If you can weld now or want to weld, does it matter? 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 a ton of money on it? Yes, you love to weld (me too). Why are some welders making money and others so broke it’s not fun? Get answers, NOW.

Let’s see, can anyone go to Home Depot and buy a little Lincoln flux-cored welder and learn to weld in an afternoon or a day or two? Yes.

The welder I’m referring to is about the size of a carry-on and plugs into any 120-volt outlet. Follow the instruction booklet (always reading the safety part and applying it fully, please) and that person can 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 do to you? It makes you a person with very limited ability, but an ability nonetheless.

When I was 13, I welded the exhaust on one of my many cars (between the ages of 11 and 22, I flipped cars for profit). Welding came in handy on older cars from the early ’60s and even early ’50s because they were “heavy metal.” I wasn’t much of a 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 flipping burgers 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 I highly recommend it (self education in welding and self education for almost any skill).

So why is the title of this article: “Welding Sucks?” Well, for most welders, it sucks. It’s no fun when you’re stuck with limited skill in a factory not earning enough money and acting like a robot all day.

What can you do to make welding fun again?

When you started welding, it was fun. You didn’t need to make money right away. And everyone around you told you that there would be a “good job” waiting for you when you got good at welding, so you kept going.

Maybe you went through a year or two of welding education, and then the truth hit you like a brick wall. You discovered that no one wanted to pay you a lot of money to weld…

What is the secret?

What is the well-kept secret that no one seems to tell welders? it’s marketing. If you can MARKET your skill, it doesn’t matter what that skill is, if your skill is welding or washing windows, if you can MARKET that skill, you’ll 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 doing it.

What can you do about it?

Step 1:

Stop thinking about “work”. JOB stands for “Just Over Broke”. If you want to live your life that way, get a job or keep the one you have.

What is the difference between a window cleaner who works for someone else and a window cleaner who earns a lot of money for 28 years?

I put Suzy on the other day. Suzy lives in a waterfront house with a dock. Suzy has a new GMC 4-door station wagon (very nice). Suzy no longer bothers to advertise her business. Suzy has been cleaning windows as an independent window washer for 28 years. She doesn’t need to advertise.

Why am I telling you about a window cleaner?

Suzy became an INDEPENDENT window cleaner 28 years ago. She employs 3 window cleaners and pays each of them $10 per hour. Suzy charges $20 per hour for every hour her window cleaners work. Suzy also drives a fourth truck herself. Add it up: Suzy earns $30 per hour from her workers and another $20 per hour for the hours she works. Suzy earns $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) just by being “in business” instead of being a “working drone” for someone else. It’s hard to believe? Believe it, it’s 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.

What about 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 onto a small fishing boat heading away from communist Vietnam and headed for Hong Kong, escaping at the risk of her life for a new life of freedom.

The captain of the ship put a gun next to the compass. He 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 gas and told which way to go to Hong Kong. Tom came to the US Tom was totally and utterly broke, and he didn’t speak English.

By working 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 feel comfortable in the United States. 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 out by getting a license to do nails. You can see? “Doing nails” was only part of her success, actually a small part.

What does this have to do with welding?

All! However, welding has so many advantages over window cleaning and nailing! You can start right now and be an entry level welder, working for yourself within a week, if that’s what you want. Unlike cleaning windows and nails, you can improve your welding skills as you go, teaching yourself from home, until your welding skills are worth (you’re sitting down) $100 an hour.

Don’t run to Home Depot and buy a soldering iron (yet).

If you buy the right used welder and do the right things with your marketing, you can be in business and working as hard as you want in 2-3 weeks. How? It takes mastering some marketing basics, and hard work, but if a boater from Vietnam who couldn’t speak English can do it, so can you.

Conclusion:

Your success has nothing to do with money or the economy. It has to do with what you believe in yourself. From there, you just have to pay attention to what really matters.

What should you do next?