Interview with Paul The Plumber - Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Success
2019-08-19
Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and how you can grow your business to the $1M + mark & beyond.
Paul the Plumber and his son Mike join the Plumbing and HVAC Marketing Success podcast today. They share their tricks on how they have grown their New Hampshire plumbing and HVAC business from 3 trucks to 8 trucks and have become a $3 million a year company. Paul started the company in 2002 and got the name after seeing a note on the fridge of a house he was in that said “call Paul the Plumber” Listen to this episode of the Plumbing and HVAC Marketing Success podcast to hear the secrets to Paul the Plumber’s success. Mike & Paul share their experience working with our team:
Paul started the company but no longer works in the field. He now works on the business rather than in the business. Mike came on board during his senior year in college. He focuses on marketing but can make sales too. Mike had no interest in plumbing and hadn’t really considered the business. But working in the family business has allowed him to gain experience in many different areas. He thinks that working with his dad and the rest of his family has been fun. Since it is his family’s business he was given the opportunity to implement his ideas and make an impact immediately.
Mike thinks that social media has been very important to the success of the business. He began been building the brand since he started with the company. He noticed that the competition had no presence on Facebook and began utilizing that platform to build the Paul the Plumber brand. Social media gives their brand more recognition and makes them relatable. They have discovered that hiring college interns to create content, posts, and pictures on social media is a great value.
Their senior office staff has been with the company for years and has helped them train new CSR’s. They have a couple of scripts that they use depending on the type of call that comes in. Their techs train twice a week in sales and technical skills. All of this training has really paid off. Their average ticket and call ratio is excellent. Mike and Paul also receive training. They travel 3-4 times a year to conferences to get different perspectives and ideas. They try to find 2 or 3 takeaways from each conference to implement in the company.
Paul and Mike have found that leaving refrigerator magnets, cards, and water heater stickers have been a great investment. They also utilize direct mail flyers with deals. During slow periods they have begun using text message marketing with dealer discounts. They have found that this strategy gets their phones ringing immediately. Paul the Plumber is also a member of the SGI Success Group and Quality Service Contractor.
- [1:42] How did Paul start the company?
- [2:36] How big is the company?
- [6:35] What is Mike’s role in the business?
- [8:03] How important does Mike think that social media is to the success of the business?
- [10:59] How do they handle training?
- [13:50] What other types of marketing do they use?
- [16:20] Branding and an online presence is important
- Paul the Plumber
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Click below to schedule a time now. Here is the Interview video transcript for your reference: The plumbing marketing profits podcast interviews with million dollar plus plumbing and HVAC business owners on how they market and grow their companies in today’s economy, you’re directly from the most successful leaders in your business and discover what they are doing to keep their phone ringing trucks running, and businesses. With your host, Josh Nelson, this is Josh Nelson with the plumbing and HVAC Marketing Podcast.
And I’m super excited to share an interview with you today with Paul and Mike from Paul the plumber out of New Hampshire, they share some amazing insights on how they’ve grown their company from just about three trucks to eight trucks currently and on their pace to 10 by the end of the year, with a lot of that momentum happening over the last 12 to 24 months. So they share some really cool insights on how to tap into the internet, social media and some really cool initiatives that they’ve put in play to really keep their phones ringing their trucks running and their operation growing. Check it out. Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Allison. I’m here with with Paul the plumber, I have both Mike and Paul with me. They’re located out of New Hampshire, up north. And they’re actually one of my personal clients and one of my favourite clients to work with, although all of my clients are my favourite clients. And so I’m gonna have them introduce themselves to you, Mike and Paul. Yeah, I am. Mike Barry’s worked for Paul the plumber for about two years now. I am Paul Paul beers. I guess I am Paul the plumber for this company anyway.
That’s awesome. So uh, can you both tell us a little bit about how you started the company. So I started the company back in 2002. It’s funny, I was doing some side work. And I went to a friend’s house, you know, on the refrigerator was I need to call Paul the plumber. And that’s really how we got the name. And from the it just took off this that got it all going for us. And then Mike, you said you started working with the company about two years ago? Yeah. So I got involved my senior year of college, about halfway through the year, I started working on some of the business stuff our time or whenever I had time to. And then as soon as I as soon as my last day class the next day, I came on full time. Awesome. And so um, can you guys tell us a little bit about, you know, the number of trucks that you guys have? How big essentially, your company is today. So we’re about a $3 million a year company.
We’re running eight trucks right now with the ninth one going on the road. This month, we see some potential growth even still. Whereas we’ll probably add one more truck before the end of the year. Wow. That’s amazing. So I’m are all of these trucks plumbing trucks? Or do you have a track as well. So it’s split up. But even our HPC techs are plumbers as well. So it’s a pretty well rounded. Some of the guys are plumbing only or plumbing in what we call where he boilers things like that only. Okay, some of the other guys are more everything. Perfect. Okay, so then I’m Mike, when did you decide to jump on board where you will ever a technician? Or did you just come on board with the the actual working end of things in the office? Yes. So I was never a technician, I’ve never been super interested in that side of it or been very good with working my hand. So I probably would have been terrible at it if I tried to be.
Um, so I decided my senior year of college, I was doing internships during the summer and during my first semester and stuff, and then I was taking my interviews for full time jobs out there. And I was going back and forth with him about what I wanted to do. And you know, what I was interested in. And he just saw that there’s an opportunity for me to do a lot of stuff that I was interested in doing here. And then that was an appeal to me just helping grow the family business and in kind of being able to do a variety of different things instead of having to jump into one thing after college.
Okay. And so then can you both maybe speak to anybody who may be listening who either they have a son or a daughter, who they’d like to get super involved into their business, and maybe that person is on the fence, whether they want to join in the family business or not. Or if you can just speak to anyone who may be considering it. So I could say that as Mike went through school, we really had no thought of him joining the family business at the time. My youngest son as well, he went to college, but it wasn’t for him. So we signed him on to the apprentice programme. But I would say the opportunity in the in the trades right now are better than they’ve ever been in, I think, to make a good living to have a great life.
It’s a great opportunity for anybody that wants to come on the trade. Okay. Mike, do you have anything to say to that? Yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve gotten to a lot of conferences and have quickly learned what type of industry This is. And the opportunity there. Working with your families is cool. I mean, I guess it depends on your relationship with your family. But the way my dad worked together, it’s a, it’s been a lot of fun, and then getting to come into work and see him and be with my brother as well. And then we have, you know, my honestly, office manager, my cousin works here. So being in that family environment, I was comfortable right away in a new way environment, because I obviously knew everybody I was working with, and it gave me kind of the opportunity to just kind of make an impact right away and do things and not be like nervous about stepping on foot on any feet or having a boundaries really so. So I’d say that if you do have that type of relationship with your family, and you have the opportunity to get involved, like he said, it’s a great industry, and it can be a lot of fun kind of working together at a common goal. Definitely. So then, Mike, can you actually tell everybody what it is that you do for the company? Sure. So I would say that I mostly focused on marketing.
So I mean, we do you guys do our website and all of our Google stuff. And so we go back and forth on that all the time about different adjustments. And then I, I’m trying to make a bunch of different content to put out, you know, on YouTube, Facebook, Google, all those different things to help build our brand. And then I do some sales as well. So I can go out and sell NH back system. Sometimes. If we’re really busy, and we can’t get one of our guys out there, I have enough knowledge on this stuff to go out and sell system. And then I do a lot of internal operations stuff as well, as far as how I want our websites view like or how I want like our online experience to be with customer human communication. The way that we, you know, kind of implement different technology to make the consumer experience easier. My focus on a lot of stuff. Yeah. Awesome. So yes, we work very closely together. And obviously, Paul, you jump on our calls as well. And so you oversee, I’m assuming everything else I do.
I’m more steering the ship at this point, then actually, on the field doing work anymore. So we’re running the business then working in the business, I guess you would say, Okay, and so then can you let everybody know, Mike, you had mentioned just now a lot about Facebook and YouTube. And so how important do you feel social media is in the success of your business? I think it’s extremely important. We that was one of my first focuses, when I got here was just building our brand. And using different strategies on Facebook that I didn’t see any of the other competition that we had really using, I thought that was a huge opportunity for us. So not only has it been great for building our brand, but we’ve used a lot of social media stuff to bring on talent and higher. And that’s been something that’s been really helpful. And I think that will hear a lot of people will mention the videos that they see us put out or the different graphics that we put out, and it just kind of puts more faces to the name and gets more recognition, which is which is big Chris? Definitely. So it honestly just makes the company seem more relatable.
And when you go out to a client’s home, I mean, they would all obviously, automatically understand or know the brand. Maybe not in in home of maybe someone who’s a little bit older and age, but at least with this new generation of homebuyers, it’s something I think it’s very important for you to have established online, this, you know, genuine brand. So, again, that’s, that’s pretty great. Can you talk to anybody who may be struggling with trying to find the time in the office to put up a couple pictures or even to take a couple of pictures here and there, their technicians or just the staff working? For sure.
So I think that you just kind of you got to put in your mindset that it should be a priority, I think it reduces because I think, you know, as things keep going, and social media gets more relevant, it’s going to be the brands that people know that are going to end up being who you call. But something that worked for us, we brought on, we talked to a local college and we brought on an intern, pay him like 12 bucks an hour, he does graphic design video pictures, and he comes in can spit some ideas at us or just we give him what we want to do with do some videos, who goes to the field and take pictures of guys in the job. In you know, 12 bucks an hour is not bad in college kids are looking for experience and opportunity. So when they can put that they’ve done that on a resume, they’re really excited to do and do a good job doing it. So I would say reach out to some of the local colleges nearby and open up that opportunity and let them take care of it. Definitely, that’s a great idea. I mean, there’s so many people at your you know, disposal to to try to contact whether that’s Southern University, even through the the high school seniors graduating who need a job, or even through local organisations, like a church or anything like that. So that’s a great idea.
And I hope that someone takes that into consideration with, you know, their personal business. And so can you guys actually speak a little bit to once we get those phones ringing? How is it that you manage to look at the revenue? I know that you use service Titan, but is there? I’m sorry, you do not use service tending? Is that correct? We do we do? Oh, you do? Okay, I’m sorry. So you use servicing to track your revenue? Is there any way that you go beyond that, to sign up, you know, to train your your CSRS to answer the phone to book that and then to train your technicians. So that we know that you know, although the cost per click, or the cost per lead maybe a little bit high, we’re definitely seeing a return on investment there. Sure.
So we we train our call takers to I guess we have a couple of different scripts, depending on the type of call it comes in. Okay. So our senior office staff has been around with us for quite a while. So they’re able to train some of our younger staff on the scripts in Mike’s take taking the lead as far as training through some of our affinity groups as well. And then the technicians we train twice a week with them both on sales and technical skill. And it’s paying off big time. And there’s average tickets, a great call closing ratio is really high, like 85% in that. So the training is definitely worth it. Definitely. And so I know that you guys both go off site pretty often for training, how often would you say you do go off site?
And can you speak to the importance of of you guys getting away to other organisations to help you train? Sure, I would say we were going three to four times a year. She’s great to get different perspectives from other companies, different ideas. You know, you talk to different business owners that go through the same things you go through, they have great ideas, we might be able to share some of the things we’re doing. Just as a refresher, every time you go, yeah, try to take two to three tangible things that we can get from each conference note, back and implement to us. And that’s been pretty good for us. That’s how we found you. Yes, that’s how you found us. And earlier this year, we were lucky enough to meet in person. So that was also a great little networking opportunity for us.
I mean, it’s one thing to talk every single month, every single week almost on the phone. And then when we see each other in person, it just puts a face to that. And so it was awesome meeting you guys in person. And I know I made a little bit of a difference on on our end. I feel the same way. Yeah. And okay. And so can you speak to everybody else about outside of Internet Marketing, I know that we handle your AdWords account, we handle your organic and your website presence and all of that. But how about maybe anything you do outside of the internet like prince or leave behind or radio or anything like that?
Yes, so we do, you know, where always leaving magnets and cards with customers at every, every chance we get there will still put out some direct mail flyers with different deals. Something that’s been super successful for us, in the slow times is our text message marketing. So we’ve uploaded all of our customers into a huge list. And we’ll send out a mass text message with some sort of dealer discount. And just like that, like two minutes later, the phone start going. And we always see a huge return on it. And it’s cheap money to do as well. So I think that’s something that a lot of people should be doing just because you can put out, you know, $500 off nuclear furnace, and you’ll get more leads that day. That’s been awesome. And then I do a big group.
So networking there, and then I’ll visit some groups that aren’t mine, and just try to just keep trying to get the name out there. Okay, so Oh, I’m sorry. No, I’m sorry, Paul. We look at his refrigerator magnets. Okay, great return on those walls, heater stickers. Even if someone sells a house, our name is still out there. And the new homeowner will call us thinking that we serviced everything there. So it’s really for not a lot of money. It’s a great investment.
Great. And so then how many? Or what percentage of your business would you say is maybe returning clients versus maybe new customers? So we’re about 65% return customers at this point. new customers would be that probably that 35% remaining, but like someone that is referral business to right, from Justin, customer base. Right.
Okay. And so then from the existing customer base, obviously, you know, we do get those those phones to ring as well. You know, it’s often that someone may forget who they use in the past. So it’s good to have, you know, our brand campaign up there. And so are our branding efforts. Again, that’s where that social media comes in. That’s where that brand campaign from the AdWords comes in. And so that’s where your online presence really does come in. And it’s very important to keep those clients. So text messages, branding on the Instagram branding on the Facebook, our efforts through Google AdWords, that kind of keeps that whole circle of the phone ringing. It’s not just relying on them to call you again. Would you agree?
I would agree. And I think having you guys here, like even our repeat customers might just google us, because you guys have us out everywhere that we could be they they find us right away? Right? easy to find. They know that they can call you possible number. So then, can you actually let me see? So we talked about your organization’s? Or is there any specific organisation that you can say has really helped you you in the, you know, acceleration of the company? You do run quite a few trucks, you are two different industries. And so I know that it’s a lot, I’m sure. You know, we talked about how we’ve gotten trained into training three, four times a year, is there any one specific organisation that maybe someone can benefit from if they’re listening today. So qualities, service contractors, as a member of the HTC has helped us quite a bit. Also, SGI success, group international has been very helpful. And those are two of the groups that we belong to, we feel really set the standard as far as business systems go. It helped us a lot. Awesome. And so then, what would you say to maybe any other a track or a plumbing company out there who’s looking to grow their business to the size that you are today? I think juice always want to be learning and just don’t get complacent with what’s worked. I think that’s to speak to Paul, like having somebody like myself come in and want to make all these changes and have a vision for to things a little bit differently. He hasn’t been resistant to it. He’s listened to what I’ve had to say. And we’ve made the changes together. I think we’ve all seen the positive. that’s come out of it.
And then sometimes he’s like, no, it we’ve tried that it won’t work. And he’s right. But it’s a learning thing. And he doesn’t just shut me down. He He’s willing to listen and change and then going to those, you know, those three to four times a year when we go to these conferences, we’re always looking for new things to do. So we’re just always trying to improve. I think that’s the biggest thing, right? I always say same thing. Keep it open mind. Listen to everybody. And you know, don’t get stagnant. Don’t just because one thing is working today doesn’t mean it’s going to work tomorrow. Just keep keep listening. Keep moving forward. Awesome. Well, thank you again, for jumping on this call with us. And thank you for everybody who’s tuned in and listened and watched us today. Pause Mike, you guys are a pleasure to work with. I really do love working on your account. And again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything you do. Well, I hope you get amazing value from that interview. If you’d like more ideas, strategies and techniques on how to more effectively market, your plumbing HPC or Home Services business online, go to plumbing marketing.net there you’ll find interviews just like this and the opportunity to schedule a time with us to just kind of talk about your business and how we can help you implement similar strategies in your business. So plumbing marketing that net head over there now and I’ll talk to you soon
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