 Welcome. Welcome. Wait, are we recording? Yeah. Oh, we're recording now. Okay Are we recording? Welcome to vlog Thursday Where we always ask the question first, are we recording? I'm not gonna say we've ever done because there's no evidence of it We recorded a vlog Thursday without pressing a record button because no one will ever know right because we didn't record it I want to make it perfectly clear that Tom and I are like really smart Really really smart like in case anyone didn't know like geniuses like Like very stable geniuses. We're stable. We stably do this every Thursday That's the only stable part about only stable part about us Outside of paper work that says that so After the horrible incident of flashing lights and it's because we have a remote to him when you have lights on a remote You press buttons and bad things happen. Well, we have made sure we've turned needs to glowing now This is not the final iteration. Just not all the parts have arrived upon us Because thanks China for shipping us things. We literally ordered the same link for the top and bottom lights And there's two different lights Yeah, that's part of the fun of ordering this stuff. I don't need this So I'm gonna close it but yeah, so there's a more coming and I may do a video about the lighting systems They're none of this is very expensive. Now, probably if we paid more money, we wouldn't have the problems of them sending us inconsistently different lights But it let us know that really we liked the second ones that they sent us back Yes, so and for those of you the silver lining at all So reliance and what we're seeing is a lot of back glow on the table and we're the diffusers We got some they're laying over here, but they're tricky We are way from different license element diffusers. It's a whole mounting that's gonna come over here But they look a lot nicer So that'll be the next kind of upgrade iteration in a short term We've changed it to the sort of slow fade in the background. So it's not as distracting. We hope so If you're wondering why Tom and I keep looking over there That's where I'm on it. I'm trying to get ourselves actually do have things to talk about so Marvin yes, the numbers are in okay. Do you think we made money last year last no, okay No, cuz we moved Despite our best efforts to make that and I gotta wait for the final accountant Plus I did my numbers as I call it. I gotta wait for the final accountant's blessing But yeah, we actually did make money. Oh, okay. Yeah, so okay despite our best efforts to Spend it all. Yeah, that's good. No, I'm very happy to hear that I really thought we wouldn't have because the move was a bit more expensive than we anticipated Not really. I know no, I thought we know and that's what I was gonna do is sum up the Some of the move stuff. Okay. I think we spent a minute We broke this down We had to break down some of the categories basically you know building improvements And we we're only in this building for the last nine months So I think we spent like 19,000 on building improvements overall for the year But that's including building the studio and everything so it's not it wasn't that bad It was a few dollars spent likes a little bit more But one of those improvements we needed so but we needed chairs to sit in and things like that We didn't really but since we were moving we didn't bring everything from the old office We started over in it Of course built off the tech area built out the offices the walls everything so it's all all the stuff Which really isn't bad We did a lot of ourselves and Contractor estimates were in a 40,000 for some of the stuff because we dare so because contractors Yeah, which rightfully so because it's a hard work. They get paid a lot of money As well as well they should and I'm gonna go ahead and say it I'm gonna throw humility out the window. We have one of the best looking tech buildings in on Pennsylvania Definitely I might do as I've done the office tour and I may do a more Detailed video on the functional tour of our tech area. That's important because let's talk real quick about well How do we make money Marvin? We sell services. Yes, and we fix tech things. We've kind of made a decision It's gone back for so far business clients. We still supply them with technology and computers not just services, but We have really I'm not saying cut back on the retail but we've realized there's not a lot of value we're providing a lot of people coming here and we still get a Lot of those phone calls because we did that for a while and it just got to be the price kept coming down on new laptops and things like that and It's just got to be where we decided not to put them in a shelves anymore So that's kind of a decision that I don't know if I'll change backwards on but from a retail standpoint We decided that there's just not if we're not really a program So I've been providing people, you know, Amazon links for the retail customers because they want something But they come in with the premise of I'm looking for a great deal on laptop. Best buy they Matter of fact, that's something that should be probably discussed if you go to Best Buy and I thought about even I don't know if they'll let me run a camera there, but I The reality isn't it a lot of consumers don't realize the markets shifted dramatically. They don't even consider selling the laptops It's all about can I sell you a warranty with this laptop? Yeah, because the parts that the laptops themselves and things like that become, you know, commoditized their MSRP And this goes right into TV sales because I'm going to do that I bought a new TV and I am less than throwable the status of TVs Oh, okay and the way they're marketed and things like that and thank you Shout out to a company called. I think there's digital trends. Oh, I'll leave a link to them But our teams is the really going RTI NGS. They do very thorough TV testing and and really Breakthrough the marketing because the marketing is so goofy on it to hide the fact that they have slight variations in model numbers So try to make you think that the panels are different And the panels aren't different and I really hate smart TVs I had that in my head. I hated them until I used one and I'm like, wow, this is awful You have to agree to advertising terms. Yeah in order to turn it on so and I The reason I'm still using Chromecast and I understand advertising But I don't want my TV popping up with sales No, and I understand the agreement between me and Google with advertising It's not like I don't understand or having a problem with it But yeah, the whole TV status, but I'm gonna do some home tech review and I'll talk about the TV I got and the technology I use and it turns out this is the part that gets aggravating because I'm a user of a nice high-end stereo system, I guess high-end It is okay. It is Probably why I should talk about I do have a home TGX system with giant speakers and Like old-school stuff and base that'll rattle the walls on the neighbor's house. Yeah Marvin's been over Tom has a theater style Yeah Okay question for you guys our speakers that way I think they're 92 pounds each is that excessive? I took the photo someone's like doesn't look like a big TV. I'm like you probably don't realize how big those speakers Yeah in comparison, so that's why I want to do a video so I need a banana for scale Yes, we're gonna be like that's your TV is looks small. I'm like here's a banana. Yeah, like is it on top? Oh, that's a banana on top of the speaker. Got it That'll be projects we do right a little real banana will look like one of those runce candies sitting on a regular speaker Yeah Everyone goes to the soundbar so I wanted I'm actually because I ran into problems that I had trouble with it and The problems are because of compatibilities because they kind of expect you to buy the TV the soundbar and everything all those one piece And because I'm actually using external component level system. It's different I know I didn't go with the absolute highest MTV and I had a whole reason for not going with OLED Which I'm gonna when I do my TV discussion or break down some of that because I think there's some interesting things About then it's the same reason. We don't really see as much OLED on here, but we do see OLED on here So that'll be some of my bigger discussion because I think if people are interested and then I had to do a little Reading I didn't find a concise source. So I will then put together a concise source for people who are buying TVs because there's a lot of people who have really great reviews for like the $4,000 TVs and that's cool and CES is really hot topic right now because of all the new gadgetry coming out and that's nice But what about a schmose who just want a $500 TV? That's more ever. Yeah. Yeah more of the Mid-range or low-range TVs so and I did go 65 inch I spent a little money, but also on that topic where you can get deal on a TV locally I'm gonna bring it up. I you know what? I maybe I can even get an interview because me and the guy talked for about 20 minutes about business and life Over ABC warehouse, right? I purchased it. Okay, so and that comes back to the MSRP thing Because one of the things about this this goes with laptops this goes with a lot of things So Apple was probably the first in the market to really do this a force in MSRP on devices. That's why they are so The price is the same everywhere. Yeah, it's consistent You don't get deals on apples right any Apple products anywhere because they dictate on what you will charge And that's actually the same thing goes so I was noticing when we look to the TV at Best Buy or on Amazon It's let's say 1298 for the TV at Best Buy 1294 on Amazon and It turns out that the prices are all dictated so they can't give Deals they can't advertise deals is what I found. I thought they couldn't give them It turns out they can't advertise them. That's why I learned from ABC warehouse He actually had the ability to take a few dollars off, but they're not allowed to post that information online Okay, because that would be a problem But he also said the margin so small on it because ABC warehouse one of our I don't know how big they're I'm not sure I know they're big in Michigan. Yeah, they're definitely the area. Yeah, there's they have a lot of stores and They're probably similar but never less about computers kind of like maybe a fry electronics in California Which we don't have here in Michigan, but I'm aware slightly aware of them But there are MSRP pricing is out there. So everything just becomes so commoditized They said there's no margin it so that's why they actually gone heavier into furniture because it makes more there's a better margin on it Sure, well, they are the closest thing to wholesale. That's they used that was always your slogan Yeah, I think it still is. Yeah, their advertisements are great so back on topic though not that that was really off topic, but it's kind of our reasoning for it and What makes up the majority of back to how we make money is the majority of our money is coming from the services for a retail So we're still doing retail services that parts doing fine because people forget passwords people don't know how to set their computer people call India and It's Hose it mark twain said it's easier to fool people and the convinced them they were full They come in with the premise of arguing with us all the time and I understand it You gave four hundred dollars to some random person who called you and said you had problems with your computer and you are trying to Argue that it was the right thing to do even though the back here your heart your the logical part of you goes I didn't I shouldn't have done this one a random guy goes you owe me money there because your computer has virus And when someone with broken English calls you Which is typical. I'm not saying they're all broken English, but it's typical of this They call you and you just bust out that credit card and be like, all right Here's the digits fixed the magic computer problems that I'm having and then you're like, oh I think somebody just scam to me And but you're trying to rationalize it and we deal with that a lot like way way a lot That is and this goes for businesses too. This isn't just a retail problem. This is our unmanaged clients Our managed clients have the wherewithal going. I'm hanging a monthly fee Lawrence Technology services I'm gonna ask them what they think before I take action Shouldn't they be the ones calling me telling me I have a problem? Yeah, and that's so they do that But the people who are unmanaged going wow this random stranger has saved me for myself. So let me give them money Yeah, and we had someone come in that had their This is just like in the last week. It's not the first time. Well, this time was pretty extensive They cleaned out their Coinbase account. Oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah So they thought they were calling Coinbase they weren't they googled the number Something they're super unclear how they called the wrong number But once whoever it was and I guess to be a from a search has a phone number somewhere that if you search it You don't start at coinbase.com They called and they oh don't worry They had two factor on because that will protect you and when it the code came on their phone They gave it to the guy over the phone who cleaned their account out. I got I mean I felt bad for him But I mean it's yeah It's that you have to really stop at things because these scammers seem very convincing. So please Just don't give them and they cleaned out two of their Coinbase accounts because one wasn't enough They didn't get the third one. They have three Because they have one in each family members name. I know so that's that's messy I Just be careful. I mean trust me. These scammers are good. They're convincing. They they're after money So when you can't believe someone lied to you, there's a lot of reasons one There's the very very low risk that they will ever ever ever catch the scanner at all The scammer will get away with it to they are making money off you they will say whatever they need to do three Do you know scalability how much money? $400 is outside the u.s. In a third party country Let's say whether calling from some of the former Soviet republics or from India. Mm-hmm The conversion rate's really really good. Sure. He is doing well if he makes a few hundred dollars It's completely worth their time to call a lot of people for that few hundred dollars versus in America Someone's like why don't they get a job? Well, they make money as scammers and that is a lot of money So yeah, you're gonna take this past excuse me the path of lease resistance path of lease resistance I think it goes back to we talked about this before of people just Not fully understanding the computer that they have or You know just it's a magical thing to them Yeah, because if somebody called you and said your furnace needs to be repaired and I can fix it for you You're gonna be like well How the heck did you know that my furnace needs to be repaired right, you know But assumes some more magic to these than they are But it's it comes on to psychology to some people I mean, I think they just people want to attribute too much mystery It's not like I expect people to understand the technical underlines of how this works But just follow apply the same common sense as if this was a furnace and a lot of that same logic follows through Random phone call from someone like he said if a furnace is broke is not the same as random call is here But it is it's it's some random person calling you telling your computers got a problem or your something has a problem We want money. Just take that with a grain of salt which comes to also people looking for deals and this goes to it unmanaged business clients are The the I call it love. Hey, we make money off of the unmanaged clients I know some people go fully managed only where they pay contract and they just have us take care of everything and our people are break fixes the term in the industry and We have some of them that I mean we make a lot of money I've looked at the building over the time over them because they have money They don't believe in paying a monthly fee for things, but they do things like this first phone call from the guy is I Have a feeling Tom that this this looks like a scam to buy Microsoft office for $49. Do you think it's a scam? And he you know as the link he sent me. I said absolutely complete scam. Maybe scamola This just couldn't be much more scamming You cannot buy the full suite of biker's law office for just $49 one-time fee and not have to pay recurring because he Of course doesn't want to pay the recurring fees for the office 365 Yeah, this was where this is this is how they start and this company has oodles of money This isn't money is not a problem for them, right? Which also is great because when we send them the bill for the shenanigans that occurred after after that that conversation They pay it every time They would save money and we've told them this we'll do summaries like you would have saved money if you would have just Let us do this Then I suggested that they buy it directly because I said you we can do it for you. Oh, no, I don't pay you I can probably figure this out. Oh problem. You should go directly to Microsoft and just pay the fees and not do the scam So he did he the advice of not doing that scam He found another scam that was more money, but less than Microsoft and what is today January? 11th. Yeah, this has been going on since sort of the first day We were back open and he's still not quite sorted out all the money He gave them he still needs to get Microsoft off as the new version for one of his Business clients that need him to be able to open newer documents because his Microsoft Office versions from like 2003 It's so this so the trick is to charge just enough to be believable Yeah, it's like those those stores you hear like people like they put out like a fridge or something on there like free to You know free take it and nobody takes that they put $5 on it in within an hour Somebody's like I'll take your fridge for $5. Yeah Yeah, it's just it's it's incredible. I mean the guy Hem and his partner run a very large company that ship stuff all over the United States They are not a small mom and pop. I guess you can call it mom pop shop But they are they employ a lot of people a big mom and pop shop They and they don't mind I mean if they end up with a bill for $700 to sort out this thing that they did not to mention Whatever lost time and productivity they have through the shenanigans, which is good. I'm not part of any of that shenanigans I'm just I'm the cleanup guy right and there I know the final conversation when yesterday afternoon I'm just gonna buy from office like I should have when you said so sure And I get no I I'm very honest with my clients and I tell them I like you know You have your time our time all the time just Let us waste your time. Yeah, I mean the time you should have wasted what I used to I used to like this Dave was a guy that worked when I worked in corporate. I used to like Dave's Attitude they used to say the same phrase a lot of time God saved me from people who want to save me money because they don't Yes, he was the shop manager and I'll oversee some of the Mechanics of our I went for a transportation fighter So he were overseeing it and someone would say but I can fix the truck by buying this cool widget and putting on there No, no, no, no when the truck crashes and the widget fails. That was two dollars I should have spent the hundred dollars because now it's a hundred thousand dollar thing because of yeah So you got to sometimes think about that. Are you being? Wasteful Pennywise pound foolish. Anyways, that's the perfect thing I and I probably stop and think too much about people who do that I don't know why they do it So if you have insight leave in the cabinet of why people will just spend spin their wheels trying to find a deal to The point of spending money screening computers getting scammed trying to get the money back off the credit card after the scammers never Delivered the Microsoft office after you spent the money online for it And and now having to in the end do exactly what your tech guy said was just pay the the five dollars a month for Microsoft office I'm like I can't imagine how much money that company makes a minute that the few dollars a month of Microsoft Office charges Yeah matters in any measurable form of that company. Yeah, what is it now to for it? It's like six dollars or seven dollars a month per computer It's so to have to have word or is that the whole suite? Oh, yeah, no, like the whole suite the whole suite is like six bucks a month Yeah Six or so it's really inexpensive. I mean don't call me exact price go to Microsoft comm directly to Microsoft. Yeah I think yeah store like get it direct from them. Don't just blows that I didn't realize I didn't I guess I didn't realize That it was that how little he is. Yeah, and he's that's why sure and fire for 49 one-time fee versus that I think the one-time fee is still like two or three hundred bucks Sure, but based on the fact that I think the employee at the manufacturing side There's probably 50 or 60 people at least that work just on the manufacturing side Then they have a few they have a small office staff because they don't require They actually don't have any computers for the size of the building the size of the business State of manufacturing. You don't need a ton of computers to make this all happen So it's just when you add that up. There's in a there's like there's so few people that need office There's only like four or five computers in the building. That's it Everything else is a whole bunch of people running C and C mills and things like that. They manufacture I won't get too much way about they manufacture a product that requires a lot of machining and most of the machine is Automated so they actually these few people there are just loading the machines unloading machines and they run a program and It's it's a cool process. It's very automated. It's it's high value high dollar ships everywhere Rosa trucks and docks they got shipping freight stuff things are happening and I'm like this is like this company makes millions and millions every year You're just like what what we're trying to save a couple dollars Why when they do get the ability to say whatever will pay to solve it? That's enough ranting about that the business of YouTube hmm so we're Morphing all this and you're following us along on a journey here of how we're gonna be doing more and more product reviews That's a big plan and expansion that I'm getting into reaching out and it there's a curve So as the channel gets bigger, that's when the advertisers or people who are willing to send us products review care more and more So we're gonna do that We haven't decided how much will be me and Marvin doing those reviews We have some other people doing the reviews my wife expressed an interest in it. I'm being cut Well, yeah, Marvin's he's paid too much to do reviews I Can't argue that This is this is honest business stuff You have to figure out the purpose of what people are going to be doing and whether or not that's what they should So it does Marvin provide value reviewing phones or does Marvin provide value? With LTS creative and sending contracts and having sales meetings and matter of fact Marvin yesterday You know, how long how long were you at the stop? I gave you the sheet of paper for Ah Maybe maybe ten minutes. Yeah, and that was a $2,200 plus sale for ten minutes. That's where you had just have to look at things like that going, okay You Marvin had to make a stop to finalize the contract the contract so speak signed and agreed to and done and now We're moving forward. Those are the things and busy you have to think about where they provide value I'm an efficiency nut. That's more than anything else I care a lot about how things and workflows go that matters a lot to me, which is Always been that way and it's kind of technology is more tools to bring efficiency But you also think about when you're using your staff or using Wisely say I was hid when you worked places and I'd work for some places that kind of like You may have mark work in academia So he could probably speak to it way better of inefficient use of people and staff. Oh my goodness My goodness. There were so many there were so many meetings that should have been emails. Yes, there were so many Departments that had four people doing the same thing Yes, you know, but yeah, you just you gotta I worked in the automotive sector now Not the company specifically I worked for because we had a ton of efficiency And matter of fact something that Ford found very fascinating about us as a company is we were doing the revenue We were hauling the volume of freight that was really high at the same time for goes Where's the rest of your people and we're like we automated things we were early adopters and doing that that's part of the value I helped create there because if you automate the hell out of things you can scale better and you make more margin I'm not trying to say we're trying to replace people's jobs And in fact what we did there was create automation processes So we could grow the company without having to just put a bunch of bodies that you throw at things So that's that's an important factor last thing back to the business of YouTube And all the efficiencies and all the other stuff that we rambled on about We're gonna be doing more reviews. We're going to may or may not see me or Marvin I'll still do a lot of the stuff because I still create keep creative control of a lot of what goes on channel and the last piece of it is going to be the Feedback I love hearing from you folks I have a person in California been emailing back and forth with and they are using this for some of the teaching like my virtual lab Video and guide and like someone said it's not just a guide It's kind of a course that I'm like turns out I have I've been emailing back and forth because I've authorized to ask if they had any problem showing a classroom like no matter In fact, I released my stuff under creative comments. So if it want anyone wants to Use it for educational great, but if you plan to read upload it to YouTube why I don't know I've had a few people doing some of that But that is something huge dust and I didn't reply yet, but I forwarded to Marvin So the date format so America now I realized I realized statistically we are Not all American viewership Which is why this email came basically we do the American date format and the American date format is popping in America But America percentage-wise is not the world despite what Americans apparently think right? I know most very I I think on a little bit bigger scale because I Communicate with the open source community and have friends overseas and things like that So I think a little bit differently about it than probably the average American who's very going we mean there's something more than America, right? But we are the America is a world superpower. So that there is that there That's kind of what we said though there are two types of people in the world Yes, those who don't use the American date method and those who have been to the moon It was been to the moon. There is a little bit of boasting in American except religion that we yeah We know we're aware it exists. We do not live in that bubble of it We will poke lots of fun at it because it's fun. So sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, but you know what? World War back-to-back champions. That's right. Give it up. Yeah America There's no winners for World War 3 though Realizers No, no, there's not gonna be winners there. We like so we joke around about it We're completely aware of it and we will leave you with that for black. There's that cruel It's terrible. Oh, please send all your comments to Tom Yeah, well, and I'll give this some of the other YouTube channels I watch they are not based here in America America English is not their native tongue But they do their YouTube videos realizing the majority of the revenue they're gonna make is telling to Americans So that YouTube has a predominantly English speaking For the popular channels because you know, we will buy anything Yes, you know, and you look at people that all the big youtubers even the gamers the ones that are They're like it's a they speak English on it on the big all the biggest YouTube channels And even if they're not based in America, which some of you I gotta admit I'm super impressed with this I had no idea that Puttypie for example a popular youtuber gamer speaks a little bit of an accent, but you have the Well, the shitty robot girl Simone Geitz gets I had no idea she wasn't an English speaker until she stopped and says what's the English word for this her accents? Absolutely missing. I know you know who she is. Yeah, I did not know she wasn't a native speaker She's not a native speaker. Actually she speaks a few languages. Wow I think that sometimes some of my foreign friends always find we're like you guys like English is it you don't even speak it Well, I'm like America And with that we will say goodbye. Yeah, see you next week. All right. Oh Off topic Tuesday, that's right off topic Tuesday see you in like four days in the meantime like subscribe Oh, yeah, click leave us comments. Tell us what you want to hear and see and Things that you want us to do. Also, I don't know where this belongs. So I'm gonna insert it here Yeah, this is this is me hanging out with some ducks and playing with the drone in the morning I did a video. Yeah, yeah Editing is my relaxing thing. I did it I don't I didn't upload it to YouTube because I don't know where belong to my channel But I can roll it at the end of a vlog. So Watch the sunrise and the ducks enjoy the happy little ducks happy little ducks. They're all making duck face. Oh So they're all Kardashians Oh