Bridging the Skills Gap: SkillCat’s Mission to Revolutionize Trade Education with Brendan Arsenault

This is straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of straight out of Crumpin. I'm Warren Barr, and I am joined by Mr. Greg Crumpton. Greg, how are you doing today? I mean, I'm doing great. I'm sitting here looking out the window at a beautiful late December day. And, very thankful to live in the southeast where we get to have cool, but, nice weather. And, just enjoying the little holiday. It's been a little bit light, you know, work wise. People are a lot of people are off. So I've been able to do, sketching up on writing and and just having a having a good week. Got some work, Don. It's amazing what you can get done when nobody's working. It's like, great. Anyway, Looking forward to today, we got a gentleman with us who I've talked to. He's oddly enough in the skilled trades industry. I mean, it's so weird, you know, having somebody like that join us, but, really looking forward to today. How about you? How how are you today? I'm doing well. It's still kinda Christmas break for me. So, just I'm soaking in the the family time. It's been really sunny this week, so I'm soaking in some some nice outside time escaping the the fifty third floor of of the Bank of America Plaza. So it's nice to be on the ground for a little bit. No. I'll getcha. I getcha. Well, why don't you get us going today? Introduce our guest. I've got a a latterer of questions for him. So I'm I'm I'm like, you look at this list, I've got it. It's incredible. It's gonna be awesome. Gonna be epic. Fantastic. Well, I am excited today to introduce Brendan Arsenal. He is The co founder, one of the co founders of Skillcat. How are you doing today, Brendan? Doing good. Awesome. Thanks for having me all in here guys, and happy holidays, happy new years. And while I look forward to this conversation today. Well, Brandon, I'll always like to start our podcast off with, you know, getting to know the guest a little bit. Tell us a little bit about you and how you've got here and all that good stuff. But I'm curious of why you didn't wear a red shirt today when Gabby and I did. I don't I don't know what's going on with that. I missed the memo. Alright. Been vacation time, so I didn't really see all of my emails, you know, My fiance told me it's shut my phone off. So but I made it here today, which is great. So pretty much Slacker is what you're saying. Very much. We'll go with that. We'll go with that. Well, listen. I really do appreciate you taking time over to Christmas break. Please join us I kinda like working during the week between the holidays because it really is a time where you can get a lot of stuff done, and still have a lot of good family time because my office is at home, so I just have to go upstairs to escape the madness, which I frequently do. But, yeah, I just I like it. It's kinda refreshing. You know, it's not crazy busy, but kinda chip away at the list. So, appreciate you joining us this week, to do that. But why don't you tell us a little bit about you, really interested in Skillcat, how it came about, and what you guys are all about. Give us a little background. Yeah. So, I guess I'll kind of start from, like, the beginning and then this, you know, I never really thought I'd be working on the trade never was, like, a a big dream of mine, but it just so happened that one of my best friends in high school He was going into the trades. In high school, everyone has given him crap for going to that vocational school, and I always just sat back. I'm like, you guys just wait. You just wait to see what happened. To him. And I ended up doing the traditional thing, going to college, graduated college, didn't know what I was doing. No. I wanted to maybe be a business owner or work in sales, ended up finding a job at a company called W. V. Mason. Have you ever heard of that company? I have. It's pretty much like if you, ever watch the show, the office. I mean, I worked in the office every single day. Top sales guy's name was, like, Jim, my boss, like, he was out there and he would play, like, thunderstruck on Fridays when we'd walk into the office. It was It was awesome. But the same tale of what everyone else pretty much know is this COVID camera. Got laid off. And then I was unemployed for a little bit, and my best friend from high school's dad called me and goes, Hey, work for this company. We're looking for a young sales guy to come in. I was like, cool. I don't know what it is. I don't know what you sell. I just need a job. What is it? And it was selling things to the trades to companies like Ferguson, FW Webb, wind supplies, tools like DEWALT, and I did that for about a year and a half, and I lived on the road. Like, you're in a hotel five nights a week, four nights a week. Depends. And Eventually, I looked around for another job, wanted to be a little bit more at home and came across Skillcat while they were just got funded our CEO Roshier was hiring a couple people for marketing and sales, in the US here. And somehow I got the job. I don't know how I feel like I was very, unqualified, but I guess she saw something in me. And, ended up joining the company I've worked our way up doing multiple different positions at Skillcat. And that's kinda how I came about Skillcat and ever shear started it was, he actually had another company called Learn To Drill beforehand. And that was pretty much helping get people very easily, doesn't it? Got a very old rebel. Yes. Yeah. And, he was helping get people ring task certified after the BP oil spill. And he wanted to see, like, alright, COVID came around, actually. And all these oily gas workers got laid off because we all saw a gas go down to, like, a dollar. So they don't really need anyone at point. And he was like, well, how can I help get all these people jobs and the trades? Because they're super hardworking people. And that's where he started Stillcat. And that's where we've been today is how do we get people into the trades? And that's been our passion every single day we wake up when we start working towards it. Well, that, as you know, is a passion near and dear to my heart. You know, I think about the trade Probably obsessively, because, you know, that's what I've done my whole life. It's what my family's done. I mean, that's just my people. Is that right? That's not even proper English. Those are my people. Jesus. It's really easy. So, you know, I think about it a lot, and I think about, you know, a wide TV shows, and I'll listen to the news, that I take my anti depressant after the news. You know, we're we've got this thing that's missing, and I've I've been really trying to define what is missing with our education or our creating awareness And I was watching last night. I watched a little episode of I forgot either way. Channel or what network, but it was Mike Rowe who I watch a lot when I can because I appreciate what he is trying to do for the trade. And you may never What I'd I'd take to be a controversial statement now that I've gone back and researched what he said. But, one thing he felt was missing his initiative you know, in in our new in our in our up and coming generation. And, you know, I'm very, very hesitant to to walk a group in with anything because they're every generation has all stars. Every generation has duds always have, like, the biblical crime. So I hate to say anybody and everybody kinda, you know, those absolutes scared crap out of me. But Mike Rowe quoted, a guy who wrote a paper called a message for Gabriel. I'm sorry, a message for Garcia. So I I was not familiar with it. I went and looked it up last night. And the whole it's a page and a half or two, document that was written in the late eighteen hundreds, I think. And, the whole thing when you read it and kinda synthesize it, it comes down to initiative. Like, How how do you innately know, when somebody's got it? You know, I've talked about people having it forever, but it's hard to define. And, a lot of trades workers have it because they chose not to go to college, or couldn't go to college or whatever, didn't wind up in college. And as a skilled worker, sometimes you really have to get guttural and go with your instincts and you go with your natural abilities to make a career. And, I just started thinking about it last night about the what what gives people initiative to get going? You know, what is their mojo creator. So I'm kinda curious when you guys are talking to young folks and recruiting young folks and and people coming out of the military looking for careers. What what the here's here's the question after nineteen minutes of me rambling. How do you define what it is in your world? If somebody has it Does that mean anything to you? Do you know what that means? Yeah. So we help hire for ARS. Which is the nation's largest residential home service company for their entry level bill call it build a tech. Academy where they take someone that might be, like, a waiter or a bartender beforehand. And in ten weeks, they turn them into preventative maintenance technicians. And we help go and we go find fifteen, twenty of them. Our retention rate and placement rate for that has been about ninety five percent of a ninety seven percent retention rate today. And through that, we pride ourselves very much so on finding the right hires and the people with that drives. And I think it really comes down to the motivation of what do they have going on in their life, you know, are they prepared for all of the good and the bad that's gonna come with the job And do they enjoy working with their hands? Are they coming from a finance career? Although, they might still have it. It's just they never knew that they had the opportunity to get into the trades. So I think there's maybe a couple different things to address that a society of, like, at the age of eighteen, saying, I are you going to college, or are you going into the trades or what are you gonna do with your life? Probably another slot that says, you just kind of go start working. You don't really know what you're gonna do. And in that space of, like, I went down the college road, It's very, very hard to go back. Because once you go down there, you've got debt, you've got all of these bills that you have to go pay the second that you go there. You sign you sign thousands of dollars of debt. Second, you say you're going there. And then you go to trade route. And you're like, alright. This is where I'm gonna go. A lot of these jobs that maybe I don't wanna be in the trades require that bachelor degree. And then you go down this route of, alright, I started working I started working here. I got some experience, but now I bought a car. I've got these payments. It kinda, like, predefined where you're going I will go with the ARS opportunity is they pay you to go through that pro. And through that program, it allowed those two people that maybe were in the thirty with thirty five years old and they had debt and they had kids of bills to pay for, to make that switch and go back over. Versus once you go to college, you gotta go work and you can't stop for two years and just go to trades. So I think it goes down to a lot of, like, what's happened in somebody's, like, what society is pushing them on. And that it driver, I think it's just motivation. Like, how bad do you want it? Because I think we could all do anything that we want. Within reason. I mean, our parents always tell everyone that you could be president. And now all of us are gonna be president. Oh, well, that god, Bryce. That is not not as hard here. Nope. God helped the people that do that. But literally. No. I think it comes down to it, I think, is your motivation. Like, what's your drive? What's your motivation? It might be money. It might be satisfaction of completing a job every single day and getting it done, I think it, you can't define as one thing. I think it's a sector of things, and then finding the person and slide them into that right slot. No. That's good. I wanna come back to you in a second and talk about the soft skills, associated. With that ARS program. But, Gabby, I wanted to ask you, what what about it when you think about somebody who has it What does that mean to you with anything? Honestly, I would say that I I do agree with Brendan. I think when it comes down to it from, like, what I've seen, it really comes down to motivation and then also passion. You know, I think if you're motivated and you're really passionate about what you're doing, about what you're going into, no matter where or what that is. I think your chance of succeeding and, you know, Ex sending people's expectations is always going to be so much harder because you're willing to do what other people may not be willing to do because that's you know where you wanna be. And I think that's kind of like The hard thing where it's like sometimes people don't necessarily know where they wanna be, so it kind of makes it hard for them have that drive or that passion, and it makes it a little difficult to know, you know, what is the next step? I've had friends who They're like, I know exactly what I'm gonna do. I am in law school. And then in five years, I will be at this practice. And then five years from that, I'm gonna own my own practice. And, like, there's there's nothing stopping those friends. They will they will achieve those goals without a doubt in my mind because that is something that they've, like, set their mind to and they are, like, so passionate about All they talk about is, you know, law school. All they talk about is their their science job that I I don't for the life. I only understand no matter how much they explain it to me. And so I think that kind of the real defining factor behind, you know, the it factor is, you know, obviously there's other stuff comes into play, you know, your brain and and how you were raised and what your work ethic look like and things like that. There's a lot of small pieces that come into play that need to, you know, fit as well, but I think the really big motivator is that motivation and that passion that that person has for whatever project or whatever job that they're trying to do and that that goal that they're trying to achieve because it really does not matter I don't think. What what that other small stuff looks like as long as they're passionate enough and they're willing to put in that work to make that dream happen for them. Alright. Brandon, you you mentioned the ARS program ten weeks from from waitstaff to honed HVAC tech, maintenance tech. So so much of what I find customer service to be has to do with with soft skills equally if not more so than technical. You know, I I've said for forty years, I I can train somebody to Chuck a furnace, you know, read a meter, reded gas, pressure gauge. What have you? I can do all that, but I can't teach them not to be an a hole. You know, how it so does a program like the ARS one, and I'm not I don't know anything about them or have any, you know, inside knowledge on them. So just a generic question. Does a program like that consist of the soft skills piece as well as technical, or how are they bridging that gap between, in a human interaction and and technical proficiency. Yeah. And so where we go out and we find the talent, and we don't do any of the trainings. I'll run through it though. That's one of the things that we actually look for and test for. During the interview processes. Now, how are their communication skills? How do they complete customer service, aptitudes, and simulations? That we put them through, and that we all always do one on one assessments with them and ask them, hey, go through this simulation, we'll watch them do it. And not only will the simulation give us a score, but we'll sit there and we'll see if they get frustrated. Do they ask for help and and them asking for help isn't a bad thing. It's just showing that they have that purpose of, like, hey, what do I do? How am I supposed to do it correctly? And it carries a lot into, like, the kind of person it is now If you've got someone going through there and they're getting frustrated and they're punching their laptop and, like, they're probably not some they're probably gonna be that a hole that you're just talking about. So we look for that. And in their program, they also train. They teach the right ways to go through and present an opportunity. But on our piece for what we do is we look for all of that beforehand, putting them through, we can't clap it to a test, having one on one conversations with, and really just knowing the individual of who they are. So we hardly even look at resumes in our process. We look at who that person is through one way interviews. We put them through some training beforehand before they ever even go in there. So we really look at who this person is and not just based on the experience that they have because this was created so that everyone had an equal opportunity to be able to join the trades. Well, I, you know, I I kinda equate it to, I I don't know real life, you know, because when we're out, we're all consumers. So when you're out and about, you know, if I'm over here at the hardware store or up here at the U. P. S. Store or whatever, you know what feels good as a as a customer. You know, you know how you wanna be treated, And I'm not, you know, I I'm pretty, like, just basic. I don't need a lot of ear taking. I just need to know Where to go, what to do, you know, how to do it. I don't need a lot of loving and stroking, but you know, everybody's not me, you know, and you have to be able to read those situations to, you know, like, My wife is different than I others. She goes into the hardware store. She needs to be helped because she had no her way around or whatever. You have to as a as a tech or as a plumber or as whatever as a, you know, a skilled cat co founder You have to be able to to read that room, read that situation. A lot of people don't have that naturally, and you know, I think that a lot of people have it within them. I think we just have to help them bring it out and show how important that is You know, that's one thing we're doing service logic is doing through our academy. The edge, platform is our training academy. And, you know, we're talking about these things with our technicians of how how to act when you go into you know, office building. How do you present yourself? What do you look like? You know, tuck your dang shirt in, and, you know, all that stock that so instrumental before we even talk about air conditioning. You know, it's just that bam moment where you walk in And that lady who's a property manager is looking at you and you're looking at her, like, that's where it happens. You know, you gotta be able to present well because she's showing you that she's the property manager. And, you know, she could be one of the thousand people and thousand different personalities. Maybe she wants to get right to the point. Maybe she wants to know how your weekend was. Who knows? But you have to be able to read that and you have to be able to interact. And that just takes time and and I but I think it takes awareness to make sure people know that's important. So I was just kinda curious of how how that worked for you guys. Yeah, and You're you're right too, and I missed a part of it is when we even hold this in person event when we do it. So, like, me, I'm from Maine. We did two classes out in California for them this year. I actually flew all the way out to San Francisco, Sacramento area, and then all the way down LA two separate times. And while on there, we hold this in person, Ben, and we don't sugar go anything. And we go over, hey, here's what you know, customer service is supposed to look like. And not all because a lot of these people haven't worked in the trades, I love to relate it back to everything, every person can relate to. So go into a restaurant. And I give them two different scenarios. You know, you go there, you ask for a refill, And the lady takes five minutes to get a refill. And she comes back, and then your food is always late. First, you've got someone that coming over to you, checking up on you, making sure that you've got it. She sees, hey, do you need a refill? And she asked you beforehand because she's paying attention to your need. And I also give them another situation of, I can't remember who talked about it. It's on YouTube. I'll have to send you the clip But this guy talks about traveling in an airport. And you're on a plane, you're on a business trip, and you go and You finish twenty four hours early. Really wanna get home. We've been traveling for the week. You call the airline and you say, Hey. I really like to get home. They're like, Hey, you have a nonrefundable light. Can't change it. We won't get you home. Please, I just really wanna get home. And it says, nope. Nope. Nope. Second's very young. You go through, you call the airline. And you say, hey. I finished up early. I'd really wanna get home. Person on the other end goes, Do you want let me take a look at that for you. Oh, sir, you booked a unrefundable flight. I'm sorry. Can't do anything. But Hold on. Wait. Let me go ask my supervisor. It goes and asks our supervisor. And sorry. We can't do anything. But Let me go see if I can get you on another airline and transfer your ticket. Same results still couldn't get them home, but the way that they dealt with the situation means that you'll come back to that airline versus the one that just said, no. There's absolutely nothing that we can do for you. And it's all about that customer service, although it was the same thing, And it's not a lot of these are sales that they're doing. It's customer service. So I love to relay it back to customer service, although they're going into what's turning into a very sales based industry. And just saying, hey, you might not have all that sales or technical experience. But I know each and every single one of you have done customer service and you know what customer service is, how it should be, and how it shouldn't be. Yeah. You know, I I'm I'm really weird about air conditioning people as salespeople because I I struggle with the fact that we take young people who are, you know, it's funny because I was just writing a article this morning about debt. Young people staying out of debt. And, so this is kinda right down that vein We take young people, that are in the air conditioning service industry, probably have a wife maybe a husband, maybe a kid or two house payment card payment, yada yada yada yada. And then we say, okay, Here is an uneducated homeowner. It goes sell them some stuff. And, by the way, we're gonna pay you commission. I I kinda I'm a little bit, and I have no idea about this because I'm not in the residential world. This is strictly me looking at this from the outside. I'll worry that we're putting these people in a position of overselling, in a in a situation. And I know that comes down to the scruples of the company that they're representing and how they go about selling. And I really do appreciate that piece of it. I just worry that we're putting them in a position of, you know, that thing could go another six months, but I got a house payment coming. I really could use that two hundred dollar bump. How do you how do you think or or or have you ever thought about that? Does that ring a bell for you? Or where's, in my personal space? No. I have multiple opinions on it, and I've talked to a lot of technicians about it. And I think Again, I wanna live it back to, like, you know, sales versus, like, customer service. And I think if we're pushing sales like crazy, there's gonna be a lot of bad apples that are gonna show up because you can make a lot of money in sales in HVAC. But I've heard of some people making as an HVAC a million dollars plus a year. Like, it's not a crazy thing to hear about. People making multiple six figures as a tech. And I think there's sales and then cost order service. So if you go into a house and kit, you realize, like, everything's super clean, and you have a conversation with them and come to find out, like, oh, we really like to keep things clean. Everyone in the house gets six really, really easily. And then you present them with, like, an air scrubber of, hey, this, like, kills diseases on contact. Did you know, like, you could offer this so we could set it up. I think that's, you know, good customer service of presenting it to them, but then coming in there and saying, hey, you know, your compressor is bad. We're gonna have to rip the whole new unit out. We're gonna have to do a quick new install. Like, that's I think pushy sales. And, personally, I've been I'm in sales, and we're all in sales every day. I hate the pushy sales. I think creating that relationship and finding what's right for the customer is the good way. And I've seen companies do this, like, one two three solution. And it's, like, good call it good, better, best. And in that, you offer, okay, Let's say it's gonna be a horrible example, but your toilet breaks. And you go in and you're I can fix it and I can use some duct tape. It's gonna cost you five dollars, and I can fix it. Alright. I'm never hiring with a plumber. Good. Don't. Don't. If it plumbing should never go together. So you you say, hey, I can use some duct tape. I can get it picked. Or Yep. Option two, I can replace a flapper for you, and we'll see, you know, how that works and it should fix most of the issue. Or three, we can go get you a brand new toilet. We can get it fixed here's another really cool option. It's got the heated seats, you know, in case you don't like your butt cold in the morning when you're going to the bathroom. So it's offering the different options and saying, like, what works best for you? That maybe they do have that house payment and they say duct tape would get me by the next two months and then let's call back and we can have you put that new flapper in. I think that's probably the best way to do sales in the HVAC industry. Yeah. And and I just want I mean, I I'm not throwing anybody under the bus because it comes down to personal integrity or the the the technician. There's diligence to be done by the homeowner. And, you know, what what did the companies allowing them their employees to be how how they're being represented. So I'm a I'm just about an educational sale. You know, I if you wanna talk about you know, ultraviolet lighting, explain that to me. And then let me buy if I feel inclined after I've become educated. So anyway, I was just curious how that went. Alright. Still cat. Let's talk about numbers. We could numbers of the and what I mean numbers, the number of people that are needed the number of people you guys are seeing come through. What are some some of the metrics around what you guys are trying to fulfill as far as filling a void. What what does that look like and what do y'all talk about in head count was? Yeah. So I actually did some fun math around this. The other day. And I believe in the next ten years, we in the trades industry, there's gonna be a need for three point two, three point one million job openings in the next ten years. So if you do the math on that, there's seventy for hundred trade schools in the United States. Let's say we fill an average class size around twenty to thirty people. You do that math out, it only comes to about six hundred thousand new people entering the industry, which leads a deficit of two point four, two point five million open jobs still. That's a huge gap. How are we gonna fill that up? That's a top of that familiarity and we have now. Right? Right. So it's it's, like, this huge gap, and it's, like, even if we filled every single trade school, we're still not gonna be able to fill that gap. So skilled cat came in here. We wanted to offer another educational aspect and another way for people to find jobs in the trades from super duper low cost right on their phone. They don't have to take two years to out of their time to go to a trade school, but they can get all the same education without that that hands on experience. That they would from a trade school, just available at time on demand e learning. And we put it right into an app on every single person's phone, be able to download it. People can get EPA six zero eight certified, right through Skillcat, which is a huge, plus of being able to bring people into the industry. You have to be more and more. Right. New Year. What is it? Gabby's going for six zero eight in twenty twenty four. That's her goal. Nice. Well, gabby, I've got a great app for you to be able to do that. And you wouldn't know which so it is yet. I I do not. We'll get you there. We'll work on it together. But that's where Skokac came into place is we know that there's gonna be a huge gap. There's a huge need in the trades. And quite honestly, with education coming out there and more and more people talking about the opportunity in the trades, parents are starting to rethink, like, hey, maybe it's not so bad that my kid doesn't go to college. And maybe he goes and works as an apprentice for the next four years. It was an age backpack. And, oh, my god. Wait. He can make six figures in four years while all these other people are six figures in debt. Coming out of college? Yeah. Then then they go to the they go to the kids vacation house then after the kid baus without Yes. Family, great vacation home. Yeah. And not to say, like, going to college is bad, but I think for the last twenty years, I know especially when I graduated high school was it was like, oh, you're going to trade school. Like, you know, like, what what college are you going to? Like, that was the talk. And if you weren't going to college, you were looked down upon, and I think nowadays, It's like, there's a hell of a shift. I saw this thing come out on South Park. I don't know if you guys have seen the three minute clip. Where it's, like, five years from now and everyone's got, like, a geology degree. Oh, all that. Got this. And then it's the plumber coming up in his limo, and it's like, he's the one that's making a ton of money now and it's like, that's very much so where we're going. Look where he says, hey, you guys get out of here. You're making the Home Depot. It looks like Right here? Yeah. Yeah. That one. Yeah. And it's like, we'll do geology for free or some crap. It was so funny. That was a good one. Yeah. But it it's so perfect. I mean, it's literally where we're heading because the trades are gonna have so much demand and it did not get in smaller and smaller demand. It's only getting bigger. Or maybe that geology degree not quite as much as HVAC or plumbing. You know, I told you earlier before we hit record that my my cousin is a a bowden or bowden. How do you pronounce that college? Oh, it in. Yeah. Bodden in Maine. And she is a geologist. So Hey. Hey, Dan. Molina, if you're listening to this, we still love you. Yeah. You know, I I find that, Interesting. I think is the right word because I've never had a bias toward hating the trades because I've always been ill. And I grew up in them. So I've never, like, had that feeling maybe maturly, I did because my mom wanted me to go to college. I I've never had that that bias of, you know, the trades being bad because that's what fed our family. So I I can't speak to it firsthand, but I hear a lot of people talking about it. Like, it's a big deal. And I'm glad to hear you say you feel like the tide kinda turning on that because peer pressure is, you know, hell, that's that's about as big of a pressure as you can have applied to you, in in any sense, at such a young age. Yeah. And and, you know, you you searched something while ago too. Brennan about, you know, here you are at eighteen, try to decide what you wanna do. You can't decide Scott when you're eighteen, you know, because especially guys. We we can't get out of our own damn way till we're twenty five. But, you know, to to make a career choice, at a young age. It's kinda so I'll look at it like this. I feel like trades missioned young people tend to know quicker what they wanna do as opposed to college bound young people. I don't know why I think that, but just witnessing and living through it. That's what I've I've kind of been, you know, swayed to believe. I don't know if that's true or not. But, you know, this has got to start way before eighteen. This has gotta start in middle school. This has gotta start. I'm working with a group. It's called nomad Futurus And we talk about showing the next generation of data center workers either network people, infrastructure people, compute people, what a trade or what a career in the data center could look like. And we talked to people who who are drawing coloring books for kids about building stuff and trying to go younger, a younger, younger, What do you think about that? How how do you see, you know, because you are a college educated, and now you're trying to help people move toward the the tricks. What what's early? What's too late? How do you what what's something blocking your head? I mean, this might sound pretty contrary, but I think we already start pretty early. I mean, if you think about it when you're four or five years old, I mean, you get the that tractor set. You get the those bulldozer to go play with outside and inside your house. Like, that's kinda, like, your first interaction just, like, other, however a book of kinda understand the trades. I think it's I hope. Hold on. Hold on right there. Hold on right there. Do you think that's still happening on a on a big scale kid still getting tractors? Oh, yeah. I mean Most out of Maine, maybe. Maybe outside of Maine, I don't know. I I've maybe you are right because I a lot of kids now too are going into the I get a iPhone at six, seven years old, and they start wanting to be influencers on TikTok now. So we work with, like, HVAC, Jennifer. Yeah. And she talks about the trades on TikTok. So I think it's going to the places where the young young cakes are now and talking about, what the opportunity in the trades is and making content appealing to them. I mean, I'm not telling anyone to go out there and start, like, shaking their butt and talking about the trade while you're doing it. But, you know, show the opportunity of, like, how cool it is to get up and go well in these giant tractors. Like, I think that's cool. Yeah. But then I think on that young folks side in that middle, I wanna say probably middles because that's where it stopped for me. Was I had, like, one year of shop class and then it shut down. I was right at that point where they shut shop classes out of schools. From, like, middle school to high school, it's like when you're going into high school, it's really, Alright. Now you need to define what kind of courses you're gonna take, are you gonna be in these advanced classes? It's not all these fun shop classes, you have to go outside of the school to vocational school to go do that. Bring it back into the high schools, and put it there because I think that's where you're most susceptible where you have to make a decision, not say it's an educated decision of what you're gonna do with your life. To where you're gonna go, put it somewhere where it's readily available. But, you know, if you're naturally inclined to go there, make it easy. You know what I mean? Like, So here here's a question. When you were in school and you did the one year of shop class, would you have done additional years I'd have been continued to be offered? Yeah. I loved it. When I was in shop class, I can still remember, like, all the little projects that I did when you had, like, the wood burners and you get to, like, burn your name into the wood and that's what you bring home for, like, Christmas and stuff. Like, I still remember all of doing that. And my brother too, I mean, kid was so good and, like, art class too. He actually created, like, this lamppost that is a trout, and the light comes right up through the top of it. And, like, I think he did this when he was in, like, eighth grade. It went to the main Museum of Art, but he didn't have the opportunity to continue all that. But, I mean, god, at that age and for how well it looked, and I wish I had something to show you on it. It looks phenomenal. I wish you'd, like, given the opportunity to pursue that more, but you don't have that chance. Yeah. That's what we gotta get back. So Alright. Pat knows we could talk all day about this stuff. I love it. Tell me how skilled cat works for it. I wanna get you some a plug in here. How does it work? We is it, a thousand dollars a month on you know, and you get everything, or is it free? How does it well, she if you wanna pay me a thousand bucks, I'm not gonna say, no, Greg. I already paid you a thousand to be on this podcast. Come on. Wait for that check. No. So Skokat, it's very unique in the industry. There's a lot of companies that go directly, you know, b to b and you work here or b to c and here's your opportunity. Go catchable. We offer that route to be able to get into the trades on the BDC side. It's ten dollars a month. You get access to a lot of the stuff on the plat and then you've got the b to b access. And companies have a full blown dashboard and create custom wiring plans, look into analytics, create custom learning plans right on the dashboard, see the progress and offer insights to what all of your workers at your company are are doing. And that starts at just fifty dollars a month. And we say per month, it's not like you sign a one year contract and you're locked in. I mean, it gives you that opportunity to hire someone. If they work out for two or three months, because we know there's a high churn rate of people coming into the industry, drop them off and that's it. But at least you gave them that resource, within those two to three months while they were with you to be able to learn. Because right now, it's some other companies I know we work with you are out there is you bring them on, you bring that one person, you pay that fifty dollars for the whole year, and they leave two months down the road. It doesn't matter. We want you to pay for that person where they're getting the education. So and, really, yep, It's a library for the for the tradesperson and it's a learning management system for the boss. Yep. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. It's kinda like a dashboard. So if you could tell what everyone's doing on, Facebook, that's what it is. Hey, Gabri. Did you think he looks like Matt Moss a little bit when you're looking? I do. I do see a little bit. I think it's I think it's the glasses. I think Matt has, like, the exact same pair of glasses. Same haircut and the same curly hair. So alright. We had your call to make sure it wasn't me. I kinda flashed over mentally for a minute up there. Okay. And, Brandon, this you know, he works with Gabby, and he's a good dude. So you're you're you're in good company. Cool. So Brandon, what is the best way for somebody interested in the trades or somebody who has a kid that they want to get interested in the trades to learn about you and what they're doing. How did they or what you're doing? How How did they find you? What's the easiest point of entry other than Eagle Pass Texas Yeah. Alright. So the easiest way to get started is just go download an app. I mean, that's it's available on the app store, the Google Play Store. Go download it. Start using it. You get seven days for free. If your kid's using it, And you they're like, oh my gosh, this is fun because we've it's not just, like, boring tier. I mean, there's a ton of gamification in there where you can learn how to, like, change a filter on a fridge in all three d simulations to be able to learn how to do that. Just right around your phone and your kid really loves doing it, tell them to go download it because they got seven days if they use it. I mean, I know how crazy stuff is today, but one less Starbucks a month, he used for a scope Skocat. It's ten dollars a month after after that. And if they're using it, they're getting education out of it. There's tools on there to be able to help them utilize, you know, how do I fix a toilet? We actually have a tool for that where it will watch you step by step how to troubleshoot and then fix the issue on it. If you're a business wanting to get started, reach out to us on the website, very shortly, coming soon. You'll be able to just sign up and get going no problem at all. It's all gonna be self sign up soon enough so that all companies, if they wanna try it, can try it for free, put their users on there, if they're getting utility out of it, they can keep going and paying for it. Alright. So the app is SkillPoint app. That's it? Skill cat app dot com, or you can just go to your app store and just download skill cat. Okay. S k I l l CAT. So I wanna make this offer right now for anybody who is listening, I will give away a scholarship of a year's worth of skilled cat to anybody who, contacts Brendan and says crumpton Seventy, the first one to do that gets a year on me. So I just heard applause somehow. I don't know how that happened. We don't we're not even that sophisticated. Maybe met more. Added some applause in there for us. But I I mean, I want I wanna do stuff like that to try to help people get going. And I don't give a crap that it's ten people are twelve people for a month each. However, just let's just get some free people. Give them give them some time on me, Brandon. We'll work out the finances, but I'll give you a little bit of leeway. There's we'll do no finance on that if anyone reaches out and they just say Crumpton, I'll make sure that we give them, three months of free access. Let's go, okay. Anyone that reaches out. You use your promo code straight out of Crumpton with Brendan and get No. I really wanna help, you know, and that's the way we have to do it. There's no one way to do this. It takes many ways and many people. So I wanna I wanna help with that. However, we can't. So Yeah. And it's It's awesome. Do that. And we love putting our education out there, and we're working with, explore the trade. The nonprofit and, or worse The lady's name. What's the lady's name? It runs up. Yeah. Kate. Yep. Yep. So working with Kate, and we're looking to put Skillcat in a bunch of different high schools and giving out, like, thousands of users access to be able to learn about it. So although shop class may not be there anymore, everyone still has one of these little phones readily available. I'm sure everyone's got it in an hour reach right now. And we can put, let's call it five thousand users on the skullcat app, and ten percent of them say, oh my gosh. This is really cool. I'd love to learn more about it and really sell the opportunity of, like, I can make a good living, a really good living working in the trades. I think we just brought and changed five hundred people's lives and Originally, that's why I joined Skillcat because I've felt the opportunity to help change lives and help change the world. And I think we really have that ability to do that with Skokat. Man, I love that. Thank you for that. Hey, Stanama, I believe, how you pronounce her last name? Yes. Yep. So if he's doing great work, I I just wanna shout out a couple of people doing similar join to trades, is another group that that I'm familiar with. Nicole Bass and Company over there kicking some serious ASS, good people. What? So there's just a lot of these good things bubbling up. We just have to get them to coalesce around how we can put our look at me. I'm holding my arms up. Like, I'm hugging somebody. Right? We gotta get the collective good working, you know, for the betterment of everyone. So alright. Look. I know we're coming up on the hour, Gabby. I know that you have got to get in there and watch doctor Phil or something with your family because you are taking time out of your personal life for this. So thank you. But Brendan, thank you for taking time today with us. Skilled cat is, you know, one of One of the good guys is what we'll call it, because y'all are out there trying to make a difference. It's such a value that we need in the country. We have to have educated people to do crap because crap's got to get done because we're humans and we meet crap. So we gotta get it. So thank you for taking time with us, in telling us about Skillcat. I I hope people will go out, download the app see what it's about. Play with it, share it, send it to your neighbor's kids. Who, however, let's just get it out there more. Alright, Gabby. There's my rant. I'm done. Awesome. Well, as Greg was saying, Brendan, thanks so much helping on with us today and telling us about all the awesome stuff that Skillcat is doing and, you know, just talking about The trades in general, it's always such a great conversation. And, you know, I think it's a great way to get Skillcat's name out there, get some more people on the app, and also just kind of raise some more awareness for the trades and normalize You know, maybe not going to college and doing an apprenticeship instead and kinda seeing where where that takes you and working a little more with your hands. So it's been really great talking to you today. And, as for all of our other listeners, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of straight out of Crumpton. For more episodes like this, please subscribe to Apple or Spotify Podcasts, and don't forget to check out Greg crumpton dot com for all of your Greg crumpton content. This is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton.