Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christopher Schroeder. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Christopher, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
A proper education would include a balance of theory and practice. It should result in an ability to apply the information to a desired result. You need to have a purpose in mind when you are studying something. “What can I do with this information?” is a question one should be asking of himself as he studies. Unfortunately, our educational system is almost solely theory and it winds up graduating students without any real-world skills to speak of and certainly no expertise in any given trade.
The first thing I would do about the subject of education is correctly outline its purpose and properly define the term with a working definition. If you look up education in the dictionary, you will find that it is defined as a “system of instruction at a school or university.” The original meaning of the word comes from Latin ex educe meaning “to lead out” or to lead someone out into the world. In my opinion, education fails even in its own definition to outline its purpose or the result it is intended to achieve. As evidenced by the lack of aptitude and general competence of graduates today, as a society we are failing to lead our youth into the world in a practical and satisfactory way.
I have had a lot of schooling including an undergraduate and graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toledo. However, upon graduation, I had no real skill set. I wasn’t able to do anything. What I had was credentials that got me a seat at the table. But that table was not my idea of success. That table was a cubicle in a big firm operated by someone I would likely never meet. I lacked confidence and competence. What I needed was a real education.
Today I am a successful entrepreneur and skilled tradesman in the art of Clock Repair. The skills that I employ to run, operate and expand my business were not learned in the classroom. They were self-taught by reading the books of other successful people–an idea no one ever presented to me during my academic career. And to learn clock repair, I learned the old-fashioned way, through an apprenticeship.
This is why I am such a proponent of the trade schools and apprenticeship programs. I learned my trade through hard work and apprenticing under a professional in the field for over 5 years. At the end of my apprenticeship, I was totally certain of my professional level of competence in the field. On the other hand, my education which earned me my master’s degree drove me into massive debt, I was not skilled in any particular trade and I lacked any real knowledge about how to become successful in life.
I am proud to say that I sponsor my own apprenticeship program in my business. My apprentice, Brendan Schmitt, whom I have been training for a year now is light-years ahead of where I was at his age. Instead of going to college, he is working and learning clock repair with me. Already at the age of 20, he is working professionally as a clock repairman, getting experience running a business and is generating income instead of accumulating debt. I am presently about to take on another apprentice because my business is expanding at an alarming rate. In this form of education, the purpose is clear–gain the ability to perform the trade. And the result is measurable–can you repair a clock!
Unfortunately, I don’t see traditional education becoming a means of creating competence in our youth very readily. I know this because I attempted to make an inroad on this when I was in graduate school where I quickly found myself getting hit in the teeth of authority. I developed an innovative research-based education technique for undergraduate students. A technique wherein students actually performed laboratory experiments and came to their own conclusions about the information rather than being spoon-fed information. For this I won the Michigan-Ohio Outstanding Student of the Year Award. I then went on to correct what I believe was an ill-defined definition of the word, education. However, when I postulated my new and improved definition of the word at my master’s defense, the graduate advisor cleared the board and asked me, “What gives you the authority to redefine education?” to which, I answered, “Well, I have been a student for over 22 years, so I happen to be an expert in the field.” Let’s just say, he didn’t like my answer and because I didn’t currently have an Education degree, I wasn’t qualified to include that in my work.
Today, I am so happy to have an apprentice. Brendan and I are like family and we run the business together. We are a team and we learn from one another. It has been said that the quality of a master is determined by the skill demonstrated by his students. And I can happily say that Brendan’s work is superb and in one year, he has learned more than I did in my first five when I was an apprentice.
If there is one thing I would recommend for any student wanting to have a fulfilled life and career would be to find a mentor. That’s what I ultimately did. You don’t even need to meet or know the mentor personally. In my case, my mentors taught me how to be successful through the books and videos that they produced for people like you and me. Find someone you admire and find out how they came to be who they are. That would be a good roadmap to follow. That is a piece of advice I wish someone had given to me when I was young. In today’s information age, we have the benefit of having knowledge at our fingertips. You don’t have to figure everything out yourself. In most cases, someone already lived it and are happy to tell you all about it. We have the luxury of being able to benefit from the successes and failures of another’s lifetime in the privacy of our own home–with a book in just a matter of hours.
When a person stops learning, he is on his way out. It is the same with a society. I believe society can be brought to new life if and when the difference between education and learning becomes understood. Education is a system, learning is a process of achieving understandings. Learning is what should be taught in schools. How does one learn something? That is a question that education has failed to answer. Learning is achieved with a clear purpose in view, when there is a balance of theory and practice and it results in the ability to achieve a desired result. All of which are clearly accounted for in an apprenticeship.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My name is Christopher Schroeder and I am an entrepreneur and professional clock repairman. I am the proud owner of Chris’s Clock Repair. I operate my business out of my home with my apprentice, Brendan Schmitt, who repairs clocks full-time and helps in the running of the business. Together we provide professional quality clock repair services and an unparalleled service experience for our customers in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.
Brendan and I are a great team and we share a big vision for the future. We are only in the beginning phases of the establishment of our business. In the coming weeks, I am taking on my second apprentice and within the next year plan on moving to larger facilities where we can expand our service capabilities and build out the next phase of our expansion. Expansion is the only successful strategy for survival and that is exactly what we have in mind!
What sets Chris’s Clock Repair apart from others in the field is that we put a new spin on a very old profession. Brendan and I are very young for our industry. Most of our clients, expect an “old man” to repair their clocks. I am 38 years old with 14 years of experience repairing clocks. And Brendan is 21 years old with 1 year of experience. I have a strong social media presence and a YouTube channel where I provide clock repair education videos for hobbyists, beginners and advanced repairmen alike. The videos feature my client’s clocks and they love to see their clocks featured.
Our clients love their clocks. Oftentimes, they are treasured family heirlooms that have been in the family for generations. And they want to keep them in good running condition. We work on clocks that are 300 years old in some cases. And for this reason, clients are, correctly so, very protective of them and sometimes reluctant to give their treasure up to a stranger for weeks or in some cases months at a time. It’s important to understand this and show the customer that we care as much as they do. And that is why trust and communication are so vital to the success of our business. We care for the clocks as if they were our own. And this shines through when we work with our clients from the first time they call us, to the time we are delivering the finished product.
Another thing that we do that is unique to our field is that we provide progress photos and/or videos of the repair process to our clients as we go along. In this way, clients know what is happening with their clocks and it also inspires confidence in our work. Our clients are always very delighted and impressed to see the work that we do. When we are in their home servicing their clock, we encourage them to watch and ask questions as we work. We will point out what we find and take the time to educate them on how their clock works. Oftentimes, they have features of their clocks that they never even knew existed! Our customers know that we know what we are doing both because of the competence that we demonstrate and in our understanding of just how important these clocks are to them.
There is a story behind every clock. When we repair a clock, we take care to keep it original. We do not swap out old clocks for new ones, for every part of the clock is a part of that story. We repair the original. If a part is beyond repair, we make a new one from raw materials. We take pride in our professional craftsmanship and most of our work is done by hand. It has been said that the clock is the heartbeat of the home. There is a certain sense of pride in bringing new life to these beautiful works of art. And it is a wonderful joy to share in the delight our customers display when they hear the tick and tock of their home again.
Any advice for managing a team?
The level of one’s quantity and quality of production determines morale. If you want high morale, you have got to get your people productive. There is no greater source of happiness than the sense of accomplishment. Just look at a sports player when they score a touchdown or make a goal. They are on top of the world! If you want to define happiness, you can see it right there. So I take care to ensure my team knows what they are doing and I help them become more proficient in their work by spending adequate personal time with them. We are always learning together and seeking to achieve higher levels of competence and professionalism in all aspects of the business.
Albeit my team is small right now, I foster a great team spirit by letting them know up front what my purpose is, what my values are and what the goals for the business are. I am honest about it and I let them know where I am going and how I am going to get there. And if they are the right fit, I invite them to join me for the ride. When someone is on the team, they are on the team–I don’t hire people that are in for transience. We are like a family and when they join the family, I don’t treat them as employees. I treat them as partners in my business that are all working towards a shared common goal. This makes each team member a part of the business and more invested to see that it does well as opposed to working for a paycheck. Their voice counts. I find this cultivates loyalty and pride in their contributions to the expansion and success of the business.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In order to survive in an ever-changing world, one must have the ability to pivot. At the same time, one cannot keep changing their fundamentals and its mainline successful actions and expect to survive either. It takes a balance of having a solid foundation and the flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions to succeed. Kodak is a perfect example of a huge and successful company that failed to pivot when digital technology emerged on the scene. Today, e-commerce is threatening the viability of retail outlets. It is a reality every company will likely be faced with.
When Covid hit, I was forced to pivot. Like most businesses, when the initial shut-downs began to occur, my business all but stopped completely. I was not getting a single call from anyone. No one was about to let me come into their home to work on their clocks. With my wife pregnant with our first child, I knew I had to come up with a unique solution to continue to generate income for my family. And so I decided to look at this as an opportunity to expand. That’s when I started making clock repair videos on YouTube. After all, I was forced to stay at home and I had a lot of time on my hands. So how could I get myself out there and establish myself as an authority while at home? I really didn’t have any idea what, if anything, would come of it, but I quickly started getting a lot of positive responses. People were reaching out to me from literally around the world.
By the time the shut-in orders were easing, I had a pretty good following on YouTube and a solid social media presence. And because people had been home, they started noticing things around the house that they wanted fixed up, including their clocks! So I started getting a lot of calls and a major Detroit newspaper heard about me and wanted to do a feature on my business. Come January of 2021, my business exploded and I had an 8-month waiting list at its peak. I commonly get calls from across the country and even in Canada asking me to repair their clocks. And one of the most beneficial outcomes of my YouTube is that it allowed me to establish relationships with some of the biggest names in the industry. My reach and my resources have expanded beyond anything I had previously imagined as a result. This is certainly one of those instances wherein patience and persistence paid off in dividends.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chrisclockrepair.com
- Instagram: chris_clock_repair
- Facebook: Chris Clock Repair
- Youtube: @chrisclockrepair
- Other: email: [email protected]
Image Credits
Lisa Schroeder