Photo courtesy of Mike Simon.
Digging in the dirt is a rite of passage for kids. Whether it’s making mud pies, building roads and tunnels in the earth or imagining castles in the sandbox, getting your hands dirty just feels good.
Mike Simon brings that same sense of possibility and wonder to thousands of fans through his social media channels. The owner of Simon’s Concrete & Excavating, his “Dirt Perfect” videos offer an intimate vantage point to his day-to-day experiences in the field.
“This is real reality TV,” he says.
An educator as much as an entertainer, Simon launched his first video seven years ago as a novel way to document his work. “I thought it would be fun to share interesting projects. It wasn’t for money or fame, it was more of a hobby.”
Since then he’s amassed some 256,000 subscribers on YouTube, 160K-plus followers on Facebook, and over 20,000 followers on his Instagram and TikTok feed. Through this platform, Simon connects with the building industry and advocates for the trades, a passion since high school.
Off camera, Simon continues to use his status to encourage and recruit students into the skilled trades by serving as a coordinator and judge in the SkillsUSA Indiana Heavy Equipment Operator competition and as a celebrity judge in the national SkillsUSA Championships.
Recently Simon participated in a “Toolbelt Generation” panel discussion among digital creators held in partnership with SkillsUSA, Skilled Careers Coalition and TikTok in Indianapolis. These types of forums bring together industry professionals, educational partners and business associations and can be very effective in drawing attention to workforce needs.
“I’ve been fighting this fight for years and this was one of the first events I’ve been to when I finally felt people were pulling rope in the same direction. Everyone is starting to band together in one voice to make this movement that much more powerful.”
The Bigger Picture
Simon grew up with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a love of the outdoors.
“I was an oddball. I knew from an early age that I didn’t want to be inside behind a desk. I always marched to my own drum and my goal was always to be self-employed,” he says, largely inspired by his mother who owned a successful business.
In high school, Simon helped construct a house from foundation to finishing work. A teacher also introduced him to the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA), now SkillsUSA, where he competed in the plumbing category, finishing second in the regional contest.
The value of competition was immediate. Simon says he used the time to network and was also exposed to different teachers and techniques. “It was a chance to bust out of your bubble and see the bigger picture of the industry and what was going on.”
Today, in his role as a judge with SkillsUSA, Simon views the competitions as more organized and taken more seriously by students. A 2000 graduate, Simon says the trades curriculum was perceived differently in his day — as lesser.
“Everybody in school, family and friends, tried to convince us to do something else. You were kind of viewed as, if you did that you were not smart enough to do something else. Knowing what I lived in high school and the first few years working versus how society views the trades today is refreshing.”
After high school, Simon completed post-secondary school with Lincoln Tech, where he earned an applied science degree in diesel mechanics. He went to work at a truck dealership first in the shop and then as a service writer. The second job confirmed his instinct that office work was not a good fit.
Simon soon shifted to a new direction taking a job with a building contractor he’d worked for during high school. That position put him on the road renovating restaurants around Indiana.
In 2007, Simon took what he calls “a leap of faith” and started his own business. He laughs ruefully at the timing: One year into owning his business the bottom dropped out as the economy crashed.
In the midst of those tough times, Simon was fortunate to get into high end homebuilding — one of the few areas of construction still going strong despite the downturn. For the next seven years, he ran a construction business and a fledgling excavating business on a parallel track. Finally, in 2017, Simon decided to focus his interests entirely on his excavation work.
It was at this point that he started his YouTube channel, encouraged by a friend who had also dabbled with videos. Simon saw the benefit for his business and customers, but it was also a way to document his life for his children.
Simon’s father, a heavy equipment operator, could run “just about anything,” he says with pride. After his dad passed away, the family tried to find photographs from his career, but found few.
“I thought this could be a fun way to share my interesting projects. I decided to give it a try for a year,” he says. “The YouTube channel started gaining some traction quickly and then it kept snowballing.”
The videos offer a “come to work” with us scenario, Simon adds, and he typically posts one long format 50-minute video every other day. Shorter videos are shared regularly on Tik Tok and Instagram, and photos on Facebook. “We have developed a good system. We may film five or six days a week, but I only release on the same set schedule.”
The content is dual-purpose, appealing to his subscribers but also provides Simon with a continuous record of his work. “It can be really eye-opening to go back and see some of those jobs and see how much has changed. Watching them also takes me back to that place in life.”
He also produces a podcast called “A Few Points from Perfect,” where Simon can chat about his work and further advocate for the skilled trades.
Big changes, he adds, are happening in real time.
“They tried to run everybody out of these fields but you still need someone to come fix your toilet, to maintain your HVAC system, to build your roads. If you keep discouraging people from doing those jobs, those who do it can name their price — and that is exactly what has happened. Now we see more students in vocational schools and they are getting into the competitions. They recognize the trades are a career opportunity, not just what you do when you have nothing else.”
The important next step, Simon emphasizes, is to support their decision once they’ve made it — then step aside and let these kids find their path.
“The biggest thing I tell people is don’t chase a job based on salary. I say, ‘follow your passion and the money will follow.’ Just do what you love and work at it to your best ability.”
