Roger Wakefield is the founder of Texas Green Plumbing, a Green Certified Plumber, speaker, and successful YouTuber whose channel focuses on plumbing and trade advice. He shares what his 40 years of experience in the industry have taught him, from the importance of processes and planning to finding focus in chaos and spotting marketing red flags.  

After quitting high school his junior year, he went on to manage a burger joint. When his coworker told him about his family’s successful career in plumbing, Roger was interested. He applied to work for them, and started his first project at $4.75 an hour. 

Plumbing Journey

He went on to work with Green Plumbers USA, becoming an Elite AP and Director of Operations. These roles and responsibilities ignited his passion for green plumbing and water conservation. He also saw how community concern for conservation varied based on geographic location to bodies of water and access. He believes that water conservation and management should be a priority no matter what, and has continued to advocate for this in his own business. 

Building a Business

Five years ago, he founded Texas Green Plumbing, a nod to his Texan pride and formative years with Green Plumbers USA. Today, he spends his days split evenly between running the business and running his social media platforms, which includes a YouTube channel with over 50,000 subscribers. 

When he started out, growth happened organically through networking and talking to people in his community. As his business grew, his staff grew, and he realized how important it is to be selective in the hiring process. 

“You want to make sure you’re getting people in who believe in your culture and want to do things the way you want it done.”

Operating Processes

Over the years, Roger shares how he saw what made the businesses he worked for fail and what made them succeed. Something that stood out to him, was how often they lack a real plan for achieving their goals and creating the culture they want. In his business, he wanted to have real tangible processes. 

He hired a company that equipped them with the processes and education necessary to track daily Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), stick to their budgets, set their pricing, and create a strong workflow. He says this was a phenomenal investment that set them up to thrive.

Thriving in Chaos

Before founding Texas Green Plumbers, Roger went on to become a cosmetologist. He helped his sister manage her hair salon, went to cosmetology school to learn how he could better support her, and then ended up also opening up his own hair salon. Soon after, he went to school to become a massage therapist. Eventually, he realized he really missed plumbing, and he returned to the industry to start his company.

While this may sound crazy to some, for Roger, this is his secret recipe. When things get crazy, he finds clarity. 

“If I’m starting one business, it’s just as easy to start two. As long as they’re close or similar or something like that, I know what I need to focus on. Sometimes that chaos is just enough to make you look at it sharper than you ever have, and say okay, this is where I need to focus. And when we focus, we win.” 

Navigating the Marketing Industry

For Roger, finding the right marketing agency took a lot of trial and error. He highlights the red flags to look out for when searching for a trustworthy marketing partner:

1. They tell you what you want to hear, but you aren’t seeing results. 
2. You’re paying the marketing company more money than you are paying for Google ads. 
3. They don’t tell you the full story: like encouraging you to get a new website without informing you that it won’t include SEO and you’ll need to invest in that crucial part after the fact.
4. They are poor communicators.
5. They can’t give you a good idea of what kind of ROI you should expect. 

“I believe in marketing. It doesn’t matter how great of a company you have, if nobody outside your door knows about it, they’re never going to find you… a great marketing company, they can change your life. Think about somebody that walks out, they’re a good plumber, a good HVAC tech, or something like that, they walk out on the street with the right marketing company - life is amazing. But when you get a bad one, that can put a company out of business.”

Social Leads to Local Leads

Roger says that all of the marketing conferences he went to always told him that social media was a tool for global connection. However, he has since figured out a formula to make it work locally, which he calls “Social Local Growth.” Learning how to do this has changed everything for Texas Green Plumbing, and he’ll be sharing how they make it happen in Part 2 of his interview.