Behind the tools: the Academy’s Kid Dynamite

At the age of 21, and still in his first year of business, Thomas Marshall has taken his business to a level most electricians will never reach.

Coachable, determined and relentless, Thomas was fast-tracked through the Academy’s advanced coaching programs and never missed a beat. 

He launched his business, Marshall Electrics Ltd, mid-last year during Level 4 COVID Lockdown in New Zealand - because he recognised pulling the trigger was more important than timing things just right. 

Thomas embodies the idea that limited money, inexperience, and life obligations never stopped someone who really wanted to do something, but provide a good excuse for those who aren’t up to the challenge in the first place. 

The difference between Thomas and most aspiring business owners around his age? 

He spent his free time with his head buried in Academy training content, watching videos, taking notes, and figuring out how to apply those lessons to his own business. 

He not only learned enthusiastically, he implemented what he learned too.

“My biggest driver is that I just wanted to do it once, and do it properly. I’d hate to put in all this time and effort and lose all this sleep and stressing for no reward, which is what I was doing before,” he says. 

There were tumbles, struggles, and setbacks along the way, but so far he’s managed to come through the other side each time, with no more than a few aftershocks and bruises. 

The bottom line is, there’s no better example of how quickly electricians can grow their business with the right attitude and guidance than Thomas Marshall.

And that’s why he’s the Academy’s Kid Dynamite. 

**

Thomas grew up in Sydney, Australia, but has lived the last six years in Auckland, New Zealand. He’s since developed what he calls a “mongrel” accent. 

He left school in Year 12, and after completing work experience with a few different trades, decided he wanted to be a sparkie.

“The sparkie I worked with was just hilarious -  he looked like he really enjoyed his job and I thought I’d love to be doing this. Cruising around in the ute all day, going to different people’s houses, screamed a bit of me,” he says. 

During his first year as an apprentice at a large commercial firm, Thomas learnt his first big lesson the hard way. 

It was a job more or less like any other. When his tradesman asked him to get a cable ready to fit off an induction hob, he was all over it.

He opened it up, took all the connectors off, and confidently grabbed the six mill cable, ready to go - he figured testing the cable would only slow things down.

Thomas was thrown off his feet and halfway across the room. He found himself violently jolted into an electric fog that haunts him to this day.

The tradesman rushed back into the room, saw the state his first-year apprentice was in, and said;

“You’re an idiot. I didn’t ask you to do that at all”.

“I didn’t really believe them when they told me it really hurts if you get a shock. I was like, oh yeh, can’t be that bad. I was thinking car battery zap sort of thing. Now I’m terrified of electricity,” Thomas says. 

It didn’t derail him though - nor did having his van written off, or being robbed of all his electrical tools when his new van was broken into the following week. 

He kept the smile on his face, and kept going. 

Thomas absorbed everything he could from his stint in the commercial side but eventually found his niche in residential work.

He was in for a surprise when he crawled up into his first ceiling, and had to drill down top-plates over piles of dead rats - but It was just another rite of passage the young electrician took in his stride.

Thomas always knew he wanted to work for himself at some point, and he didn’t waste any time. He launched his electrical business at the age of 20 in the worst economic conditions imaginable.  

But he soon realised that as an eager young business owner without the right guidance, he was just spinning his wheels. 

“I was undercutting myself without really knowing it, thinking I’m making all this money when I’m not,” he says. 

“I was doing things the longest way possible. I was making up the prices as I went. All my invoices were structured so horribly, they just looked all over the shop. If a customer would come to me and say, `What is this?’ I wouldn’t be able to tell them, I had no idea.”

That’s when he joined the Academy. 

**

Joining the Academy put Thomas on a rapid ascension through the ranks and made him the youngest ever ESA Peak Performer.

His business, Marshall Electrics Ltd, is on the same trajectory - he’s just hired a third year apprentice to help with the growing workload. 

“Being told I was doing it all wrong was exactly what I needed, and it was great,” he says.

Thomas describes many things he learned in the Academy as a “game changer” or “turning point” for him.

He says learning to implement systems, utilising software, pricing properly, converting and upselling on-site, marketing effectively, targeting the right customers, following-up on quotes and understanding his cost of operation were the key areas which helped him transform his personal life and explode his business in such a short space of time. 

“Joining the Academy is the best decision I’ve ever made - both personally and professionally. I’ve become a much more knowledgeable electrician and now have the confidence to to convert nearly every lead - I honestly don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t joined,” he says. 

**

Thomas might be sitting at the helm of a more successful business than most 21-year-olds could dream of - but in so many ways, he’s still no different to your 21-year old lad. 

“I still get pestered by all my mates. We all love going out for a beer, and we all used to skate through highschool, nip down and have a cruise around. We still do that, and we’ll play football. Just classic lad stuff,” he says.

He also schedules time to spend with his girlfriend and her family - Thomas says putting aside specific times makes it much easier to avoid being consumed by business and work. Already, he recognises how important this is.

He’s also a golf enthusiast.

“Me and a bunch of the lads pencil in once a month we take the day off work and play 18 holes of golf. You get to see all your mates, have a beer, and have a game,” he says.

As long as the spark remains strong in the Academy’s Kid Dynamite - the years ahead promise to be explosive for him.