Many skilled operators dream of being their own boss, but the reality is a brutal mix of financial pressure, operational chaos, and personal sacrifice. In this episode, Sy Kirby of Sy-Con Excavation shares his unfiltered story of turning a trade into a thriving business.
From a name his grandfather wrote on a toy truck to building a company, a popular YouTube channel, and the Blue Collar Business Podcast, Sy reveals the raw truths about making big bets on people, kickstarting a marketing strategy at CONEXPO-CON/AGG, and handling the crushing stress of being the CEO.
Topics:
- Building a business around better work culture
- Managing growth, stress, and entrepreneurial pressure
- Advocating for trades over traditional college paths
- Why AI makes blue collar careers more valuable than ever
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Welcome back, everybody, to the CONEXPO-CON/AGG podcast. I'm your host, as always, Taylor White. And I also want to thank our sponsor, John Deere Power Systems, for sponsoring this podcast. Thank you so much. Also, I want to remind everybody that March third to the seventh, the largest construction, North American construction show, is coming again to Vegas. Make sure to sign up for the newsletter for tickets, and I can't wait to see everybody there. It's fantastic.
But what's more exciting currently is that today I have Sy Kirby with me from Sy-Con Excavation and Utilities. You also might know him from his YouTube channel, where he has gained quite the following, as well as the Blue Collar Business Podcast. Sy, thanks for being on.
Sy Kirby: Man, long time coming. Thank you so much. Longtime listener, first-time caller.
Taylor White: Yeah. You were explaining to me just before, and we didn't get into it because I wanted to save it, but where did Sy-Con, the name, come from?
Sy Kirby: Well, everybody would just assume that I'm a complete narcissist, but I am not. My grandfather - I'm actually from Canada, grew up in Scarborough. I immigrated down here one - yeah, dude. So, anyhow, my grandfather, out in Newfoundland, they would commercially fish all winter. Well, they would come back - he was in the construction union in downtown Toronto - and he would come back through summertime.
Man, I got to get on some really cool equipment when I was not like two, three, four years old, right, out there with him. But, man, I would be on the floor trying to be Pop, you know, with my little, what we call Dinky toys, die-cast, little excavators and dozers. And one day he just picked it up, and he took a Sharpie out of his pocket there and wrote "S-Y-C-O-N." And I still have some of those Dinky toys today, die-casts that are in the shop now. But that's literally where the name came from. And I was twenty-three, me and my wife, we started together. It'd be almost ten years - in 2016, so it'd be ten years starting in August.
Taylor White: What made you take that big leap?
Sy Kirby: My guy, man, several different things, but honestly, I just wanted to treat people better. I loved what I did, and I did believe I could do it better. I mean, that kind of thought process, of course, comes quickly, but twenty-two, twenty-three years old, I had no idea - still don't to this day - what I was actually biting off and walking down the path of doing. But honestly, I just loved what I did, thought I could create an environment for people that wanted to come to work and enjoy doing what we do together, you know what I mean?
Taylor White: Yeah, that's kind of generally how it starts. Some people are looking at something, and they look, "Okay, well, how can I maybe do this a little bit better?" So, when you guys started out, what did you start out with doing? Like, what was the start, like the vision of, "This is what we want to do"?
Sy Kirby: Right. So, I'm, by trade, a pipe guy. Nineteen, twenty years old, I did various odd-ends things all over the spectrum. Between eighteen and nineteen, I landed at a municipality - water distribution, basically taking care of the city's, town's water system, right? Water leaks, water breaks, etc. Well, then I moved to a larger town, got a license at the smaller town - a water distribution license through the health department - then went to this larger town thinking, "Oh, advancement, opportunities, here we go!" And it was beyond a political nightmare.
And so we obviously came across a bunch of contractors through this time, and I was like, "Well, they do exactly what we do. Why do they get to put in the new stuff? That seems like a whole lot more fun than just repair and rehab and fixing leaks." Well, I literally, when we started Sy-Con, it wasn't, "Oh, I'm going to take over the pipe world," but it was, I wanted to build a couple of crews - for sure, several crews - and lay new infrastructure: water, sewer, storm drain. And then we brought on dirt ops about year seven. Yeah, something like that, a couple years ago.
So mainly, man, we started - dude, I did anything. I'd bury a daggum horse. I know that's the running joke for every excavation guy, but I had two vets on call, man. I didn't care where they were. That was two hundred fifty dollars for fuel, baby, you know what I mean? And a lot of electricians and plumbers, man, I'd dig those yard lines because back then I didn't have a commercial license here in the state of Arkansas. You've got to have a commercial contractor's license to be able to bid on commercial work. And so, working my way through a bunch of different various resi work, and then you'd hit a home run, you get a nice place out by the lake that you've got to lot clear and whatnot. So we did a bunch of that but got into a very weird niche here in Arkansas: the underground fire suppression game. And it just put us on - I mean, we, first year we did forty-three projects, last we were - did seventy-eight in a year, one and a half per week. Anyways, it was a crazy big boom through here in Northwest Arkansas, but it put us on a lot of these places with these commercial projects. And as long as you did what you said you were going to do, these commercial superintendents, they'd be like, "Hey man, I got a scope gap over here. Would you mind backfilling these curbs?" or, "Hey man, will you do these irrigation sleeves nobody picked up?" And we would start picking up this small stuff, then all of a sudden their office was like, "Hey, our PM said you guys kind of helped us out over there. Could - could you do this?" And that's how it started.
Taylor White: That's so interesting, how you go from kind of like starting, and it kind of grows into this thing, and then like you said, year seven, you add the dirt operations. What was the big leading push behind that? I guess, elaborate on that.
Sy Kirby: Okay. No, I'm glad you asked, bro, because I hired a gentleman who's still with me, still running that dozer today. Sam. He's been with me almost five years. And we ran a project, like I said, I was a pipe guy, we were handling, I think, just the water line and some sewer services, etc., but he was working for a different company doing the earthwork on the project for these townhomes that we were doing. And we got through the job, and I was standing there - I think I was testing the water line, blowing it off, getting ready to chlorinate it - and he walked up and he's like, "Hey man, I really liked your guys that came through here." And I actually helped a couple of days, me personally in the track hoe, help that crew. I think we had a guy on vacation, whatever it was, and he's like, "Man, I just loved how you and your guys worked together. I know you don't do dirt, but is there a chance?" And I'm like, "Yeah, eventually. One day, my guy, but not anytime soon, I don't think."
Well, I made a deal with him, and I honored my deal. I was like, "Look, dude, you come to work for me for two years, you sit in a track hoe and dig for my pipe guys." He's a bigger gentleman, wide shoulders, he doesn't fit in too many two-foot ditches, if you know what I mean. But at the same time, incredible dozer operator, incredible operator, and willing to help anybody with anything. And I said, "All right, man, look, I'll make a deal with you. Come run a track hoe for me for two years, and I'll go buy you the baddest daggum dozer on the market when it comes time if you actually make it that two years."
Well, sure enough, two years goes by, and we've got a chance of capturing an entire project together, dirt and water. And was I the most wise business owner making all of these decisions? No, bro. That's literally why I talk about it on the channel all the time. It's like, "Don't do what I did." I went through the experience and the stress. But anyhow, me and Sara go pick Sam up off a job site - it's actually on the YouTube channel - we take him up to the Komatsu dealership and give him that D51EXi machine. That's literally our little flagship machine in our fleet. And we've had it two and a half years at this point. But man, you could eat off the floor in that thing. And I know how - I know how clean your boys keep your stuff. Like, them boys don't even wear shoes in their stuff. Sam is one hundred percent comparable.
Taylor White: Yeah, I love that. It's nice whenever guys take some serious pride in it, right? I mean, we go out on a limb, and you're taking a big risk and buying these things that cost a lot of money, and it's always nice to see them getting taken care of.
Sy Kirby: Dude, my pipe guys, they're a different breed when it comes to equipment. They're in and out of those track hoes so much, in and out of the mud. They're way harder on things than, say, Sam is. And it drives Sam crazy, too, because he ends up getting a track hoe dropped to his job and he's like, "Well, go look at the dozer. What is this? You ain't even got a broom, man?" But yeah, no, I truly can't tell you how much I appreciate it, especially making that payment every month. And then when you - the off chance that you actually get thirty minutes to hop in a machine on a job site, you're like, "Okay, dang, this is about how I'd have it," you know what I mean? Or you're trying to kick the dirt out of the frickin' floor so the foot pedals will work.
So, we actually, speaking about the jump, we did a lot of mini-ex and skid steer. I started out with a mini-ex and skid steer. I still rent from the guy that I rented my first equipment with. And we made a giant leap. I bought two good-sized excavators and a wheel loader, and then we bought that dozer six months later. And I would not recommend buying all of that gear all at once, whatsoever. I would definitely recommend getting with a CPA and building some strategy. But man, I was young, still am, and I'm learning every day. But education's expensive, and experience is priceless, I think is one of the mottos I've had to learn hard as an entrepreneur, and just learn the hard way. But man, full send, as they say, and then COVID and inflation, and it's been a little ride here in the last couple of years, brother, ain't going to lie.
Taylor White: Yeah, it has been. And that stuff makes you stronger. You said something also, too, when I asked about starting into the dirt business, you mentioned that someone who said, "Hey, you know what? Maybe you could do this." And I want you to touch on that for a lot of the other guys listening to that are just starting off, and highlight the point that sometimes these big leaps, it starts with an opportunity, right?
Sy Kirby: Yes, sir. No, it really does. I can't tell you how many times I wasn't ready for that opportunity when it necessarily struck, but I always weighed the long-term relationship out of any of these contacts. Like, "Where can this go? Who does this person affect?" It may not be so much the task; it may be, "Hey, demo this sidewalk by hand." But if this guy has got a pull with so-and-so, and there's a project that we may end up on, there may be a long-term play. And all he's got to say is, "Dude, I asked him to do this, and it was done by the time I looked back."
And I looked at it from a different lens rather than, "Oh, he's just giving me the grunt work." Honestly, I was building, man. I didn't have that steady... this is, you know, other than the fire and a lot of the utility stuff in the dirt side, it was just capturing, "Hey, can you build - you know, I need to add fifteen feet on this fire - fire line." "Fire lane," I should say, not line. But fire lane over here. "Can you guys handle that? My dirt sub's already gone. You guys are here picking up this last little bit of utilities." And we'd be like, "Man, don't we need to cut and fill some stuff?" And, "Don't we need to put..." Like, man, I was learning, and I had to really be open and transparent with these gentlemen that have done this for decades, man. But the transparency that I believe I was open and honest and be like, "Man, I don't know how to do that, but I'm willing to learn if you'll give me a chance." And, "Man, yeah, no, I need it done. Can you get it done by next Friday?" And I'm like, "Uh, well, that wasn't on the bingo card, but yeah, sure, I guess." And strike on that opportunity. But you're right, man, they come as small, tiny, little, minute opportunities that you don't even think are ever going to be and materialize into anything. But it's because of how you handled that one situation, and that guy goes and talks to the right lunch table, and all of a sudden you got three jobs on your hands and you don't even know what to do with them.
Taylor White: Yeah, it is interesting. And learning - learning through that as you go is sometimes - like you just got to mention - is how you learn your best lessons. And I am excited because I feel like you're somebody who, you kind of started here, and you have so much knowledge of how you're getting to where you are now and where you're headed in the future. What does your growth look like?
Sy Kirby: That is a very interesting question, sir. And if you're not growing, you're dying. Man, we grew hardcore up till '23. Once I got into this commercial, we doubled our gross revenue. We really - we twice, three times, and then the fourth year was '23, best year yet. And then '24 hit us like a ton of bricks, dude. And I wasn't prepared. And that's what I literally built these resources for, is to prepare these guys that are in the one to three, and I'm super passionate about helping the guy... You know, like me and Sara sitting on the edge of the bed. I can't tell you how many times, how many Thursdays we've sat there and prayed, and, "How's tomorrow going to work out?" Because I'm not - I don't try and hide that. I try to be as real as possible. Yeah, the gear is super cool to look at and all these fancy-dancy equipment going everywhere, but paying for them and making sure your guys' payroll is there every Friday, and those are the types of things that... may not have quite answered your question there, brother, but I'm super passionate about helping these guys elevate and scale. Do I know that little perfect point of scale or to be able to say, "Oh, this is the time to do it"? I just did it. And as you know, Trebo - Trebo's very interesting method to that. I mean, you've just got to fully send it. And I did. And man, there's a lot of things that I could have definitely done differently to get to this point, but yeah.
Taylor White: How do you - you mentioned sitting on the edge of the bed and, you know, praying for tomorrow. How do you deal with that stress?
Sy Kirby: The good Lord, man. I got to give a big shout-out there because he humbled me pretty hard three or four years ago as I - you know, I thought this was all about me and what I was doing and not from the team perspective. I always carried that we're doing this together, but when you're doing this from a different perspective and trying to shed that limelight... But as you're doing this, nobody's there to prepare you for the financial pressure and the stress and anxiety just of running a business, whether it's healthy or not. It carries an insane fortitude of just weight. And number one, the good Lord; number two, my wife. We've been married eleven years. She's been there every step of the way. My encouragement, when she can see it on my face coming through the door, she is the one to look at me and go, "Hey, it's going to be just fine. Tomorrow's a new day, joy comes from the morning," and, "Lay your head down, we're going to get some sleep, let's pray about it, and we'll get - we'll move on to tomorrow."
The other thing is, man, these guys, the team, they'll do small things - and I hope you can attest to this - but they'll do small things that give me just immense joy through the day. And it's not anything that's like, I can sit here and pinpoint, but I'm like, "Oh my God, Nate's getting it on the skid steer!" or, "Oh my gosh, who's that in the track hoe? Who's digging this ditch? What do you mean? A month - you know, a year ago, that guy could barely get a piece of pipe out of a bundle." You know, it's those small things or just the way a job site looks and how everybody's taken immense pride, and I can smile and there's not trash everywhere and the ditches and the spools, everything's properly placed. That's the other thing that goes, "That's why you're doing it, man. It's for them." And they bring me a lot more joy and a lot more go-go juice. I think "mojo" is the word that I'm looking for, when you're in those tough, frustrating, never-ending moments, you know what I mean?
Taylor White: Yeah, one hundred percent. We deal with that day in and day out as business owners, and not even if you are a business owner, right? There's stuff that transfers over to your personal life as well, too, that everybody's got stuff going on, and it's just how you kind of power through that. But what does your average day-to-day look like?
Sy Kirby: Well, right now I am still operations manager. I'm actually looking for an operations manager, so I'm on LinkedIn right now - shameless plug there, sorry guys - but I need to get up there and concentrate more on the sales. My estimator - I need to be more focused on the sales front. The operations manager is needed from so many standpoints to be able to keep training the right project manager. But right now, it can be looking from - I promise you, three hours ago I thought we were going to have to cancel or reschedule. It can be a phone call at 11:00, "Hey, boss, we need to move this dozer here." "Okay. Is Jim working?" "No." I've got a driver that drives three days a week for me on my lowboy. So it can be just an emergency haul to financial meetings that I came out of first thing this morning. I was doing a cash flow and overall projections for the rest of this year and hopefully it's going to get better after all of this rain.
And so, it's a lot of meetings. I am fractionally working with a project manager and fractionally working with a CFO, fractionally working with a bunch of experts. Dude, I sit here and preach on the show like, "Go find these people, let them help you." Now, I know us as blue-collar business owners, we're sitting there like, "Yeah, but they're just going to take my money, man. Are they really going to help me?" And so, before going off in the weeds of that, I sit there a lot of times for two hours and have these strategy meetings about how we are processing information from the estimation side to the production side, and a lot of ops manager roles. But I'm truly, right now, more focused than ever on working on processes, SOPs, procedures. And I have a wonderful lady - she was actually just on the podcast a couple weeks ago - and sat down and kind of told on me a little bit about everything that I'm doing.
But I've been very, very focused on getting it out of my head and onto paper so people have a chance to be successful at whatever job duty, whether it's an estimator, whether it's back-end, whether it's a superintendent, or a guy that's just starting day one, right? And that's been my main focus, working on inside accounting because me and Sara, we didn't go to any college by any means. And so, we didn't just wake up and be CFOs, and we need help. And thank God we've got this lady. And it's a lot of tough conversations, bro, that aren't even fun to have. A lot of shame and embarrassment, especially when you're really working through this, you're like, "What do you mean, I did what to get to where?" And you're like, "I was just working," you know what I mean? Just to be honest, I had no idea until you told me. And it's a lot of processing that - self-realizations and... but trying to make the team better is all I'm truly focused on. But, a lot of meetings, currently, my guy.
Taylor White: I hear you on that. Life is one big meeting whenever we hit a certain point. It's crazy. One note I had written down here that I want you to talk about - I want to ask you about is, you mentioned whenever we were booking this podcast, CONEXPO kind of started your marketing career, your marketing life, within your business. I'm curious to hear a little bit about that.
Sy Kirby: Dude, here you go, because this is crazy. Number one, shout-out to Ken White Construction YouTube channel and everybody behind the scenes there. Big inspiration to why I even wanted to start their YouTube or put myself out there. But I've been watching guys like you and Aaron Witt and these guys that are pioneering the industry, and they're making it cool to have a camera out there on a job site, right? So essentially, I looked at Sara, and this was the whole marketing strategy. I didn't have a plan. I was just like, "Look, how hard can this be?" Just took my phone, started right there in the garage, "Hey, look, this is me and Sara. We own this company. Here we go. We're going to start showing you behind the scenes of commercial construction and the struggles we face."
And I said, "Look, if we're ever going to start a construction-based anything marketing, you've got to go to CONEXPO." And we had never been. And so, I wanted to go so stinking bad prior - I think it was the COVID year. And I don't - did you go? Was it 2020?
Taylor White: I went 2023.
Sy Kirby: Me too. That was my first time. So me and Sara kept to ourselves, and it was literally just to go and build content for this channel to hopefully help with launching some views. And so, I get this going for four or five months, being consistent every other week at that point, I think we were doing - every two weeks, and I was up at 4:00 a.m. to - staying up editing, trying to piece this crappy stuff that I was putting together and still get it out there. And about that time, Will jumped on the force. But when we were out there at CONEXPO, I gathered as much content as I could. I walked around the machines, gave my opinions and, you know, my thoughts to hardly anybody at that time on the channel, right?
And so, in November, dude, I had one short - and I'm telling you guys, if you're sitting here listening to the podcast, you just have to start. I had one video that we uploaded in March. It was an unveiling of a Volvo excavator. Shout-out, I think it was a HC500, one of their hybrid units. We were standing there, it was just a simple fifteen-second short, went completely viral. And some of the other CONEXPO videos went crazy as well. So it definitely helped gain some traction and help the algorithm base who we are. But when I was out there, I got to meet a few people. I know you did as well. I didn't get to meet y'all's group. I don't know how we didn't end up meeting in paths at one point. But no, CONEXPO literally has helped the channel, and I can't wait to go back out this year and actually have a camera guy and walk around these machines and have time to not just be filming, worrying about the next machine. And all I've got to do is talk this go-around. And then I'm pretty excited about it.
But for forty-eight hours, man, I was mind-blown. As soon as I flew in straight up, I was like, "What do you mean, they have a CONEXPO deal at the airport? It's that big?" And we flew in on a red-eye, so we didn't see anything. And the next - we were at the Aria, and I may have said that wrong, but when it opened up next morning, all you could see is construction equipment. And I'm like, "Oh, we - we had a different... we're okay, we're here. Let's go do this." Dude, I was jacked. And the first step I stepped out there from the - that freaking - planes and sky tracks and excavator arms and the drill rigs, and was insane, dude. And then you got inside and started to see some of the technology. It was honestly mind-blowing. Can't wait to go back. But yeah, no, it definitely helped jumpstart the marketing campaign. And since then, obviously, we've got some pretty keyed-in strategy, but excited for this year, man.
Taylor White: What are some tips with the marketing? What do you enjoy about it? What do you see that works really well? What do you see that maybe you thought worked well but it doesn't work well? Everybody wants to know marketing, right?
Sy Kirby: Isn't it funny, man? It's like, "Let's talk dirt or pipe, like something I know." And I can't even sit here and act like I'm some marketing guru, my guy, because I'm not. And shout-out to the team behind the scenes, Will and Ike, because when I first started this, it was just grabbing content. That's all I was doing. I just wanted to show a little bit of behind the scenes. Number one, bring awareness to the water and sewer world and what these guys go through so your tap can come on when you want it to.
But I don't really have some marketing strategy plan overall. Now we do, in place. And it's definitely looking at the data analytics and telling you what's working and what's not. Don't stray too far away from that. If it's working, the views are there, the channel likes it, keep doing it. Don't find some crappy, redundant video to put up. But if the strategy and problem resolution or hook or just - just not clickbaity, you know what I mean? But at the same time, if that's working, keep doing it. And I screwed up along the way. I was like, "All right, man, this is working, so let's try doing this over here, and let's do shorts and venture off over here with text - texted shorts and more educational." And it has worked, but at the same time, when you're building long-form content, don't start producing a ton of short-form content. You've got to build that algorithm.
But honestly, we started website number one, guys. If you don't have a website, Taylor could probably point you in a great direction of a marketing campaign - a marketing agency to help you out there. But website number one, you've got to have somewhere to present yourself, online presence. It's not just for your local market, guys. Every single place that is a metropolis area - DFW, anywhere throughout the States or - and I don't know so much more about there, I'm so intrigued to learn about how the market is up there, honestly, from living there. But these out-of-towners, man, is where I was going with that. And what blue-collar guys, dirt guys like us, we think, "Well, if I have a killer website, by God, I should show up on Google." Well, the back end of that, guys, is a lot more complex than we'll ever understand, and it's not made for us to understand. But you've got to put in the effort in LinkedIn, you've got to have a little over here with Meta, you've got to have a little over here with YouTube. It's like a spiderweb, right? And your website. And if everything is matching to that Google algorithm, it sure does help present you in a different limelight. But yeah, man, website is key. I've actually gone through three renderings on our website. I believe we're starting to get some really good data and analytics on it to be able to start maneuvering a little bit. And that's the other thing I was going to say on the marketing side, is just make sure you're getting good reporting of analytics and data to be able to strategize and plan from there and not just go off, "Oh, well, I think this will work," because you're wasting a bunch of money when you're just thinking this will work, and you're going to get frustrated and burn out and not do it anymore. And the world needs more of you guys.
Taylor White: Yeah. What made you want to start the podcast?
Sy Kirby: There's one reason. I was doing YouTube, and I was like, "Well, I got to start a podcast." Literally, that is straight up and honest truth. I was like, "What are we going to do?" And Will's like, "Dude, you go on like hours-long rants about the blue-collar working space and the industry and what these guys struggle with. Why don't you just find a place that you can bring white collar, blue collar, being yourself, sit down in a room and have a conversation?" And I'm like, "Dude, Blue Collar Business, that makes so much sense."
And so, the first ten episodes are pretty rough to watch, I'm not going to lie. They're in my kitchen and in my dining room, and we threw it up. But Will was doing so much. He was doing all this YouTube stuff, and then he was doing all of this podcast set up, tear down, anywhere we wanted to have it. It was a lot. And that's - shout-out to podcastvideos.com. I've been with them, their studio, and that's where I'm sitting today. But, man, the first ten episodes that we did, you'll understand when I say it was on a podcast playlist on Sy-Con's YouTube channel. And NewsNation found us, NPR wrote an article about the Gen Z, Alpha generation, and the blue-collar working space in the skilled trades. And I'm a huge, passionate advocate for high schoolers and, "Hey, trades over college." College has its place. We need our educated folks, we need our doctors, but obviously, I'm going to advocate, and especially in the next ten years, facing what we're going to be facing with the phase-out of generations, there's not as many younger faces even remotely involved in what we do.
Taylor White: It's a good avenue, though, to - like exactly what you said, right? You're getting out a lot of thoughts that are in your head that a lot of other people want to hear about and see and hear. You're giving yourself the platform to do that.
Sy Kirby: We ended up on NewsNation and did this one-on-one live national news interview as the host of Blue Collar - this is way before any of the fancy logos, and this was just me in my kitchen, bro. And I'm like, "Wait a minute, there may be something to this, guys. There may be a need." If they found me on a channel that was a no-name at that point, like a no-name YouTube channel, onto a podcast playlist, and I was just testing the waters to see if this was needed. Obviously, it was. And forty-five episodes past those ten is where we're at, at bluecollarbusinesspodcast.com, my guy.
And, man, the white-collar conversations and the language that I've been able to get them in a room and dumb it down... a lot of these guys just need help with business, dude. They're incredible plumbers, incredible electricians, incredible dirt guys, but they suck at business. I was just like them. I didn't just wake up and be a CEO one day, you know what I mean? Those are learned skills, and those are learned characteristics and disciplines that you have to set for yourself, right? It was an insane reaction, and so I went one hundred percent all in. I've got to say, there's a gentleman here, Eric Howardson, that was a mega-believer in what I was doing with this podcast. And he's like, "Dude, you can't quit," because there was a time, like, I was like, "YouTube, podcast, business," and people are sitting there going, "Well, you're probably worrying too much about the marketing of it rather than the running the business." Okay, yeah, you should be with me at midnight on Saturday night when I'm sitting here... Anyways, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
But that's where I was just - I just wanted to add that, that we ended up on this NewsNation from a nothing YouTube channel. So I launched it over here. It's on its own YouTube channel, its own socials now, and it's affecting a lot of people, man, helping a lot of younger guys. I was sitting at a baseball game two nights ago, my boy got his first baseball ring. Shout-out, Cole. Let's go! An eight-year ring, dude. And sorry, I'm a dad number one, my guy. So, sitting there, and the president of the field, his wife comes, like, beelining for me. I'm like, "Oh my God, what did I do?" And she's like, "Hey, I don't know if I ever told you this, but do you remember, like, three years ago..." I've done a lot at those T-ball fields; they're volunteer-run. We've spent a lot of time, gravel, material, etc. And I worked with her son about three years ago, my guy, on the field, shooting grade, hopping in the skid steer, moving around. The dude's nineteen. He's got his own skid steer almost paid off, running his own little landscape, doing dirt work, doing... and I'm like, "Because I helped a guy, he's been listening to the podcast, he's been..." Like, if I can help somebody and I can help the industry, bro, there's not enough people doing it, you know what I mean? And don't get me wrong, it takes a toll on you to keep it all going, as you know, I know you know. But, man, when you hear stories like that and how it is truly affecting people, that's what's the fuel in the fire, right?
Taylor White: What's your favorite topic to speak about?
Sy Kirby: In the podcast space? Honestly, working on the business and not in the business and getting out of that trap.
Taylor White: Talked about that with Trent a lot on the podcast.
Sy Kirby: I know, T-Daddy. Trent is my guy. But we sat there and, man, that's probably the number one biggest trap I see guys get in, in that year three, five years, you know? And they just - they can't get out of it. And, "I don't know how, we can't - we can't stay busy," as they're sitting there on the track hoe or the dozer all day long. You've got to pick and choose your battles. But yeah, that's probably one of my hottest topics, I would say, is scaling. Just, guys ask me all the time, "How did you go from here to here?" And I'm like, "Just kind of did it, and made sure I had enough sales." And the other one would be the college versus trades conversation. I'm pretty passionate about as well.
Taylor White: What's your take on that?
Sy Kirby: Man, when we were in high school - and this hopefully is relatable to yourself because I went to elementary school in Canada, dude, in Toronto. And so, I was there until I immigrated a month after 9/11. And so, I went to elementary school there, but when I got down here, obviously, culture shock, bro, like you wouldn't believe. If you ever get down here, I got you. But I dealt with this culture shock, but walking through junior high, I was kind of picked on - redheaded, immigrant kid, talked funny. I definitely picked up the accent quickly because I had to shed my accent or they'd pick me out so fast, right?
And so, through high school, dude, there was no work program, there was no vo-tech. And this is Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas, home of Walmart, home of J.B. Hunt. It's kind of in its own bubble. It's a little ahead of the times from areas around it. Let's just put it that way. But you would have thought that they would still be pushing folks into the ag world. I mean, home of Tyson chicken here, or at least shop class at that point. They had stripped shop class from us at that point. So there was no way to learn with your hands. And don't get me wrong, school wasn't like super hard for myself, but I really didn't apply myself either. It wasn't something that interested me. Man, I wish I would have paid way more attention in every math class that I was ever in because I didn't realize how much I would use math at this point in the game. But literally, they pushed college, bro, since we were in eighth grade, man. Just college, "Where are you going to college? What's your career path?" They had these topical occupations for you to choose from with... that there were more jobs than career road paths. And heck, a ninth-grader, a freshman in high school, you're sitting there like, "How am I supposed to know what I want to do? I haven't tried anything," you know what I mean?
So, I'm very involved at this point. I found out fast forward, I was talking kind of crap on high schools around here. You can go back a couple episodes ago, I had two high schoolers in here that are graduating with commercial driver's licenses - CDLs is what we call them in the States. They have OSHA 30. They're graduating with - they have their own heavy equipment class with brand-new Cat 308, 265 I think, motor grader, dozer, and they're out there with Trimble units in them, learning slope assist before they come out of high school. And they're actively, like, other employers are getting with them and going, "Hey look, here's our training program. Train the CDL school to our program so that when they're out of school, as soon as you guys are graduated with them, we can put them in the workforce." This same CDL program has put nine active drivers in my subcontractor, my vendor supplier that I use every day. It's insane in a local market. So, found out about them, dude, and I have - you know what? I haven't helped as much as I should. We went down there and brought awareness on it, did the tour. I've had them on the show, but I had two of their standout candidates. But man, we have got to get more high school-driven folks directly - not even think about college. We need folks welding, we need folks in truck driver seats, we need folks plumbing and electrical and concrete and steel. We need people that share a little bit of passion about creating and building something because if not, man, we're going to be in rough shape here pretty quick.
Taylor White: I totally agree. Like, that's why we do things, you know, such as like a scholarship for a student in the trades at our local high school, where every year we give ten Gs to a student that wants to go pursue the trades. Because when I was in high school, a lot of the post-secondary incentives were like, "All right, cool, well, if you're really smart and you're on honor roll and you have good grades in math and English, then we're going to provide this schooling." But there was nothing for the trades, right? There was nothing like, "Well, if you're really good at shop and auto and you're an all-around good student, here's this incentive to help you go buy some tools or buy a truck so you can get to site or just anything." That's what the money goes towards. Like when they ask, "Oh, what do you want the students to put it towards?" I'm like, "Anything that helps them excel in the trades." Which I think we definitely need more of that. So I love that you're such a big advocate for that, and it's cool that you've kind of built out a platform where you're able to speak about that and get the info out there. Because I think boys and girls, they need to hear it.
Sy Kirby: Man, there's not enough folks investing in the blue-collar, skilled trade space. They're just not. Yeah, you've got your big mainstreams. Dude, I've got to - I've got to say that is so cool that you guys do the 10k scholarship, dude. I didn't want to skip over that. That's - that's really freaking cool that you guys do that. And honestly, it makes me check myself, and may have to do something - something like that. I need to figure that out.
But long story short, dude, there's not enough folks willing to put their money where their mouth is. And I think it's a lot of, "They just don't want to put themselves out there." But it's also the same folks that don't want to put themselves out there that are the first ones to talk about you when you do, you know what I mean? But you're right, man, there's no incentive-based programs for solo entrepreneurs or, "I go buy a pressure washer..." It's so funny in this - I can get off on a soapbox here on this whole college-trade thing. A bank won't give nobody five thousand dollars to a nineteen-year-old kid just trying to start with a pressure washer, a business plan, everything. "I need 5k. I can go buy a trailer." He's got all his expenses. It won't give him five thousand dollars to go start producing income from the time he accrues all of those tools. But we can hand out fifty-thousand-dollar semesters like it's no big deal. "Oh, you'll get us - you'll get us later." Well, they're not even producing income for four years.
I talked to an Australian a couple weeks ago, and their trade program - shout-out to Mark on the podcast - and he was talking about how their trade system is quite a bit different. They call them "tradies" over there. I thought that was so cool. But, you know, master electricians and master plumbers make well over a hundred, a hundred fifty thousand dollars here. In four years, if you're - if you are somewhat of a bright student, they'll pay for your schooling as you're working on their crew.
Taylor White: Really?
Sy Kirby: Oh yeah, that's kind of the electrician-plumber thing down here is like, "Hey man, look, you come, you work for me as a grunt, you're an apprentice, you can get your journeyman's license." We don't do the whole plumbing thing; we're utility guys, but plumbers and electricians, they'll pay for your schooling as long as you're working there. You get your journeyman, you pass your test, and you finally work your way to your master's. And that's a fast track to six digits for a lot of these guys that don't want to pick up a dang book, you know what I mean?
Taylor White: Yeah. No, it's interesting because a lot of people don't understand also the money that can be made within the industry, like you just spoke about, right? It's key because you kind of have to show them that, right? They have to see it in order to believe it. But there's a lot of people that get promised six-figure jobs when they go to school for four years, and they don't get that. But with four good years in at the right trade and working yourself up to a foreman or a supervisor, you're getting close.
Sy Kirby: What about AI, dude? Let's - I'm not trying to be any way, but the white-collar space, they're in trouble with what AI can do.
Taylor White: Yeah, especially with ChatGPT now and everything, it's pretty crazy.
Sy Kirby: Oh dude, we're using - utilizing it at a dirt company to... I spoke a lot about processes and systems, but nothing, you know, finite, absolutely verified, but to speed things up on small things and processes, absolutely. If we're utilizing it, I couldn't imagine what some of these big companies are doing with AI. And I'm like, now... I'm just so scared with the combination of needing folks in the blue-collar space, white-collar space, a lot of the meat and potatoes... And I'm not forecasting, I'm not shadowing, I'm a nobody, guys. But in my opinion, I do believe AI is going to reduce labor costs. We need you over in the trades, guys. Just saying.
Taylor White: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And you're doing the right thing, right? Because you got the right platform for it, to talk on it. You got your own business. You've got a lot of really cool things going on. People after this podcast, where can they go to find you to listen more? Because you definitely - I know you, you're such a book of knowledge, just listening to you go. Where can they go to watch you or hear you?
Sy Kirby: Behind the scenes is our YouTube. We've been double uploading three months now, I think, since March. We just switched up our strategy. But YouTube, Sy-Con - S-Y-C-O-N - it should pop up right there. Check us out on TikTok as well. That's kind of more of my view behind the scenes, and me and Trent share a lot of fun times on there. But there's also the podcast, guys. Any streaming platform that you're already on, but if you don't have a subscription, you don't have to have a subscription to listen to or watch the show. Bluecollarbusinesspodcast.com, forty-some-odd episodes on there. Go check that out. And that's about it. Of course, your social - your socials for both. But man, it's a lot to keep up with.
Taylor White: It is. And hopefully, people can keep up with you. And I know that this, we had to reschedule because we both had some crazy stuff going on, and maybe it's family time right now. So, I appreciate you coming on the podcast today and chatting, and hopefully, we get to do it at the show.
Sy Kirby: Oh, well, I can't thank you enough for, honestly, the opportunity. I've been looking forward to hopping on here with you for some time, and I hope what I said today carried some value for some folks. But man, thank you again. Can't wait to see you at the show.
Taylor White: Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you, Sy.
