kind of moving away from, from building automation, but it's just such an important skill set to have I think, and gives you so much opportunity and flexibility across all these amazing control and automation industries, whether it's commercial, whether it's home, whether it's industrial. Yeah, I just think that is a skill set for anyone to build up who's looking to get into the industry is such a valuable skill set to have, because you can use it anywhere. And I've done that. I started in home automation, I then went into industrial, and now I'm sort of focusing more in BMS or building automation systems. So yeah, sorry, just had to get that one in there because I think that's just so important.

Lia (00:13:05) - Absolutely. So regarding building automation, what makes it such a benefit to our society? Why is this valuable? What does building automation do for us as a civilization or community?

Chris (00:13:20) - Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing for me, and this is this is what I think's gonna. Create a lot of opportunity for people and save a lot of people and businesses. Money is the fact that obviously the big energy crisis and costs of energy going up, certainly more recently, is it. If it's intelligent, if your heating specifically of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, all things that use a lot of power is is intelligently managed based on demand, based on how you use that building. I mean, it goes into the industrial sector as well. So rather than using like three phase direct online starter motors that are either on or off using things like variable frequency drives that can you can modulate the speed to what's needed in terms of the demand, but you can just save businesses so much money by just reduce.

Chris (00:14:22) - If you just reduce like a business's energy consumption by let's just say 5%, you know, and they got, I don't know, just like £100,000 of energy every year. You know, you're saving businesses a lot of money. And I think it's a much easier sell as well, certainly for newer people getting into the industry. Like if you can demonstrate you can save a business money by reducing their carbon footprint and energy bill, then it's it's almost a no brainer, isn't it, for a for a business. And that's another thing like net zero carbon carbon neutral bringing renewables into it as well. So that's another dynamic bringing renewables into all of this. It's yeah. And so I think that's that's one part of it is the money that you're going to save people. That's the biggest one for me because I think that's that's the key thing to approach businesses with. I think with the the home, the smart home market, it's a little bit trickier. So and certainly like around the mid tier stuff like higher end luxury, it's almost a necessity because like if you've got a massive building like a great example that I always use, whether it's a big domestic residential property or a commercial building, but when when the last person leaves the office or something in the evening or you're leaving the house to go out, you can just do like a triple tap on a switch and that switches all the lights off, switches all the audio off.

Chris (00:15:56) - It um, stops any like extended heating schedules and the burglar alarm. So it's it's just so convenient and easy. Certainly with bigger properties, slightly harder sell or. Yeah, it's hard to sell I suppose if, if it's like a medium sized property, but still it's I mean, I live with it and I couldn't not live with it now it's just. Yeah, convenience and comfort and you know, we just like things that are, that are easy.

Lia (00:16:26) - Yeah.

Lia (00:16:27) - Well I also think the efficiency and like you said, energy saving. We have a responsibility to do things in a way where we're not just bulldozing through all of our energy supply on this earth. So you're stepping into that world, right of responsibility and efficiency.

Chris (00:16:47) - Governments are incentivizing.

Lia (00:16:48) - This. Yes.

Chris (00:16:50) - They like for schools, for example, in the UK, yes.

Lia (00:16:53) - Here too, again.

Chris (00:16:54) - When governments are incentivizing things, that's like me as a business, if I know that that's I'm going to go and target schools because I know that they're going to be more willing or they're encouraged to spend money they got given money to spend on these exact things, these solutions that we provide.

Lia (00:17:10) - You know, yes.

Lia (00:17:11) - I like to think of building automation as like the human body. Right. So you're building is like a human body, and all these little devices are speaking to one another. And that's how the building best functions. So when you're in this industry, there's different facets of it to like, I know with your background you're incredible. You're the guru of building automation, okay? And not only are you the guru, you have something that others don't. And it's the courses that you teach, the information you give. You know, not every one of us can be a teacher or educator. It takes certain qualities, it takes certain abilities, and you're just very good at breaking things down in a way that makes it comprehensible, that makes it, that makes it easy to apply when you're coming from a place of maybe beginner, you're not, as you know, like what you said PLC, someone might not have a fucking clue what PLC is. Okay, so you know program logic computer.

Lia (00:18:19) - So that being said, you have to be able to bring this down to a level that somebody who's walking. Who's interested can obtain because it can be overwhelming. I mean, you know, we know the language, the lingo, but many who first start don't. And not only that, you're marrying electronics, mechanical, electrical. There's there's so many different aspects. The programming, it's incredible. It took out you're never going to get bored. There's always something to learn.

Chris (00:18:52) - That's it. That's what hooked me into it. I get bored really, really easy. And this industry does not bore me. And because I mentioned earlier, there's so many like you've just mentioned, there's mechanical electronics, electrical, there's like heating, there's lighting, there's networking, there's the industrial sector, the commercial sector, like it's you. You can't learn all of it. You can't be an expert in all of these areas. So if you enjoy learning and you get bored quickly, this is the industry for you.

Lia (00:19:23) - Yes, definitely.

Lia (00:19:25) - I want you to talk about some of the courses that you offer, where what's available to people who are like, I really want to do this because this is the other thing. If you want to go to school for building automation, personally, I, I wouldn't recommend that. Why? Because a lot of universities and schools, at least in the US here. Don't have the curriculum and experience that you're really going to get when you're immersed in the field. Your courses are based off of what you're really going to be doing, what you really need to know to excel in that environment, and the fact that we have access to it, you should utilize it. So also going to college, we're talking six figures. Your courses. You're not going to be in six figures worth of debt. So there's the benefit there as well.

Chris (00:20:13) - Yeah it's interesting on on on just putting or finalizing everything like these courses. So they're not all live yet. But perhaps by the time this this airs that that they will.

Chris (00:20:24) - So I've, I've literally just been, uh, scripting some videos to sort of talk about, you know, the different courses that are available. I think what you said about university and like. And the fact that it's not real world stuff like it's it's all very well going to university and getting a university degree and say a bachelor's in electrical engineering. Right. Fair play. That's a tough thing to do. I couldn't do that. That's not it's not for me. But I think you've got to think about whether it's actually going to help you get a position or whether investing, say, four years of your life, 40 and tuition fees for just something on a on a piece of paper, is that worth the investment? And is that worth more than just trying to get some sort of corn knowledge, understanding and skills and then just getting into the industry as quickly as you can? And if that means starting on a low trainee's wage just so you can get that hands on experience, you know, what's you got to weigh that up, basically.

Chris (00:21:32) - And all the people that I know, I shouldn't say all of them, but let's say nine out of ten people that I know in the industry and people running successful businesses, to be fair, most of them are all, um, ex electricians, you know? Yes. None of them are university. Yes. Degree qualified. I just so anyway, I just think that's don't feel like you need to have that to, to do well in this industry. That's the first thing in terms of like the path that I recommend people take. And this is kind of what the, the courses that I'm just finishing off do is, is pretty simple really. Firstly schematic. So I mean and we're gonna, we're talking about like all of this is, is built on understanding electrical controls like that as a skill set. Because that's going to give you the most opportunity in all of these industries and the commercial sector, industrial and home. So that's the skill set that you want electrical controls. And that will enable you to even go and be an electrical controls engineer.

Chris (00:22:36) - If you want to be, you know, a full time employee or that's going to give you because it's quite a broad skill set, electrical controls like and depending on where you're at. But for me, for example, when I was an electrical controls engineer, I was actually quite fortunate. It was a small, very small business, but that I was able to do everything within within the project. So basically from taking a spec or even partly creating a spec, designing a system, documenting the system, building a system and control panel, testing it, programming it like the PLC and then going on site and commissioning it and handing it over. So this is kind of like the the skill set that an electrical controls engineer can have. They can basically manage deliver the whole project. So as a business owner as well, especially if you're a solo one man band like this is a skill set that's going to enable you to deliver full on automation projects, doesn't matter what size it is on your own. Obviously you might have people contracted in, you know, if you've got loads of panels to build or you've got big installers, you'll obviously contract people in.

Chris (00:23:48) - You don't have to worry about not knowing any piece of the puzzle. That skill set will give it to you. And it's not that overnight. No.

Lia (00:23:57) - Nothing is.

Chris (00:23:59) - It? Of course it takes some time and you've got to dedicate yourself to it. But yeah, basically the step by step path that I recommend people take, and this is just through my own experience learning the hard way. Some earlier students have as well, have sort of given me some feedback, and they think that this is the best way to go about it. If you don't necessarily have hands, the hands on opportunity to to work on systems or day in, day out. But what I recommend is first build a solid foundation and that's in electrical schematics. That's the first thing how I recommend people do that, and this is what I did, is, uh, get schematics of systems. So that's the first thing. Hopefully you can get your hands on some, some schematics of the system and then get some photographs of the control panel.

Chris (00:24:46) - And this is what I did when I was learning. So what I do is if I was on site by doing a breakdown for something else, like we were doing a lot of industrial ventilation, there was a BMS panel on site. As long as I could get into it without switching it off, which I, I learned a little, uh, sneaky methods, uh, to bypass the, the switch to get into it. So if I could get into it, I'll then I'll take whether you should do this or not. I don't know, but you know, when you want to learn, you just you do what you need to do. Right? So I just flick through all the drawings, take photos and my smartphone, of all the drawings, all the pages on the drawings, takes as many photos of the panel. And then obviously do what I was there to do with with the other work guys, but then go back home in my own time without the pressures of working on site.

Chris (00:25:36) - I'd work through the drawings and you'd get to a component on the drawing and it would be labeled. Then lay reference that label to the photo you've got on the panel. And just over time, I was just able to build up a picture in my head of basically how how that control system is put together. So that's kind of what I do in in the first training that I recommend people do is, is go through that with you. That's the first thing solid foundation and electrical schematics. Second thing, because you might think if you look at a project chronologically, you've got like the design, the build, the testing, the programming, the commissioning.

Lia (00:26:15) - Yes.

Chris (00:26:17) - And the people learning that haven't really got that much previous experience. I think it's schematics first that gives you like a conceptual bird's eye view of a system. And then you've also got like visuals, like photos to reference to. So you're building up this picture in your head. Then once you build that solid foundation, I then think it's best to then go through the build process of, of a control system, of a control panel.

Chris (00:26:44) - So because like when you get on the site and you open up a panel and you're like, you know, like that looks complicated.

Lia (00:26:51) - Yes, yes.

Chris (00:26:54) - And especially I'm sure you've seen some of them. Right. Some of the states, you see some panels where they're just like it's a rat's nest.

Lia (00:27:00) - And.

Chris (00:27:02) - You just want to shut the door and run away.

Lia (00:27:04) - Yes, absolutely.

Chris (00:27:06) - It's horrible. And like half the time they don't have any documentation or drawings either.

Lia (00:27:11) - No, no.

Chris (00:27:13) - I like if you want a full sentence, I expected to fix that as well. That's I've been there as well. And this was before I understood control systems. And it's just it's a horrible I just just very stressful huge amounts of anxiety.

Lia (00:27:26) - Yes. Yes.

Chris (00:27:28) - So I think it's it's removing that that illusion I mean it does work. Don't get me wrong. It is it's. When it's a rat's nest and it's all all the trunking, softeners, cables are popping out all over the place. Yeah, that's pretty bad.

Chris (00:27:43) - But most of the time you're not. If you're around panels that haven't been butchered, I like space for like ten years or so. They're not normally that bad, but really the next stage is like going through the process and seeing that. What they like from like, a blank canvas. And then just the step by step by step by step approach of how they're built. And I think that removes a lot of that anxiety to actually actually it's not that complicated. It's just lots of components. And then, you know, how are those components wired together and how do they relate to each other and interact and the relationship between this component and this component. So that's sort of the next bit understanding how to build build the system. Following that we then want to sort of now we build the system. And whenever you build a control system there's always going to be issues with it. Like you've always you're more I speak for myself here. Maybe other people are better than me, but you, it's if you're building a panel out of this space in two weeks, you just can't help but get distracted.

Chris (00:28:46) - Especially when you're doing some tasks over and over again. Like cutting cables to the right. Like like you just you drift and you might wire it into the wrong point of the panel. So inevitably you're going to have issues when you finish it and you come to test it. So that's a whole thing within itself, going for the right, going through the right testing procedure in the right order, and then actually testing the functionality and like almost mimicking the systems that you'd have out in the field, like say you've got pumps or valves or gas detection systems, you want to kind of mimic those out in the field. Let's say if you're testing in the workshop and then just making sure that the panel or system is reacting as it should do when it's out in the field. So you've got to work through all of that and there's always issues. And then it's sort of working out, well what's going on here? How do I break this down? How do I fault find this. So that's the next thing testing fault finding preconditioning.

Chris (00:29:47) - So at this point you've got good understanding of schematics like the holistic bird's eye understanding the system you've actually been through, building the system. You know, how to test the system and how a system should behave and how to fault find it if it doesn't. So that's like a really good collection, a good understanding of all of that as, as a collective there. And then I think Danny makes sense to come back around to the design because you've got that.

Lia (00:30:13) - Yes, whole.

Chris (00:30:14) - Understanding then and then it just makes the putting the designing from scratch all the way through to the end. I just think you've got that visual understanding, that hands on understanding, it just makes that design process documentation far easier to comprehend.

Lia (00:30:31) - Yes. Yeah, I completely agree with you. As I started my building automation career with ladder diagrams, building panels from the ground up. So I agree with you. I really think that is the right path for the highest success rate. To really know, really know what you're doing, how things connect, how they talk to one another.

Lia (00:30:53) - Oh, I love your YouTubes. I love your community. I strongly, strongly recommend that if you're interested in building automation as a career path to definitely hop on. I will have all of your links in the show notes below now. Let's talk about money, a good subject. Uh, what kind of what kind of financials can you expect with this career?

Chris (00:31:19) - Yeah. So, um, we start as a, like an employee, right? So we're. I went, basically, I was literally like pretty standard wage 30 K a year, 32 K. And then that was what I was working for locks on UK at the time. So I was around that sort of figure, and then I managed to convince a small industrial controls company to take me on kind of as a, as a trainee and like as a fully qualified electrical controls engineer, you're looking at like 45 K, 50 K in the UK, you know, pounds.

Lia (00:31:59) - Yes.

Chris (00:32:00) - Which I think is a pretty good salary to be fair to someone who's employed.

Chris (00:32:05) - So yeah, that's I didn't go straight to that wage. I had to kind of prove myself and I had to get some qualifications. I sort of talked about and negotiated with the business owner, but ultimately over. I think I was there about a year and a half. So, yeah, I think I started on 35 with them as a trainee. And then by the time I left, I was on 45. That's pretty typical for an employee like 4550. As a senior electrical engineer, you might get up to like 5560 maybe. And obviously it depends on the size of the company. Right. But then as a business owner, it's like what you put in, you get out, you know. So just example, like the last project that I did, it wasn't a massive home. It was like a medium sized, medium sized home. It was a locked on project, the whole project value. Basically my time doing the design, the panel build, the testing, the programming and all the hardware in the panel and like, like light fitting switches, etc. that was like 50 K and if I remember correctly, I think like the hardware was about 30 K, so 20 K was basically what I took from that for my my time and profit.

Lia (00:33:24) - Not bad at all. Not very good.

Chris (00:33:29) - It's pretty good. Obviously you've got a like you've got it. Take some time to get to a point where you can get that inconsistently, like certainly in the smart home market, like you've got a cell, you've got a market, you've got a brand yourself. Like you cannot expect people to just give you work. And I think that's the problem with a lot of electricians that I've seen is they think like an electrician. You're more of a motor, right? Like as an electrician it's a necessity. The electricians are needed every day, right? Smart homes aren't. So you really need to go out and market, sell yourself to be successful, I think in the smart home space. But if you're smart, you want to get in with the right people. And the right people have people like specifiers. So architects, developers, M&A designers, main contractors, interior designers, lighting designers, all of these people that can basically get you in with their client.

Chris (00:34:25) - And then if you do a good job for them, do good work, you're reliable. And all of that, then that's they're the people that will give you repeat business. So rather than focus on building a relationship, just like with a one off end client building a smart home, I'll be focusing on building a relationship with one of those specifiers. So they're going to give you repeat work. That's how the successful people do it in the industry.

Lia (00:34:48) - Very excellent advice. Very clever, very clever. I wouldn't not initially think of that definitely as an electrician. Your instinct is, oh, they need me because who doesn't need electrical. So that is a great way to look at it, to help people assess how to move forward in the industry in the US, our starting point for building automation. This is why I'm pushing this as a career path so strongly. For those that are interested, you're starting salaries 25 an hour there, so desperate for people in this industry you really have a leg up.

Lia (00:35:21) - I would go as far to say that if someone were to learn from your courses, get involved in what you have accessible, they could easily step into a job just by understanding the schematics, just by that, because they're so desperate for people to know what the hell they're doing. And then easily as you master your craft, you can move into six figures. And then, like you said, on your own business, you guys living with that just depends on how you organize it.

Chris (00:35:51) - Yeah, I just think electricians are the best people as well to take this new trade. Emerging industry like sparks have got a great understanding already, and it's just a matter of building a little bit more on top of that. Then the obvious choice to to grow this industry.

Lia (00:36:09) - I agree with you. And I push it because things are changing electrically, and so you need to be privy of those changes that are approaching. Now I'm running out of time because I'm having too much fun. But Chris, what is the number one advice? You would give to somebody.

Lia (00:36:29) - I mean, you gave the path. You gave the plan. You help them understand, you know, even the sales aspect, how how to grow to that point in the the mindset that you need to take on regarding this career, what's a tool that you think that they need to carry with them throughout this career path that's really going to get them to success? If you had to, you know, kind of narrow it down to the best of your ability.

Chris (00:36:52) - A specific tumor. I'm not sure about a specific tool, but that mindset for sure is just know that it's not a get rich quick thing like, and it there is a lot to learn, and you are going to have to learn to sell yourself, sell the product, sell the service. But I just I truly believe this in my bones. If you genuinely want to make this a success and you're willing to put in the work like there's no reason whatsoever why why you wouldn't make it so, just keep learning and be patient. I think that's a that's the key thing is just be patient.

Chris (00:37:31) - Just a little bit of knowledge. Learning something new every day, even if it's just a little thing. Just they just stack and stack and stack and then you know, in a year, two years time, you will be somewhere.

Lia (00:37:44) - I love it.

Lia (00:37:45) - All right. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

Lia (00:37:50) - Thank you for joining us.

Lia (00:37:52) - If you felt a.

Lia (00:37:53) - Spark in today's episode, I invite you to write a review. I'd love to hear what lit you up. Take what resonates with you, and if you'd like to hear more of the spark your life, please subscribe, like, follow and share. Until next time, create the sparks in your life.