'Are You a Banker?' 'No, I'm a Plumber.' Why Trades Deserve Executive Respect

Short answer: Yes. You can build a large, serious company in the trades without a college degree, because the trades reward what you can do, how reliably you do it, and how well you take care of the customer in their home. A degree is one path to a career. A trade is another, and it can lead all the way to running a multi-location business, a platform, or a group of companies. What holds the trades back is not a lack of credentials. It is a lack of respect, from the outside and sometimes from inside the industry itself.

Here is the moment that made me want to write this down.

I was at a business conference, the kind where people introduce themselves with a title and a company and then quietly decide how much attention to give you. Someone looked at me, at the suit, at the room we were in, and asked, "Are you a banker?"

I said, "No, I'm a plumber."

I said it on purpose. I run a home services company. We fix pipes, air conditioners, appliances and the other systems that keep a house working. The honest answer to "what do you do" is that I am in the trades. I have spent years learning how to build an executive-grade company around that work, but the work is still the work.

The pause that followed told me a lot. In many rooms, "plumber" still sounds like the end of a conversation. It should sound like the beginning of one.

The question behind the question

When someone asks "are you a banker," they are not really asking about my job. They are asking where I fit. Banker, lawyer, consultant, investor: these words signal status. They imply a path through school, credentials and an office.

"Plumber" signals something else to a lot of people. It signals a van, a toolbox, an hourly rate and a person you call when something breaks.

Both pictures are incomplete. Finance is full of people doing repetitive work. The trades are full of people running complex operations: dispatch, inventory, pricing, hiring, training, warranties, licensing, safety, customer service and cash flow, often all at once and often with no back office to help.

The person who owns a ten-truck plumbing company is running a logistics business, a hiring business, a training school and a customer service operation at the same time. That is an executive job. We just don't usually call it one.

Why the trades deserve executive respect

I want to make a specific argument, not a sentimental one.

The work is hard to do well

Diagnosing a failing system inside someone's home, under time pressure, with the homeowner watching, is skilled work. The technician has to think about safety, code, parts, cost and what the customer actually wants. Then they have to explain it clearly and be trusted. Many office jobs never ask someone to combine technical judgment, sales, empathy and accountability in a single hour.

The business is hard to run well

Service businesses are operationally unforgiving. A missed call is a lost customer. A late technician is a bad review. A wrong part means a second trip that nobody pays for. Margins live in the details: scheduling, routing, first-time fix, callbacks, memberships, and whether the phone is answered by a person who cares.

I have written before about why so many contractors hit a ceiling. Usually, the ceiling is not about demand or skill in the field. It is about the owner trying to carry every system in their own head. Getting past that ceiling requires exactly the skills we associate with executives: delegation, systems, measurement, and the discipline to build a team that works without you in the room.

The stakes are real

When the air conditioner fails during a heat wave, or water is coming through the ceiling, the trades are not a side industry. They are the people who keep homes livable. That is not a small responsibility, and the people who carry it deserve to be taken seriously as professionals and as business leaders.

Can you build a large company without a college degree?

This is the question people actually search for, so let me answer it directly.

Yes, and the trades are one of the clearest places to do it. Here is why the path works:

1. You can learn by doing and get paid while you learn. Apprenticeships, on-the-job training and technical programs let people build skills without starting their career in debt.

2. Results are visible. Either the system works when you leave or it doesn't. Either the customer calls you back next year or they don't. That kind of feedback builds competence fast.

3. Ownership is reachable. A skilled technician can become a lead, a manager, a partner, and an owner. The steps are concrete. You learn the craft, then you learn to lead people doing the craft, then you learn to run the business around it.

4. Demand does not disappear. Homes will always need heating, cooling, water, power and working appliances. Software can change how the work is found, scheduled and paid for. It does not remove the need for someone to show up.

What a degree does not give you, and what the trades force you to learn, is how to deliver under pressure for a real customer. What the trades often do not give you, and what you have to go learn on purpose, is how to build systems, read numbers, manage people and think about capital. Those skills are learnable. You can learn them from mentors, books, peers, podcasts and mistakes. I have learned a lot of mine that way.

So the honest answer is: you don't need a degree, but you do need to keep studying. The best owners I know in this industry read constantly, ask for help, and treat their business as something to be designed, not just survived.

Where the respect gap comes from

If the work is skilled and the businesses are complex, why does "plumber" still get the pause?

I see a few reasons.

Schools steered people away from the trades

For a long time, many young people were told that the respectable path ran through a four-year degree and that trade work was the fallback. That story shaped how parents talk, how guidance counselors advise and how society assigns status. It also shaped who entered the industry, and who stayed out.

The industry undersold itself

Some of the problem is inside the trades. Many companies present themselves as a phone number and a truck, not as a professional organization. Uniforms, training, customer communication, pricing clarity and online presence all send a signal. When an industry does not invest in how it shows up, it should not be surprised when others don't see it as a career.

The owner disappears behind the van

In other industries, founders talk publicly about how they think. In home services, many brilliant operators never do. They are busy, they are on the job, and talking about themselves feels unnatural. The result is that the public picture of the industry is a technician at the door, not the person who built the system that got the technician there on time, trained and prepared.

That is one reason I write. Not to make myself the story, but to make the operator's job visible.

What executive respect looks like in practice

Respect is not a slogan on a truck. It is a set of decisions about how a company treats its people and how it presents the work.

Pay and progression that reward results. People in the trades should be able to see how their income grows when they get better. Clear paths from technician to lead to manager to partner matter more than speeches about appreciation. I wrote about this in why we graduate partners instead of just hiring technicians.

Training that is treated as a real curriculum. If we want the trades to be seen as professional, we have to train like professionals: product knowledge, diagnostics, safety, customer communication and business basics.

Tools that make the technician look and feel prepared. A technician who walks into a home knowing the likely issue, the equipment history and the right questions is respected by the customer, and respects themselves more. This is where technology, including AI, can raise the status of the work instead of replacing the person doing it.

A customer experience that matches the skill. Answering the phone, showing up when promised, explaining options honestly, and following up after the job. These are not soft extras. They are how customers decide whether you are a professional.

Leaders who say what they do. When an owner says "I'm in the trades" in a room full of bankers and says it with pride, it shifts the room a little. When enough owners do it, it shifts the industry.

The trades and the new economy

There is a lot of talk about which jobs AI will change. Much of the attention is on office work: writing, analysis, data entry, support. Those changes are real, and I am building for them inside my own company.

But the physical economy is different. Somebody still has to crawl into the attic, replace the valve, wire the panel and test the system. AI can help that person prepare, document, quote and follow up. It can take the keyboard work off their plate. It can make a small company operate with the back office of a big one.

What it cannot do is replace the trust a homeowner gives to the person standing in their kitchen.

That is why I think the next decade could be good for the trades, if the industry builds the right infrastructure underneath them. The people who can do the physical work, and the companies that support them with modern systems, will be in a strong position. The respect gap may close not because of a marketing campaign but because the value becomes too obvious to ignore.

What I would tell a young person choosing a path

If you are deciding between a degree you are not excited about and a trade you are curious about, here is what I would say.

• Pick a path where you learn real skills quickly. The trades offer that.

• Treat the first job as school. Learn everything: the craft, how calls are booked, how jobs are priced, how the best technicians talk to customers.

• Find a company that shows you the path upward. If nobody can explain how you grow from technician to leader to owner, keep looking.

• Learn the business side on purpose. Read about management, finance and operations. Listen to founders. Ask your manager how the numbers work.

• Don't apologize for the work. Being good with your hands and good with people is a rare combination. It is the foundation of a lot of very large businesses.

You can still go to college later if you want to. Many people do. But you don't need permission from a diploma to build something meaningful.

What I would tell investors and executives

If you come from finance or corporate life and you are looking at home services, here is my request: take the operators seriously.

The owner who built a local service company from one truck has solved problems that would break a lot of well-credentialed managers. They know their customers, their market and their people. They may not use the same vocabulary you do. That does not mean they lack the understanding.

The best partnerships in this industry happen when capital and operators respect each other's knowledge. The worst happen when one side assumes the other is less sophisticated. I have seen enough of both to know that respect is not a soft value here. It is a practical one. It decides whether people stay, whether customers stay, and whether a business keeps working after the deal closes.

Back to the conference

When I said "No, I'm a plumber," I wasn't making a joke and I wasn't being modest. I was describing the industry I chose and the work my company does every day.

I also meant something else: in home services, you can become almost anyone. You can start in the field and end up running a company. You can learn the craft, then learn leadership, then learn capital. Your origin does not have to set your ceiling.

The trades don't need anyone's pity, and they don't need a rebrand. They need the same thing every serious profession needs: high standards, real training, fair pay tied to results, modern tools, and leaders who are proud to say what they do.

Next time someone asks me if I'm a banker, I will give the same answer. And I hope more people in the room will be curious about what that means.

If you want more of the background, my About page explains what Home Alliance is building, and I shared more of my own beginnings in $800 and nothing else.

FAQ

Can you build a large company in the trades without a college degree?

Yes. The trades reward skill, reliability and customer care, and they offer a concrete path from technician to lead, manager, partner and owner. What matters is continuing to learn the business side, such as systems, people management and finance, through mentors, reading and experience.

Why don't the trades get the same respect as office professions?

Partly because, for years, young people were steered toward four-year degrees and away from trade work, and partly because many service companies have not presented themselves as professional organizations. Owners also rarely talk publicly about how they run their businesses, so the complexity stays invisible.

Is running a home services company an executive job?

Yes. A multi-truck service company combines dispatch, hiring, training, pricing, inventory, customer service, compliance and cash management. Scaling one requires delegation, systems and measurement, the same skills expected of executives in any industry.

Will AI replace tradespeople?

AI can change how jobs are found, scheduled, documented and followed up, and it can take much of the office work off a technician's plate. It does not replace the person who does the physical work in the home and earns the homeowner's trust.

What should a young person look for in a trades employer?

Clear training, visible pay progression tied to results, honest customer practices, modern tools, and a leader who can explain how someone grows from technician to leader or owner.