There are several schools scattered across the United States that promise that you can learn the Appliance Repair Business in three weeks of schooling, what a joke!
It’s a complete farce!
The best that you can hope for in three weeks of “schooling” in appliance repair is to establish an acquaintance, a little nibbling titbit of information; the tip of the iceberg at best.
And why is this true; I can prove it to you.
Well first off let’s step back and compare a three (3) week school to a three (3) year school.
I mean, really, to become a plumber or an electrician you have to go to school for years because it takes years to learn a new career. To become a surgeon you have to go to school for ten years, no intelligent person is going to expect to learn and master a new trade-in three weeks; it’s just totally ridiculous.
Now that’s just not my opinion, I have some facts to back it up because I fell into that same trap and opened a school and operated it for several years, teaching ten to twenty guys in a school workshop setting and I gained the first-hand experience on just exactly what happens in that school atmosphere.
Here’s the problem, looking back at my students who were dedicated and diligent guys; they were not goof-offs, they were not just kids who were going to go out and get drunk at night and come in all hungover the next day. These were serious middle-aged men who wanted to learn a new career but the facts are that most if not all of the students that enter such a vocational school are not used to studying for starters. They are also not used to tough physical activity like getting down on the floor for four hours and crawling around repairing appliances, it’s tiring when you first do it. Is it realistic to expect a forty-year-old guy who hasn’t been in school for twenty years to study at night, listen to lectures for several hours a day and work on appliances for three or four hours a day?
I mean they really want to but let me tell you what really happens; their enthusiasm wanes after about three (3) days, their tongues start hanging down to their knees and they are creaking around like old men because they are stiff and sore and they are just tired, they need a break and an hour isn’t going to do it. They need a couple of days recovery to get their back right and to get used to the new pace, it’s tough! By the fifth day, their brains are fried, they can’t absorb any more, they are getting bleary in the middle of lectures, they are starting to be distracted easily.
This became very obvious to me and caused me to re-evaluate and actually close up my school because I was not performing an honest service for these gentlemen. In the ideal situation, they needed to study before they came to the school (which I did institute by the way and it helped some); they needed to study, listen to the lectures, work on appliances a maximum of three (3) days and then go home and absorb and practice what they learned and then come back a month or two (2) later for three (3) days; back and forth, back and forth.
But this is totally impractical, there’s too much information for a human being to grasp in a short period of three (3) weeks. I found that by the middle of the second week the folks weren’t learning anything, they couldn’t remember what they learned on the first and second day; their concepts were gone, they had not been absorbed and these were intelligent dedicated people, it just didn’t work! I felt sorry for them; they were all beat up and sore and absolutely worn out and needed to go home and recover.
My conclusion is that in order to learn the appliance repair trade or career requires a long term diligent slow pace of encountering problems, reviewing/studying problems and their solutions, experimenting and gradually learning each type of appliance and what little miserable tricks it’s gonna pull on you over a period of time.
It actually takes several years of working diligently in the appliance repair business before your mind absorbs all of the tricks and starts to see repeat jobs and similar problems and you gain a comfort level and some speed to doing the same repairs and taking similar appliances apart, some diagnostic speed and your mind absorbs what you need to learn. Just like plumbers, electricians, HVAC and medical doctors you need to learn the patterns, the science behind them and practice, practice, practice. Only then are you going to become a professional.
Now don’t be discouraged, I have just described how difficult it is in a very negative way. However, the appliance repair business is different from let’s say the medical profession where you’ll be thrown in as a doctor or a resident in an ER environment where you’re starting to see patients one after the other and you’re panic-stricken. No, the appliance repair business always starts off gradually and gives you the opportunity to get your ‘sea legs’ as you learn.
For example, if you’re starting your own business you probably are only going to get a scattering of calls in the first few weeks; you might get one or two (1 or 2), three or four (3 or 4) and you’ll have plenty of time to study and focus and make return trips while you learn. Customers are very forgiving, they’re not gonna be irritated if they know you’re working diligently to solve their specific problem and you can fiddle around, not too efficiently but you will be learning at a great pace and you won’t be under a tremendous amount of pressure. This is what nearly all of my students do, they wind up running maybe one service call a day, perhaps part-time or perhaps two or maybe even just two or three (2 or 3) a week and then over a period of months the pace picks up until they’re running three or four (3 or 4) a day and then five (5) a day and then they’re really making some money and they’re gaining experience and confidence. They know how to handle customers, they know how to handle difficult situations that are unfamiliar and things just get better and better!
So my advice is to take it slow and steady like the turtle and the hare and gradually master this new trade. Don’t waste your hard-earned money on a three-week school, buy my program, set your own pace and get personal help when you need it.
I’d really like to hear from anyone who has mastered the appliance repair trade-in only three weeks. I don’t believe that it’s possible. In hindsight, don’t you think it was a waste of time and money to go to a three-week school?