had the great pleasure of this morning having Nick Bundy in with us we've just looked at your
brand new looking toolkit that you've managed to get hold of and we'll look
to your testing kit and now we're going to open the questions up to the learners that
are giving up in most of the cases Nick their day off to actually come in and see
you so i'd like to think you must be a little bit impressed with that getting another round
okay so we're gonna go for some open questions from the audience so we don't know what we're
gonna get that's always a little bit worrying so uh hands up then if you've got a question for me
Lewis what's your question how long have you been self-employed so how long have you been
self-employed for i left college i went i left school 2008 so started college straight away
three years so what are we on now 2020 so i think i think nine nine ten years now because
you pretty much went from college to working for yourself because was it your dad yeah right
so they wouldn't have listened to it let's fill them in on the story uh grandma was a carpenter
uh i thought i would want to be a carpenter so train with that my dad was a seven player playing
decorator he wanted me to carry on his business but unfortunately for him i had more about me
than painting things that's fine um so i went into college to be a carpenter originally and he looked
at me grades and turned around when you know you've got got some good stuff about you won't you
try electrics and dad being in the trade he was like oh yeah you know definitely try electrics and
that was it that's how i got sort of pushed into the general direction of electrics but
you were doing a full-time course you weren't you weren't at that stage actually employed and did
you not move from the the day course were you not the yeah so i did i did uh level one level
two straight away um full-time course even though it was three and a half days a week or something
while working at Tesco to sort of finance my car and all that sort of stuff uh then i actually
managed to get a job on a main bill i was doing with a few domestic electricians on my days off
as well so for free for a year and a half learning the traditional Adam's doing with me yeah picking
up the practical skills um and then from that i got a job subcontracting to a big firm in Stafford
where i live doing the big council buildings and i had to get self-employed to do that to subcontract
so that's sort of the stage it went through for that once that was up and over after a year i
became qualified from level three as the job ended they offered me a job to go and start doing stuff
with them in London or wherever and i was just like now my i like at that stage in my life i i
was happy where i was my mom and dad you know paid for everything and and whatnot so yeah my dad sort
of chewing around and went you know you've got no overheads you just paint your own phone contract
go self-employed you know get by van try it so that was it and i've never looked back since so
so pretty much you've only ever been employed by yourself very much yeah no one's told me what to
do for several years which is the way i like it fantastic question and i think that's a fantastic
answer so next one let's have another question from the audience over here if you weren't an
electrician what would you mean oh yeah so if you well let me go first yeah obviously male model
he'd like to say boy band love island probably came a little i don't know what do you really do
unfortunately i've been a relationship with children so i don't think she i mean she probably
like prize money so but no so you're suggesting you with it anyhow somebody said so if you
got a dab a few times and with that in mind you've actually quite quickly built a family
up as well as a business haven't you yes so i've been away the half for christ i hope she doesn't
watch this uh six six years okay um and in that time so you must have one child in that time
yes well three three actually uh the elves isn't mine and they've got two kids uh boy and a girl
and bought a house doodle malarkey engaged no marriage yet that's a bit of a waste of money
breaking news like a breaking news story so is that going to happen this evening the proposal for
marriage no no we are engaged yeah yeah already done that it's it's sort of planning a wedding
it's some sort but she's in the same boat as me which is nice of i was classed a proposal with
a date so you've bought her a piece of jury yeah yeah yeah actually you you're not getting married
you just bought a piece of jewelry yeah yeah put a piece of jewelry yeah in the process of sorting a
wedding now but it to me and her it's it's you've got kids together you can't be more binding than
that and it's just it'll happen when it happens okay so back to you Richard i have to be fair i'm
still waiting for Adam to be able to go on the stag do so oh wow another year or so then that's
it well to organize it really yeah just take the pressure off so the original question was
so you obviously chose to be electrician you had a couple of other choices there we had carpentry in
the background and we had painting and decorating with hindsight now so go back and pick yourself
something that maybe you would have uh liked to have had the challenge of you were an electrician
a police officer i think yeah um i saw i've always liked it my one of my best friends was a
fireman he's now a paramedic i always liked it i grew up one of our neighbors was a police
officer and you kids you sort of think you like but i just always seem to like it and
uh even now i i've over the years where you go up and down through our business it was never playing
saying like it is now we've i've built something up and it's sustainable and it's it's enjoyable
you go for your patches of being self-employed and there was a few times i've looked into it and gone
you know maybe it's it's time for a change but that was just my age in maturity
not going to work properly you know the usual teenager young adult stage of not putting 100
into it are you at that stage yet because you're just a remarkably fresh face i know i know is it
is having Adam with you in the van aged you because all of a sudden then you feel like
a little bit yeah yeah because we've gone a few times when we went to the elect show
and i put green day on in the van for right classic bit of green day you locked probably
after you were never even heard of it it was like screen day and i've never punched someone so hard
while i was driving and then we went through loads of different bands you know some 41 all the stuff
that i grew up with and listened to and he was like no never heard of it and i was like i sat
there oh my god i've taken the mick out of people for so many years of their age and now i've come
to the stage where he can take the mick on me for it and it's just it was heartbreaking well yeah
this is what it is so you've been to an election have you ever been to an eFIXX live feed event
i have indeed did you happen to be the fastest electrician in the room at that event
yes did you win yourself some nice ceiling manly speakers out of anything
have you fitted those speakers i picked the one one of them uh is in my dining room the kids
love it peppa pig gets played through it quite a bit um but yeah bathroom one's yet to go in but
yeah a great night you joe uh adam went along adam won a few bits what did adam win adam won the
google home record uh no the the the dot yeah that was it is it google don't always get mixed up is
it no it's echo dot i don't know okay yeah but yeah he's so he he won something and what's he
had you cleaned up didn't you at the end yeah it wasn't fixed at all no one well i couldn't fix the
race you mean you were the fastest one i might have told adam where to sit maybe i encouraged
him to sit in a certain seat um so yeah so it's good so you know in hindsight you might say quite
ironic because i actually wanted to be a policeman and my dad said to me you couldn't go into police
force until you're 18. so he said get yourself a trade and then when you come out you trade maybe
you decision then when you wanted to go into the police force yeah so yeah it was different back in
my day let's do that because um you didn't have to have such now you need a degree almost to be
a police officer and you have to do the specials first in my day you could almost go in with yeah
this is why i looked into it and it wasn't a simple i had good grades you know didn't get
me wrong i didn't enjoy school at all i i just it was the whole process of people telling you
what to do and i've always really struggled i've always you know good people got good grades you
know it was always well behaved it's just it was always in the back of my head i just hated being
told what to do so when i got sort of the stage where i could come become self-employed watching
my dad for years being self-employed no one telling him what to do and he could come home
middle of the day have his lunch do whatever he wants i always sort of appealed to me i'll just
stop you there because anyone who's self-employed does none of that doesn't come over in the middle
of the day probably doesn't have lunch probably works he's a painter so what was a painter so uh
do you take those options no not at all i have it the same thing where it's different now i've been
working for myself and by myself for several years and then adam's come along i sort of have to look
at this clock and go are you are you hungry like do we need to stop for some lunch because i won't
most the time i don't eat during the day the quicker i get the work done i couldn't go home
in my eyes sometimes it doesn't work that way but sometimes you need to eat because you end
up slacking and make mistakes towards the end of the day so yeah and you probably do more in that
so if you have a late always used to have a later lunch because it's always fine you do way more
work until two o'clock yeah and then from half two to five o'clock you probably do next year i think
yeah an hour in the morning's worth two at night is that the phrase yeah yeah i mean we've worked
quite late if you we would add about about nine o'clock somebody had to text his mom make sure
it's all right um i've got him speed doesn't give her three rings yeah that sort of thing yeah um
but yeah so i enjoy working late at night and he's sound with it i don't mind at all i prefer
working later in the evening then finishing at three o'clock and i don't know you end up just
sitting around for a while so i've got kids so you sort the kids out and whatnot but it's something
satisfaction i find sometimes leaving in the morning when it's dark and coming in when it's
dark obviously that's all the time at the moment yeah okay that's good great question so we've got
a good good answer give us another question please so as i look around the audience i've got loads so
if we have to come to a Gary question down here do you like it about being self-employed yeah 100
so yeah so we can confirming that that it's absolutely going to be the seventh so you
decided less than 12 months ago i forgot my maths right to join that world of youtube yeah okay so
you thought you'd throw your hat into what a busy ring now would suggest to stand out yeah
crowd takes a while some people have tried and not been successful you look like you've
completely crushed it because i think we've just gone through ten thousand subs you gave away some
kit for that so we're probably aiming to be 12 000 in a hurry yeah not far off 11 at the moment
soon to be 12. it's sort of averaging 12. and would that be in less than a year will your will
is your year point come yet no right so my it sort of worked out really well my my first video that
was released 8th of may last year was actually the anniversary of my dad's death since it sounded
quite morbid but it's something that's easily rememberable if you know what i mean so it's
not even a year yet so uh hopefully you know if we get up to 12 fantastic but the rate it's going
13 maybe possibly depends if i keep putting them out there i i went through a stage of
trying to put two videos out a week because the jobs allowed me because i had adam with me
it was simple to do the right type of jobs it started getting to a few stages where
i felt like some videos were being put out for the sake of putting a video out
rather than actual good content and somewhere i try and do a video each video someone could
learn from like you guys could watch it or other sparks are watching go oh like the way you did
that's a bit different from mine i can try that because that's what i picked up from watching
the other guys to start with so yeah and with that in mind i keep seeing a photograph in the
background on some of your videos and that that photograph is down from dss yes explain the story
behind that then well out of nowhere one day i remember i was driving back and uh i listened to
music someone rang me and i did cut the phone off because i i really like that song to be
honest i probably was green day it wasn't green though no um i can't remember liking what it was
and i didn't recognize the number and i thought if they need me to leave a message i'll ring when i
get back and it's something just i pulled up the job and somebody just looked at me the phone and
went oh i'll ring him back and answer the phone hi nick it's down from dss and i was like oh my god
oh my god why are you ringing me it's like i'll watch your stuff on youtube and i've been doing it
two months three months and i've still never met him but we speak like most weeks on the phone or
whatsapp or just general chit chat uh about everything help with work talk about youtube
because he said the same thing with me is it's nice to have someone that's involved
with youtube because they get it they understand the analytics the statistics putting stuff out
the comments you know the haters but when i'm trying to talk to my wrath at home about it
and she's just they're like yup yup it's like oh crap it's like talking to a wall
um but then someone else that does it that you can bounce off and understand
what they're getting on about it's nice it is nice i know i know you spoke to him a lot easily he is
i mean oh just they're all been great to come in but it's just something about dan he's just
a super lovely guy and he's coming back he's going to come back and see us in march he's coming on
wednesday so we get dan coming back we're going to squeeze out as an electrical in between
and he's desperate to come in and we're desperate to see um jordan as well good old jordan john lee
my hoover here for him well yeah yeah i i like the um what was it called i'm not good with
technology were you both on the screen talking at the same time oh the skype yeah skyping that's it
it had every intention of being good but because it was the audio my mac with my microphone
we didn't do a test run to start with to see it was his volume coming through and coming
back through my mic right and it just it was painful to listen to like that's good no it
would the content was good it was just the the the audio is terrible yeah and with that in mind
um you know podcasts floating around and all the rest of it is that something a world of podcast
that you might want to venture into in the future because i think you've got a good repertoire um
yeah joe to correct me repertoire i um yeah i speak the same regular basis for me and rick
from um electrician's guide to everything yeah and i really enjoyed it but we'll all find this from
anyone you listen to that's first time on there you get the the podcast shyness of you talk for a
little bit before and then you start recording and you sort of like crawl up a little bit
and you don't i don't know i don't know why even i did it and i've been towards the end
of the podcast you open up and it's fine but to go back on again and do it second time around and
try it but yeah i'm more open to it i enjoy it and uh it's just like you say putting things out
there before i even started doing this i was just by myself lad from a little village in stafford
and as soon as you put stuff on youtube like the world's just opened like it has the world's just
there's a whole world's opened up that you don't even know existing until you're here
with companies messaging you like this especially come and meet you guys yeah um it's just i'm very
grateful for all to be honest we're in same position here attraction when joe came and
joined me to help me out dig me out the whole we got to about video 164 we got something free you
know someone sent us something across 15 quid wow we were walking around about three weeks eight
foot seven twenty seven we've got some free it's quite nice to get recognized yeah i don't mean
recognizing the street i mean but recognized for the effort you're putting in for the industry yeah
and that's what it's all about and and apart from haters obviously the content that's out there is
actually should be raising the profile of the industry and raising standards and people's
expectations of what electrician will do for them perhaps more than uh empowering the diy
market yeah because i've had i had a few comments originally from from people around my area
who said oh it's what you do in here isn't a good thing because oh bill and ben from around
the corner that wants to diy their stuff they can copy your video i was like well if they're
stupid enough to do that then that's up to them i mean you've got to put a thing on do not copy
this video it's not how to because it's not how to i never once in my videos ever would i say
this is how you do it this is i always say this is how i do it because i'm a trained qualified
competent electrician yeah and they're not so it it's one of them things of you'll always get
people that think you're wrong or people think you're right so that's good but not just that's
yeah absolutely so the ambition for the channel let's see if we can go through 12 000 within 12
months i'd love that yeah we're totally chuffed a bit to an electrician and we'll end on the
last one what's the chances of adam becoming your full apprentice by academic year september 20 is
that something that's going to happen 100 percent okay so adam's proven himself through him through
is that the longest trial known to man he has the longest trial a uh unfortunately we missed out on
the apprenticeship this time round otherwise he'd be starting halfway through um and missed out some
stuff so we spoke to the college and he's going to be starting september he's done exactly what
i did i've said this on a few videos before i went out there i messaged people to get a job
for free i didn't get paid i bought my tools bought for me through christmas and birthdays
and everything like that for as long as as i could and uh eventually it paid off and i've adam's dad
i've seen him since he was little approached me and said this is what we want to do i said yeah no
problems with a little trial he was great um then it comes to the stage of like what do you mean
no i don't want anybody nick i want to do this i want to get you know experience on site i'll start
college in september and then we'll sort of have a chat and it's just led and led further and further
he's been able to grow my business you should then enable me to go yeah i can take you on and i can
pay you you know in the new academic year so yeah that's that's really good so you're actually so
in a in a day's work you've actually been booking fractionally more because it's actually becoming
i don't like the word useful because i've met him a few times now and you can tell he's useful
but actually you can say so well we can actually get further into a job because adams would be
helping so it's bad for himself exactly so like even the other day the fuse board wanted me did
i did the fuse word outside adam's go around change the face plates lights
everything inside it would have been a two-day job for me right um but with me doing the fuse
board and we nipped over a couple of hours at the end of the day which allowed us to then get
it completed within a day because normally it's very difficult to do a fuse board change in a day
for testing your and all that sort of stuff to do it properly properly you would want
to come back for a couple of hours the next day it allowed me to get it all finished off
and i didn't do the rest of it so yeah that's good that's all right good thank you very much for that