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Results for Plumbing Companies

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BGS Strategies coaches plumbing company owners doing $3 million to $20 million a year, across the United States and Canada. On this page: what that work looks like in a plumbing business, a letter from an owner whose heating and cooling company added plumbing, and Kerry Webb's reported plumbing figures for three companies.

If the vans are busy while the profit is not, here is what Kerry Webb looks for when he opens a plumbing company's books.

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Two plumbers in work uniforms talking beside the pipework in a utility room

Where the Money Goes in a Plumbing Company

A plumbing company loses margin in different places from an air conditioning company, and the reason is the job mix. You run two businesses off one dispatch board. One is short work, a blocked drain, a leaking angle stop, a failed water heater, priced flat rate and finished in an afternoon. The other is project work, a repipe, a sewer line, a gas line, a slab leak, priced from an estimate that somebody made standing in a crawl space. The short work carries the volume. The project work carries the risk, because nobody goes back afterwards to see what the job actually cost.

Booked calls come first. The share of the phone calls you already paid for that turn into an appointment, and the share that turn into an appointment today rather than Thursday. A homeowner standing in water does not wait for a callback.

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Close rates and average ticket sit together in this trade, and they turn on one thing: whether the plumber presented options or presented a price. A failing water heater, a corroded cast iron line and a leaking main are all repair or replace decisions, and the customer is entitled to the choice. The companies that present the whole picture consistently do not have a sales problem, they have a training standard.

Dispatch and drive time are worse in plumbing than most owners admit, because the two job types fight each other. Put a two day repipe crew on a board that is also trying to absorb emergency service and somebody waits. Capacity planning in a plumbing company is a daily decision, not a weekly one.

Callbacks are the expensive one, and they are not the same animal here. An air conditioning callback costs a return visit. A plumbing callback can cost a return visit plus a ceiling, a floor and an insurance conversation. Rate and cost of callbacks by technician is a number worth reading every week.

Membership conversion is the hardest number to move in this trade and the most valuable. Plumbing has no seasonal ritual to hang a maintenance visit on the way air conditioning does, so an agreement has to be sold on its own merits: an annual whole house inspection, a water heater service, a drain check, priority scheduling when the water is on the floor. Presented on every call, it changes what a plumbing company is worth.

Pricing discipline holds all of it together. Who is allowed to discount, by how much, without asking anybody. That permission is usually undocumented and it is usually expensive.

Two structural things shape how fast any of this can be fixed. Licensing is the first: how plumbers are licensed and what the trade's labor market looks like is set by the state and the locality you work in, and the apprentice to journeyman to master ladder decides how quickly you can put another van on the road no matter what demand does. Permits and inspections are the second: where your jurisdiction requires them on water heaters, repipes and sewer work, the inspector's calendar is not your calendar, and a schedule built as though it were will slip. The Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association is where a good deal of the trade's own standards work sits, and the U.S. Small Business Administration covers hiring and managing employees without selling you anything. For the wider set of measures, read the numbers behind a healthy profit.

How BGS Strategies Approaches a Plumbing Company

The work is structured as the 90-Day Plan, and in a plumbing company it gets pointed at the job mix first.

Six checks come first: a Profit Leak Analysis, a Labor Efficiency Review, a Service Health Check, a Sales Analysis, a Customer Experience Journey and an Enterprise Value Score. In a plumbing company the Labor Efficiency Review usually gets split, because billable hours on service work and billable hours on project work behave nothing alike and averaging them hides the problem.

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Three priorities come out of those checks, in order, with the reason for the order. Then ninety days of work against them: coaching for the owner and the leadership team, live training for plumbers and the front desk on how options get presented and how calls get booked, and dispatch, pricing discipline and the scoreboard behind both. The same numbers get read weekly by the people responsible for them, and the six checks get run again at the end against the first set.

That is what BGS Strategies is equipped to do in a plumbing company.

Client stories

A Heating Company That Added Plumbing

Boer Brothers is a heating and cooling company that added plumbing while Kerry was coaching it, and kept the foundation underneath it while it did.

If you run a plumbing-only business, be clear about what you would be buying. You would be buying the business side, not trade knowledge. Kerry Webb is not a plumber.

David Boer, Boer Brothers Heating & Cooling, Plumbing

Kerry worked with us for many years as a business coach, technician coach, manager coach, and owner coach. Kerry understood that growing Boer Brothers was never just about revenue. It was about our employees, our customers, our families, the communities we serve, and the three brothers trying to build something meaningful together.

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Over the years we worked together, we more than doubled our revenue and grew into a $20-million-plus company. [...] But the numbers are only part of the story.

Kerry also helped us expand beyond heating and cooling. We added plumbing [...] We opened another branch. That kind of growth can create enormous opportunities, but it can also create problems if the foundation is not strong. Kerry helped us build that foundation and think through growth in a disciplined, sustainable way.

[...] If you are a business owner who truly wants to grow, not only in revenue, but also in leadership, culture, service, and lasting value, I cannot recommend Kerry highly enough. Kerry made a tremendous difference for Boer Brothers, for my family, and for me personally. We would not be the company we are today without that guidance.

David Boer, Co-Owner of Boer Brothers Heating & Cooling, Plumbing David Boer, Co-Owner, Boer Brothers Heating & Cooling, Plumbing

A man at his desk reading printed pages beside a monitor full of charts

The purpose of BGS is to create a better life for the owner and their employees.

Kerry Webb

What the Numbers Show

Kerry Webb also keeps revenue, service ticket, water heater and profit figures for the companies he has coached, and the list below is his own reported plumbing results for three of them, company by company. They are what each company reported, not a promise of what yours will do. The Indiana company also appears on the heating and cooling page.

"Service average" is the average service ticket. "Water heaters" is the number installed in a year.

  • Plumbing and HVAC in Indiana. Revenue increased $5.64M (+163%). Service average rose $178 to $335 (+$157 / 88%).
  • Plumbing in Chicago. Revenue increased $1.02M (+29%); water heaters increased 2,136 to 5,586 (+162%); average profit improved 6.05% to 17.06% (+11.01 pts).
  • Plumbing in Pennsylvania. Revenue increased $552,477 (+164%). Service average rose $506 to $1,118 (+$612 / 121%).

Kerry on the Plumbing Side

Kerry has spoken three times at the national conference that covers plumbing alongside heating and air, the ComforTech National HVACR, Hydronics and Plumbing Conference:

  • ComforTech National HVACR, Hydronics and Plumbing Conference, 2016. "Creating Customers for Life".
  • ComforTech National HVACR, Hydronics and Plumbing Conference, September 2015. "Recruiting Tips and Tools for Contractors".
  • ComforTECH National HVACR, Hydronics and Plumbing Conference, September 2014. "Leadership Secrets for Contractors".

What carries across trades is the business rather than the pipe. A booked call, a close rate, an average ticket, a callback, an agreement and a technician who needs coaching behave the same way in a plumbing company as they do anywhere else in home service, and Kerry has been coaching these owners since 2008. Kerry Webb's full record sets out the rest of it.

What Applies to a Plumbing Company

Coaching for the owner and the leadership team is usually first, because in a plumbing company of this size the service manager and the project side are often the same overworked person, and that has to be unpicked before anything else holds.

Live training for plumbers and the front desk covers how a booked call is won on the phone and how options get presented in a customer's kitchen.

Dispatch, pricing discipline and the scoreboard is where the daily decision between holding a repipe crew together and clearing an emergency board stops being made on instinct.

The playbooks and scorecards are the self serve route. A booking script for the person taking the emergency call and an options script for the plumber standing next to a dead water heater are two of the cheapest changes a plumbing company can make.

If heating and cooling is the larger half of your company, the heating and cooling page carries four owners rather than one. Darryl Robinson of Robinson Air, who built and sold his company, is one of them, and his letter sits with all five letters, including Darryl Robinson's, on the main Results page.

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions: Plumbing Companies

Has BGS Strategies coached a plumbing-only company?

Kerry lists two of the companies he has coached as plumbing companies, one in Chicago and one in Pennsylvania, and a third, in Indiana, as plumbing and HVAC; that one also appears in his heating and cooling figures. David Boer runs a heating and cooling company that added plumbing.

Kerry Webb is not a plumber. Does that matter?

It matters for what you should expect. He brings business management to the trade, not trade knowledge. Nobody coaches your plumbers on pipe. The work is on booking, pricing, options, dispatch, callbacks, agreements and the management team above them.

Where does the money go in a plumbing company?

Booked calls, close rates, average ticket, dispatch and drive time, callbacks, membership conversion and pricing discipline. Project work is usually the worst of it, because a repipe or a sewer line gets priced from an estimate and nobody goes back afterwards to see what the job really cost.

How do service agreements work in plumbing?

Plumbing has no seasonal tune up to hang an agreement on, so it has to stand on its own: an annual whole house inspection, a water heater service, a drain check and priority scheduling. Presented on every call rather than occasionally, it changes both your repeat work and what the company is worth.

What about emergency and after hours calls?

They are a scheduling and pricing question rather than a coaching promise. BGS Strategies does not run your on call rota. It works on what an emergency call is priced at, how fast it gets booked, who goes, and whether the job that got bumped for it was the more profitable one.

Does licensing affect how fast a plumbing company can grow?

Yes, more than in most trades. The licensing ladder and the supervision rules where you work decide how quickly another van can go out, whatever demand is doing. Growth planning that ignores that constraint produces a hiring target nobody can actually meet.

What does the first ninety days look like in a plumbing company?

Six checks give a written starting picture, with service work and project work looked at separately because averaging them hides where the margin goes. Three priorities come out of them in order. Coaching, live training and the scoreboard run against those three, then the six checks get run again.

How is the work priced?

The business assessment is free, and Level 1 of the Skool community is free. It contains the 7 Step Method, and the community on Skool is free to join. There is no trial period and no card required.

To get the full set of the 7 Step Tools, serious clients move to Level 2 membership on Skool at $295 a month. If you want to fast-track your growth and success, sign up for the 90-Day Plan at $7,500. To learn more, register for the $100,000 Conversation webinar.

Book the $100K Conversation

BGS Strategies works with owners across the United States and Canada, from Kerry Webb's base in Lantana, Texas. The first conversation costs nothing.

Or call 940-441-3231 or email support@bgsstrategies.com, Monday to Friday, 7 AM to 4 PM Central, and note that calls before 10 AM usually reach voicemail because Kerry is coaching. You can also send a message and he will call you back.

Or send us a note

Tell us what is going on in the business, and Kerry will call you back.

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