If you can weld now or want to weld, is that a big deal? Yes and no.
Welding can be a very difficult skill to acquire and take years, or an afternoon (or a few days) at home. The question is, are you making stinky money out of it? Yes, you love to weld (I love it). Why are some welders making money and others so broke it’s not funny? Get answers, NOW.
Let’s see, can anyone walk into Home Depot and buy a little Lincoln flux cored welder and learn how to weld in an afternoon or a day or two? Yes.
The soldering iron I’m referring to is the size of a carry-on and will plug into any 120-volt outlet. Follow the instruction leaflet (always read the safety part and apply everything please) and that person may be running a decent account on the floor, just like that. Really, in a few hours of paying attention, you can run decent accounts with good penetration.
The REAL question is, can you take that skill and make money?
Think about it: you can read this article, get in the car, buy the soldering iron, plug it in and solder for a few hours and have a “skill” on some level. What does that make you? It makes you a person with a very limited ability, but a skill nonetheless.
When I was 13 years old, I would weld the exhaust on one of my many cars (I flipped cars for a profit from 11 to 22 years old). Soldering proved useful in older cars from the early 1960s and even early 1950s because they were “heavy metals.” I wasn’t a great welder at the time, but being able to weld could make a difference – it allowed me to make repairs and “add value” to a car. Instead of selling hamburgers at Mickey Ds, I could always have a lot of money.
Later, at 19 and fresh out of high school, I built doors, nice doors that look great today, 40 years later. I was self taught in welding and highly recommend it (welding self education and self education for almost any skill).
So why is the title of this article: “Solder Sucks?” Well, for most welders, it sucks. It’s no fun when you get stuck with limited skill in a factory that doesn’t make enough money and acts like a robot all day.
What can you do to make welding fun again?
When he started welding, it was fun. He didn’t need to make money right away. And everyone around him told him there would be a “good job” waiting for him when he got good at welding, so he kept going.
Maybe you went through a year or two of welding education, and then the truth hit you like a brick wall. He discovered that no one wanted to pay him a lot of money to weld …
What is the secret?
What is the well-kept secret that no one seems to tell welders? It is marketing. If you can TRADE your skill, no matter what that skill is, if your skill is welding or window washing, if you can TRADE that skill, you will get all the money you and your family need. If you can’t, you won’t. That’s when welding is NOT fun, when you can’t make a lot of money out of it.
What can you do about it?
Step 1:
Stop thinking about “Work”. WORK stands for “Just Over Broke”. If you want to live your life that way, get a job or keep the one you have.
What’s the difference between a window cleaner who works for someone else and a window cleaner who makes a lot of money for 28 years?
I met Suzy the other day. Suzy lives in an oceanfront house with a dock. Suzy has a brand new GMC 4 door pickup (very nice). Suzy no longer bothers to advertise her business. Suzy has been cleaning windows as a freelance window cleaner for 28 years. She doesn’t need to advertise.
Why am I talking about a window cleaner?
Suzy became a FREELANCE window cleaner 28 years ago. She employs three window cleaners and pays each of them $ 10 an hour. Suzy charges $ 20 an hour for every hour her window cleaner works. Suzy also drives a fourth truck herself. Add it up: Suzy earns $ 30 an hour from her workers and earns another $ 20 an hour for the hours she works. Suzy makes $ 100,000 a year washing windows. This is called “Capitalism”.
Why do you need to be a capitalist?
We live in a capitalist society. This means that if you weld now for $ 10 an hour, you can weld as a freelance welder for $ 30 an hour (or more) simply by being “in business” instead of being a “work drone” for someone else. Is it so hard to believe? Believe it, it is simply TRUE!
$ 30 an hour is cheap for a welder.
I’m telling you, you can make $ 30 an hour next week with minimal welding skills, if you understand and apply basic marketing skills.
And the immigrants? Meet Tom:
Tom (not his Vietnamese name) is one of the nicest people I have ever met. Tom is 60 years old. In 1980, Tom was one of 25 people crammed into a small fishing boat sailing away from communist Vietnam and heading to Hong Kong, risking his life, for a new life of freedom.
The ship’s captain put a pistol next to the compass. Ruined the compass. They were lost at sea. They ran out of gas. They ran out of food. The seas turned wild. Tom was pretty sure they were all going to die.
They saw a ship in the distance. They waved their coats. They were given food and gasoline and told which way to go to get to Hong Kong. Tom came to the United States. Tom was totally and completely broke, and he didn’t speak English.
With a variety of jobs 15 hours a day, Tom saved money. He met Lany and they saved. They opened a nail salon and then another. Today Tom and Lany are comfortable in America. Their house is almost paid for and they have a great retirement. Why? Tom and Lany worked hard and understood marketing. And yes, they had a knack: they started by getting a license to do nails. You can see? “Doing nails” was only part of her success – actually, the small part.
What does this have to do with welding?
Everything! However, welding has so many advantages over window cleaning and nailing! You can start right now and be an entry-level welder, working for you within a week, if that’s what you want. Unlike window cleaning and nails, you can improve your welding skills on the fly, teaching yourself from home, until your welding skills are worth (are you sitting) $ 100 an hour?
Don’t run to Home Depot and buy a soldering iron (yet).
If you buy the right used soldering iron and do the right things with marketing, you can be in business and working as long as you want in 2-3 weeks. How? It requires mastering some marketing basics, and hard work, but if someone who sails in Vietnam and doesn’t speak English can do it, you can too.
Conclution:
Your success has nothing to do with money or the economy. It has to do with your belief in yourself. From there, you just have to pay attention to what really matters.
What should you do next?