 Think the question comes up all the time when you own a business. What do you actually do? And I say that because it was a curiosity I had you know I worked in different levels of management and I worked in You know of course at the base level when I worked at a pizza place where I was just a delivery guy one of the few Jobs outside of tech I've ever had and it's always interesting I was like, well, what do they do? Why is there middle management? Why is there you know all this structure and as you own a business you kind of learn why there's any infrastructure? and it's sometimes because people don't structure themselves and We're gonna start with what I actually do when I come in the mornings. So a lot of it's coming up with an idea for a video and Getting my morning coffee and it's also What time is it 8 30 is when I decided to do this because I've already done I got here at 7 and I finished all Kinds of the little things that roll uphill to me now I'm the anti-micro manager too many business owners drive me nuts And I work for only a couple of them like that But they just think they need to be involved in everything and the world revolves around them I am as far from that as possible I managed to make all of my people very independent including and I've talked about this in our workflows before when it comes to invoicing so an example is going to be each tech does their own invoicing and When you decentralize your invoicing it actually happens a whole lot faster We actually had one of the lofts as we support they said they wish they could bill as fast as we do I thought that was kind of funny They love our service and I was just kind of anecdotal, but it was like yeah You guys just as soon as they're done We've got the invoice and they pay relatively fast. So the process and flow of everything works really well But part of the reason I'm making this video is I decided it's 8 30 and people aren't here now They don't have to be here But I have questions and if they leave unanswered questions, I have to figure out where they're at So the first things I like to do is what time are you getting here? And those people are getting messages right now as we speak to say 30 sometimes they just show up and it's not There's different types of job assignments. We have a store that has to be open from 10 to 7 So there's people assigned to be here from 10 to 7 the other people because they work from home They work remotely. They don't have to necessarily be here unless they leave me with questions that are unanswered Now sometimes I'll throw it on slack But I actually want them here today because I want some inventory done by Corey What time you be here today? We need to make sure you have all the parts for next week's shop. It's spelled job wrong. It's at shop That's alright. Maybe I slur my words probably so there's my first one to Corey next one is to Marvin and kind of the same thing so I Have the paperwork notarized. Who do I give it to and what time will you be here? That one went perfect These are some of the things that I do so I had to Marvin did the ball the invoicing for that really big job. We did that now requires some notary because The bank funded the job and because of the amount of money that they paid us there were changes that had to be made So even though the invoicing was done by them They have to have the owner notarized the changes So I had to work with the other vendor the other owner the bank and then get a notary done to make sure we can get paid because The quoted amount change because they change the scope of the project. Good news. They didn't change it much But they changed it enough that the bank if there's a dollar change they want to change That's only it we were only about 6,000 more than originally quoted. So that job was pretty big Overall is that's actually a small change in the size of that job For what they added, but it worked out really well But those are things that do roll up to me another thing that rolled up to me is Client that had a billing issue because we sent the bill they wanted it separated because they have separate property It's a new property management client. So we separated the bills sometimes those are things that roll up to me They said hey, can you create more than one bill to my Steve when he did the job just created one bill to and created it because that's no one told not to you know We looked at it as one entity, but they like separate invoices for each of their properties So for the most part I stay out of a lot of that and it's kind of funny because sometimes people ask me well You know the price on this? I'm like I actually don't and Part of that's because I don't want to be in the middle of everything because if you put yourself in the middle of everything as a business owner The business can't run without you and you don't have a business. You have a job I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding that and I think it's oh It's my baby So I have to do everything with it and I'm actually going to be doing a speaking event in about two hours Over at I'm I've talked about this before my channel in Goldman Sachs a small business graduate from their program And because I like to do public speaking I eat YouTube to me. It looks like a public speaking event One of the things I do is come back and coach people on this and talk about business and more This is a little bit more focused on social media, but I also hang out for some of the round tables There's another one's gonna go on afterwards and I thought I'm bringing a camera there to talk about this like it's difficult though Because it's hard to say. Hey, I'm gonna put you guys all in film and ask any questions That's not as accepted. So, you know, I applaud people like Casey Neistat who own it who can take a camera everywhere But between with what I do it's hard because we go into secure buildings We have to sign NDAs occasionally and we're you can't reveal technical details of things and some people just going You can't film my meetings. So as much as I'd like to talk about more. I can talk about more of what I do I just can't take you with me Everyone on the camera here, but it will talk about a little bit. It's going what else is going on in shops I always I come in here in the mornings and kind of like, hey, what's going on? And We've been doing a lot of custom build work. This is cool This is Steve's baby because people I had someone message me and they're like, I'm looking for the best gaming You know, I love your YouTube channel. I said, thank you for the love, but I have no recommendation there But you've talked about oh, no, I'm clueless. Um, I don't know what the latest graphics card is I hardly play games, but don't worry. I have a solution and I just redirect them over to Steve and Steve talked to the person And we built them a really cool custom computer and here's another this is some other these are just some of the parts I know that's a cool master Make it yours cooler. Maybe I'll do some videos. I yeah, I do like this stuff I'm just not a real hardware geek anymore. I like some of the server stuff I like that is pretty cool memory that's in this box here This is also a little bit of our business process of how we do this. So cool core i7 8700 K Maybe we'll do some videos on this build because it's kind of a nice build We work with a lot of local people to they bring in the parts This will solve purchase from new egg and not by us they purchase well a lot of times we'll just provide the labor And I'm perfectly fine doing that this actually solves the problems and if you ever want to get into the custom building market Where you have them get all the parts and they'll take care of all the warranty and that and then you don't have that Negotiation problem of all I can get it cheaper here. Go ahead and get it cheaper there You warranty all the parts. We just do the labor wheel will help you with a recommended by list kind of as a consultant And then we do the build and we make the money on that and everybody wins you get a cool new computer and There's some assembly done by us. So, you know, it's done by professionals who know how to do this Well, and it's not me Dory. It's Steve and Kyle. They know how to assemble it You don't want Tom assembling it by the way, just you know, that's it's not a deflection So we really use deflecting as you don't want to talk. I'm like no I seriously I own a business, but I'm also very technically involved in architecture of the jobs I've been involved at the high levels because that I have a passion for and enjoy That's an important aspect to me that I have a technical understanding because I know some business owners and even in the technical world I've known one matter of fact, the guy I worked for it would have been in 1996 one of my first tech jobs He had zero interest in technology He just knew that it was money by employing a bunch of technical people and I'm fine If you want to be that person if you just want to make a bunch of money in a tech business That's cool. I'm way more of a geek in a nerd. I'm just not a hardware nerd. It plays a lot of games I'm more of a hey, what can we do with this networking and everything else and open source projects and setting up servers? That's why there's so many more videos on that than there are on gaming builds But we're trying to think about putting some more videos together about that talking about the hardware is it does become interesting I you know, I talked about maybe we can get some sponsors to do that So that's kind of an update for that. That's another thing you have to think about when you're owning a business Is what are you going to do next? So Processes are in place that when I go and disappear for the day doing my golden sacks thing and hanging out with a bunch of people talk In business and differently. I'm gonna have a good time I really enjoy the all the people there because it's gonna be over at the Wayne State University and I have fun hanging out with all the teachers and the professors there and all there's a lot of Really smart people who just I have a good time with and but the business can completely run without me And that's part of the aspect of it It's important to structure it that way So I'm involved when there's a new plan or a direction I'm taking the business in like hey, we're gonna do this YouTube thing which actually Got a lot of pushback. They think it's a big waste of space having a studio over there That was when we first built it now the attitude is hey this YouTube thing's really cool So it's it's one of those things you have to make decisions as a business owner of the direction of the company But you have to set up processes for people to follow so you don't become deeply involved in everything and I heard my phone go off. So let's see what time will Marvin be here. I think that goes to Kevin I'll find out for sure and I'll be there by 9 30 and this is just a little coordination And it's those only those little exceptions that come up to me And that's kind of the important part another exception It came up to me and we're gonna talk about this maybe next week I'm gonna find some time to really focus on some of these job planning videos because I was thinking now There's a lot that goes involved in there and I've been doing it for so long It's kind of just fluid like how do you plan? How did you scale this? Well, we're doing another big job for Chrysler right now the car company the dealerships and this recall acquires You know equipment man lifts to be rented and everything else We don't own man lifts and it's actually because it's actually Cheaper to rent them because we don't need them very often most of our jobs are like this building drop ceiling easy to get in So that's not a big deal But let me walk you around to show you something else I'm working on So I'm here in a studio and this is where my other ideas come in so you know I get stuff going out there make sure everyone's Doing their thing and in the shop area and this is kind of Well, this side's my area and the kitchen is behind the camera And you've seen plenty of videos if you watch the channel in the kitchen area So that's where mostly they hang out and then this is all the things I'm working on So there's been a lot of questions and a lot of confusion appears based on what I read in forums This is where I get my ideas sometimes I spend some time on reddit. I need to post more on reddit I mostly just read a lot because I love reading and I see what people are asking about So we have here a couple 10 gig network cards. I picked up for cheap So this is some videos I have coming to where I can walk you through Setting up your 10 gigabit at home and one of my things I mean we deal a lot with commercial equipment that I can't you know I can't take the camera to the data center at all in effect some places kind of weird They don't even want you bringing your phone. They're like just leave it over here But this stuff's become very affordable and if you're a tech going how do I get started in this business? This is kind of how you get started once you have some of the concepts of how things interconnect It just scales upwards when you go into the data center. So yeah cool. There's some old cards I think I paid $17 on eBay for this one. I know I paid even less for this I think this one this is a dual fiber card and we're I'm gonna break some details about this And that's kind of my idea. It's a spark some passions I like to see more people getting at technology because the reality is there's just not enough people That's one of the things I think about like how do we get more people? When I talk about some of these things that happened like the military disaster recently of all those documents getting so Many tweeted about it was because someone didn't know what they were doing and I'm not here to pick on anyone I'm not here to say. Oh, they're just a bunch of idiots or whatever. No someone who didn't have a firm grasp on technology Turned on a consumer router and a what should have been a secure environment and then they turned on FTP and by doing that they didn't bother changing it a full password and If they would have taken the time to learn more about technology They would have understood better why it's a bad idea versus the retrospect of the government lost a bunch of documents over this and I hoping and I don't know I'm not I don't know if I'll change the world here or not But I'm hoping more people get inspired and start thinking about security and technology And that's a part of my passion for driving that drives me the same reason I'm going to be talking to these business owners about concepts and business and concepts and social media Which is kind of the focus of the talk today. It's the same thing on youtube where I want to talk about You know how you can get involved in all this how you can go find some of these things on ebay For very reasonable prices and start tinkering with technology start playing with it And you know the hardest part is getting started people don't know where even to begin And that's why I started doing and I have a bunch more planned I've been playing a lot with the new version of free nas that's what this server is over here And i'm going to do like a whole getting started with free nas 11 to kind of a start to finish video That seemed to go really well with my pf sense video I have a whole start to finish video and that i'll have a start to finish video I'm getting started with 10 gigabit networking and fiber and what are the different types of fiber And what is this connector called and what is that connector called and why do I use this and why does This thing slide out like this. That's an sfp plus versus What is this? It's on the floor You know, so these are those other things I spend my time thinking about Um, and like I said, I plan to do some more built planning videos I'm just not thinking how to organize it because when you do something all the time It kind of becomes very fluid and I have to think about how do I structure it into a video with loading software? It becomes really easy because it's less fuzzy It's start with the usb drive flash the usb drive step through hardware No problem. I'm going to show you how to do a nice because the connector. No problem. Here's step one step two step three Problem is how did I plan the wi-fi for the marina that we just finished? Well, there was a lot of bidding. There was a lot of phone calls There was a lot of debate back and forth of people turning that into a structure is a little bit harder Uh, the placement of the wi-fi is actually easier people overthink the hell out of that Go ahead and pull an overhead map figure out how the distance on the wi-fis and prop drop them in That part that part's not rocket science. Uh, we have next week and I'll see if he'll let me film there We're doing another very wealthy person's house. Uh, putting more wi-fi on their property Estate as if you want to call it People ask how you do the wi-fi planning. Well, the house was built 1912 I think it's right around turn of the century house. Uh, beautiful brick mansion Um, a lot of stonework. The problem is there's everything from rebar. Whatever they use to build it just zaps out wi-fi So we're adding spots for dead zones now people go. Oh, there's this wi-fi planning utility. That's what he is Unfortunately, I have not found any of them that seem to can visibly see in walls You can make assumptions about construction and kind of get an idea But when it comes to actually deploying the wi-fi Take the way I'm going to go there is take some units And we've already done some wi-fi there with unify take a couple units add them and say All right, does this cover the area where you work because what really matters to the owner of that building of that house Is that the wi-fi works? Where he wants it to work Not some I can say I blanket it a whole house if I missed one corner He could care less about all those he only cares that it works the spots where he wants to be And if currently one of those spots is they have a gym in the house and the gym it does not work in not properly He has a weak signal on his ipad So we will go there and fix it and so what we're going to do is we're going to bring a wi-fi in that area And it's not easy to drill through anything in this house. Like I said, they built it Turn of the century So it's not like it's just any project with this house when it comes to running wires is Simple so we have to look at the path see if there is a path and maybe use a repeater or a mesh They don't care about speed. They care about being able to check his stocks each morning. That is literally the request I want to be able to go anywhere in my house or stand in my workroom with my ipad and understand my stocks That's important to them and that's the solution we will provide so you have to think about it differently You don't just come in there selling it. I'm just gonna put wi-fi everywhere and it'll make you happy Talk about the use case talk with the client I want to be able to check my stocks while I do my workout and right now that does not work fix it No problem. We fix it. We'll be there and so That's going to be a fun meeting I'm actually involved in doing that because the guy is on the board of Another organization that we take care of so I do stop out there for myself more I won't probably be the one doing any of the wi-fi installs. I never am. I don't do the cabling in act That's why people ask you tom. What's your favorite brand of cable? I'm like, I don't know whatever quarry orders Uh quarry will actually do the placement So I'll make a note of this is where it's going to go in the house and then quarry will schedule and coordinate Getting that done. So that's kind of how those jobs So I do get involved a little bit in the jobs because it's come back to that technical planning side I enjoy doing that aspect. I enjoy a lot less asking people when they're going to be here and why there's paperwork that I don't know where it belongs by to get it notarized, but I want to give you an update that's kind of what I do and Dealing a lot with that stuff, you know, I try to delegate as much as possible But just think of that if you're going to own a business or you know, how you're going to get there That's important. Uh, I think the last notes is I'm going to do a video soon on how to hire people. Maybe It's really hard to hire people. It's become It's kind of a challenge the other side of that is directly related because I know a lot of you are starting out as a single business One man show as they may call it and how do you get to more employees? Well, there's kind of a tipping point where you have to get to no more employees or you don't have a business You have a job back like I said earlier So going into that level of it Is really difficult because you're going okay. I'm going to commit to Payroll and I have to have x dollars available every month for this person This is a lot of times my business start as partnerships because then you and your partner both have a vested in growing the business So you'll also have a vested interest in keeping your payments very very low of money You take out to work together to invest into the business to build it. This is why a lot of companies start out that way But I did not start out as a partnership of I've had a partnership with a completely different company I had called suburban computers um That I owned in parallel to this one and that didn't work out partners are You have to find the right one. It's not that partnership don't work out. They do if you have the right partner I did not. Uh, I think I may have talked about that somewhere. I don't I don't remember. It's not a good story It didn't end well Is a pain in the butt But when you want to go into hiring people and get that you have to make the commitment at some point And once you free yourself up To having someone do all that other work and you can delegate to them all the tasks possible Then you can start thinking more and doing More things to build the business. So it is important to get there I I don't know if there's an easy step so when I think everyone's looking for that Step to do it like hey tom. There's a secret. I'm missing like I read 20 business books None of them told me that secret. I'm like The thing I can tell you after being in business for 15 years now. So I opened a company in uh, 22,003 wow, and I've worked for myself longer than I worked for Um any one company or had even implanted at all. I've I've worked for myself longer than I've ever had a job anywhere Uh, it's not easy. There's not a secret to business. It's just a lot of hustling a lot of get out there You know what eat sales knocking on doors and things like that and Being able to deliver on your promises and things like that. That's it's it's really kind of that simple and The business plan stuff is yeah I'll do a whole business planning one because I think people overemphasize that people like oh can I see your business plan? I'm like, I don't really have one, you know, I'm like, I was going to go fix computers and charge people money and I've talked about this before that's how you make money It's it's not a lot more complicated than that. So all right. Well, that's about it That's me a uh messages from people messaging me back now saying I just woke up 845 I just woke up. All right, cool. Well He stays up late. He worked late. So uh, I'll give him a pass on that I'm pretty relaxed. Like I said, he doesn't have a time. He has to be here So I'll give a pass on that and he'll message me back and then we'll figure out make sure he's got all the parts So we have everything ready for that job next week. It's pretty big on-site oring job It's going to require a few people to get done and maybe I'll do some videos on that It's kind of not as easy to film at a car dealership I don't know if I've ever filmed we've done a lot of car dealerships because we have a Connection with them and they're so happy with our work. We've been working now for a few years and that It's been a great relationship because it turns out we car dealerships work One guy owns, uh, I think there's nine dealerships or 10 dealerships I can't remember that we're down doing work for Um, because they keep buying more dealerships every time they buy a dealership We get to rewire it because they want everything new. Uh, we're actually running all cat 6a. That's the level of new They they want like the new there's not a there's a budget, of course, but the budget's like Doesn't matter cat 6a full runs, uh, even Redundant runs they want everything done double Which they did that before when we, uh, did one of their other buildings and now this one They're like, oh, we decided we're going to go cat 6a on these, uh, three new buildings So we had to order that's why I got to make sure we don't stock a lot of cat 6a There's not like a big demand for there's people want cat 6 a lot of people still want cat 5e because It's adequate and people rarely need to go over, um, gigabit speeds or even bother with it So cat 5e still does gigabit It's cheaper But we do cat 6 installs and we do cat 6a installs Not much for cat 7. I don't see much of demand for that right now And that's also really pricey well leave you with that and that's me done bambling But this is as a owner of the business. This is another kind of day into life stuff I do maybe if I get more skilled I can vlog my day like Casey Neistat I always like I kind of like the his style It's funny because he doesn't if you really watch Casey Neistat and he's a very interesting Person he's got like a really cool style that he does it But if you watch his video count the words he actually doesn't say a whole lot But he just gives you a lot of wonderful cinematography, which I think is also really interesting But you don't need a lot of words. I've used way too many words. I think already So hopefully you can get bored listening to me. 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