.png)
Owned and Operated #193 - The Truth Behind Scaling a Successful Plumbing Business
Want to grow and scale your plumbing business with proven strategies for sales, operations, and fulfillment? In this episode of Owned and Operated, we break down exactly how to build a successful plumbing company—from optimizing pricing structures and boosting conversion rates to training teams and improving customer experience. Hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr share their real-world experiences growing a profitable plumbing business, revealing hard-won lessons and key tactics that drive sustainable growth in the home service industry.
Whether you’re a plumbing business owner, contractor, or service entrepreneur, this episode is your go-to guide for mastering plumbing sales, improving operational efficiency, and setting up systems for long-term success. We cover essential topics like lead generation, sales funnels, service fulfillment, and the importance of dedicated sales and installation roles. Plus, we take you behind the scenes of our own journey—building a professional studio and reflecting on the realities of growing both a service business and a brand.
🚨 In This Episode, We Cover:
🔹 The core pillars of growth: leads, sales, and fulfillment
🔹 How to tighten your pricing structure and boost profitability
🔹 Strategies for training teams to increase efficiency and service quality
🔹 Why dedicated sales and installation roles drive better performance
🔹 Operational gaps to watch for—and how to close them fast
🔹 The personal side of building a business and a podcast studio
💼 Shoutout to Avoca AI!
Avoca AI is helping us level up call center training and tech performance. They analyze calls, provide targeted coaching, and help drive better results across the board.
🔗 Book a demo!
💼 Shoutout to Quick Staffers LLC
Need trained HVAC & plumbing CSRs at a fraction of the cost? Quick Staffers LLC specializes in placing top-tier global talent with the best SOPs and scripts.
🔥 Get $1,000 off your first placement here
🎙️ Episode Hosts:
🗣️ John Wilson – [x.com/wilsoncompanies]
🗣️ Jack Carr - [x.com/thehvacjack]
📢 Enjoyed the episode?
✅ Like, Comment & Subscribe for weekly content on scaling home service businesses, marketing tactics, operations, and more!
Episode 193 Transcript
Jack Carr: [00:00:00] It's not, I'm gonna reiterate that for everyone listening. He said his average ticket in plumbing is $2,000 plus. These are real numbers, by the way. People,
John Wilson: I just got an option for a water heater, like a tank list. Like they came in to talk about our toilet and I have a $7,000 estimate on my table right now.
Jack Carr: Mm-hmm. And it's 'cause
John Wilson: the guy
Jack Carr: didn't explore it. A lot of people. Think that they have a lead issue, but they don't have a lead issue, not they actually have a sales issue. They have a sales
John Wilson: issue.
Jack Carr: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I don't know what to do with my hands. Live in studio. I'm in a studio. Live in studio. Live in studio. Beautiful with people. So John, what's going on
John Wilson: man? I think if you can get used to the fact like we built a studio, obviously. Yeah. And I think if you can get used to the fact that this is like a almost a television ready and there's three giant lights pointing in your face and a bunch of cameras,
Jack Carr: multiple cameras, multiple lights.
I feel like a superstar.
John Wilson: I mean, you basically are a superstar in my mind. Well, you're from big city Nashville.
Jack Carr: Very ze list. Taylor Swift, celebrity Taylor Swift. If there's something below ze list, like that's where [00:01:00] I'm double Z shooting double Z or like double A. Like you have to go through the alphabet twice.
Yeah, yeah,
John Wilson: yeah. That tracks that. This is cool though.
Jack Carr: This is really neat studio man. I'm excited to, to be here.
John Wilson: Yeah. This, this is fun. So today, uh, we're talking. How to grow your plumbing business,
Jack Carr: how to grow it. I'm in the middle of growing it, so I'm very interested in this topic. I was actually
John Wilson: really hoping you would teach.
Jack Carr: Yeah, I'm presenting and I
John Wilson: could
Jack Carr: listen. We're we're, I mean, we're in a fluctuation mode where we had to, we scaled up really heavily. So, long story short, and, and I feel like this is the, the actual path that a lot of owners go through, okay. Is we started plumbing. It did amazing. Yeah. One guy commission only structure.
Oh, I'm remembering
John Wilson: the, yeah. The first couple podcasts we were
Jack Carr: selling, you were like, dude, I sold the tankless in my first 10 minutes. I sold, we sold two tankless today. Or like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a tankless and filter and just like the margins on those things are crazy. Yeah. And we're still figuring out, so then we get, okay, this is awesome.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Plumbing is everything I wanted and more. Yeah. So we [00:02:00] ramped, we ramped and got up to seven technicians and a manager. Six technicians and a manager. Wow. So seven people total. And then what we found was we have so many operational holes that we can't plug 'em all, we're just losing money.
John Wilson: Mm.
Jack Carr: And so we started like looking at gross margin and, and specifically in the department and like we had the leads, it was October of last year.
Like we had full schedules on the board, but we were just money everywhere out, not in. And so we said, okay, we need to reduce.
John Wilson: Yeah. So
Jack Carr: I think I actually called you a little bit before that we, we cut construction. Yes. Remember? Yeah. Yes. You told me Jack, uh, you just do it. And I went, you're right. Yeah. It's not gonna take six months.
It needs to take one week.
John Wilson: Yeah. And we
Jack Carr: cut it construction and then we then rolled back everything and said, our focus now until we get the systems right is profitability.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: So we need to get net up, we need to be profitable and then we'll scale. 'cause we have systems in place.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: So that's what we're in the [00:03:00] process right now.
Still difficult.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Um. But moving in the right direction.
John Wilson: At Wilson, we've saved a stupid amount of money by having AI help out with our call center, and the best tool out there that's making that happen is Avoca. So look, you've probably heard the buzz about a i, CSRs. They seem to be everywhere, but not all.
A i CSRs are created equal and Avoca seems to rise to the top. Every time they answer every call in the first ring, they sound just like a real person and they don't take breaks. But here's what makes Avoca really interesting in the real world, if call's getting heated, like they're getting frustrated or annoyed.
Avoca knows it hears the tone, emotion, and hands the call to a real human so you can still save that call. And this has been huge for us here at Wilson. There's no more churn or people yelling representative into the phone and the backend is tight. It directly integrates into ServiceTitan at the gold tier level.
That means it can handle reschedules, check tech, arrival times, and look up customer info. It even helps with capacity planning. It's basically a CSR with perfect memory. [00:04:00] On top of all that, it consistently makes our team better. We get post call analytics, auto tagging, and coaching tools so that no matter who's on shift, we deliver for our customers.
If you're curious, go to avoca.ai av. oc.ai, book a demo and tell 'em owned and operated, sent you. When you're saying operational holes, can we boil it down a little tighter? Like you had leads so you weren't selling the leads.
Jack Carr: Correct. So we, we didn't have our pricing structure correct. Okay. So it was at
John Wilson: a, where'd you get the price book?
Jack Carr: So we went pricing internally then Pricebook Pro.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And it wasn't a Pricebook Pro issue. It was, uh, understanding the market issue. Okay. Mixed with, I think the big mix though was not having the right people in the right places and not being able to train them fast enough on sales process.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Um, 'cause that's where the issue came into place, right.
Is I know that there's people selling, I was talking to someone in Denver today who's selling [00:05:00] $5,000, uh, 40 gallon. Tank units and I'm going, okay. So like people buy that in certain markets, our market doesn't support that. Yeah. But I know that our pricing wasn't that much higher than market averages.
Maybe 12, 13%. And then after discounts for memberships and all this stuff, we have Hoffman in our market. I know what he's pricing. We were what, what's he sell at 40 for? Uh, I think he's somewhere in the 3000 range. High. Two thousands.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And we weren't far off. We were a little bit under, so that was my goal was like.
Hoffman Jack.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Jack Carr: Not as much value, but not as much price.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Jack Carr: And so we tried pushing that and we couldn't get belief from the team to be like, this is something that we can sell. This is something we can do.
John Wilson: Oh, interesting.
Jack Carr: And so, um, we tried training, we tried the whole nine yards, and I think there was just a little bit of, uh, cultural cancer that, that took over.
Yeah. So we, we called that re tried and now we're, [00:06:00] we're having less of those issues. And but still issues.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: So we're trying to work through, they're actually really similar issues too. Like we sell IQ all day every day. Right. Iq, indoor air quality.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: In my opinion, and maybe this is a great question for you, is I feel like water quality should be an easier sell than indoor air quality.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Right. There's tests that show
John Wilson: Yep.
Jack Carr: That you have chlorine in your water. Yeah. You're drinking it, it's going on your skin. Mm-hmm. Um, like you can do the finger chlorine swirl test, like it's a very visual sales pitch.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: That I believe, at least for me personally, I would rather have better water quality than air quality.
I can't see my air, I can't smell my air unless it's like baking. I'm cooking bacon or something. But like, I, I, like, I just don't wanna see the difference. But we sell indoor air quality every day. All day.
John Wilson: Yeah. '
Jack Carr: cause my HVAC guys are on top of it. They get it. Yeah. They get it.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Plumbers, [00:07:00] I can't get them to get it.
Yeah. I can't get them to get it. I whispered that. Yeah. They know the pitch because it's the same pitch. Mm-hmm. It's like, hey, you do, you do the full evaluation. You show them. You ask, you ask the right questions up front. Mm-hmm. Hey, do you have any problems with your drinking water? Do you taste anything?
Do you feel like your hair is a little bit brittle? You know, any kind of feel on your skin? All those kind of items. Um, we also saw reduction in like when we, we switched out of the, the original model, like we saw reduction in tanked to tankless conversions, which was another like, Hey, you're having issues with sales pitch.
Yeah. Because the, the pitch for a tankless conversion should also be. Easier pitch, in my opinion. You pay double, triple the price, but you get a 20 year unit, which is three times, uh, longevity. Yeah. As well as hot water on demand and as much as you want and more efficient. So like, it's a no brainer, I think for most people.
John Wilson: Am I wrong in that thinking? I [00:08:00] mean, no. I, I think that tankless makes a lot of sense. We, we only move like one tankless a week. So that's probably like a sales problem on our end. Mm-hmm. I think I'm going, I'm going to deconstruct this
Jack Carr: back a little bit. No, it just like vomited all of that in. Yeah. I mean I
John Wilson: think it's a lot, but I feel like if we, I wanna make sure we cover like the core principle
Jack Carr: of, 'cause I think this is a big way to actually grow is right.
You get a lot of people out there that are selling $300 average tickets. It's very hard to grow
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: On $300 an average ticket. 'cause you're not offering anything else.
John Wilson: Yeah, it, yeah, it is. I mean I think it's, uh. I mean, not impossible, but yeah. I mean we should always opt, be optimizing for the larger job and I think that's a part of what makes HVAC so attractive to mm-hmm.
To people. And that's why we continue to, you know, HVAC's been a challenge for us, but that's why we continue to push on it. It's because the average ticket's, $13,000, like the juice is worth the squeeze. And you can build a hundred million dollars [00:09:00] HVAC company just 'cause like that 12,500 versus a thousand dollars average ticket and something else.
It's a really big difference.
Jack Carr: Yeah, definitely.
John Wilson: So when we, um, when we're, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go into like, I'm gonna zoom back a couple steps and then I think we can like, dive in. Sweet. So I've, I've always talked about our three step, you know, lead sale fulfillment.
Jack Carr: Yep.
John Wilson: Yeah. So I've, the topics growing a plumbing company and all the problems that sounds like you're having is on the sales step, but we'll talk about all three steps real quick.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Just so we can nail it. So when you're opt, when you're growing, any, uh. Business, obviously you already know this, but like there's three things you need to be optimizing for. One's the lead and there's a ton of stuff inside the lead. Like are we marketing? Are we branding? What's our uniforms look like?
What's our trucks look like? Do we have a website? Mm-hmm. Is our GMB, like half of our shit that we talk about on this show is like the lead and just call center booking, which is a other huge section that we talk about. That's all the lead. Everything to [00:10:00] do with pre-appointment, pre-visit, that is the lead.
Jack Carr: Which it's interesting sometimes too because I think a lot of people think that they have a lead issue, but they don't have a lead issue. No, not at all. They actually have a sales issue. They have a sales issue, so like when you look at how many leads a plumber should have on their schedule per day. What are you looking at as like an optimal amount?
John Wilson: Uh, yeah, we've fluctuated over the years. I think right now we're at three. Yeah. And that seems to be a good number. Mm-hmm. Uh, now granted, it'll, uh, modulate depending on, uh, demand. Yeah. Uh, either demand or someone's running behind, or we let sales drive the bus a little bit on that. And we've handed over some of our dispatching to like.
A software. So some of those, uh, day-to-day tactical decisions I think have just gone away. But I think that we're at three. Okay. We used to optimize for four.
Jack Carr: Yeah. That's where we're at. We're out try, we try to optimize for four a day. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. Three seems to be what I see happen. And, um, [00:11:00] I mean, numbers are really high.
Yeah. Like we were, yeah. Obviously we're here at my office. We're here we're, we didn't participate in the daily huddle today, but right now our plumbing department is giving yesterday's numbers, $69,000 sold. Ugh. We actually had, I had one guy sell our entire plumbing budget yesterday, which is 35,000 a day.
So like one guy, it was amazing. Anyway, so yeah, they're on a, they're on high over there. Me, me, me, me, me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, alright, so the first step is sale. Uh, or sorry, the first step is lead and the, the lead is like everything to do pre-appointment. So that's gonna be your, like how do you, how do you get a lead?
How do you book the lead and how do you handle the lead before you get there? Mm-hmm. So that's gonna be marketing, call center and dispatch. Yep. Those three disciplines are all the lead. The next step is the sale, which I totally agree. Like we're at the workshop right now and, uh, a lot of people. Have opinions on, you know, current macro and I'm like, respectfully,
Jack Carr: that's how you know John's gonna say something.
Um, maybe a little bit [00:12:00] mean. Yeah. Just starts respectfully. May maybe because that, that's, that's fixes it all. Respectful.
John Wilson: Respectfully with, with respect, sir, you're a 5 million pumping company. Yeah. And people will always need to, shit like the macro environment should not impact you that much. Like it just doesn't, it just doesn't matter.
Every house has a toilet, every house has a toilet. Uh, it just doesn't matter. So yeah, I think it's kind of a, I think it's kind of an excuse, but, so this, the sale is obviously the next part and how do we go out and we sell the thing and there's a ton baked into the sale. Yeah. We've talked about call by call, but like, Hey, when.
When we, when we identify a problem, and we're a lot more on top of this now than, than we typically happen. I wish I could pull up, I gotta get the computer so I can start pulling stuff up, but it'd be, we're looking at one of, one of three things. It's an options problem. Mm-hmm. Like either the options are bad or the number of options is bad.
Two totally different problems, and we can talk about it. Conversion rate's bad, but usually if conversion rate's bad, it's 'cause options are are bad. Options are bad, and [00:13:00] then average ticket's bad. But if average ticket's bad, it's 'cause options are bad. So we here, all of our focus is on options. And there even inside options, you know, I think there's a.
Which sounds like that might be some of the challenge you're having.
Jack Carr: Yeah, I, I'm actually convinced that's the problem we're having.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And it's, I mean, there's a lot to it. It's really, it's actually kind of complicated. It's very complicated. It, it's, it, well, I'm gonna step back. It's not complicated. I.
What's complicated is training somebody who doesn't understand.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: The pathway of options, because right options is a simple process, and I'm saying this like I have this dialed in, so everybody knows that I'm the one who brought up this problem, but I know the No, we all heard you rant earlier. Yeah, I know what the fix is.
Yeah. And the fix is, hey, you need to be earning those options to start. Yes. Right. You need to show up, you need to ask the right questions. You need to listen to the customer.
John Wilson: Yeah. Which is you earn the right to offer options.
Jack Carr: Yeah. You earn the right to offer and that's through. [00:14:00] Asking questions, talking with the customer, being a human being that cares about Yeah.
The systems in someone else's house. Yeah. And I think that's where we miss sometimes. Yeah. Or where we're currently missing is we get this idea and a lot of plumbers get this idea in their head of, I'm not gonna offer the upgrade because either I don't believe in the upgrade or it's too expensive up an upgrade.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And they're putting their pocketbook or they're putting themselves into the customer's pocketbook.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Like. And that's one of the big misconceptions. I think they shouldn't be doing that.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Right. They need to step back and say, this is truly what's a win-win. Win a win for me as a, as a tech.
Mm-hmm. I'm offering the best options. I'm listening to the customer. I'm gonna make the most money. I'm offering the person what they really should be getting the final fix, or at least knowing about, or at least knowing about that. Yeah. I think
John Wilson: that's the thing that drives me nuts. Yeah. Is like I, I am more like our customers than I am our uh, yeah.
Field team. I have very little time. [00:15:00] I am very happy to spend money to solve a problem so I don't have to deal with it again. Mm-hmm. And if someone comes out and I, and like I don't have time to meet people in the middle of the day to like, I'm, you know, running a thing here. Yeah. So if I do have to meet someone, and like it's only one option.
It doesn't actually fix it. I'm, it's very annoying. Mm-hmm. Uh, because I took time outta my day, which is very hard for me to do. Like, I skip lunch most days. I pick up my kid's probably too late and I'm here too early. Like it's hard to take time to go meet somebody.
Jack Carr: You're optimizing for the solution, which is what you want.
You want a permanent fix so you don't have to deal with this problem. Yeah. Or at least
John Wilson: know
Jack Carr: what my options are.
John Wilson: Like what are all the different, yeah. Like let me choose and if I'm willing to be annoyed, then great, but I'm probably not.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And so I say the same thing. So one of our training techniques is trying to draw parallels and we say, if you show up at the Jiffy Lube and they, they do your oil, they do your filter [00:16:00] and they say, Hey, we noticed your brakes are at one centimeter.
Like they're about to go out.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Would you want them to give you that option and say like, Hey, just so you know, we actually don't even do breaks. I'm just letting you know that your breaks are going out. Yeah. Or, hey, we do do breaks and like you can get an appointment over here. It takes 15 minutes. But I would want to know that my car's brakes are going out in that case.
Oh yeah. Or that my headlights are out. Yeah. Or any of the other things that can happen on a mechanical system. Yeah. It's like knowing that there's an issue there. Yeah. On my system, which is equivalent to the entire plumbing in your house. Yeah.
John Wilson: I
Jack Carr: want to know about that. And then I can make those choices on the back end of, I'm gonna go to a break shop.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: I'm gonna get done here 'cause I have 15 extra minutes. And it, it, um, I think we miss that sometimes because we're there too focused on. I don't wanna offer this really expensive thing.
John Wilson: Well, I think what's kind of funny, um, this, this used to come up a lot more in call center, but uh, our call center managers done an awesome job of like getting everyone to understand.
Mm-hmm. But like, I think booking rate and I think conversion rate [00:17:00] in the field, so booking rate, like when the call comes in, what percentage of calls do we book? Yeah. And then conversion rate, like of the calls we book, how many convert into a sale? And I think that those are like. Almost comical numbers to talk about because if, if someone's calling, they want us at their house.
Yeah. Like that is why they're on the phone. Like, people don't wanna be on the phone. So if they're calling a plumber, they need a plumber, they want a plumber. Like, so booking rate should be. Very high.
Jack Carr: Yeah,
John Wilson: because they're calling because they want you and they have a problem
Jack Carr: immediately.
John Wilson: Yeah. So it's sort of like, you know, we used to have these like discussions with call center and training.
They're like, well, they didn't want anybody out. And it's like, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. They called us. They want someone out, like what you're saying, it has, it makes no sense at all. And then conversion rate's the same thing. It's like they took time out of their day to understand the options about this problem.
Conversion rate being at 40% doesn't make sense. Like they, [00:18:00] they need, they want this solution or need this solution. And they're investing their time into finding out what it is. Like a low conversion rate doesn't make, they're like, ah, they didn't wanna do anything. They just took time outta their day.
Like what are you talking about?
Jack Carr: Yeah. Like they obviously want to do something. They, they took off work to, to have you come to their house. Yeah. To listen to what you have to say is wrong with their system. And then they said, eh, I'm good.
John Wilson: Yeah. My, it doesn't flush. I'm, I'm
Jack Carr: just not gonna touch it.
John Wilson: Yeah.
It's, it's, it's this irrational, I think we preload excuses, but it's this irrational, and I think it's 'cause we have so many re uh, like repetitions every day of like, ah, I see three customers a day, 20 customers a week, whatever it is. And, oh, I, I talk to 50 customers today and. So I feel like we get these reps in our head, uh, and we're just like, oh, they didn't want anything.
It's like, well, what the fuck are you talking about? Of course they wanted something, like that's why they're talking to us. I do think it is a little complicated, uh, to, to figure out what people want. And I think that is what takes, that's probably where the issue is. That's what takes a little bit of time.
Jack Carr: Yeah.
John Wilson: So we, this is a, uh, we're really [00:19:00] grateful to be a part of nexstar and part of this is like part of their nexstar, uh, process, but in certain path had something really similar too. Mm-hmm. So like when you walk in, like how do you set the agenda for the call? I'm sure there's a million different ways to set the agenda.
We just have to be certain path the next to our members. But the first couple, like in the first 15 minutes, you sort of take control of the call. So you like reset. Control. And you're like, Hey, before we go look at that thing, let's just talk for a second, talk about what we're gonna do today. That way we're all aligned.
Should take a minute. And then either through physically walking around, uh, and like examining the stuff and like, Hey, let's check this other thing before we do this, we're gonna check water pressure. You can also just do it with questions like, Hey, how many people live here? Do you get enough? Whatever.
And it for nexstar, it's called the explore step. Yeah. So a lot of our training is. On the next star explore step, which is exploring the problem so that you can then go to present options. I, I remember I told you this story, I think of the, the Secret, the company we secret shopped that one time. Mm-hmm.
I'll repeat it just 'cause it's hilarious. [00:20:00] So we had, we secret shop companies, uh, like, I dunno, once every six months or something. And oh, we're just always wanting to improve. So, you know, seeing how people do it is helpful. So we had this company out and, uh, the guy who came, actually interviewed for a, a job with us.
Like a month before. Yeah. And we, we ended up turning him down, so that was kind of funny. We, he didn't recognize this 'cause we sent someone random, but, so he goes in and he, he's there to like look at a toilet or something is like, ah, my toilet's broken, whatever, need an option for it. And he like walks, he walks in, looks at the toilet, uh, goes out to his truck and he comes back in with like paper written options.
And like, one of them is like a tankless, one of them is a 50 gallon water heater and one of them is a toilet. And one of them was like a service call. Uh, or me a membership. It was something like non nonsensical and it, it was just such a ridiculous. Like, yeah, it was, so I immediately got a text being like, yeah, so this is what happened.
And [00:21:00] I just got an option for a water heater, like a tankless, like they came in to talk about our toilet and I have a $7,000 estimate on my table right now. Mm-hmm. And it's 'cause the guy didn't explore. He didn't ask questions. Yeah. He didn't talk to them. He didn't understand. Well, it's a mix like
Jack Carr: the guy didn't explore.
But also he has an initiative from his management team. Yeah. That says you need to provide, you require power options. Four options. Yeah. No matter what. Yeah. And so he, he, rather than doing the correct job and Yeah. And asking and, and going through the process, he skips the process. Dos the four does the four options.
They're sitting on your table and it burns the customer.
John Wilson: This was, this was such a big learning curve for us. Yeah. Maybe two years ago. 'cause it was the same thing. It was like, oh, we need four options. And the thing is, you can measure number of options. Again, I wish I could pull stuff up next time. I'll bring my laptop, but you can pull, like you can just report on that.
Yeah. So it's very easy. And ServiceTitan. Yeah. ServiceTitan will say jobber, I'm sure. I'm sure they all say, Hey, here's the number of options that this person presents on average. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that's one of our, that's a [00:22:00] guiding metric for us. Yep. So if someone's performance is down, their options are down, like.
Nine out of 10 times. Yeah. So we look at that a lot, but we were requiring three options. So the options we would get is like, okay, well, so option number one is the service call 89 bucks. It's option number one. Uh, option number two is monthly membership cost, or it's like the job that I came here for.
Yeah. And then option number three is the job with a membership. Yeah. And those were the options. And it's like, well, like what am I supposed to do with that? Like, that's not any, that's one option. Like you were being, you know, we're, we're missing the point. Mm-hmm. So we hit the quantity. We didn't hit the quality.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And so, what do you say? 'cause I know there's, there's people listening that if they haven't tuned out already, they're going, oh, but I mean, you just, what, how do you, how do you get more options? Right. They call you in for a cartridge on a sink. Yeah. And, uh, how do you get more options? That doesn't make any sense.
They said water heater's fine, [00:23:00] everything's fine. No other options. How do you train your techs? To move past that objection and, and conduct the full evaluation to grab those options.
John Wilson: Um, yeah, so for. For, uh, well first off, cartridge in a sink, you've got the repair, you have the replacing, you have the upgrade.
So that's pretty straightforward. Yeah. So like, uh, yeah, I can replace the cartridge, I can replace this faucet, like kind, or I can upgrade it to this bougie one with a pull down handle and you know, pick a thing. Yeah. Uh, so that one's actually really easy. And you can do that with most repairs. I think it's more complicated when you run into like pinhole in the pipe, you know, like
Jack Carr: outdoor hose bib.
Right. That's a good one. It's repair, replace. And then we generally do, if this one's out same, you have water treatment or
John Wilson: maybe you add in a hot bib or like you could do a few different options there.
Jack Carr: Yeah. The one we we push on very hard is when we get cartridge issues, we say, Hey, we have to check. Yeah.
The water pressure. Because a lot of times cartridges go out because of PRV issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Wilson: We check. Yeah. Water pressure's a thing around here,
Jack Carr: so water pressure's a thing where we are [00:24:00] too. We get 120, 130 psi regularly built for 80. Yep. Yeah. Built for 80, 120. Yeah. Blowing things up and they're, I don't know why you guys are just out here, but we have to check your PRV and then sometimes we try to get under the house if there's an active leak or something like that.
Yeah, that's a very common one we, we try to do. Yeah, just answer the phone. It is one of those phrases that's always easier said than done. I know it was hard for me and my business 'cause the phone. Always rings while you're out in the field trying to get something done, or it's 8:00 PM and you're trying to get your kids to bed.
Well, I have the solution for you. I'm extremely excited today to announce Quick Staffers, your Go-to solution for building a high performing cost effective customer service team. We are placing CSRs who have been pre-trained on proven home service SOPs and scripts, the same ones that Wilson and I use in our business for a limited time.
We're offering $500 off. Your initial placement costs for the first 10 signups. See link in the description below or head over to quick staffers.com for more information.
John Wilson: Well, I think this is the whole point of call by [00:25:00] call, which we've never really done like a full like how to do this episode. Yeah. But you know, our call by call managers like follow along to make sure options are good.
And if I was gonna sum up the job description of call by call mm-hmm. It's options like that. Is it? Yeah. Like that's their job. Is to make sure we have good options, that customers understand what they're buying and that we can install. Uh, so, so that's their job. So they're following along with pictures.
They're talking on the phone with texts. Like, Hey, before you go and present these options, let's just talk about it real quick. I saw this, I don't think you had this on your notes, like, let's add that in. Um, or I see an option here that maybe you didn't, uh, and this is what it is.
Jack Carr: Yeah. I we're trying to install that in a meaningful way because I, I, I could see where it would really drive the bus.
Yeah.
John Wilson: It, it, it does a lot. And
Jack Carr: so are your call by call local, overseas? Yeah, they're local.
John Wilson: Yeah. Office. Yeah, in the office.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And is it, do they have a different position the rest of the time? Are they like a service manager or is, or is that their only role? That's their jobs role. Jobs.
John Wilson: Yeah. That's their jobs.
That's
Jack Carr: awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I [00:26:00] mean, that's where. Part of where we, we run into some difficulty is like, how do you hold that extra headcount? The idea is they should drive the revenue with that. Mm-hmm. But
John Wilson: well with, you know, with option, and this is again, how we do stuff. We do, I don't know that we've ever done a full breakdown of our sales install either, but because of the way we do call by call because of the way we do sales install, like it's meaningful, you know, our average ticket definitely meaningful.
Yeah. We, we should climb, we, we, uh. Our average ticket used to be like 1100 bucks or 900 bucks, which is still good. But like our, our average ticket in plumbing now is in the twos, and our average 10 electric is almost three. Sometimes in the threes. That's, I'm gonna reiterate that
Jack Carr: for everyone listening.
He said his average ticket in plumbing is $2,000 plus.
John Wilson: Yeah, for, for March, which is down season for us, our average ticket in plumbing service was 2050. Our budget was 1900. So we, we beat budget by 150 bucks. It was a really big win.
Jack Carr: These are real numbers, by the way, people.
John Wilson: Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a real
Jack Carr: human.
Um, this is real life 'cause that's not [00:27:00] anywhere close to where our average tickets are. And most people, I think, I haven't heard,
John Wilson: uh, many companies that run an average ticket like ours. But we also run a pretty different structure. Uh. So, I dunno. I think that's a big part of it. Yeah. Yeah. And so we, we went over, so yeah, there's three.
So lead, yeah. So when you're grow back to, we're growing a plumbing company here, so we've got lead, which is everything pre-appointment. Mm-hmm. How are we marketing, how are we branding our trucks? What's our uniform? Uh, what's our, our, is our call center booking? Are we running SEO? Did we dispatch, like how do we do that?
How do we think about that? And the whole thing that touches the pre lead. Um, and we actually, I, I, I know I've said this before, but uh, I believe so strongly in this like three pillar of, uh, of business that we reorganized the whole company to follow suit in this. Yeah. So the verticals, and I think this is just mentally, for me, it makes sense, but it seemed to drive the business.
I mean, we are up a lot, but, so like the. [00:28:00] The lead is like a whole section of the business. We call it inside operations. Yeah. So call center and dispatch are inside operations and they're managed by, uh, one leader. Yeah. It's
Jack Carr: a department essentially. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. It's a, it's a vertical. And then sales is a vertical managed by one leader with four sales managers.
The call by calls, uh, 50 reps and then install is 50 installers managed by three install managers. One director at the top. So we believe so strongly in this like three pillar thing. And, and to me the, the answer in how do you grow any, any business plumbing, HVAC consulting, accounting, like it's all the same thing.
Yeah. Where are you gonna get the lead? How are you gonna sell it? And who's gonna fulfill the work? Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, for plumbing, it, it's, uh, I think really relevant. So. So the sale is like, what's our sales training look like? What's our quality of options? Are we talking about what they should be doing?
And what I find, and this is just me, obviously the whole industry [00:29:00] disagrees, but I really find it challenging to hold like a conventional service tech accountable to sales if he's also doing install. 'cause then you've got sales, which is like call center dispatch, marketing, like a lot going on in there.
And then in a normal plumbing company. It's a two, you know, the, the plumber is the salesman and the installer. And I just feel like that's really hard to, like, how do you train somebody to, to do all of that? Like realistically. Yeah. How do you train someone to be a master craftsman that has like no callbacks and like really knows his stuff mm-hmm.
Uh, in a labor shortage? Yeah. Like how do you find that human being when everyone else is looking for 'em? That can also drive top of your business numbers and I just don't think you can.
Jack Carr: Specifically too, because those guys that can do the sales and can do that really great plumbing jobs and different human beings, well they go and they run their own company.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Because then they all have to pick up as the business side. Yeah. And generally that's what you see is like, I'm really good at sales, I'm really good at plumbing. I'm gonna go start my own thing. And so they're high achievers to be able to get that
John Wilson: and then they come back six months later 'cause they miss the first [00:30:00] pillar, which was how do you get a leaky down?
Yeah. They missed the business side. Yeah.
Jack Carr: Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm with you on that one. It's very hard to find someone who is an
John Wilson: excellent well and hold 'em accountable. Well, yeah, because when we're training, like obviously we're training on technical with our sales team.
Jack Carr: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: But we're really honing in on like, what's your output?
What's your average ticket? What's your options? What's your conversion rate? And like those are the metrics that we measure by. And it would be really confusing to add in. Like, oh, well you were really slow on this install and you ran into overtime and your callbacks for whatever. Like, that's a lot.
Jack Carr: Also kind of inefficient too, right?
If, if you have someone who's really, really good at something. I mean, the HVAC market, I know this is about plumbing, but the HVAC market is a great example.
John Wilson: Great example.
Jack Carr: The,
John Wilson: yeah. Everybody fights me on it and then I'm just like, well, HVAC's been doing this. HVAC does this two freaking decades.
Jack Carr: Yeah. You, they've, they've done it so much so to the point where they've actually spun off a new position.
They have their service. Yeah. They have their installers. Yep. And they spun off a new position of comfort advisor.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Which is, and selling tech.
John Wilson: That's even ano another additional one,
Jack Carr: or Yeah. Selling tech. Yep. And installer. [00:31:00] Yeah. For the same reason. It's, Hey, technicians are better if they're good at selling and they're good at the technical side.
They understand the thing, the, the theories behind refrigeration and intellectual troubleshooting. They're really good at this. Yeah. But they're not very good at hucking units and cutting metal. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And the guys that love hucking units and cutting metal, some of the best guys around. Yeah. That's what they love doing.
Yeah. They don't wanna talk to a homeowner ever. Yeah. They just wanna show up, throw the package unit in and get to the next one.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And then comfort advisors are a whole different beast of they just love people.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: A lot. And so at the end of the day, I agree. I think that that splitting that up and plumbing isn't, yeah.
Isn't some kind of crazy idea. I. Yeah, that, um,
John Wilson: yeah, the industry disagrees, I think, I think we'll see more and more of it. Uh, we're the largest that we know of running this model. Mm-hmm. I mean, we, I made it up like six years ago. I've heard of some companies that are starting to try to run it at scale, which I think is really cool.
Uh, but I mean, it's a big part of how we got our average stick to be so high. [00:32:00]
Jack Carr: Yeah. It makes sense. Then, so the last piece is fulfillment. Yeah. I know we're short on time, but on fulfillment, is there any, I mean, the real trick to fulfillment and growth is. Hiring just really good installers.
John Wilson: And compensating well.
Jack Carr: And compensating well.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think that's been, that's been the hard part That took us a long time to figure out, because you know, when we, when we really started growing like a lot, like, and this is nine years ago. Mm-hmm. You know, million dollar company. I didn't have leads figured out, but the first thing I tried to figure out was sales and like, how do I comp our team?
And the target was, how can I pay this person? A hundred, 150, $200,000 and how can I win in the process of doing that? Yeah, it's gonna make recruitment easier. It's gonna make retainment easier. So we went, we took a tech first mentality, which I, we have mostly maintained. It gets a little more challenging, like as you bring in, like outside leaders in.
Um, but we've, we've been able, whenever we haven't maintained it, we've been able to reset it pretty quick. [00:33:00] So, tech first mentality, uh, it's really easy on sales to commission people. That, that's never anyone's like hard part. Well, like, oh yeah. You just give 'em a piece of the pie, like it's sales. I'm like, yeah, totally.
Yeah. But you know, we created an internal culture war for a while between sales and install because sales was doing kind of the easy job. They're selling and there's a lot to sales. I'm not dogging it, like sales is really important. Mm-hmm. But installers are the one that like, they catch a lot of shit and they should be paid very well to catch that.
And so that was a real, uh, challenge for us. To like, how do we, how do we get our, like our installers are so valuable. They drive all of the revenue for the business. Like they're, it. Yep. They're what ma Like sales matters a lot. Sales don't
Jack Carr: matter until it's completed. Yeah. And you get paid.
John Wilson: Yeah. So, but it's, it's easy to pay salespeople.
Yeah. Like what, what percentage did you sell? What was your closing rate like? It's, it's easy to pay salespeople. Yeah. But installers was the hard part. So that was really the challenge for us is technical training like. Look, if you're in plumbing, HVAC, and electric, like you're probably, you probably know how to [00:34:00] install, like you know how to do this 'cause that's what you grew up doing.
Yeah. But getting people paid really well has, was, was hard at first, but now we're, um, I mean our installers make a ton of money, which is just awesome. And that's made it, that's made it so much better.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Less callbacks because they, they're more invested in doing a great job and I mean, it makes sense.
And so that, that's the fulfillment portion and Oh yeah. Needs to happen and needs to happen. 'cause you can hire the
John Wilson: best 'cause you can pay so much money. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and which is great. And they deserve, like, they deserve every dollar. Like the installers are the best. Yeah. Agreed.
Jack Carr: Agreed.
John Wilson: So, yeah. So when you're growing a, so when you're growing a plumbing company, like, Hey, what's, what's leads?
How do we get more, how do we book it? How do we dispatch it? Like honing in on those processes. Uh, sales, like what's our process for sales? Certains Paths got a great program. Nexstar has got a great program. Um, we're part of both. I know BDR R has got something Blue collar successes. Yeah, it's a million different every best
Jack Carr: practices group, so a million different ways to sell
John Wilson: things.
And they're, they're all great. They're all great. Um, I [00:35:00] think just have a structure. Compensate your team well to sell. Mm-hmm. That's a big one. And if you can't compensate your team well to sell, like I've, I'll have, I'll talk to people and they'll be like, yeah, we've got this plus 1% or plus 2% or whatever on sales.
And I'm like, all that's telling me is that you're underpriced. 'cause you can't, you can't pay your team very well. Like, that's actually how the structure works. And then fulfillment, just make sure that your installers get paid very, very well. Obviously there's some purchasing stuff going on in there too, but if you can pay really well, you're gonna get, you're gonna get great guys.
And I think those are the three, you know, pillars for growing a plumbing company. And at the workshop, we were at dinner last night and, and, uh, one of the attendees was like, frustrated and they said, man, we do, we just don't have this stuff figured out. Like. I don't have this figured out. I don't have this top figured out.
I don't have whatever, and it's like, well, yeah, no shit. Like if you had it figured out, you'd be three times your size. Yeah. Like the stuff that you just said that you don't have figured out, I figured out at $21 million and like, you're [00:36:00] five, so yeah. No duh. Yeah. Don't beat yourself up. It's okay. Yeah, exactly.
Like it's okay. Then what I keep trying to tell everyone is this is my first year with a budget. We're gonna do 30 this year. Like that's nuts.
Jack Carr: And the amount of times that I've seen you do things sometimes revert partial, partially.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And then redo something else. Like it is a trial and error process.
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, definitely come into it with intent. Don't just rip band-aids and Yeah. Screw shit up. But sometimes you, you just gotta figure it out.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: You just gotta figure it out. And I think having that framework is a really good framework to go off of. Mm-hmm. It's what we're trying to go off of.
And like I said, I think I'm spot on with where we need our additional training at. And we're working on it. And so our hope is by the end of this year, another a hundred percent year growth in the plumbing department. Yeah. Once we
John Wilson: nail it,
Jack Carr: line that out.
John Wilson: Yeah. So sweet. Well, good discussion on how to grow a plumbing business.
Plumbing. Plumbing. Hopefully I come back and I'm happy about plumbing
Jack Carr: again.
John Wilson: Yeah. Plumbing's the best. Like,
Jack Carr: just like I love you again. Yeah. Yeah. I love
John Wilson: you. My sweet child. My sweet baby. That's my sweet baby child. That's my ugly
Jack Carr: baby right now.
John Wilson: Yeah, you do. [00:37:00] You
Jack Carr: needs to grow up a little bit. You do. It does.
John Wilson: Um, yeah, if you like what you heard, uh, check out owned and operated.com. Great
Jack Carr: segue.
John Wilson: Yeah, like and subscribe for more stuff. Exactly like this, Jack. Crying about plumbing.
📌 Disclaimer:
Some links may include UTM parameters for tracking. Episodes may feature paid sponsors, but all opinions are our own. Always do your own research before making business decisions.
.png)
