Sebastian Apostol

Well, hello everyone, if you're watching. My name's Seb. I'm the owner of Warwickshire Alarms. I'm based in Warwickshire. Obviously, hopefully the name gives that away. And I install alarm systems and CCTV.

So the majority of my time in work is actually doing the installs. I always try and take my time to get those done really, really nice because the way I see it, if I do a good job somewhere, that's always gonna lead to more work.

However, when I haven't got work coming in, there's certain times of the year where it is frightening, I'm not gonna be honest, it is frightening because the phone does slow down naturally.

At those times I'm busy trying to think up new ideas on how to reach out to people, how to generate more growth, train myself as well, make sure I'm keeping up to date with standards and new technology.

The beauty is there is no typical day. Honestly, that is the honest truth. I know you possibly hear that a lot from people in industry, but there really isn't a typical day.

One day I might be going out to someone who sadly has just been burgled and trying to, you know, reassure them, give them confidence, again, prevent them from being ripped off. It's really, really important to me that you treat people how you want to be treated.

One day I can be in a residential property, the next time I can be in a humongous warehouse running humongous length of cable. You name it.

But that's what I love about it. It makes it interesting and exciting. I can't cope with the same thing day in, day out.

So I'm a sole trader, so I mainly work by myself. However, I'm a big believer in that actually you can't do things by yourself all the time and teams are really important. So I have actually built a team around me of other industry experts that I can use.

So I've got teams of people that train me and to make sure that I'm up to date with the most current technology, best standards. So I've got a team that I work with based at Risco who do that with me. I've got other teams who specialize in CCTV. So I use a couple of different brands. So I work closely with them as well to make sure again I'm using best practice and the best standards.

I've got electricians on hand because some jobs I work in low voltage so I can work up to 48 volts. However, there are times or locations where I do need more expertise and people with higher qualifications. So I've got electricians I work really closely with.

I chuck jobs their way, they chuck jobs my way. We try and keep each other sweet so that we could do each other favours and I can probably get a slightly more competitive rate so the job that I'm doing is still profitable.

The first thing is, is that I'm in charge of it. You know, I am responsible for how good my days are and how bad my days are. I love that.

I love that my hard work comes back and rewards me and the people that I love in my life. That's really important to me. But genuinely, and this isn't just, it sounds a bit cheesy, it's not what you're just saying it, I genuinely get so much pleasure and pride when you do a good job, an honest job, and then you see the response in your customer, or if you're really lucky, they give you a beautiful write-up online of their own accord and recognising the difference you've made in another family's life.

I'm just doing my job to try and pay my bills and to sort of live my own life. But when you see through your efforts, you're making a difference to someone else, I love my reviews. Getting a good review from a customer genuinely makes my day.

The hardest part of my job is sometimes customers. I love the customers, but equally sometimes their expectations can be completely unfair.

Yeah, sometimes you will come across some people who just take too much and that can hurt sometimes because I try and put a lot of passion and personality into what I do.

And then I take it very seriously. And when I feel like I've perhaps not met a standard for someone, that is upsetting. And I beat myself up a bit too much about that sometimes. So that's hard. Thankfully, it doesn't happen often, but that's really hard.

Again, sometimes when you just get, you just come across some people and they're just not fair. You'll do honest work for them and for whatever reason, they'll just decide to try and not pay you. And it's horrible because that's... it's not why you're in business. But that can be really upsetting. Dealing with that kind of stuff, I don't enjoy, really don't enjoy doing.

I did not do academically well. I just wasn't interested in academia, if I'm really completely honest. I did see the value in learning to read. I did see the value in basic maths. And being able to communicate with people is important.

However, for me, I've got to be honest, schooling wasn't fun. I didn't enjoy it. I went to school because I loved some of my teachers. They were just wicked people and they taught me how to be a human.

Our headteacher had this brilliant ethos of, and he said to us, we're going to do two things for you in this school. The first thing is we're going to prepare you for life. The second thing is we're going to give you a good education.

And do you know what? I can't remember his name now and it bugs me so much, but that man was awesome because he said that in our first assembly and it stuck with me now all these years later. And he stuck to his word. He did it. He really, really did.

I was really lucky in my school, we were given lots of opportunity to volunteer for free for the local community. And our teachers really, really valued that.

If I hadn't have had that opportunity, I obviously don't know. Some teachers told me I was going to go to prison because I was stupid and I was lazy. Academically, I didn't have a lot of hope, but I did a lot of volunteering.

I stress that if you're watching this now, I stress to you, do not ever underestimate the power and the value, especially at your age now. Go out, get experience. Before you've got loads of bills coming in and loads of expectations, go out now. Just go and do it.

And honestly, just go to businesses. This is exactly what I did. Just knock on their door, walk in there and just offer your time for free. Literally tell them you're interested, you'd like to know more about it. Give your time for free initially.

You'll be amazed how quickly and how regularly that free work may turn into real work.

There's several that I can't talk about, sadly, but they all run on the same theme. And it was all about finding people at a point of real need, people that are possibly at their lowest they could ever been.

And then just being there, just listening to them, hearing what they needed to make things or start to make things better, then working out how to get the tool sets in for them and the support they needed to start to make their life different.

And then after that, it was just being consistent with them and making sure I kept in touch, kept supporting so that when they did wobble they got there and seeing those people, like I said, completely turn their lives around.

Wow. The best advice I could have had was don't wait, just go and do it. Don't listen to the worries in your head or the negativity.

But truthfully, to you young people that are watching this, be you. Go out there and do it. If you can dream it, you can do it.

Ask yourself, is this gonna benefit you? Is it gonna benefit others? Whatever you do, don't leave people in a worse position than you find them. Don't do things that are gonna selfishly just benefit you.

If it's gonna make society better, if it's gonna make you better, the people you love around you, just go out there, give it a go. The worst that will happen is it won't work.

In which case you're like, great, let's try again. I've tried to build so many companies before this one that had mediocre success, but they weren't, I couldn't make a living off them.

But, and you know, I'm so glad I tried them because each time I did it, I learned something else, gained something else. The volunteering gave me something else. Go out there and do it. Be amazing. You are honestly so much more capable than you've probably given yourself credit for.

We live in an age now where communication is so easy and generating all these things, if you just talk to people, there'll be someone out around you already who knows how to do it. Work together. Go and do it. Don't give yourself any excuses. Just do it now.