The Most Profitable Online Business No One Talks About Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 We did 2.4 million [music] our first calendar  year. I have a client um Elia in Houston. She's doing about four or five million a year. It  It's an online course, so that takes care of itself. You don't need financial reserves.  Nope. Just almost like a digital reseller, right? What's the sales pitch? It's not that  really much of a sales pitch. They're getting a free grant to come to our school.

00:17 It's paying  for the entire tuition. It hurts when you go to college, spend all that money, god forbid  you do get the degree, and then never use it. I didn't want to tell anyone cuz I just  thought it was too good to be true. I mean, who's going to believe me anyway? like there's  a grant. Yeah. That pays me to train people and so I just stayed quiet for a while.

00:32 So over a  million profit that first year. That was just online. What were you selling [music] that course  for? 12,000 to 15,000. Wow. Have you ever driven a forklift? No. But you have a forklift technician  [music] trade school. Yes. Tell me how that's possible. There is no AI that does what we do. It  is AI proof. This freaking guy right here owns a forklift repair [music] trade school and has never  even driven a forklift.

00:56 Not just that, he found a government grant that will pay him $5 to $15,000  per student to join his trade [music] school. So you or anyone in the world can use this grant to  start a trade school in things like pool cleaning, HVAC, plumbing, forklift repair, dog grooming, you  name it. [music] 80 to 90% profit margins, very low startup costs, not a ton of work, and if you  don't want to make the course yourself, just buy it from someone [music] else.

01:26 Let's go chat with  Hector and find out exactly how we can copy him. Okay, so when you get an interested student on the  phone, what's the sales pitch? Uh, it's not that really much of a sales pitch. They're getting  a free grant to come to our school, but they're also learning a a trade that it's not that talked  about. I mean, no one really talks about forklift technician.

01:47 But more than anything, what's  attractive? It's a it's the grant is free. It's paying for the entire tuition. Is that a harder  sale? And if so, how how does that conversation differ? It it it could be. I don't think it's a  harder sale. We we still sell some to the general market because again, our our technicians are  coming out making 30 bucks an hour.

02:01 Yeah. Um they get to get in a van. They get to dispatch from  home. They don't they're not in the same spot. They're they're throwing different challenges  every day. and the return on investments just they pay themselves back in a couple of months just  because they earn so much. Now once you're running the school, how passive or active is it? Because  you're you're not making the course.

02:19 Not not much, man. Cuz I mean, good thing that automations, you  know, it's an online course, so that takes care of itself. Interact with them in the beginning and at  the end we help them either find a job or we keep them for ourselves. As an employer, it's kind of  nice. We get to pick from the cream of the crop, offer them a job and the rest just get certified  and find work elsewhere.

02:38 It doesn't take long. I think our average graduate interviews somewhere  two or three times and they get a job offer. Is there a benefit to doing it in person? Like, can  you charge more if they're in person? Not not necessarily. I mean, in some cases, you probably  can. Um, the only reason our model works so well is cuz you could scale it by going online only.

02:57 There's no need for a classroom to be, you know, filled up because there's no classroom. So, we  get to service all of Texas and sell the courses by the masses. Is there a situation where the  state will only reimburse you for part of it, but then they have to come out of pocket for  part of it? No. Uh, as long as you keep it within that training a cap because there's a cap  everywhere.

03:16 There should be no reason you should charge them more. Whatever the state's willing to  reimburse you, you're going to be really happy at considering if you remember you're buying these  courses for Yeah. a fraction of the price. Do you have to do any work in helping them find jobs  like helping place them? Not necessarily. Again, you know, most of these courses that  we're offering are in demand.

03:35 So, if they go into Indeed and type in EV technician,  forklift technician, there's going to be 25 plus job openings. I mean, they could literally just do  this and throw their resume out, they're going to get a call back pretty quick. So, I imagine you  got to get incorporated to start this business, right? Right. Uh, how do you do that? How do  people get incorporated?

03:53 I personally use Busy. It was pretty easy. I signed up. They didn't even  charge anything. They just charge what the state charges and it was really user friendly. I got  that's where I keep all my schools and companies at and it's just it's on an app and they make  it easy. Yeah, I mean I think the alternative to using Bizzy is going through like your state's  filing website which is built in like 1994 and is an absolute nightmare to use and doesn't cost  any less than using Bizzy.

04:19 Um Bizzy supports this channel. I support them. I use them to file all  my LLC's, registered agent services, EIN's. Um, I just can't say enough good things about busy. I  mean, everyone, every business owner needs an LLC. You got to protect yourself. If, heaven forbid,  someone were to get hurt on a forklift, which I know would never happen here. You'd want to be  not personally liable for that injury.

04:39 You need an LLC. You need to be incorporated. So, Hector uses  Busy. I use Busy. Don't use the other guys. Don't use your state's website. It's free. You just  pay your state's filing fees. They'll keep you up to date on all your compliance deadlines, all  those forms that like you don't want to have to wrap your head around. You just want to spend time  growing your business.

04:59 So go to busy.com, that's b.com, and your life will get much better. So if  someone is starting a trade school from scratch, not adding it to a current business, what is what  are startup costs like? So you want to look at what's going to cost to apply to the state.  You want to have some capital funds as like an operating account, like how you're going to  get through the first couple of months.

05:18 How much are you thinking? anywhere between 15,000 lowend,  30,000 high-end. Okay. Sometimes they want you to have like two or three months worth of reserves.  So, the state wants to see that. Okay. Yeah. They want to see that and that's really it. This school  that we added to my existing forklift business, it's an online school. They do all the curriculum  online, which is 55 hours worth.

05:37 They're only going to come here as an option if they want  to put their hands on some actual forklifts, but it's optional for most places. People go  to trade school and a lot of it's book and then it's hands-on. Right now, these employers  don't have time to wait. They're like, "Dude, just get the certification. We're going to train  you how to do the things hands-on anyway.

05:56 They just want the piece of paper as fast as possible."  Okay? Cuz I'm sure the business that you own, you want to train them how you do stuff your way, not  not how the school taught them. Same thing here. This is a a business first where we have forklift  technicians. They leave in these vans. They go fix forklifts all over the the Metroplex. And then  for the school part, they're going to learn it all online.

06:20 They'll graduate. They'll come here. They  could do some ride sharing with the technicians. After about 4 weeks, we put them on their own.  Okay. So, the physical location is is key to them finishing the process. In the case of this trade  school, if they wanted to. Yeah. Because this is more hands-on. But like a lot of stuff like front  desk, there's no need to ever have any hands-on.

06:40 You're going to Well, your HVAC course that was  all done through like an Oculus, right? Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's all virtual reality. Hopefully, we're  going to get this where it's virtual reality, but right now it's just a glorified ebook  with some videos. Like anything else, when you finish taking a curriculum, you're going  to go take a test on a computer.

06:52 The computer's not going to know if you could fix something.  They just want to know, did you learn enough curriculum to get certified in that field? Okay,  so these videos are a lot of work and 62% of you are not subscribed to my channel. And many of  you think that you are, but you're not. So, do me a favor and just subscribe real quick and  maybe share this with a friend that might want to start their own trade school.

07:12 Have you ever  driven a forklift? No. You've never even gotten in one of these? Nope. But you have a forklift  technician trade school? Yes. Tell me how that's possible. Well, that's a fair question, right?  Yes. Yeah, know it's fair. So, like I said, I partnered up with Rich. We invested in a forklift  repair business, but I didn't want to fall under the same challenge that most people have that  where are you going to find technicians from?

07:39 I know trade schools really well. I wanted to  start a trade school in forklift technician. So, the fact that I know how to find curriculum, build  curriculum, partner up with the right operator, um, is a is a is a good win. They're the experts.  So, they they have to obviously become the instructor and and teach it. And I'm just there  for support.

07:56 Like, I'm there for uh streamlining, automation, CRM, and stuff that I know how to how  to do well. And I let them do the operating and all this side. I wouldn't even want to be on there  like you. Yeah. Yeah. So, are you going to be white labeling this course or Correct. Okay. For  now, I'm going to white label it. Hopefully in the future we're going to design it to make it virtual  reality.

08:16 It's a 55 hour course and then with the hands-on it'll be an extra 10 hours. Okay. And  what will you charge for that? Um we're going to charge about $7,500 and the course is 500. So,  we're going to make a margin of 7,000. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. 55 hours. So, twoe course.  Yeah. So for your first trade school, Yep. How did that go? We did really well.

08:38 Granted, it was 2021,  so a lot of luck there with COVID being involved. We did 2.4 million our first calendar year, but  a lot of that came at expense. I got a building cuz I thought you needed a building. I hired all  the staff cuz I thought you needed staff. And I bought the furniture and the books and the best  of everything when really it was online.

08:55 Yeah. The students never came. I had too much staff. So even  though I made 2.4, for you know million. I didn't really get to see a lot of that. I paid myself  a generous salary. But after that I found out, man, a lot of these students, they just want to do  the courses on their own time. They don't want to go to a community college where they have to go  to Monday, Wednesday, Friday or they can't leave their job.

09:19 Then the last thing they want to do  is go to night school or weekend school. So um the second year I only did 1.4 but with a twoman  show. So it was just a lot more automations and profitable that way. And then we went strictly  online. And where we were able to scale is we were able to sell to anyone in Texas. Yeah. Versus just  the Dallas Metroplex.

09:37 What was your profit both those two years? That's like 70% margins. So I  even though I showed a profit, I only paid myself a like a modest salary. The rest went back into  the business. But it was just almost too scary that I almost didn't spend it right away because  I just didn't think it was a thing. I didn't say anything for a while either. I mean, I didn't want  to tell anyone cuz I just thought it was too good to be true.

10:03 I mean, who's going to believe me  anyway? Like, there's a grant that pays me to train people. And I just stayed quiet for a while.  So, over a million profit that first year. Second year. Okay. The second year. Yeah. That was just  online. You What were you selling that course for? 122,000 to 15,000. And what were you paying for  it? 1,500. Wow. So, almost 90% margins.

10:18 How long did that last and why did it end? So, that lasted  a while. It it it only ended because I exited and I sold you know my my equity and then I went on  my own. Okay. Um other people started knocking on the door where how did you scale a school so  fast? A lot of things is I treated the school not like education. It was strictly business strictly  like a sales process.

10:43 I found out no one had sales scripts. No one had CRM. No one had any kind of  automations. You call up a school and it's like oh yeah Chris we teach forklift once a month. Come  on down here. it's 500 bucks. There's no followup, no, you know, drip campaigns, anything like that.  So, all I did is everything I've ever learned in leadership and business, applied it towards the  trade schools.

11:04 And the rest is history. I've since then, I've teached and taught a welding school,  fixed all their scripting and sales process, a flight attendance school, uh, a marine  school where they just teach the Coast Guards, um, how to do a certain certification. So I went  on my own doing that and now I've helped over 50 schools either fix them, start them all over  the country and here we are.

11:25 If someone wants to start this business, do they have to commit to  one trade or they can they do multiple courses, multiple trades in the same business? I would tell  them stick to one course at first or maybe two. If they are going to partner up with somebody  obviously stay in that lane like I partner up with a forklift repair business for the school so  we're staying in this lane.

11:44 Um but they could do multiple. It just depends on what the requirements  are for that state or that region. Yeah. But they could do multiple. I wouldn't go more than three.  You want to be the master of a couple versus just offering everything. But yeah, nothing stopping  them from doing multiple. Okay. So, if someone wanted to start this from day one getting  reimbursements from the state, they'd probably need some level of financial reserves to show  the state, right?

12:06 Financial reserves. And again, most schools start off to sell them. Yeah. You  know, I have a client in Arizona. He sells uh IT courses and for two years before he ever met me,  he just sold to the general public. Made a million dollars a year. Sells his courses from 8,000 to  12,000. And in that case, if you start like that, you don't need financial reserves.

12:28 Nope. Just  almost like a digital reseller. Yeah. Right. Uh um and he sold courses and did everything obviously  not by the book because he wasn't even licensed. And when he came to me and he's like, "How are you  getting these grants?" I mean, you have to be a licensed school. He became a licensed school. Then  he went through the wheel process and the ETPL and everything.

12:45 Now he's added an an additional 50 to  60,000 a month with just the grants to already his successful reselling business. So if I'm tied on  funds but patient. Yep. Best way is just to start this business. Find someone to white label it.  Start like start the application process so you can get it rolling because it might take a while.  But just start selling these like just start paid ads like friends and family like do you know  anyone?

13:05 And then you can use the money from those sales to build the reserves to show the state  that you're worthy of the grants. Right. Yeah. Um, again, depending on the state, you have to be  careful. But there's some states that you don't have to be licenses just to sell to apartment  complexes to sell to employers. How many I mean, how many companies can you call out there that the  guys need to be certified?

13:25 They just don't have the time to do it because they think they have to  go to school. And I'm like, no, man. Sell them the online course, partner up with them, and maybe  give them a price break if they're buying them in bulk. But there's so many different ways to do  it. So, if you're not licensed by the state yet and you you've got to go find paying customers  yourself, what is the best way of doing that?

13:47 And just get active with your local community,  whether that's church, nonprofits. As an example, I have a client and he only sells his course to  a nonprofit. He's in North Carolina. There's, believe it or not, nonprofit doesn't just  mean nonprofit. They have their own pool of money aside from WEO that they need to spend for  their missions, whether it's getting people back on their feet.

14:06 So, there's just a million ways to  to make money with this. There's a whole slew of kids turning 18 and they're either going to be  military, college, or nothing. And you could be that nothing option. I mean, if you set up next  to some colleges and say, "Hey, John and Mary, before you send your kid off to college or  have this gap year and drop four grand and get them certified in solar and EV and go fix  some stuff."

14:28 So there's just a lot of different ways the parents are willing to invest a little  bit of money in like a trade versus, you know, 20 grand for their freshman year. How common is  it for a kid to go through the program, pass it, get certified, and then never follow through with  actually getting a job? It happens. I mean, not as often as you think. I mean, usually people that do  this kind of commit to it and at least try it out at first, and they're not they usually stick with  it.

14:52 I mean, people that get into the trades want to work with their hands and they end up liking  it. It's a a lot less hurting the pocketbook doing it this way because it's a lower price to entry.  It hurts when you go to college, spend all that money, god forbid, you do get the degree and then  never use it. What other success stories have you heard of people making a lot of money in this  space?

15:11 I have a client um Elia in Houston. She does electrical and HVAC. She's doing about four  or five million a year. Um she's the only female Latina trade school owner and she just conquered  Houston. She has contracts with manufacturer uh some companies where she trains their data entry  uh uh uh technicians and she just does really well. I have uh a guy in in Idaho that does  extremely well.

15:35 He literally only does courses for the people going into the data centers that  they're building out there. So it's anything from building facility maintenance like um it could be  appliance repair industrial cleaning kind of kind of roles and he does extremely well. He probably  doing about a million a year. Wow. Didn't you have like an LDS guy out in Utah like selling this to?

15:58 Yeah. So, he's only doing only prisons. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's only selling it to the people in in  in prisons as they come out. As they come out cuz it's it's online. They're taking the test on the  computer. It's being proctor. So, when they come out, they're coming out with certifications. He's  doing pretty good. Not not not in the millions. I think he's doing about 30,000 a month.

16:16 That's it.  I mean, compared to others, but yeah, it's pretty cool. He's because Utah takes two years to get  fully licensed. He's just doing that partnership with the prison program right now. Maybe a dumb  question, but in addition to getting reimbursed by the state, will they refer people to you as well?  Sometimes depends, especially if you're the only option.

16:36 So, what happens a lot of times is say I  want to be a dental assisting and there's only a community college to go to and they're like, "But  I work even though I'm on food stamps, but and I have two or three kids, I still qualify for food  stamps. I can't go to, you know, your traditional school, but maybe online school I can because I  could do it at night when the kids go to sleep.

16:53 So instead of them saying, "Hey, don't go to Dallas  Community College." Go to Chris's trade school. He offers it online. So you will get some referrals  that way. Not common, but it happens. Yeah. So as a business owner, why do you think it's important  to add your own trade school? Well, we really need a good pipeline. You can roll up to any dealership  in this metroplex and they're all going to have a we're hiring sign out.

17:20 You know, sometimes  people get burned out or they find out it's not what they want or they move off. You know, this  is one occupation where you can learn this trade and you can move anywhere in the world and find  someplace to work because everywhere in the world has forklifts. Yeah. Every 18-wheeler you see on  the road is loaded and unloaded with a forklift or at least some kind of electrical equipment.

17:48 You know, when you just think of that number, how many 18 wheelers you see on the road. I mean,  there's there's when you boil down a business, there's two parts to it. Fulfilling the service  and selling the service, right? In my experience, it's very frustrating to have plenty of  customers but no way to fulfill them because you don't have enough help, right?

18:06 So, usually  it's harder to find the customers. In this case, it seems like it's harder to find the help. So, if  you can monetize the opportunity to find the help, you make more money in the business and then you  can make extra money in training these guys. You know, maybe it'll take a hundred years, maybe  it'll eventually catch up, but there is no AI that does what we do.

18:28 Yeah. You have to physically go  out and diagnose and physically repair uh onsite usually. Yeah. at the customer's location, you  know, whatever the element is to the forklift. So, yeah. Um, there's no smart neck technology that's  going to do that over the phone for you. Well, even if even if we had a robot that could  physically do it, an AI is only as good as its training data.

18:54 And you just showed me a  forklift that was 40 years old. You you can't tell me there's like a perfect little training manual  with videos on how to fix it. Like, it doesn't exist. It doesn't. So, how are you going to train  the AI and then make a robot that specialized for that use case? Like our first robots are going to  do things like pack boxes because that's things that's something we need millions and millions  and millions of, right?

19:13 But something this specialized, it'll be decades, hundred years  before we get around to making the hardware and the software and the AI that can actually do  it, right? Exactly. Exactly. AI proof. Yeah, it is [clears throat] AI proof. Well, Hector, I think  we've put enough in this video for people to start their own trade school, but if someone wants to  learn more or they want help from you personally, where can they find you?

19:37 I think all the  information will be located in the links below and I'll let you take it from there. All right. Yeah,  check out the link in the description to meet Hector, talk to Hector, and get all the help you  may need. We'll see you next time on the Kerner