From DJ to HVAC Digital Media Dynamo: Combining of Digital Media and Skilled Trades with Clifton Beck

This is this is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of straight out of Crumpton. I'm Gabby Bar, and I am here with Miss Greg Crumpton. Greg, how are you today? Gabby, I am doing really well. I've been picking some weeds this morning. I had a little bit of time in the garden to kind of think through what we're talking about. Our fun guest who I come to to know really in the last year and, really appreciate what he is doing for so many different avenues, but most of them educational and most of them skilled trades related and, just a cool guy. So grounded and funny, and, it's gonna be a blast. So after weed picking, a good shower I'm ready to rock and roll. Awesome. Well, I would like to introduce today's guest Clifton Beck. He is the manager of digital media at Esco Institute. Clifton, how are you doing today? I am doing absolutely wonderful except for the fact that I would have loved to join you out in that garden. That is Boy, is that a place to find peace? Yeah. We did. The wife is out of town with, one of our dogs is having a little surgery So me and the crazy poodle were out there just bobbling around doing our things. So, you know, it so I don't know. You know, you read about different things that the earth produces and kinda getting grounded back to earth. And for some reason, picking my so I have a lot of squirrels and a lot of oak trees and mulch. And those things don't go together. So the the oak trees are always trying to burst through the mulch. Yeah. So it's it's a good place to be. Nonetheless, really do, appreciate you taking time with us today, Clifton. You you, are doing some really cool stuff. In the industry, as I mentioned, skilled trades, education, all the things that are important, to this podcast, usually, and me, by happenstance. And before we get going, why don't you give us a little bit of history about you and how you came to be the manager of everything digital at EscO and kinda what you do every day. Boy, how much time have we got? Let's do the abbreviated version. Oh my goodness. You know, you and I talk so much about, like, relationships and opportunities and how relationships lead into opportunities. And I would say that that is that's really been my life, especially my my career. You know, I actually Like, now that I'm starting to get back into the media side, which has only been for, like, the last five years, five or six years, I started kind of there. So I was real big into, to music and to kind of entertainment. So I had a mobile DJ business from a time I fourteen up until my early twenties. And I actually went to Indiana State for a year for TV Radio film. I thought, hey, you know, I like doing this. This would be my gig. And it it just it wasn't. I had taken an internship at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, on that summer after my first year, and that introduced me into the world of mechanics. Alright? So I was always, like, you, I was always tinkering with everything. I just didn't know what that looked like as a career. And so I took an intern at at Pfizer and, man, at the at the end of my little intern They offered me a full time gig on a rotating swing shift, building and constructing mobile labs inside the factory. Yeah. So, like, so some of the first things that I made was Allotane. So I was on the first production team that manufactured Allotane or aspartame and, worked with polydextrose. And so we would bring in and we'd bring in different components. And so we would build like our own labs inside. So it was like a micro movable lab. So everything was mechanical. You were learning electrical. You were learning plumbing. You were learning you're constantly working with a variety of different components, and then I was hooked. That was it. And so then I end up getting into the trades as I know it today. So plumbing, what? HVAC, I married into a refrigeration and HVAC small family refrigeration HVAC business, and that's where I spent most of my time. Is in refrigeration, a lot of grocery refrigeration in small, like restaurants, mom and pop shops, That was my lifeblood schools. So, I, you know, I did the work for, like, six different school corporations in my area. So I was able to work at the schools that my kids went to school to. And so, oh, it was amazing. It, you know, the relationships, you know, those building those foundational relationships that, you know, it wasn't just that I was there working on equipment. I was there getting to know everyone, so I was having lunch with the lunch ladies and lunch ladies were going, Hey, your your son's time frame is x. You wanna stay here a little bit longer and You guys can hang out and have lunch together, and it brought me into like this little, the world of HVAC. And so at a at a young age in my career, I started realizing the benefits of friendships and relationships, and where that can take and it just kind of kept evolving. And I I I didn't go to trade school. I did I went to trade schools for classes especially my local IV texts, I go back for if I need to get better at welding, I went back and I took a welding course. So that when I get better at brit you know, print reading, I go back and I do print reading classes. And ironically, those programs that I I went to twenty some years ago are now just this year have all became HVAC excellence accredited programs. It's like this, like, that's a beautiful circle. Yeah. No doubt, man. There's, you know, when you when you think about that full trip around the sun and and the people you run back into and the the the groups you run back into on your second tour of duty so to speak. Oh my gosh. Yes. You don't I I think we don't appreciate I'll I'll speak for me. I don't always appreciate the first time of anything, you know, like, because you're in the moment. The first time, you know, I was thinking about it this morning. I was talking to a guy while I was weeding, on the about the Columbus, Ohio. And the first time I remember going to Columbus, Ohio was for a lebert, certification for Yes. And, you know, it was cool. I was young. I was single. The Ohio states close by. So it was it was a fun trip. I stayed for three weeks on a week and a half course. My my boss never did figure that part out, but Anyway, I think as you go through experiences like that, and then, my my great nephewing law, I guess he is, is he he's a trade superstar. And, he's in the midst of going through a a a nice, uplift in his career right now. Mhmm. So I was thinking about him yesterday and then thinking about the Columbus, Ohio. And when I remember sending him as an employee to Columbus, Ohio, for the liebert certification that was kinda flashing back to megal and, you know, thirty thirty years or earlier. How much more I appreciated the ability of what he was about to go learn, versus what I was able to learn in the moment. And I obviously still use a lot of those, skills and what have you that I learned on that trip, but it's just so cool to see it come back around and you know, the people that that were there and, those those relationships that you talk about are so foundational And the guy who was my instructor at that class wound up working for another OEM who I had the chance to catch up with last year. You know, so it's it's so crazy, but crazy cool, no doubt. So You mentioned Esco, and we we've, referred to it a couple of times. What what is Esco, and give us a give us the thumbnail on that. Exactly. So, you know, Esco has been a staple of education and certifications and credentialing for decades. And it's primarily been focused for educators. Right? They they really focus on post secondary vocational programs and, educator performance, you know, educator credentialing, making sure that the programs are staying up to date, making sure that the the teachers that are teaching the programs know what's current because a lot of times when we go into educational rounds, we're coming out of the field. That's how I got in myself. Right. Didn't even know that I'd be an educator. Had a recruiter reach out and go, hey, I think you're missing the bar and you're supposed to be a teacher and you don't know it. You wanna go have a cup of coffee? I'll tell you more about that. I thought I'd be in the field my whole life. Right. Right? And so many of us make that transition from the from being a good technician into the classroom, whether it is at a, you know, a a vocational program or whether as at a distributor training program, or even if you're a educator for a OEM manufacturer. Right? So we make those transitions into the classroom, and then you're from the educational standpoint, you're handed a classroom, you're handed a program, here's your keys, here. How off you go? Have fun. Make sure that you're teaching things that you should be. And Most of us don't know what that looks like. Right. Once we get into the program, we don't even know hundred percent how to organize the program. So ESco has been at the heart of that for decades. And now we're starting to have more contractor training programs we're having more distributor training programs. And so Esco is actually starting to help supply those programs with the content and the resources that they need. That's actually how I met Esco. So Esco is the largest provider of certifications in the industry. So between the student certifications and the technician certifications and the educator certifications Esco has done about two point two million certifications since the end of the nineties. That is an astronomical number that most people don't even know, but that's who we are. So when I transitioned into a distributor, I worked for a I I worked for a Johnstone supply, a large group of Johnstone supplies, and I did either onboarding, I did technician training. One of those things that I did was preparing students for their EPA six zero eight. And that is one of the primary certifications at EscO. So EscO builds all of the things that the educator needs. So here I was coming up program. The way it's all about. Just so people get there. Absolutely. So everyone that every technician that is handling regulated refrigerants are required by the EPA under the Clean Air Act to have their section six zero eight of the Clean Air Act for working with refrigerants for recovering and for charging systems. Six zero nine if you're into automotive. So the six zero eight is a fundamental requirement for all technicians, and you can't work under other people's license. It's not even a license. It's a certification, but you'll hear that term a lot and it's just a certification. But it makes sure that you are prepared to work in the industry. So it's like step one. Right? So we're gonna learn some basics about the equipment. But if you're even gonna touch it, you gotta be certified. And so EscO has this entire PowerPoint presentation. So I came into the classroom. I knew I needed to teach technicians, And here, I'm gonna teach you all kinds of advanced stuff because I know that stuff pretty well, but the basics may not be the best at. And so then they have this, you know, like, three hundred and forty two slide presentation for teachers to use in the classroom, and they have the training materials that goes along with it and the assessment. So it was a bundle deal, and I went, and That's what I need. So that's what I did. Back in twenty eighteen, I jumped on board. I started doing Esco material. And in twenty twenty two, and I came on board for Esco. One of the very first things that I had the privilege to do is to revise the EPA six zero eight PowerPoint presentation, which will be released here in the very near future, and along with some e learning courses. So it's that whole Circle. I met Esco and as I evolved, like, twenty nineteen, I went to the HVAC excellence conference for education. The National HVACR Education Conference, and I was hooked, hook line and sinker. And that's why I started it. So that that is a heck of a show because you and I were there last year together, and that's where we talked about doing this, actually. What is is ESCO an acronym for something or was it? And then it's just ESCO now or how it is? So originally, it's an environmental services. Company. So it was about educating for, you know, the environmental awareness and education on HVAC, equipment and industries. And so it turned into the EscO group. Because it had so many different aspects of what we were doing. So you have the Esco Institute, which is all the educational content and curriculum for educational programs. You have HVAC excellence, which is the separate accrediting body for programs. So we have a whole separate team of people that are just on the HVAC Excellence side. And that's all they do is, you know, we're talking about school administrators. We're talking about, you know, people who have spent their life designing programs for schools and for states. And so we're talking about educators that are going out and doing the valuation of programs. We have things like the green mechanical, which is a, you know, a it's more of a society, but it's a group of different components of the industry, different associate trade associations and manufacturers, that focus on the green awareness side of our industry. We have the carbon monoxide safety association. So a variety of little pieces that all come together for the Esco group. And so we all have our individual, attributes for what Esco does. So I'm on the Esco Institute side. I'm I'm fortunate to be able to travel with the HVAC Excellence crew once in a while to go look at programs and and, you know, participate at that level. But there are, yeah, there's different pieces of escrow group. That's why a lot of people don't know go because they only know, like, one piece, and they don't know the, like, umbrella of what Esco has been for all these decades since the nineties. Well, I mean, I'm in the industry, and I didn't know. So I'm sure that there's other people that were kinda curious as well. But thank you for that because you know, I think what what you slash they are doing, is more important now than ever. Because it it's so refreshing, to hear when I'm talking to people or reading magazines or There was a piece in the New Yorker magazine last week about skilled trades and how people, are embracing realizing the need for. So when when I read it in the New Yorker, I thought, holy crap, we've this has really become main stream if if that publication is carrying an article on it. So Exactly. I I think that that's a good sign. You know, it's They always say it's the darkest right before daylight. So maybe the dog is cracking soon. I I believe it is. But so many groups like you are doing so much, to to create the awareness and to perpetuate the awareness is all good. So thank y'all for doing what you're doing. I I just I I love the, educational piece because I'm such a proponent of, you know, let let's say that you become an HVAC technician or a refrigeration technician. To me, that's the freaking start of your life. That is not it. That's not in the mountains. Not the plateau. Right. Yeah. You know, excellence is a word that I love. Tom Peters taught me of the word Excellence a long time ago. And, I love reading what Tom wrote about excellence for so many years. I'm sad that he retired this year, from riding. But God, he gave us a lot of good stuff on quality and excellence and now and yes, and all of those attributes to me that that help us get to where we wanna go, you know, how it like, if you're having a crappy day, and you're just trying to get through and do the best you can that day. There's gotta be something that says, nope. Go ahead and do that one more thing. Just one more day more. And, Dan Clapper, a guy we've had on the program recently. He's got a new basically a platform of ten percent, you know, just give ten percent more. And I love the you know, I don't even know if this is a damn word or not. I hear it now positivity. I never I have heard that. That was a word in life. Until we made it a word. You're right. But I love that that feeling that that wordy votes is is just a little bit more of, you know, There there's so many things that that happen in life. This this past weekend, lost a dear friend, who I work with Well, it was not, unexpected. It was a long, long term illness, but, you know, reflecting back yesterday when we got the word from his wife, that he had passed. And he passed in his sleep, which is probably the best thing anyone could want young guy, fifty eight years old. I don't know, man. You just get those feelings and, I kinda lost my train of thought because I went emotional, and I didn't mean to. Hey, buddy. That's what we're here for. Let's be real. You know, He's a real dude, which and and I just love the the grounding of of realness. So anyway, alright. Back on track. Sorry. If you only knew how many rabbit holes I go down in a day, buddy? Well, my my brain works like that anyway. So it's not uncommon to go down a rabbit hole. No. Not at all. It when you when you lose people that are imported, that make a difference. You know, it's hard to say who makes a difference. Who does it? Who makes a difference in in your world? Just like, dang. Why did they have to, you know, go so early when they were one of the good guys? But, anyway, I digress from that. So It's quite alright. You know, it does bring a good point. People ask me all the time, you know, who are my mentors? In that time frame. You know, who are those people for me? And I honestly, I really had one. I had one primary mentor So at that time, it was my father-in-law. So I'd married into a family business. I was there for a long time. I was there for quite a few years after we even divorced. Because we had such a good relationship. But he was a a mentor of work and of life, and I think we all have that responsibility. You know, we we talk about these relationships that we have and how important it is to have these relationships and be able to have people to mentor from. Well, What about us that are starting to get it a little bit older? Isn't it our responsibility to become mentors as well? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And, you know, I've said this before Clifton, and I so believe this to be true. If everyone in the trades would grab a kid by the arm and walk him across the threshold, we would be in such better shape than we're in. Just just one. That just one kid, one one young person, one veteran that's learning. Yeah. In so in every trades worker did that, it it would just be it would be incredible. And Yeah. I was thinking about that this weekend. Steve Turner, a guy who runs this program called bring, bring back the trades. Yep. Or skilled trades. I I forgot which one it is. I'll think of it in a second. Bring back the trades. That's what it is. You know, the guy started his whole effort because he runs a an upholstery shop automotive upholstery and he was trying to hire, you know, people that were interested in coming in to work with him, to apprentice under him, Right. Now now Steve's old enough to where he's probably thinking about, okay, what am I gonna do next? And had somebody been there, they would be ready to step in to take over, you know, feasibly take over his company, and that's what worked out. But Building that pipeline of talent, you know, having that person, on hand and available right beside you and learning in real life of of how to do the trade is one thing. But being there with those young folks, As they're going through life with you on the job is just as important as teaching the angle of how to calculate the angle of the pipe or whatever you're trying to do. Because I I think about it, man. When when I was on the premise, I had some incredible journeymen that I worked under. Some were complete a holes. To work for me, on the work part because they, you know, back in the day, you did some crap to apprentices that you can't get away with anymore. Right. But, when when it when it really mattered, and and I had a real question about life stuff that maybe I wasn't comfortable going to my parents with or whatever. Right. Or or friends You know, those guys and and, they were there because you could ask them a a real question, and they would give you a real answer Unfiltered. Hard honest truth. Absolutely. And I think that, yeah, I learned how to calculate the distance between two pieces of pipe on a forty five degree angle. That was important. I knew how to make the measurement. But I also knew that when I got in trouble. I always had them to fall back on as a and I I use a swear, like, a truth detector. Right. Because you you know as a young man, you can tell your stuff, or you can tell yourself about anything and make yourself believe it. You know? Absolutely. Like, if if you repeat the fallacy long enough, it becomes truth. But having those truth, those BS filters in your life is so important. And I think that that's what a true apprenticeship is all about. Is is the skills and the human side. And If if we could all just grab one by the arm and walk them across the threshold of helping them get there, God, we would be so far ahead. And that's what I focused my life on. I mean, I I I became I think I was a good technician. I was a good service contractor. And then I had the opportunity to give back and and not just give back, but learn how to correct my own bad mistakes I learned along the way. So then not only was I giving back what I had learned, I was giving back the experiences of correcting myself and being humble enough to go, hey, I thought I was good, but I really wasn't very good. So no matter how hard work at becoming a good service technician, you may not be doing everything right. Let's look at the things. Let's assess ourselves Let's allow other people to assess us to see where we are in that self assessment. We learn so much about the things that we need to gain better experience in. And that is really what I've gotten to at this point in life is checking myself and helping other people learn how to check themselves. Well, that's that's strong. And there's nothing like making yourself better by preparing to teach because you don't wanna teach anything that's inaccurate. And, it makes you a better mentor when you're teaching because you have enough wherewithal to go, make sure you're teaching the truth, and that helps everything. It helps you as a person. Help the apprentice or or mentee. I don't know. It's such good stuff. I I I love the mentor And I don't know why, but I always felt like this weird thing was associated with that word, you know, mentor, mentee, it just had this weird stigma. It was like it had to be, like, proper and then a box, and it had to look like this. But it really doesn't, man. It can be any kind of relationship, you know, that that you have. Our our church, is looking for some mentors to help some people, some, kids that are going from high school or, middle school to high school. Sure. And just just given those, boys and girls just a different perspective, And my wife and I are talking about it, you know, it could we do the commitment because there's a certain time frame on certain days. So you have to, you know, really be calibrated around their schedule. But it it's so refreshing to know that it doesn't have to be this weird overly complicated program. It can just be grabbing a kid going to get a, you know, cup of coffee or soft drink or whatever, and just having a freaking conversation about life that they can't have with anybody else. You know, they they can't open up to their friends about it because they look squirrely. They can't tell their their parents about it because they're their parents, but You know, people would tell a damn stranger the randomest stuff. So true. Without even really a whole lot of prompting. And, I think if you can do that for somebody, young, old, or, or whatever, that that relationship of mentor or mentee can can really be tweaked to what works for that situation and not this textbook, perfect world, you know, Ivy League scenario of what a mentor mentee has to look like. So I hope people know that and and and vote that. You know? Let's I don't know. I know you're right on. And so I do a fair amount of time studying generational changes. It's basically looking at how education and social acceptance has changed over, like, the last fifty to sixty years. And if we look at how generations of approach mentorship and approach apprenticeship. There is a there's a bit of change in the way that we perceive those relationships, right? So if we look at her particularly our two youngest generations. Right? If we look at z and alpha, they are much more willing to communicate personally than some of the previous generations, like our exes myself. So we have to be able to actually open ourselves up for communication because If we think about those relationships that you and I had, right? Some of those were fairly tough relationships. Our mentors, you're right. You you said it. Some of our mentors were not exactly the friendliest of people when it comes to relationships. Right. And that came with our generations. And I I I I tend to separate us in that area. When we look at what happened when we started moving into even millennials kinda touch a little bit, but definitely when we start looking at gen zs and impressively with alpha, the willingness to communicate is very advanced. So the lack of communication really falls on us. And so we have this ability to form much tighter bonds in much tighter communications and much better education than what we've actually seen in previous generations. So where the difficulty lies is kinda retraining our brains that it's okay that people want to have these conversations. These they want to be mentored. They want to be shown how to do things right and they wanna be recognized for doing those things properly. You and I If we we wanted to be recognized, but it didn't always happen. We we we tend to get Yeah. We or we got the tar and feather tree Right? We we got put on the spot and shown what we didn't do right in front of everyone instead of embracing the things that we actually did right. So we have an opportunity to change the entire perception of what mentorship looks like starting with our men tours. Stepping up, showing our vulnerability a little bit and going, you know what? Technologies change. That's the biggest vulnerability right now, is that tech technology has changed so fast in our industry that we have a slight amount of discomfort in teaching a younger generation because we know a lot of fundamentals and we know things work that when we get into technology, they actually have an advantage over us. And so that sometimes creates a discomfort in communication. And if we can break that barrier, if we can break that discomfort and go, you know what? Young lady, young man? I have some things that I would like to teach you. You're probably gonna teach me some things along the way. But I have a lot of things to teach you, not just on the technology side, but just in life and and just being productive in general. And so the the opportunity now for that partnership between the mentor and the mentee I don't know that we've ever had this opportunity in society before. If it has, it's been a very long time. It's not been within the last fifty to sixty years for sure. I hope we embrace that. No, man. I I think you're spot on. Yesterday, I was talking to my buddy, Martin King, skilled trade rescue marketing. I love him. So he he's Martin's working on some big stuff. Like congressional involvement stuff around, the, Bureau of labor and statistics misinformation. He's getting accurate data to go back to Congress with and say, you know, what you're publishing is not accurate representation of the workforce because of how they're they're not intentionally misleading people, but their collection method is fouled up And, so he he's doing some really interesting work on that, but we were talking about, in particular, the ability to to do what you just said. How how do we embrace technology with the edge with the generational, uniqueness that we have. And we we talked about this more than one time here lately, but the number of of generations that are in the workplace that we're communicating with, that we're teaching, that we're working with. And, you know, the the messages of how you deliver a message Your words don't matter to four out of the five generations. They matter to the generation you're speaking to, but they all happen to be in the same room. So how do you have four or five or even six? Well, probably five. Generations and you're trying to communicate with the same message, but you're having to say it in five different languages. It's really I think it's awesome to have to think through that. And, so what Martin and I were talking about yesterday was just the the platform and the delivery of how we communicate that because Martin, you know, he's he's, my age, he's he's Scerin sixty. But he's a highly technical guy. He does a lot of cool stuff with with technology. So he's an outlier there, but most of the people that are his age, my age, don't embrace technology because they never had to in the workplace. So to your point, You've got a lot of data and a lot of knowledge and a lot of these these offerings to to give people. What's the best format to do that? And I think one of the ways and and you just laid it out there is to ask for help in communicating that message. And you know, do you want it in microburst? Do you want, like, do you want me to give you how to do this compressor work? In forty seven one minute emails. I mean, what what do you want? How how is the best way to communicate the message? And You know, to Martin's point, it's hard for him to get across his message in short form media because it's so in-depth topic. So we talked about yesterday, like, do you do snippet videos to drag people interest, that are interested in where they're prepared for a longer video to watch or how, you know, just It doesn't matter how what we were talking about. What matters is that we were talking about it and that, you know, it is something to be sitter of how we communicate those messages. Yeah. It's a learning curve. It it is. It's a changing learning curve. It and it's like, you know, what's the adage we're we're learning, how to fly the plane while we're taking it off or whatever. There's some some airplane reference. To that. But yeah. It's it's real time right now, what's working, look at statistics. You know, we're talking about what gets the impressions, what gets the hits on social, and it's people, you know, it's it's human experiences, and and I can I can verify that from LinkedIn Post? What get the most favorable treatment are things that we showcase either me as a person or us as a company that involve humans doing cool stuff. And I think the more we can showcase humans doing more cool stuff in the trades, we get to extract more eyeballs to it. What what are your thoughts on that? A hundred percent. So that's where I have been trying to focus here very recently. It it's such a changing and evolving world. So, like, let's just take, for instance, so when I was back with my distributor group, I did a very successful small YouTube channel. About four thousand subscribers did a certain type of content and in about a less than two year period, it did seventy six thousand hours of watch time. Wow. But it was focused on a particular type of training, which I still kinda do, but it was at a certain period in time where people had more free time is So when we look at twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, I started it in twenty nineteen. When twenty twenty came along and COVID happened, people had more free time and people were learning more. A lot of people took advantage of that time. So it was very successful for filling a void in the industry. At a particular time. The exact same tactic is not working right now because we are in a different time with a different void, a different gap. So it takes gap analysis of what our content is in what our market is because you're exactly right. You can't just focus towards one social derivative. We have different audiences We have different generations all wanting to see the same content but in a differ a different delivery method. So it takes education on different delivery systems. And what does that look like? It depends on your audience, depends on the age group, depends on what type of social media you're using because each platform is going to be slightly different, and the way that we deliver has to be catered towards that. And so I've had to learn a lot about that in in a a year in a short period of time. And, yeah, it it really does depend on the content. And who is receiving the content? It it has amazed me, Clifford, clifton, the number of, people within the trades that are on Instagram. Oh, and and this is something Martin and I were talking about yesterday. He's not Instagramer, but he's trying to reach that demographic And I said, dude, if you if you have a look at Instagram at the HVAC, the plumbing, the refrigeration ladies and guys that are doing so well on Instagram that are in our trades, it will boggle your mind because it is it's like a playground for people who want to really showcase their skills. Yes. They're and how they're helping educate their peers is is phenomenal. Just, you know, a couple of guys and gals that I follow if if you watch their content, you will become a better technician just because of what they're giving you. It it is remarkable. And yet here is a guy that's responsible for educating that doesn't even address that particular platform because he's got so many other platforms to figure out it's crazy. You know what I mean? And and oh, boy. That's still part of Martin. That's just the fact that he's got so much stuff going on How do you how do you discern which platform to go after? Because to your point, you know, you've got that diversification of of generations. Instagrammers aren't on LinkedIn who aren't on Facebook, who aren't on YouTube, who aren't on x, you know? But Can you make your message neutral enough? Which is a crappy word I have to use because it's like watering down the message. Yes. It is. But can you make it neutral enough to where it cascades across all platforms with enough zing and zest to capture the attention of those five, and I don't think you can. I think you have to have content that's developed for the platform. Now you may can cross x and and Insta a little bit. You may cross LinkedIn and Facebook a little bit, but, you can't do all of them with one message. In my opinion, Only if it is dissected and recreated for the consumer. And a team of one can't do that. It's difficult. I've been trying. Definitely a an item that needs multiple effort. I would love to see a a group of educational authorities within the industry each focusing on a particular sector. We haven't quite seen that yet. We've seen a variety of people working in different applications. I'm currently expanding out the long form format as well as short form format that goes along with it. So my most recent one that I did was an eighteen minute video that had a fifty one second abbreviated version of that. And used it as a small marketing campaign focused on particular age group of technicians, and that's been my most successful venture yet. But I'm just now learning that whole side of it. Learning how does, you know, Google ads and analytics play. I've I've studied it for years. Now it's a matter of actually applying it. So it it is a lot of work, and it's not an easy thing for one person to do. And we will you see a a shift in different educational platforms. We see certain types of content going one direction by a distributor of content, but it doesn't work well in others. And that's exactly why. It all comes down to content. So my primary focus has been my educators. That's so most of my effort has been dialed into content that is delivered like through LinkedIn. It's dialed into, ears and eyes that watch for longer periods of time absorbing content. Now is it followed by younger generation only when I break it down into shorter version forms and make it more fun and interactive? So it is a challenge, but somebody has to and or a group of somebody's has to. We have to change our delivery. So I I do an entire class on the delivery of content in the way different generations learn content. Take a math book. Has a math book? Has math actually changed much in the last hundred years? It can't. But has the delivery of it? Yes. So all you have to do is go look at the front cover of every calculus book Take a grade. So take tenth grade. Whatever. Let's go with basic arithmetic. That'd be a lot easier to put it in. So I do a class and I break down six generations of content delivery of, mathematics. And how the perception of the content has changed, how the delivery has changed for the generations. So if we don't understand the way that the consumer because, really, if we are learners, we are consumers of the content. If we don't understand how the consumer likes to receive the content, The content may not actually matter. Yeah. So it's about reorganizing the content. It's the same content. Math doesn't change arithmetic doesn't change that much. How it is designed and delivered? It has actually changed. It started changing in the nineties. And so we have to be able to look at that and know how we're marketing. I could have marked some content to my generation, to your generation, and would have been received exactly the same way. If I market the same content to a millennial or a z or an alpha, it's actually gonna be kind of different for each one of them. Well, I think that that has been a barrier to us attracting, people into our workforce. Hundred percent? Because you got a bunch of geysers like me who are retiring, but we've been the industry's spokespeople. We suck at communicating. You just told us that because we got we we didn't have to communicate because we were being told. We weren't communicating. We were listening or hear we were listening. I don't know if we were hearing it. But you just defined it. We we are not good communicators. So as it's interesting as the boomers retire out And I've said it a million times. I've told you, well, not a million, almost a million. I'm glad that some of us are retiring because we suck at at recruiting, we suck at retention, we suck at doing stuff that are good for the industry, things that are good for the industry. The younger generation to your point does communicate well, and I think we're going to be able to increase the attract which is a word. Who who used that Gabby the other day? They said we wanna attract people into the industry instead of recruit people. I don't remember who we're talking to. Somebody right now. Was it when we were on the phone with Megan? Yes. Actually, it was. Yeah. German bionics, cool company doing some really cool stuff and safety. But we're talking about attracting versus recruiting Sure. And it's like it's like fishing with good bait or fishing with a treble hook and hoping to snag somebody. So that's gonna be interesting to watch the, the continued development of how we're attracting people, to the industry. But You know, I think what you guys are doing, what you're doing in particular over there is working. Your I I watch your content. I have now for a little while. I see it developing in in in real time. It's it's hard to take stuff like we do and stuff like we talk about and make it sexy. It really is. You're right. But it's foundational that we do it, for, you know, and people, you can take this how you want to, but we're we're part of what makes human comfort and human sustainability go, you know, because without our workforce, it gets hot and sweaty in a damn hurry. Absolutely. And people don't wanna be hot and sweaty anymore. But, I mean, look at that building, Gabby's sitting there right now. You can't open that window. Nope. So you gotta have it. You and we've gotta figure out how to continue to attract. And I I see I'm looking at the clock, Clifton. I can't believe top of the hour already. Love it. I can talk as long as you want. I know. Well, it you know, it's so important that we continue to have these these light bulbs go off in in different little suckers of what we're doing because it's important to figure out for every person if we're gonna if if if the skilled person or not skilled person that has a kid that skill that wants to be a skilled person. How do we communicate that and how do we make it cool to be part of what we're doing? And that takes it takes some smart people to do it. Luckily, I know some. I won't put myself in that category, but Guys like you and ladies like you that are out there making a difference. We just gotta keep showcasing that. We gotta keep tweaking it. We gotta keep in a rolling with what's current and not what worked in nineteen sixty nine because that shit don't work anymore. Well, I mean, we think about that. You know, one of the biggest complaints that I hear from educators is I just can't communicate with this generation. And it can be a different it doesn't matter what generation it is. I mean, we if we think back a hundred years, I'm sure educators a hundred years ago had the exact same conversation. Yeah. So who were the successful educators and the successful communicators? The ones that were willing to adapt their own communication skill set. Yep. So well said. When we we had Kim Scott on the author on here recently and She she kept she didn't keep saying this. I kept hearing this in my head ringing that it doesn't matter What the words are when they leave your mouth, it matters what they are when they reach the ear of intention. Wow. That's beautiful there. Well, I mean, it's so true. It hurts happen to be on on radical candor, which is the book that we're talking about. But it's so true in any any format. If you think about HVAC or plumbing or whatever we're talking about, It's the same thing. I've gotta tell you in the words where you can hear it. I can't tell you in the words that I'm trying to say it because they're different. Think about that. You hit it right on the nail. What words are we saying? We're probably saying the words that we hear. Right. Absolutely. And we got your adapt. Yeah. Absolutely. My favorite movie, one of them, heartbreak Rich, adapt to Justin overcome. Oh, boy. What's that? And you have to do that, especially in communicating. So alright. I will quit rambling. Gabby always has a hot date for lunch, and I know that the lunch hour is coming up. What are you laughing at? That's true. Yeah. I I I have pudding today. So Well, Lifton, it's been, everything that I was hoping it would be and probably much more, of getting to talk to you. I hope that you'll consider coming back. And maybe, you know, tell us how, this upcoming session goes at the EscO. You wanna plug that? What what you gotta do? Yeah. So in March, we have every year. We have the National HVACR Education Conference. So this year, the conference is going to be me pull the exact date just to make sure I'm saying this right. I think I know when it's March twenty fifth through the twenty seventh. Yep. You can learn more about that at escogroup dot org and just select conference you can learn about anything that we talked about today. If you wanna learn about certifications, hey, what was that guy talking about with certifications? There's a tab for certifications. If you wanna learn about accreditation, there's a whole section on accreditation and schools across the country that are HVAC excellence accredited. We can talk about the relationships with UA. We can talk about training. We can talk about e learning. But definitely, that comp So with the conference, this year, we had, I think there was a thousand and thirty were along that ring. Typically, six to seven hundred. So we had a pretty significant uptick in interest of educators, and we had hundreds of first year educators coming to look for resources. So that's what we do is we provide resources. We have over eighty different classes scheduled this year. We had hundreds of applications of educators. We only had enough slots to fit in eighty. So, there's a lot to learn. The conference. A lot of people to me. I think that's a great sign for what is happening in the industry and people becoming more aware And you know what's really cool to me about the conference is it is at the south point, Asino, I I I've been to Vegas too many times in my life. I don't I'm not a Vegas person anymore. I don't drink anymore. I don't gamble anymore. Just a lot of stuff I don't do anymore, which the the strip, just it is it's just not where I go. What's cool about the south point is you can have all of that with a short cab ride, but you want it immersed. That tied to it. Exactly right. I'll I'll love it down there. That's run by a a great family as well. They they've been doing this a long time. So anyway, I encourage anybody that is interested in education. Regardless of what topic. Go look at this thing because it's really so well done. I'm already registered ice. The the fee for it is stupid cheap. Yeah. It's not one of those you gotta go beg to your boss for money for. It's stupid cheap. So, without with with with having said all that, I'm I'm, I'm thrilled you were with us. I really do appreciate you taking time. I look forward to continuing to follow. No. I'll see you and Mark in person out there, but we'll have a ball. But that's it, Gabby. We talked a lot today, and we didn't include you very much. I feel a little bit guilty. That's quite alright. I, you know, I'm a talker, but I also sometimes it's nice just sit back and listen. I hear you. That makes that makes Tuesday. It looks like a Monday, but it's really a Tuesday easier. That's right. Yeah. Alright. Well, take us to the house with this thing. Absolutely. Well, as Greg said, Clifton, thanks so much for joining us. As for everyone else, thank you again for tuning into another episode of straight out of Crumpton. Please subscribe thrive to either Spotify or Apple Podcasts for more episodes like this, and don't forget to check out Greg crumpton dot com for all of your Greg crumpton content.