By Plumbing Marketing Podcast - Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Marketing Plumbers & HVAC Contractors hosted by Josh Nelson
5
33 ratings
The podcast currently has 53 episodes available.
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.
Listen is as I interview Marc Mason from RCL Mechanical. They are a full service plumbing & HVAC contractor serving the Bristol County area in MA. Over the past 3 years they’ve grown from Startup to $14M per year (20+ trucks). He shares from great insights on
There’s a lot that you can do to position yourself well in the online world, which has become the very foundation of long-term success.
Make no mistake – your competitors are going above and beyond to spread the word about themselves online. You’d better do the same if you want to rise above them.
Remember that it all comes down to understanding your customer. Once you know what they need, finding a way to draw them in will be much easier. So, build your marketing efforts around your ideal customer and you’ll see massive results.
If you’d like to discuss how you can generate better results online, let’s schedule a time to chat. You can pick a time that works for you now by going to https://go.plumberseo.net/schedule
If you would like to have me and my team personally review your online marketing strategy and show you where you are ranking, where there is room for improvement and how we can work together to make this your best year ever and finally get your Internet marketing right, then click below to schedule your Leadflow Acceleration Session now.
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Get the latest information on Google Local Services and how you can tap into this great new lead generation opportunity in your area. What
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
***Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical Contractors***Make 2023 the best year for your business!Join us this Thursday, January 9th at 2 pm ET to discover what
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
How PAC Plumbing from 4 trucks to 6 trucks over the past 12 months Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Interview with Lucas Cellino from Cellino Plumbing & HVAC Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and how
Interview with Paul The Plumber - Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Success Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Interview with Kayla from Polestar Plumbing, Heating & Air Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and how
Interview with Brian Sloan from TR Miller - HVAC Success Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and
From Zero to $4M+ in less than 2 years… A Plumbing and HVAC Success Story Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what
How This Plumber in Houston, Texas is Marketing His Way To Success. Richard Saad of Nick’s Plumbing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses.
Interview with Trevor Flannigan - How He Helped Grow a $20M Plumbing HVAC Comany Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Build a Referral System To Get More Repeat and Referral Business, with Brian Kaskavalciyan of gFour Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses.
Maximize Marketing Efficiency and Online Reviews for Your Plumbing Business with Josh Kelly from Parker & Sons and Creator of RevuKangaroo Interviews with the
How A $5M Plumbing Operation Dominates Its Market, with Kevin Cohen Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
How Peterman Heating, Cooling & Plumbing grew to $10M - Interview with Chad Peterman Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Plumbing Success in a Smaller Market with Kevin Wolf of Laney’s Heating and Cooling Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Marketing Secrets of a $30M+ Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical Business Titan Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Every owner of a plumbing or HVAC company wants to be the one who is the plumbing success story in his area. But do
Marketing Interview with Greg Joyce from Schuler Service This may sound like a "no-brainer" piece of advice, and in a way it is, but
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show I had the opportunity to interview Craig Phillipich of The Meridan Company. They are
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show I interview industry luminary Al Levi talking all about operations & how to systematize
How Mitch Kenney grew Colepepper Plumbing from Zero to $2.7M in less than 2 years... On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing
Plumber Marketing Tips, Internet Tools that Work, and the Power of Professionalism, with Christian Devlin of Devlin Plumbing On this episode of the Plumbing
Have you ever thought about what it would take to truly systematize your Plumbing & HVAC business so that it could run day-to-day without
Are you ready to take 2017 by storm in your Plumbing or HVAC Business? Do you have a clear plan of attack as it
Every year INC Magazine publishes a list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the United States. You can review the entire list by clicking
Interview with Kimberly Kean from Gene Johnson Plumbing - How they grew to $2.5M Annually The Multi-Million Dollar Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Strategy On
How to systematize your Plumbing & HVAC marketing On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Profits Podcast we interview Al Levi. Al
On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show we take you to a special training where we share a proven method for
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Profits Show we take you to a special training on how you can drive more
On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show we interview Brian Kaskavalciyan. He is a highly successful serial entrepreneur in the Plumbing &
Interview with Gene Slade - How he grew his HVAC company from Zero to $3M in 6 Years & Sold for a nice profit
Happy new year! I hope you had an amazing 2015, enjoyed your holiday break and are ready to rock it in 2016! I'm sure you
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we had the opportunity to interview Gene Slade Jr of AirGenie. He shares his incredible story
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Mike Agugliaro of Gold Metal Service. He shares some tremendous insights on how he's
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we talk to owner Jeff Morgan of Morgan Miller Plumbing and marketing director Tosha Everhart to
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Dan Dowdy of S&D Plumbing. He shares some amazing insights on how his family
Discover how Greg Joyce of Schuler Services grew his plumbing company to $2.8 Million with 11 Trucks! On this interview Greg talks about how
Watch the video version of the interview below: Additional Resources: Joe offered to share a number of resources through out the interview.
On this Episode we interviewed one of the Fastest Growing Plumbing Companies in the United States - Daniel Cordova Plumbing. Discover how Daniel Cordova
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Kelly Russum of KC’s 23 1/2 Hour Plumbing out of Palm Springs, CA. He
Marketing Interview with Mark Larkin - Owner of Larkin Plumbing Discover how Mark grew his plumbing business from 2 guys in the 1950's to
On this Episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Kenny Chapman, the Blue Collar Coach and successful Plumbing / HVAC Business Owner. He
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Profits Podcast we had the opportunity to interview M. Scott Gregg, Author of the book Profitable Plumbing
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits we interview the winner of the Rocklin Area Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award and Plumbing &
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits Josh Nelson goes back to the basics essential FUNDAMENTALS for effectively marketing online. As I talk with
On this Episode we interviewed the PHCC National Plumbing Contractor of the year and owner of Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air - Mary Jean
On this Podcast Josh Nelson recaps the High-Points of the Interview with Phillip Maurici of The Clean Plumbers. If you missed the interview you
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits we interview Phillip Maurici of The Clean Plumbers® AKA Philip Maurci Plumbing out of Tampa, Fl. He
This is the intro episode to the Plumbing Marketing Podcast where we interview the owners of leading Plumbing Companies from across the US to
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post How Marc Grew his Plumbing Company to over $14M in less than 3 years appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
Get the latest information on Google Local Services and how you can tap into this great new lead generation opportunity in your area.
What You're Going to Learn
Ready to Level Up Your Marketing?
There’s a lot that you can do to position yourself well in the online world, which has become the very foundation of long-term success.
Get a Free Internet Marketing Strategy Evaluation
If you would like to have me and my team personally review your online marketing strategy and show you where you are ranking, where there is room for improvement and how we can work together to make this your best year ever and finally get your Internet marketing right, then click below to schedule your Leadflow Acceleration Session now.
The post How To Win With Local Service Ads appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
Subscribe for the podcast & get emailed as new interviews are posted
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post How to WIN With Google Local Services appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
Subscribe for the podcast & get emailed as new interviews are posted
Get a free LeadFlow Acceleration SessionIf you are ready to take your Plumbing, HVAC or Home Services Business to the next level and drive more leads & sales…we’d like to offer you a FREE LeadFlow Acceleration Session. Click below to schedule a time now.
The post Let's build your 2023 Internet Marketing Plan appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
We had the opportunity to interview John Verhoff owner of Plumbing Nerds. They are a full-service Plumbing Company serving the Southwest Florida Area. Discover how he grew to 10 trucks and is up over $800K year over year (on pace for $2.7M this year). He shares some amazing insights on how they keep the phones ringing, trucks running & business booming!
John Verhoff with Plumbing Nerds joins Allison in this interview to discuss how his business has grown from $1.9M to a projected $2.7M in just one year! In this interview, you’ll learn how he got started, what he thinks of online reviews, and how he markets his business. Check out John’s interview to help you learn how to grow your own plumbing business.
Plumbing Nerds is located in southwest Florida and has been in business for 12 years. They run 10 trucks and have 17 employees. John actually started the business with his wife’s sign-on bonus. 2007 was a rough time to start any business, but commercial plumbing became even more of a challenge due to the lack of building after the 2008 market meltdown. Instead of giving up and hanging up his hat, John chose to focus more on local services. Fortunately, water heaters and drains don’t pay attention to recessions.
One secret to Plumbing Nerds’ success is online reviews. They get a ton! But how does he ensure they get online reviews?
John attributes their success in reviews in 2 ways. They use a platform called Podium to remind customers to give reviews. He loves Podium and thinks it has been really helpful in getting the volume of reviews up. Also, their techs ask the customers for reviews directly. He feels that this combination is really what drives their success in online reviews
Plumbing Nerds is a really supportive business to work for. John makes sure to give his employees recognition for a job well done. He knows that a pat on the back goes a long way. One way that he has made employees feel appreciated is to acknowledge their wins on good reviews. In the past, he used an individual incentive program to celebrate positive reviews. His team tracks reviews on every platform and they always publicly recognize great reviews. He has changed the incentive program recently to reward the whole team since he has realized that good service is not an individual matter, the entire company takes part in great service.
John uses Plumbing and HVAC SEO to help market his business through organic search and to bolster the SEO. But he also uses other means as well. He feels the best return on investment has been with Google Local Services. GLS has provided 9X ROI! He has been on Angie’s List since 2012 but feels that the ROI on that platform has been dropping.
John has been a bit slow to adopt social media, but he is starting to see the benefit from it. The business is on Instagram and Facebook and they have been posting a few times a week. So far, they haven’t used any paid social campaigns. He is contemplating using social media ads in the future. John has 12 years of plumbing wisdom to share with you so be sure to listen to discover his advice for other Plumbing and HVAC business owners.
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Get the latest information on Google Local Services and how you can tap into this great new lead generation opportunity in your area. What
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
***Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical Contractors***Make 2023 the best year for your business!Join us this Thursday, January 9th at 2 pm ET to discover what
Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
How PAC Plumbing from 4 trucks to 6 trucks over the past 12 months Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Interview with Lucas Cellino from Cellino Plumbing & HVAC Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and how
Interview with Paul The Plumber - Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Success Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Interview with Kayla from Polestar Plumbing, Heating & Air Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and how
Interview with Brian Sloan from TR Miller - HVAC Success Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work and
From Zero to $4M+ in less than 2 years… A Plumbing and HVAC Success Story Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what
How This Plumber in Houston, Texas is Marketing His Way To Success. Richard Saad of Nick’s Plumbing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses.
Interview with Trevor Flannigan - How He Helped Grow a $20M Plumbing HVAC Comany Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Build a Referral System To Get More Repeat and Referral Business, with Brian Kaskavalciyan of gFour Marketing Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses.
Maximize Marketing Efficiency and Online Reviews for Your Plumbing Business with Josh Kelly from Parker & Sons and Creator of RevuKangaroo Interviews with the
How A $5M Plumbing Operation Dominates Its Market, with Kevin Cohen Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
How Peterman Heating, Cooling & Plumbing grew to $10M - Interview with Chad Peterman Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Plumbing Success in a Smaller Market with Kevin Wolf of Laney’s Heating and Cooling Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing
Marketing Secrets of a $30M+ Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical Business Titan Interviews with the nations leading plumbing businesses. Discover what marketing efforts actually work
Every owner of a plumbing or HVAC company wants to be the one who is the plumbing success story in his area. But do
Marketing Interview with Greg Joyce from Schuler Service This may sound like a "no-brainer" piece of advice, and in a way it is, but
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show I had the opportunity to interview Craig Phillipich of The Meridan Company. They are
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show I interview industry luminary Al Levi talking all about operations & how to systematize
How Mitch Kenney grew Colepepper Plumbing from Zero to $2.7M in less than 2 years... On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing
Plumber Marketing Tips, Internet Tools that Work, and the Power of Professionalism, with Christian Devlin of Devlin Plumbing On this episode of the Plumbing
Have you ever thought about what it would take to truly systematize your Plumbing & HVAC business so that it could run day-to-day without
Are you ready to take 2017 by storm in your Plumbing or HVAC Business? Do you have a clear plan of attack as it
Every year INC Magazine publishes a list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the United States. You can review the entire list by clicking
Interview with Kimberly Kean from Gene Johnson Plumbing - How they grew to $2.5M Annually The Multi-Million Dollar Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Strategy On
How to systematize your Plumbing & HVAC marketing On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Profits Podcast we interview Al Levi. Al
On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show we take you to a special training where we share a proven method for
On this episode of the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Profits Show we take you to a special training on how you can drive more
On this episode of The Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Show we interview Brian Kaskavalciyan. He is a highly successful serial entrepreneur in the Plumbing &
Interview with Gene Slade - How he grew his HVAC company from Zero to $3M in 6 Years & Sold for a nice profit
Happy new year! I hope you had an amazing 2015, enjoyed your holiday break and are ready to rock it in 2016! I'm sure you
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we had the opportunity to interview Gene Slade Jr of AirGenie. He shares his incredible story
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Mike Agugliaro of Gold Metal Service. He shares some tremendous insights on how he's
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we talk to owner Jeff Morgan of Morgan Miller Plumbing and marketing director Tosha Everhart to
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Dan Dowdy of S&D Plumbing. He shares some amazing insights on how his family
Discover how Greg Joyce of Schuler Services grew his plumbing company to $2.8 Million with 11 Trucks! On this interview Greg talks about how
Watch the video version of the interview below: Additional Resources: Joe offered to share a number of resources through out the interview.
On this Episode we interviewed one of the Fastest Growing Plumbing Companies in the United States - Daniel Cordova Plumbing. Discover how Daniel Cordova
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Kelly Russum of KC’s 23 1/2 Hour Plumbing out of Palm Springs, CA. He
Marketing Interview with Mark Larkin - Owner of Larkin Plumbing Discover how Mark grew his plumbing business from 2 guys in the 1950's to
On this Episode of the Plumbing Marketing Podcast we interview Kenny Chapman, the Blue Collar Coach and successful Plumbing / HVAC Business Owner. He
On this episode of the Plumbing Marketing Profits Podcast we had the opportunity to interview M. Scott Gregg, Author of the book Profitable Plumbing
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits we interview the winner of the Rocklin Area Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award and Plumbing &
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits Josh Nelson goes back to the basics essential FUNDAMENTALS for effectively marketing online. As I talk with
On this Episode we interviewed the PHCC National Plumbing Contractor of the year and owner of Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air - Mary Jean
On this Podcast Josh Nelson recaps the High-Points of the Interview with Phillip Maurici of The Clean Plumbers. If you missed the interview you
On this episode of Plumbing Marketing Profits we interview Phillip Maurici of The Clean Plumbers® AKA Philip Maurci Plumbing out of Tampa, Fl. He
This is the intro episode to the Plumbing Marketing Podcast where we interview the owners of leading Plumbing Companies from across the US to
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
Here’s the 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
way this is Josh Nelson with plumbing and HVAC SEO and I’m super excited on this episode of the plumbing and HVAC marketing podcast to be interviewing john vernoff from plumbing nerds, they run an amazing plumbing company serving the Southwest Florida area, got a great operation about 10 trucks 17 employees, doing about $2 million per year. On this interview, john shares how he’s up almost $800,000 in revenue year over year some of the cool things he’s doing from a marketing perspective, leveraging Google Local Service ads, aggressive online marketing, social media, sharing some amazing insights to check it out. And I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.
Hey, john, how are you?
I’m good. How are you doing Allison?
I’m doing good. So as we talked about previously, I’m interviewing today for our newsletter or engaging newsletter. And then of course, we’re going to use this audio for our clients and future clients to to come back to if they ever have any questions and they want to get to know you and your business a little more. So, first off, can you tell us a little bit about plumbing nerds, the background, how long you’ve been in business, approximate revenue, you don’t have to get, you know too much in detail but number of trucks and employees, all that good stuff.
I love to and thanks for having me. So, Tommy nerves we’ve, we’ve been in business for a little over 12 years. We are located in Southwest Florida. We are currently running trucks, roughly. We have 17 employees. Last year we did about 1.9. And this year we’re budgeting to do about 2.7.
Wow, that’s awesome. And so then I’m going to ask you a little bit more about that later. But can you tell us how you started this business?
Sure. Well, kind of funny how things work out. I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio, and my wife graduated 12 years ago or a little over 12 years ago now and as a nurse, and part of her sign on bonus was and moving bonus to move down to Southwest Florida, when used to help start the business. And if you if you recall, what 12 years ago was around 2007, not realising what the economy was going to do soon after, and wasn’t the best To start a new commercial Residential Plumbing Company
pretty much how we got down here.
Wow, that’s, that’s very interesting. So then, so 2007 you’re a year away from the recession, and then how I mean, how did that How did that work out for you guys?
So again, because of her moving bonus, and her sign on bonus that allowed us to put a good foundation to start the business. Once once the recession, you know, about a year into the business doing commercial work, which we did really well and we were really busy even right out right out the gate. You know, once it did start to hit our area, which by the way, this Southwest Florida was one of the hardest hit areas in the United States. But once it did hit the very I kind of knew that, that we were going to have to take the business, a different route. Construction was it was slim, if any in the area. And the great thing about service work is that why leaders and toilets, they just don’t know that there’s a recession. So, you know, I knew that in the back of my head that there was going to be plenty of work in that arena. So started to to brand and move my business in that direction.
That’s awesome. Cool. Well, we do know that you guys get a lot of reviews, a lot of online reviews. So is there anything that you either tell your technicians to try to get those reviews, or maybe even tell the clients in order to get reviews? I know that that’s a struggle for a lot of people in the industry.
So reviews are Uber important, outside of what our message that we’re trying to speak to our customer. If we don’t get that, preach that message to them, if we don’t have the reviews, to entice them to want to look further into what our company is and what we do. We do use a platform For our reviews, which is podium, they’ve been pretty good to us. We’ve used them now for a little over six months. And I do like the platform. But outside of that, Allison, the biggest thing that I found to make the largest difference and the amount of reviews to get, and just continually let our technicians reminding the technicians to ask for the review, just simply ask the customer for the review. And I know that when they do that, we get a significant amount more amount, a larger response when they do.
Awesome. And so then kind of going to the technicians. There are some clients who have even tried giving their technicians a bonus if they were to get reviews. Is that something that you do or or do you just rely on them to do their part?
Well, so I’m actually in a transition phase right now. Live Was I do have my office keeping track of every review on every review site that we have and going down the list. Angie’s List, Google, Better Business Bureau, a local home advisor. I mean, I literally have my office keeping track of how many reviews on each of those sites and what technicians those are attributed to. And I was doing that and I still do that today for many reasons, but it is to incentivize the technicians to be able to compliment them to to share the wins is what we you know, those are wins for us to be able to share the wins with the teams and celebrate with them when when they get those type of reviews. So against I guess to the transition is I used to use that and we used to do throw to win so if they had five or more reviews, I’d like five to 10 reviews, I’d let him throw one Dart and whatever they land On they were, they would get it so if they had a bull’s eye, they get $100 and so on and so forth. But I actually, we’re in a transition phase or actually, I’m stopping doing the individual because what I realised that I may be wrong, but what I realised is that you know, although the technician is the one in the field that is talking to the customer asking for the review, it actually is the entire team here that helped produce that review. So, so what we’re doing now is although we’re still keeping track of them individually, we’re still going to celebrate them individually read them out loud and our meeting or weekly meeting. But what we are going to do now is actually actually reward the entire company and we are going to put a you know a goal to hit and then once we hit that goal will celebrate will get a food truck here. Well, you know, maybe you know good no to a gun range or whatever. Whatever that Well, you know, whatever everybody would like to do, right, trying to do something a little different.
That’s awesome. That’s great. And so that kind of leads me into my next question, which is, how do you keep morale up? And I’m assuming that obviously has a lot to do with it. But is there anything else that you can maybe any advice that you can give to anybody? I know that right now in this industry, it’s hard to find people who want to work, it’s hard to find technicians. And then it’s also hard to keep them. So what is your strategy? I mean, running 10 trucks. That’s, that’s a lot of technicians that you have under your belt and I’m sure that’s, you know, that comes with a lot of office stuff as well. So what can you tell anyone who may be struggling with retention or or struggling with just keeping morale up in the office?
Well, I’m going to be the first to admit we have turnover, I would assume like most companies, but you know, I do also have quite a few employees that have been here for quite some time. And what my leases and this may be wrong. It is just a belief, but I believe just complimenting them and letting them know when they do things well, I think is a really good start. I, most people and humans in general like to know when they’re doing well, and it’s not always about a race, it’s not always about more money. It’s always about a bonuses, a lot of times it’s just about with the recognition that they are doing something well, whether it’s a review, whether it’s a, you know, a really large sales week, whatever that is, you know, I think just, you know, patting them on the back and letting them know that they did something really well, and especially if you could do that in front of the entire team, I think really goes a long way. At least from my experience.
Yes, I think you’re I think you’re right there. I think it has a lot more to do than just signing the check but really creating an environment where that person feels safe and nurtured and the point where they want to perform and and kind of Excel so Okay, that’s a good one. Alright, so I have some questions regarding your marketing. Of course, you’ve been a client with us for some time now. But is there any other forms of marketing that you’re doing to help bring in some of those leads?
The largest, the best marketing we’re doing right now is Google local services NGLS right now I think we’re getting almost nine times ROI on it. So that’s definitely the top outside of organic and SEO and the work that you guys do for us. Angie’s List has always been a really big one for us. We’ve used Angie’s List in 2012 I believe that they were really the people to the company to start the reviews and making those popular and, and enticing people to to put reviews in and start looking in that direction for you know, I guess lack of better words is what your neighbour a referral from your neighbour. So they’ve they’ve always been a really good marketing platform for us. But they have been sliding. And I don’t know if that’s because of all these other new companies coming out and emerging companies for their lead, lead. But they have my ROI has every month, month over month has been losing losing some ground. So it’s something something I’m definitely visiting next quarter.
Okay, good. So Google local services nine time return on investment. That’s fantastic. Yeah. Clients would love it. Some clients don’t particularly like the the programme, but it looks like it’s working for you. I mean, at $25 a lead, you really can’t find anything like that elsewhere. And a lot of people come to Google for anything for all of their questions. So the fact that they’re offering that services is great.
I agree.
Okay, cool. So, couple questions coming into this digital age. Are you using social media for your business?
So it’s interesting I, I haven’t for the longest time, up until recently, I haven’t really felt like it was. It was I guess a thing. But I realised now that it is a thing and I see how my family I have two older daughters, 15 and nine and I see how they use social media and my wife and although I don’t use it, often I realised the importance of it and how, how marketing is is different now. It’s different than it was five years ago. It’s definitely different than it was 15 years ago. So I have been I have been working more into the social platforms, Instagram, Facebook, we post outside of the posts you guys, assist us with and help us with which by the way I love them. Outside of those, our office staff actually puts in a couple additional ones a week. We don’t do any paid social campaigns as of now, but it’s definitely something on the radar for possibly the end of this. This quarter, maybe maybe the beginning of next year to explore, but definitely something that I think everybody needs to be more aware of if they’re not currently doing it now. Definitely need to.
Yes. So I’m a paid paid search. Sorry, paid social is such a huge Avenue. I mean, it’s up and coming. It’s it’s been around for some time now. But I think, especially now that Facebook now owns Instagram, I mean, you can really dial into the type of person that you’re going after. So that’s, you know, a homeowner within a certain age group, whether that’s, you know, single mom or or anybody who’s just at stay at home remotely working. So it’s pretty cool that we can use these profiles on their Facebook to target these specific people, and really like, mommy nerds, right? Isn’t that Isn’t that crazy?
It’s amazing. It really gets your target audience that you that you’re looking for, and almost give it to the team. And it’s really just amazing.
Yes. So then with that, are you using email marketing?
We do what we do you actually have a campaign you guys actually do for us if you guys do our monthly newsletter with some with some advertised, maybe a couple discounts or coupons or something we do monthly. We have done some campaigns before, to where if somebody hits our newsletter on a water quality, they click one of the links on let’s say a water quality add. Well, it’ll actually it’ll trigger two, three, or even up to six other Females to know give them more information about whatever that link was obviously hoping to put them in the in the funnel to get to get them to call us.
Right. nurturing those things.
That’s right.
Perfect.
Okay, so then do you have any additional nuggets of wisdom or insight that you’d like to share to any business owners, whether they’re just starting, whether they’re looking to invest into marketing, whether it’s other you know, channels outside of the business, it doesn’t just have to be you know about digital marketing.
I guess a couple things, a couple ideas and thoughts one of already touched on, I just, I just want to stress the importance of reviews. I believe anything, you know, anything under and this is my opinion, but anything under a 4.6 in any type of platform, I think I think you definitely need to Looking and have a better idea of what your customers are trying to tell you. It’s definitely in my eyes and is are the customers are trying to help you and trying to tell you what’s wrong in your business. And obviously, I would hope you’re in business to make sure that you want to service because those customers so I would say, definitely take a look at where you’re at on all platforms, make sure that you you maintain a high high review rating because that is going to be the number one driver no matter what campaign you use. And then I guess the last piece, I guess would just be if I could, if you don’t mind, just share one of my favourite quotes with you, of course. Kind of a plumbing quote. But it’s you know, life is like a sewer. You get out of it, what you put in it. That’s
I guess that’s it.
Awesome. Well, thank you again for taking time today. For this you know, quick interview. Looking forward to typing this up and sharing it with our client base. And as well as anybody who may be listening in, I know that that, you know, you was a pioneer in the men a pioneer, but a person in the industry who has many years under their belt, someone with 10 trucks and someone in a market, that’s pretty difficult. It’s very nice to hear from you. And and again, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Well, I hope you got 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
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post How Plumbing Nerds is up $800K year over year ($2.7M) appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
Listen in as we interview Nicholas Rizzo from PAC Plumbing, Heating & Air on how they market & grow their business. PAC plumbing has been around for over 40 years on Staten Island. The plumbing and HVAC company was started by Paul Campion. His son, Eric is the head honcho now. Nicholas Rizzo joins Allison on the Plumbing and HVAC Marketing Success Podcast. Nicholas started as a with the company a few years ago as a CSR. He is now the marketing manager and is thrilled with the growth they have seen over the past 2 years. Listen in to hear how they have grown from 4 to 6 trucks over the past 2 years.
PAC plumbing has grown tremendously over the past 2 years. Nicholas attributes their growth to the energy they have put into their marketing campaign. They went from just about no social media usage to having a huge social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. They also use Plumbing and HVAC SEO to help boost their organic reach on Google as well as using Google Ad words. Their online marketing strategy has been one of the keys to their impressive growth.
In addition to all of their online marketing strategies, PAC Plumbing also uses door hangers, yard signs, and mailers. Nicholas has found it best to hit the same area 3 or 4 times within a short period of time with mailers and door hangers. Customers have really enjoyed their Smile Program. If a technician notices a customer having a bad day they will do small things to try to cheer them up. This could be anything from sending a card or a box of chocolates. This is one of the amazing ways that PAC Plumbing builds its relationship with the community.
Having the owner run the business and try to do all of the marketing is a surefire way to disaster. A marketing manager can take so much off of the owner’s plate and allow him to work on the business rather than in the business. The marketing manager also adds to the growth of the business. When you hire people you can trust you’ll get your trucks running before you know it. An investment in a marketing manager is an investment in company growth.
In addition to having Nicholas run the in-house marketing, PAC Plumbing also relies on Plumbing and HVAC SEO to further their marketing success. They realize that Plumbing and HVAC SEO is the right choice to make sure they are ranking on Google both organically and by using Google Adwords. They know they need SEO experts to further their growth. Have you considered having Plumbing and HVAC SEO help your plumbing business grow?
PAC is a full-service Plumbing, Heating & Cooling company serving the greater Staton Island, NY area. They’ve grown from 4 trucks to over 12 in the past 12 months & on pace to do over $2.4M this year. Nick shares some great ideas on how they are tapping into Internet Marketing, Social Media & eMail marketing to drive their agency.
If you are ready to take your Plumbing, HVAC or Home Services Business to the next level and drive more leads & sales…we’d like to offer you a FREE LeadFlow Acceleration Session. Click below to schedule a time now. Here’s the 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, hey, this is Josh Nelson with plumbing and HVAC SEO, and want to welcome you to this episode of the plumbing and HVAC marketing profits podcast.
Today, we’re super excited to be interviewing Nicholas Rizal from pack plumbing, heating and air conditioning, their full service contractor plumbing HPC, serving the greater Staten Island market, and they’ve had some great growth over the last year. So Matter of fact, they’re the grown from four trucks to six trucks and on pace to do $2.4 million this year. Next year, some really cool insights on how they’re leveraging the internet, social media, email marketing and variety of other cool internet marketing strategies to keep the phone ringing trucks running and business booming. So I really love this episode. Check it out. Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Allison. And I am interviewing Nick, the marketing manager over at pack plumbing. This is for our engaged newsletter and our podcast. And so Nick, thank you again for joining us today. Can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself and a little bit about tech plumbing? Sure. I just want to thank you guys for having me. Thank you, Allison for asking me to come on. So yeah, pack plumbing has been around for about 40 years over in Staten Island, serve in local communities in the New York area. The business was started by the campy own family, Mr. Paul Campion senior, started the business back in 1978. And then his son Paul kept beyond who’s the owner now was going to school earning his plumbing licence.
And then little few years after that, he developed the heating and air conditioning trade show, then the business eventually became pack plumbing, heating and air conditioning in the early 90s. So I’ve been here for a little over two years now I started is as a customer service representative. And basically a CSR just answering phone calls. And then while the business was by came here, we were undergoing a big change. Because before I came in, I used to be primarily construction company. So we Eric, our operations manager rewrote the business plan to be mostly residential. So we started doing the residential side of the business. And when I came on, I took over the marketing role. So that’s kind of where we are here. And from CSR to marketing manager to a little bit everything, that’s kind of my role at PAX.
That’s amazing. So then, you know, it’s not uncommon for a lot of people to come in as a CSR, then kind of work their way up to something like a marketing manager. So we congratulations on that. And then to can you tell us a little bit about maybe how big the company is, the number of trucks that you guys have? We already talked about the services. So you were originally just plumbing and now your plumbing heating and air conditioning? Did that, you know, bringing on that second industry? Did that take a toll on the company? How many? You know, how many technicians? Did you have to bring on board for that to happen? Yeah, so basically, what When I came here, I mean, one thing I could say about this company, it’s all about growth. You know, I started, like I said, as a CSR. And then quickly, you know, I was growing into other roles. And you know, we When I came here, we started what about four trucks on the road, then about a year after we got to five, and now recently, about a month, month ago, we got to six. So you know, the growth is definitely it’s progressing every year. Last year, we did about 2.1 million in revenue. This year, we’re looking at an increase to up to 2.4 million in revenue, we’ve increased the number of tax we brought on to the year, we keep increasing office personnel and making a lot of changes around the office. I mean, as far as the HPC side of the business, obviously, that was in the early days, we brought, we brought the guys here, early 90s, I believe Paul brought that side of the business.
And they were doing about 18 trucks on the road at the time, but it was mostly new construction. So we kind of Eric Paul, they kind of wanted to try to get out of that business. And unfortunately, they had a family tragedy that had to kind of put the business on hold during the late 90s and 2000. So Eric came in rewrote the business plan to make it pretty much residential. And that’s kind of where we stand today. And we’re growing with the amount of services that we provide now. I mean, we’re a lot different company than we were even when I was just here two years ago. Wow. Okay. So definitely, I mean, I can I can only imagine, you know, whatever tragedy that could have been, and then pausing the company for some time, but it’s, it’s very nice to know that I mean, the company never went 100% over under, and never really closed its doors, but kind of just lay low for a couple of years. And then now we have use Eric was his name. I’m sorry. Yes. Yep. Eric, that is? Yes. So he is rewriting the business plan and kind of getting everybody on board.
And so the position that you find yourself in today, what I mean, what essentially do you do as the marketing manager. So basically, I handle all the marketing as far as social media, our newsletters, all our new marketing ideas that were seems to be throwing in every week, you know, I’ll go into a little bit while we do. So as far as you know, we’re very creative. You know, we obviously use also we have a huge social media presence with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, we obviously work with a lot with Google rely on you guys over a plumber SEO. Deanna, especially as our girl that she runs our, our AdWords account. And obviously, our SEO, we’re also involved with Google local services, Angie’s List, so we’re not that big of a fan of Yelp. And we also do a little bit more we do the online blogs, door hangers, yard signs, thank you cards, gifs for customers, Constant Contact newsletters constantly, we’re usually sending those two, three a month. And we also have a smile programme, which is, you know, for customer may be having a bad day, or text or fill out a form that is triggered directly to our CSR. And say, you know, customer, for example, we had this recently a customer wants to dog. So you know, she seemed a little sad, or our technician went, filled out a smile programme thought would be nice to send her a box of chocolates. We did about a few days later, and the customers thrilled and tears.
So you know, it’s little things like that, that we try to do is you know, just to serve our customers at a high level. That’s amazing. That’s so nice. And that definitely just builds a community between or relationship really between the community and yourselves as a company. So that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, one thing I could tell you here is we are we are pretty well known because, you know, setting on being not as big of a place as people may think. But it seems like everybody knows each other. And the fact that Mr. Campion Paul has kept the business in the same spot for you know, 40 years. We’re located on port Richmond Avenue on the corner, and everybody sees our trucks. Everybody knows our Paul’s, I don’t know, obviously, you guys have seen the logo, folds the cartoon image on the logo, and everybody sees that. They love it, they instantly think of Paul. So you know, our presence is definitely felt on the island. Definitely. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul, over at one of the one of the meetings that that was held a couple of months back, and he is just the sweetest person. He is Yeah, he’s incredible. He’s incredible. He’s a war vet. So he’s a hero as well. Amazing. Amazing. Well, okay, so now jumping into a couple of media questions. So you said, social media is huge is a huge thing for you guys.
Do you, like combine that maybe with direct mail or anything like that? Yes, well, especially with the growth now, we have kind of reached out to some other companies to work with our direct mail. And we started some postcard campaigns lately, in order to prefer air conditioning season, excuse me, we the door hangers and direct mail we try to work hand in hand. So if we’re hitting a certain area, with our direct mail, we want to we want to slam them with our door hangers Two weeks later. And then two weeks later, we want to hit them want to know that direct mail and the door hangers, again, we want to hit those certain areas, you know, 234 times in that in such a short time period, you know, this way, they get the perception that that we’re this monster company. And meanwhile, obviously where we are big company, but we’re a small business continuing to grow. And I think the fact that if you continue to hit those same areas over and over and over, that’s going to create that presence that you’re looking for in the in the community. Awesome. And so then, I mean, that’s, that’s a great tactic, just staying on top of that, and I’m sure, having you as a direct marketing manager kind of gives that responsibility away from from the owners, and allows you to really, you know, play with that and be on top of that, I know that there are a lot of owners who may be struggling with trying to juggle too many hats.
So what would you say to anybody who was on the fence with hiring a marketing manager to kind of take over this role for them. And be quite honest with you, it’s a necessity, you know, I look at, especially in New York, like for, for a contracting company, the amount of work for an owner and service manager, operations manager is just too much to handle for one person alone. And then you bring the other aspects of the business, and then the phone calls, and the marketing and the purchasing. And you just you need to bring in the correct people and people that you could trust, to run that side of the business and know that when you’re dealing with with, you know, say permits, which is something big in New York, for an owner, they constantly have to deal with building departments and getting the right permits, you have to know in the back of your mind that you have someone in the office, you could trust to run your marketing, run your advertising, know that when you guys are getting slow, and you see two, three calls on the board, that you got blast out an email within an hour, you know, promoting a special or just gaining interest, or let’s say, you know, it depends what you’re looking for, if you’re looking for estimates, and you just want to interest, you know what to send out, but it’s just important to know, as an owner, to have that, you know, that that feel of comfort, that you have someone in the office that’s constantly on top of it.
And I would say if you’re on the fence about that, just looking at our company alone, it needs to happen. Because you know, before I got here, they were doing very little marketing, but it was a small company. So you know, they didn’t have the manpower to get to it. And once you bring on the correct staff, the growth is, is very fast. So once you develop that marketing role, and really now down that position, you’re going to see instant growth in your company and success. And so then how would you say I mean, especially, so you work you partner with us? Like you mentioned, Deanna, she has nothing but positive things to say about you guys, she loves working with you. She’s the best. Yes. So how about maybe some listeners who may not be using our services or or anybody for that matter? Um, how important is it to you know, outsource your internet marketing. It’s extremely important, you know, everybody, you know, when you start up your internet and you marketing, you think in the back of your head, that, you know, you could just do it on your own and you but unfortunately, you know, SEO, we’re not experts, hapa you guys are and we realised that after constant phone calls I had with Christian before we actually, you know, went on and signed the agreement with you guys had multiple phone calls with Christian about what we could do to get our presence on Google. Because let’s face it, everybody goes to Google, everybody uses Google, you need a service, you go into Google, you’re looking at the reviews, you seeing what Google suggests, and you’re not going to look past the first page where, where it’s 2019, it’s our generation that unfortunately, a lot of people just don’t have the time, or maybe they don’t want to.
So in order to establish that Google presence, we needed to work with a professional SEO company to get us higher. And you know, when we type it in promise that now and and you see us on the front page, that’s a big difference. And before we you know, obviously, we started working with you guys. And if you could see the numbers alone, from that we brought in just from organic SEO is extraordinary. So without you guys, I don’t think we’d have the growth that we have today. There’s no question. That’s amazing. Thank you. I mean, we love partnering with you guys.
And you know, it’s always been our goal here to create relationships with our clients, and to help them and watch them grow. And so having those conversations, you know, which calls are converting into higher paying leads, which market are we going to be going up? Okay, that you know, that zip codes not working? Let’s try another zip code. So it’s a pleasure working with you, again, thank you for partnering with us. And so kind of to ask about maybe your training, I know that you’re the marketing manager, but I’m sure you go undergoing some some management training with company. Are there any organisations that the group has or that the company has partnered with, to help you help you with your training? Yeah, so as far as on on our side, and in the office, what I basically did is I came in here as a CSR. And ever since I came in here, you know, I was attend local webinars that they’d have on the island, they’d always have classes, you know, Paul and Eric are part of a lot of communities here. So there’s constant involvement. Paul, you know, as a member of a lot of organisations like the Association of contracting farmers for New York City style Rotary Club, he was the YMCA state board, past chairman of the YMCA of Staten Island, he was a member of the contracting plumbers Association, he was trying to take one else. He was a also a founder of que se, the quality service contract is that was Paul, and then Eric himself is also part of the Chamber of Commerce. And he was, you know, former president of the young republicans group.
So any, you we have a lot of, there’s a lot of networking that goes on. But as far as training, I would say that, we’re starting to really invest more into that, you know, you see with the growth, that sometimes if you move too fast, and without the proper training, you know, you see a lot of mistakes. So now we’re working with individuals like we always have technician training, we have brand companies, you know, such as we work with a mon Atlantic’s Bosh, whatever, they’ll come in, teach our guys in the morning, maybe go over and installation or whatever.
And then as far as the CSRS, you know, we’re going to be working with our selling pros coming up, and they’re going to nail our CSRS in the front, make sure they perfect on the phone. So one thing I could say is if you’re in a employer, and you’re invested, and you want to grow, and you want to better yourself, management here will always provide any training that you request. Amazing. And so, you know, these organisations obviously cost money, but, you know, you don’t see a return on investment in the front on the front end of things, you know, these training opportunities, these Chamber of Commerce, so you’re, you’re, you know, the networking groups that you’re a part of, you don’t see a return on investment, because that’s not a client of yours. But in the long run, all of these organisations really do pay off. Absolutely, you know, you I understand you’ll to small businesses, you know, they look at money, and they obviously, don’t always have the budget to spend maybe on marketing training, but the investment pays off in the long run when your employees grow, and they better themselves. And you know, those those networking groups I mentioned, it’s amazing. The amount of business we get from them, you know, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, how many customers actually come from them. So you know, the networking, the training, they play hand in hand, and they’re so valuable your to your business.
That’s amazing. And so if you can just give me maybe an additional nugget of wisdom, or insight that you’d like to share, maybe to an owner, or maybe even to a CSR, who, who dreams of maybe even climbing the ladder, where he or she finds herself or himself in the office to maybe become a marketing manager, I know that a lot of people, especially in the millennial age group, you know, their social media savvy. And so they understand this internet wave. And so I know that can be an asset to these companies. So these owners, I know that they have these people around them, they just may not know how to find them. So what can you tell to someone to maybe find that person to help them? You know, the first thing I say is keep looking, you know it for an owner, there’s there’s a lot of options available that for recruiting.
And we To be honest, we don’t use any paid recruiting on the air, we do it all in house, we do it through networking, we do it through social media, so just establish, I would say, your online presence, and then the right people will follow as far as bringing in the right talent. And then as far as the CSR side and growing, just my best advice would be to always, always ask questions, and always bring ideas, even if you think they’re dumb, or if you don’t want to mention it, a lot of people may be afraid to mention their ideas, don’t. Because this is a type of business that’s always changing. And you know, especially for young people, and technology and marketing.
It’s something that our generation seems to have a good eye on. You know, we were very technology technologically savvy. So I would say for someone around maybe my age, I’m 27 years old. But I started here when I was 24. So you know, at that point, I was fresh out of college, you know, I was very eager. And this was my, one of my first jobs land and out of college, and they gave me a chance. And once you really continue to work and throw your ideas out there, they’ll stick the right people here them, and you’re going to get your shot, and it’s going to be worth every week. Thank you. That’s amazing. Well, thank you again for joining us today.
It’s been a pleasure talking with you. I know that there was a lot of valuable information shared that both business owners and employees will benefit from So thank you again for for jumping on this with us. No problem. So thank you guys, you know, for everything you do. We really appreciate it all. Yeah. Thank you. Hi. How’s it going? 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 the 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.net head over there now and I’ll talk to you soon
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post How PAC Plumbing from 4 trucks to 6 trucks over the past 12 months appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
Listen in as we interview Lucas Cellino from Cellino Plumbing & HVAC. They are a full-service Plumbing & HVAC company serving the greater Buffalo, NY area. Their operation has 23 trucks and is growing by over 35% year over year. Lucas shares some amazing insights on how they keep their phone ringing, trucks running & business booming. One of my favorite quotes from this interview is “We run a Marketing Company that happens to do Plumbing”. That is awesome! On this episode of The Plumbing and HVAC Internet Marketing Show Allison interviews Lucas Cellino from Buffalo, New York. Cellino Plumbing has recently expanded to become Cellino Plumbing and HVAC in the past few months and they have really gained a footing in the market. Cellino Plumbing and HVAC has grown by 35% in the past year and they now have 23 trucks running. Listen in as Lucas shares the secrets to his company’s rapid growth.
Lucas’s father started the company about 25 years ago. He grew up playing with plumbing fittings rather than Lego and he always knew he wanted to join the business. He began helping his dad in the business after school from a young age. 8 years ago he took over the duties of the office manager which included payroll, managing the website, and social media. He knew nothing about websites and SEO at the time. Since then he has learned so much about SEO and Pay Per Click.
Now that the business has grown Cellino Plumbing and HVAC has an internal marketing staff as well as using Plumbing and HVAC SEO. When they were a smaller business with only 7 employees the office manager was in charge of the marketing. The business really began to see a lot of growth when they began to use Plumbing and HVAC SEO 2 years ago. Marketing can be defined in many ways and Lucas considers marketing an integral part of the business. He realizes that every part of the business involves marketing. He says Cellino Plumbing is really a marketing company that does plumbing. Do you have staff that is devoted solely to marketing?
Training is an important part of the business. And even Lucas is constantly training. He has 2 business coaches that help him learn more about business. Cellino Plumbing and HVAC has service managers for each department which includes, plumbing, heating and cooling, as well as underground. When a new helper comes in they train on Nexstar and in the warehouse for 2 weeks first. Lucas thinks that it helps have someone friendly to help train new employees and this also helps them retain staff. Do you utilize employee training in your company?
Employee retention is key to long-term success. Part of their retention strategy was creating a mission statement to live by. Their mission statement includes 5 company values. They really live by their mission statement and have metrics to measure each line in the mission statement. Their metrics include quality checks to measure customer service and workplace happiness. Their mission statement also includes giving back to the community. They do this in a unique way. Listen to this episode to discover how Cellino Plumbing and HVAC gives back to the community and how this also increases their revenue. How does your company give back to the community it serves?
Please post your comments & follow up questions below!
Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews at https://plumbingmarketing.net//.
To subscribe via iTunes go to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plumbing-marketing-tips ideas/id567572017
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post Interview with Lucas Cellino from Cellino Plumbing & HVAC appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews at https://plumbingmarketing.net//. To subscribe via iTunes go to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plumbing-marketing-tips-ideas/id567572017
If you are ready to take your Plumbing, HVAC or Home Services Business to the next level and drive more leads & sales…we’d like to offer you a FREE LeadFlow Acceleration Session.
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
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
Lot’s of great nuggets & insights on how they grew their family-owned and operated company to over $3M per year:
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post Interview with Paul The Plumber - Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Success appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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.
Listen in as we interview Kayla Stevenson, marketing manager at Polestar Plumbing, Heating & Air.
She shares some amazing insights on how they are leveraging the internet, social media & online marketing in general, to keep their phones ringing, their 20+ truck operation running & their business booming!
In this episode, Alison interviews Kayla from Polestar Plumbing, Heating and Air in Kansas City. Polestar has grown to over 20 trucks with 40 employees. Because of their unique location near the state line, they are licensed to do business in both Kansas and Missouri. They have been serving the greater Kansas City area for 36 years and aim to be the number 1 plumbing, heating and air conditioning company in the area. There is a lot of competition but with careful attention to marketing, they are well on their way.
Kayla is the marketing coordinator with Polestar Heating and Air. She started with the company over a year ago as a customer service representative. After a while, she was helping with social media and when the marketing coordinator left the company she took over in her new position. She has been learning everything she can about social media and marketing. She feels that learning the language of the business as a customer service representative helped her in her present role.
Engaging with customers via social media can be tricky. Social media is an amazing way to interact with customers and it’s free. Kayla is always trying to think about posting from the customer perspective. She thinks about what the customers are interested in seeing. She tries not to throw around brand names that the customers wouldn’t know. She includes live interviews with technicians to offer helpful plumbing, heating, and air conditioning tips. This helps make the company relatable and the content can be leveraged in the future. The video doesn’t take more than 10 minutes and really increases engagement. They can stream it on YouTube and Facebook.
Polestar knows how important Google reviews are. They have an average of 4.8 on Google with 930 reviews. Everyone in the company understands the value of reviews and they put a lot of emphasis on them as a company. They include them in the technician meetings and there is a group text among the technicians and Kayla about the importance of reviews. Kayla and the owner are sure to recognize the technicians when they get 5-star reviews. In addition to sending out auto-review reminders to their clients, Kayla also sends a personal email to clients asking for reviews.
One way to elicit reviews from clients is by holding a drawing once a month for a $100 Visa gift card. They hold a drawing for customers who review the company as well as the technicians. Kayla uploads a live video on social media when they pick the winner. This is a great way to use social media and involve both the customer and the technician and it keeps everyone engaged. Have you ever engaged with your customers like this on social media?
If you are ready to take your Plumbing, HVAC or Home Services Business to the next level and drive more leads & sales…we’d like to offer you a FREE LeadFlow Acceleration Session. 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 today I’m super excited to share an interview with you of Kayla Stevenson from Pollstar Plumbing, Heating and Air. They’re a full service plumbing HVAC contractor serving the Greater Kansas City Market. And on this interview, they share some amazing insight how they’ve been able to grow it over 20 trucks, how they’ve developed over 960 Google reviews, and some really interesting insights on how they’re leveraging social media to interact with new customers and engage with their existing customer base. Great interview. Check it out.
Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining in with us today. My name is Alison, and I’m interviewing Kayla over at Polestar plumbing heating and air conditioning. Kayla, you are the marketing manager. Is that correct? Yes, that’s correct. Awesome. So if you can just introduce yourself to everybody, let them know what you do there and give us a little bit of a background on polestar.
Okay, so Hi, guys. I’m Kayla. I’m the marketing coordinator here at Polestar plumbing, heating and air conditioning. A little background on Polestar. So we’ve actually been serving the Greater Kansas City area for almost 36 years now. So we’ve been around a long time since 1984. And we have about 40 employees and 20 trucks. And the thing about the Greater Kansas City area is we actually service so we’re on state line of Missouri and Kansas. So we service the entire area on both sides of the state. So a pretty vast area. So yeah, that’s awesome. And so then I’m kind of going into that, like half of a state on the other half. How is it without trying to market that isn’t a little bit hard to try to say, you know, you service one state and also another at the same time?
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think the the marketing is where the the issues come into play, because it’s still that area. I mean, it’s it’s a large amount of people. So you do want to broadcast is, you know, as much as possible and be omnipresent everywhere in front of their faces. So what the issues get into is more getting licence, licence for service in different sides of the states. That’s something that other people might not have to worry about. But not only do we have to get, you know, licence to do business in Kansas, we also have to in Missouri, and Missouri works can completely different than Kansas does. So that’s where it gets a little crazy.
That’s where it kind of like chuckles on you. Yeah, that other people, other companies may not have to worry about that if they’re in a rural area and other states. So right. I mean, there’s some people who service, you know, quite like a tri state area, or something like that. So you’re not alone in that side of the business. But I know that it’s not as often that you see something like that. So it’s pretty cool that you’ve been able to kind of master both different states.
And so we’ll go into quick question, because you said that you’ve been around since the 80s. So I know that how long have you been with the company?
So I’ve been with the company since last May. So a little bit over a year. And I actually started out as a customer service rep. And then I think it was the end of January is where I kind of transferred into the marketing area. So I went from a customer service rep to marketing. So how that happened was, I started helping out with the social media. And as a millennial, they’re like, Oh, she probably knows how to do social media, because it just comes naturally to us. So I started helping out with that. And then the guy that was in marketing before he wanted to go a different route in sales. And so they were we’re going to hire someone and they’re like, Well, how about you? Do you do it? And so I was like, Okay, and so I just completely delve into it. And I love it. I’m trying to learn everything I can. And you guys have helped me out a tonne as well with the marketing. And I do think that starting out in the customer service rep position was really helpful, because it helped me with the industry language. You know, that’s something that is beneficial. Like, it’s not necessary, I’d say, but it definitely is beneficial whenever you’re trying to market to that specific industry. So I, so I think that was awesome that I got to start there and then move in this position.
Yeah, I mean, that happened pretty quickly for you. So congratulations. Thank you. And I can understand I mean, as millennials, we are likely young, the younger generation, we’re the the youngest working class right now. And so I’m sure there’s a lot of business owners out there who may have some co stars that are willing to step up to that plate. So could you say anything to maybe a business owner that may want to, you know, handoff marketing to someone?
Yeah. So I think that obviously, there’s a lot of trust that goes into that. But if you see a hunger, and then some people look at millennials as lazy, but what I have noticed about our generation is, we just want to feel value. So if we’re looking for a company, and where we see growth potential, we will want to stay there, we’re not going to want to hop around because we feel like we’re a part of the growth process. So I just say for business owners that maybe we’re looking for those millennials, they are there’s hungry ones out there. It’s just if they see value in a roadmap for success, then they’ll want to stick around. No, definitely put their heart into it. Like it was their own company. So that’s, that’s it. That’s awesome.
Okay, so then back to the business. So you’ve been with them for about a little bit over a year. And you guys started with us earlier this year, if I’m not mistaken, with Deanna. And she has amazing things to say. No, we actually had the pleasure of meeting in person. Yeah, earlier this year, March. So that was pretty cool. But um, so how did the company itself start?
So our CEO, Mark, he is actually third generation. So his grandfather, he loves tell a storey but his grandfather, he started out his own business a long time ago, I don’t know the exact date but. And then his father did it. He had his own Plumbing, Heating, Cooling business, so and then he did it as a 22 year old. So he went right into it, he, he went to college for it, and then he graduated early. And the economy, I think that was in the 80s. So the economy at that point was not very good. But the thing about Plumbing, Heating, cooling is everyone needs you. Whether you know you already have that foundation, because whether they want you or not, you know, they’re gonna, they’re, they’re gonna nominate you regardless. And so that’s, that’s the good thing about it. And yeah, he’s done this for his whole life. Like, whenever he had his dad and his grandpa, he’s, were having their own businesses. He’s been in the shop with them. Right from the trenches. He was a technician. And so it just runs in his blood.
Yeah. So then, is there a fourth generation on the way also?
Yeah, so actually, his son just started in, I think, the end of May, as a business developer, so he’s helping out with all of our organisation thing. So whenever you ramp up your marketing, a lot of times you see things come up that in house that you need to fix those processes before you can, you know, ramp it up if step farther, especially when you’re in a growth spurt, like we are. And so he’s helping out with all those organisation, and just the day to day operation, things that we need help in order to grow. So it’s really exciting. And we’re, we’re in the right direction, for sure.
That’s awesome. That’s amazing. And so you mentioned a growth spurt, do you mean, so you’re running 20 trucks? Is it but you weren’t running this these many not too long ago, or even starting to bring on more additional people?
Yeah, so and I think the way that we’ve grown is we have a really solid foundation really good customer base. And we’ve just, you know, we as we grow, bringing more people, you know, as we grow, bringing more people, but now, our goal is to become the greatest, the biggest company in plumbing heating cooling company in Kansas City. That’s our goal in our mindset here, across the board and the company. So yes, we’re bringing in more people, we have more trucks than usual, we’re trying to get more creative. I mean, bringing in companies like you strategic partners to help us grow, things like that, that they had never done before. Because the mindset wasn’t to, at that point, wasn’t looking at, oh, let’s become the biggest plumbing heating cooling company in Kansas City. But now that’s where we’re headed. So we’re really excited. And that’s the growth spurt that we’re going through right now.
That’s, that’s great. I mean, 20 trucks is a lot of trucks. So I know that’s hard to manage. So congratulations on that. I mean, just off the bat 20. trucks. It sounds like you’re not too far away from becoming the biggest plumbing and heating company in Kansas City. I can’t wrong. I’m not sure you know how deep that competition can be. But 20 trucks, you can’t be too far behind.
Yeah, or our market is very saturated. That’s the thing, because we’re on that state line. There. Even Deanna, she said that, whenever she looks at our market, she’s like, it is a crazy amount of plumbing, heating and cooling companies. I don’t know if the top of my head how many. But there’s tonnes. And it’s just it’s kind of crazy how many there is and some of them come and go. But there is those monsters that were? Yeah.
Well, I understand. I mean, bigger cities like that. Bigger known cities, that’s where you see such, you know, saturated markets a little bit more expensive of a cost per click. And so that kind of speaks as to why it’s so important to have a marketing manager in house overseeing all of the data, and not just how been the owner kind of juggle all of the hats. But what’s something that’s biggest 20 trucks? I’m sure you guys have at least four CSRS, if I’m not mistaken. How many in the office? Would you say?
How many people in the office all together?
Out of those 40? There’s probably about 15? in the office? Yeah.
So it’s a big stuff. I mean, overall, you stuff.
And we’re in we’re growing and growing as well.
Yeah. And so it takes a lot to manage the two big stuff. And so what training opportunities, have you guys gone through? Do you bring anybody in houses train? Or do you seek that, you know, through the internet? How is it that you can get you know, a leader in every single department to kind of pull this company forward? I mean, it does take a lot for it is yours?
Yeah. So I mean, it all comes down to organisation, and just trying to create, you know, implement things that are simple that everyone can do know how to do, you know, even if they because whenever you’re growing, sometimes you have to wear more hats than, you know, your actual position. But, and as far as training goes, we did for a while we use power selling pros, for CSRS, so that really helped out and just, they give really good feedback and on the CSRS to train them how to sell and be empathetic, even to a customer, you know, the human side of these customers that whenever they’re calling in, and they’re their Plumbing, Heating, cooling, we just think of it as Oh, the job but these people are going through, you know, the, the heat and the cold and all that. And so, you know, those, those kind of processes as well. And then just, I just say, I’m just making everything is organised and simple as possible. So we can all, you know, be on the same page. And everyone knows how to do everything. Definitely.
And so when it comes to marketing, are there other channels that you guys utilise? Besides, you know, our services as an internet marketing company?
Yeah, we do, we do quite a bit of different areas. So one thing that we just started up was, is TV and radio. And so as far as TV and radio goes, I think that the way we have it set up is they complement each other really well. So like we’ll do, we’ll hit like Sunday night news. And then we hit really heavy Monday morning on radio. And so the people that may be had solace, and like, in the back of their mind Sunday night, they’re getting ready to prepare for the week. And oh, you know, I didn’t need to call plumbing heating cooling company excited this issue. And then they hear my heroes, so you know, on their way to work Monday morning, and it just, it kind of like hits them back to back right.
It clicks to OE I just heard about them.
And, and what we really like, just like, how you guys are exclusive to certain areas. So I’m for radio, that’s kind of what we look for. Because obviously, we don’t want to be doing the same things our competitors are doing, especially when we’re growing. And so on our radio show, we’re the only one that does a sponsor for that show during the day. So he doesn’t sponsor any other people during his show. So he’ll live like, it’s almost like a word of mouth referral, like he’ll say, you know, you plumbing, he’ll do our campaign and say, You need to call Pollstar when he in their conditioning, you know, he doesn’t do that for any other company. So we really like that about it as well.
Okay, that’s awesome. I mean, exclusivity is so important, especially with such a saturated market as yourselves. I mean, it’s impossible to use someone services, and then have them also be assisting your competitor. It’s just unethical. And so that’s something that I love about, you know, the company that I work for, and working with my clients. So although we don’t work personally together, Deanna, she works closely in your market, she understands your market. And I guess, I mean, I assume that that’s probably one of the most valuable things that you guys get from us. I’m sure you have have many other things to say. But with Deanna, knowing your market, in specific, it does help us when it comes down to the type of leads that we’re trying to get you the conversion on that and, and the return on investment that you’re seeing on your end. So, again, I mean, that obviously, hands down is very important. Yeah. So then a couple of questions you had mentioned that you first started with the social media? Are you continuing to work in that avenue? How important Would you say that social media is, in today’s day and age?
I think it’s, I think it’s all about the way that you do it. Because of our industry, I think that sometimes we can get caught up in thinking that everyone’s super interested in plumbing, heating, cooling, like, or we throw out these brand names that homeowners, they might not be as excited as we are about them. And so I think it’s all about the way that you do social media. So it can be really huge. So if you just relate more to like, what are your customers wanting to see, they’re not wanting to see, like, little memes or, you know, like, things like that, that they might not even understand. So what we do with our social media is, and I think we’ve gotten pretty good at it is doing like the the technicians, they’ll send me pictures, like selfies of them in the field. It’s more lifestyle, like, what are we doing here? Like, I just think that our customers relate to that more. And then like, yeah, so and then we just started up today, actually, our first we did like a Pollstar live. That’s what we call it in. It’s a live YouTube video. And I interview a technician and he goes over like different, different things that homeowners want to know about, like today, we went over air filters, and we can post that on our social media, and just get more engagement with that.
Yeah, and I mean, it takes no time on on your end to do that. I mean, it’ll probably take no more than five minutes to interview a technician. But it does bring so much value to your profile. And although, I mean, social media is free, I mean, we don’t have to necessarily advertise on social media to have a presence on there. And so it costs us nothing, as you know, companies to go on there, do a quick live, and then it’s good content for someone to reference in the future, and kind of give you a homey feel, right. So it makes you more relatable for the person searching. And so that’s a good idea. So that’s actually something that I’m going to keep in mind for my clients when I speak to them. Um, yeah, interview like that. That goes a long way.
Yeah. And what we suggest to the, to the people that tune in to our show is like, they can comment videos, because obviously, we don’t want to sit there and talk about things that they don’t want to hear. So if they comment, like suggestions for future videos of different topics that we want to cover, so that way, we’re not just talking and impair, like, we don’t care about, yeah,
we don’t really like the log off, right? You want to keep them engaged in the content that you’re producing.
It’s all about the engagement. And I think that if they see us, you know, what are we doing as a company? And how’s the, you know, what’s the culture like, and all that kind of stuff. That’s what customers want to see out of us, or even contests like, whenever we do contests as well on our social media, and we try to do video like something because I know I, whenever I try to think about what I do, and whenever I’m on Facebook, and I see a video, even if it’s the dumbest thing, like I’ll sit there and watch it. So you know, those little videos that, you know, maybe only take 30 seconds. Yeah, those those are what gets engagement.
Yeah. And so when you say our show, I mean, can you speak a little bit more to that? It sounds intimidating for someone who may be listening in like, you know, I have a company to run I already have so many things to do. I can’t imagine starting a show on social media. Can you just speak to that real quick? I know it mean, it doesn’t take much time. Maybe just one person in the in the staff can be in charge of that. And so can you maybe discuss how you guys got that started?
Yeah, so actually, one of our CSRS, he does like a lot of digital stuff for us as well, because he’s really into that. And he came up with the idea. And so I said, Yeah, sure, I’ll host it. And, you know, it does, people might think that it takes a lot of time. But really today, all I did was I got the technician that I knew would speak well about that certain topic. And then I just cut him a break during, like his, his his job. So he’s going to that day. And then I prepared a couple of questions to go over with them. And it took literally 10 minutes. And so we just sat in front of the camera. And whenever the thing about live is, you don’t want to keep redoing it. As soon as you put it on, you know, it’s on there. So it really doesn’t take much time. And that’s something that will be on your YouTube, and you can stream it on Facebook, you know, you can put that anywhere and use it multiple times. So it’s not something that you have to keep redoing, it will be on there for you so so I really didn’t take much time, we’re probably going to do that once a month now that we started in. And we saw a lot of engagement on it today. So I think I think it’s beneficial.
Yeah, I mean, at once a month, it doesn’t take too much time out of your schedule. And so for anybody listening, I think this is a fantastic idea. Just get with your staff and listen to all of their strengths. I’m sure there’s somebody on staff that can be willing and able to do something like this. And I think that even a small 10 minute interview with one of your technicians will really go a long way. So Kayla, thank you for that awesome insight and little nugget, I hope someone else because again, I mean, it’s a great idea.
And real quick to add on to what you said, I I completely agree. And also, I just thought of this as you were talking the way that it makes the technician feel special that just helps out immediately with culture. And yeah, you know, he’s gonna feel special, like, oh, wow, they asked me to be a part of this, because they know, I’m knowledgeable in this area. So like, if you think about it from that aspect as well, that’s something that can help the company’s culture as well.
Yeah, and culture. I mean, especially in nowadays, it’s so important, it’s very hard to find technicians, and then it’s harder to keep them. So as long as the morale is up in the in the office, the culture is there, and you’re recognising your technicians for you know, anything small, even as simple as an interview, or just Hey, you know, you did a great job, we saw that review come in. I mean, that keeps that you know that morale up. And you know, in the long run, it’s only going to help you.
Yeah, and that’s something that I know some companies struggle with. Because even we have, so whenever your technicians are just out in the field all day, and we’re here, now with all the day to day processes in the office, you know, just simple things like that can connect the two because sometimes you just feel like they might feel isolated. And that’s just a way to bring them in and feel a part of the growth of the company. So so if you look at it from that it’s very beneficial.
That’s awesome. I mean, you’d never want to just send them out there and
say, Oh, thanks for doing the job. But yeah, you wouldn’t be here without them. Right? Yeah. And so then kind of piggy, you know, piggybacking on to the reviews side of things, how is it that you guys generate your reviews? Do you ask for views? Do you make it a competition internally with your technicians? Give us a little bit of insight on how you guys do that.
Okay. So as we know, reviews are huge nowadays. Like, it’s basically like word of mouth that people even I read before, didn’t really give reviews myself. But whenever I know, whenever I’m going to search for a product or a restaurant, I don’t, I don’t move forward with anything unless they have good reviews on it. I know, there’s
so many people like that.
It’s crazy. And so yeah, it really is like it’s more valuable than a referral. And obviously, with SEO and all that we know, we understand that side of it, but in house, so right now on Google, we’re sending out a 4.8 with about 930 reviews. And so we’re pretty close to 1000, which is exciting. That’s okay, reviews, yeah, that’s a milestone, right. So, um, I’d say for our company, everyone is just here understands the value of them. And we’re really passionate about them. So we, we put a lot of emphasis on it. So every day else, you know, we be bringing the technicians for their meetings, and they go over, you know, the importance of reviews, but even Allison them, they probably get annoyed with me, but I’ll send them little motivational reminders. I have them all in a group text to me, like, you know, I was like throw things out there about, like how the importance of reviews and like, I always congratulate so if I saw a technician got, or a five star review the day before, I’ll throw their name out there in the text. So they get a shout out. And I think that they like that they’re like, oh, cool, you know, they shout it out my name because I got a five star. And so we also and then do so whenever customers complete jobs, I always send out review reminders, even though we do the automatic review request as well. And I always send out just an email at one time email that they get about the review and our review contest. So I’ll go into that we have a once a month, I do a drawing for our reviews from our customers. So we also involve our customers in it, as well as our technicians. So they get a chance for to win $100 Visa gift card whenever they submit a Google or Facebook review for us. So I put them into a drawing. And then what we do is, we do a video whenever we’re picking up the winner. And so that’s on our social media. So everyone gets to our customers can be a part of that and see us actually drawing the winner. And then we always bring them in the customer in and I always give them their gift card and we talk with them. And thank them, obviously. And we always get a picture for our social media as well. And so we involve our customers, and then I’ll text the technicians like Hey, that was your customer that won the, the hundred dollar Visa gift card, and then it gets them all excited. And then they can use that to tell their other customers like hey, my customer one last month, like so I must be pretty lucky. It’s just something that they can Yeah, I mean,
it’s just like a fun, hey, you know, give us a review have this chance with just, you know, engaging the client with the technician. So that’s, that’s great. That’s another good idea. So definitely have a couple of great insights. You’ve only been there a year, but I’m sure that that the company has felt the impact, the positive impact since you’ve stepped into this role. So
yeah, and I have really good people around me that, you know, help me out with, like our owner, he’s so creative, and he’s always finding he’s constantly sending me like emails of like, different marketing things. And so if I, you know, have time, I can look through them and get ideas in my head. And so or jot them down and save them for later, even if it’s not something we want to move forward with yet. And so I just have really good people around me as well. Yeah, I hope to help this and get everyone on the same page, like and understand the importance of this kind of stuff.
Definitely. So then two questions, I left, the first thing about the owner, so you are the marketing manager, but can you speak to how important it is, even if the owner, you know, isn’t necessarily doesn’t have to be in the office every day, but how important it is for them to be very, you know, involved in the business, and how that helps with with you and your job. And then you know, other in the in the office on your technicians?
Well, what I really liked, if I just connected to the owner that we have here, I really, I just feel value whenever he’s so interested in what I’m doing. Because when I go share with him an idea some people might be intimidated for their owners, you know, they might not care to move forward or care about the marketing side of it. But because our owner so open and excited and passionate about this marketing side of it, and he understands the importance, whenever I go with go to him with an idea, he gets me excited about it. I mean, he’ll definitely tell me if he doesn’t think it’s a good idea. But when it he’s, he’ll always be there to listen and get me excited about it or even give me feedback. Because if I just told him everything, and he’s like, yeah, move forward with it, you know, it would end up running the show. Yeah. So the fact that we can kind of bounce ideas off each other, and he’s so creative as well, you know, that definitely, definitely helps out. So awesome. And so my last question,
which really is a free for all, do you have anything else you’d like to say to anybody who may be listening in?
Yeah, so I say, as coming from a business owners perspective of this, I’d say what our CEO, he says, You can’t be an island. I mean, you can’t just think that you can reinvent the wheel. And that’s something that some of them, they do, and they get stuck in their ways. And they don’t want to do the latest technology, or they let their ego get in the way. But you there is you know, round tables like next our service round table that you can reach out to and share ideas with other Plumbing, Heating cooling companies, because if it’s working, and another, another state, like it’s definitely going to, it’s not just like you need to recreate everything, you just need it learn how to implement it in your own way, it might not be the same way they implement it. But the creative side of it, you know,
you could write these like building principles, they can just, you know, reference while you’re building yours.
Yeah. And as far as like some I know, some people, or some business owners, let their ego get in the way. So just do more, just being more open to it and not being afraid of failure, because that’s just how you learn is through, you know, we’re all going to fail. Not everything’s going to go smoothly the first time, but just that’s how you learn and grow. So and then just also taking, taking what you’re good at, and looking at even like analytics will show just what you’re good at and just not dominating that area and going harder on it. And otherwise, you’ll just be average if you don’t do that, so. So I think that’s definitely beneficial.
Definitely. Well, Kayla, thank you for jumping on with me on this interview. Thank you for speaking to the millennial generation to a business owners, anyone who like you had some really good ideas, I hope that some of these people can replicate, you know, even just the social media into their day to day activities with their office. I mean, I think that would be great. So again, thank you.
All right, thank you.
Well, I hope you get amazing value from that interview. If you’d like more ideas, strategies and techniques on how to effectively market your plumbing HVAC our 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.net head over there now and I’ll talk to you soon.
Please post your comments & follow up questions below! Also, be sure to subscribe for the podcast so you don’t miss any of the upcoming interviews:
subscribe | privacy | do not sell my data
Plumbing Marketing Profits Blog & Podcast – www.plumbingmarketing.net
Join the Plumbing & HVAC Marketing Facebook Group
The post Interview with Kayla from Polestar Plumbing, Heating & Air appeared first on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
The podcast currently has 53 episodes available.