Tired of Spinning Your Wheels? 5 Moves Profitable Plumbers Make

If you're a plumbing contractor working hard every day but still wondering where the money went, this episode of Trade Traction is for you.

In this episode, we break down five practical moves that can help turn a busy plumbing company into a profitable plumbing business—without gimmicks, without complicated systems, and without losing your integrity.

Too many plumbing contractors are stuck in survival mode: running calls, answering phones, fixing emergencies, making payroll... yet still not building real profit. The truth is, being great at plumbing does not automatically mean you're running a strong business.

Today we cover five simple shifts that can start changing that immediately:

✅ Pay yourself first
✅ Raise prices gradually and intentionally
✅ Offer customers options instead of one price
✅ Document where your company really stands financially
✅ Use meetings and phone systems to create traction

This episode is for plumbing business owners, service plumbers, HVAC contractors, drain cleaning companies, and trade business leaders who are tired of working for free and ready to finally build the business they once dreamed of.

Whether you run one truck or twenty, these ideas can help you stop spinning your wheels and start creating profit.

Chapters

00:00 Why busy plumbing companies still struggle financially
01:10 Pay yourself first: why profit must come before expenses
04:45 Why even 1% profit changes everything
07:05 The simple price increase most contractors avoid
10:15 Why customers—not you—hold your profit
12:10 Offer options instead of one price
17:30 Why homeowners often buy more than you expect
20:05 Document where your business really stands
24:15 Why writing down debt creates clarity
27:40 Start meetings that actually improve performance
31:20 Training creates confidence and culture
34:45 Answer the phone and book every call
39:10 Final encouragement: get traction this week

The Podcast that helps plumbing and heating service contractors stop working for free and actually turn a profit. 

Connect with me on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dennistheapprentice/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064205912242 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dennistheapprentice

Thank you once again for your support and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this podcast with your peers! Stay tuned for more exciting content coming your way every week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're a plumbing contractor who's busy every day but somehow still feels like you're working for free, let's talk. Today I'm going to share with you some things I did when I was in your shoes that really helped. Because the truth is, a lot of guys in the trades are working their tails off, running calls, answering the phone, fixing problems all day. And at the end of the day, the end of the month, there's still no real profit. It's not because you're bad at plumbing, it's because nobody ever taught you how to run the business side of it. It's a completely different ballgame, right? So in this episode, I'm going to give you five things you can start doing tomorrow to finally turn your plumbing company into a profitable business. Things like paying yourself first, offering customers options instead of one price, actually documenting how you're really doing number wise, and a couple other simple moves that can change the whole trajectory of your company. Let's talk about it, okay? So pay yourself first. Really? Remember back in the day when we first started working, everybody said to pay yourself first. You understand that's that's how the 401k works. That they take something out before you even get your paycheck. That's called paying yourself first. And it works because what happens is you learn how to live on what's left, right? And in fact, you don't even miss it. But see, in somehow when we get into business, we we've they they teach us that it's revenue minus expenses equals profit. And most of us, it took a long time to figure out how to charge enough and bring in enough revenue and spend little enough that there was something left over. In fact, if that's how you are, you're not alone. Eight out of ten contractors are pretty much payroll to payroll, just like paycheck to paycheck, except a lot more stressful. So, so why not pay yourself first? Why not take 10% and take that out of every out of every invoice, or once a week take all your revenue, take 10% of it, and set it aside and try to figure out how to live on the rest, right? Work your business out on the rest. And now that sounds impossible. I know it does because I've been there. But you know, the profit first book, there's a book, there's a whole book on this, there's a couple books written on this. Uh, it's not a new concept, paying yourself first. So, but they suggest even starting with 1%, just start the habit, just start the system of taking 1% of everything you collect and setting setting it aside. I know when we did that, we what we did is we took our our, we had service partner programs, right? And so, so we get those payments every month. And so we tried to set those aside and then tried to run our business just on the revenue we brought in. And um it it what it did, it helped us focus on like, oh shoot, I don't want to spend that money. I've got that in savings. I really don't want to spend that. And so I started being a little bit more lean in how we operated and tried, we started being more careful and like what can we do to make more out of the call, and what what can we do to be more efficient with our spending? And when things didn't work out well, my partner, she would say, Hey, if you don't figure something out, we're gonna have to, I'm gonna have to dip into the savings to pay the bills. I didn't want that, but I just got brought a hyper focus, but it was a different focus because I had some money set aside. It changes things when you got some money set aside. So why not pay yourself 1%? Just start with 1% and start the process. And here's another trick. Why not how long has it been since you've raised your prices? Probably a while. Like it's hard to, for some reason, it's hard to raise our prices. Like, like every time we talk to the customer, the customer is always thinking that plumbing's expensive or whatever you have, whatever service you offer is expensive. So they always think um, they're always telling us we're expensive, and so we don't want to be expensive. And so we're trying to keep our prices low, and all of a sudden, three years goes by. Prices are going up constantly. I was at McDonald's the other day, it was like 17 bucks for me. And that's like, my goodness sakes, I almost shot a little video right then. It's like, man, if McDonald's can charge me 17 bucks for a number four with a Diet Coke, then surely, surely we can charge what we need to for our water heaters and disposals and drain cleansings and such. Can't we? Can't you? Come on, sure we can. So, how about this? How about let's raise our price just 1% and then pay ourselves that 1% as savings? Then it doesn't cost anything, right? In fact, the savings comes from the customer. And that's a that's a huge lesson to learn that the customer pays for everything. Like, where is where where does profit come from? Like, does it grow on trees? Does it fall out of the sky? Do we get it for our birthday? Is it a present? No, it's profit is a result of charging more and spending less and having something left over. And where where's where did the revenue come from? From the customer. So, where is your profit? The customer has it. So let's just start that little routine of let's take one percent for ourselves. You deserve it. And and then let's increase our price 1%. And then how about this? Let's do that again next week. And the week after. And the week after. Does that make sense? It's easy. It's easy to do. It's easy not to. You can just ignore this and go, oh yeah, another guy. Another guy, give me options. Give him, tell me what to do. Options. Did I just say options? How many, how many of us, especially when you're payroll to payroll, paycheck to paycheck, it narrows your focus down and you think everybody else is in the same boat. Everyone tells you in their in the same boat. Everyone tells you you're expensive. And so how how easy is it to start just giving one price? You're take it or leave it. This is my cheapest price. Because you just want the sale. You just want some, you want to make sure you get some money in an effort to make payroll, right? That's what happens. We get tight and we think everybody is like we are. Because they say, they say they're tight too. They say we're expensive. But what else are they gonna say? Are they gonna tell you that what you are offering isn't to code or is the wrong brand or is it the right solution? They don't know anything about plumbing. All they know, all they really understand is are do you are you they are you trustworthy? Are you clean? Um, did you show up on time? Are you respectful? Can they afford the price you have to offer? They understand the concept of warranty. That's about it. But when they tell you you're expensive, what do you think, what else do they have to say? So of course they're gonna say that. So, but why not, why not just consider that maybe not everybody's just like you? And maybe people do have money. And maybe they don't have money to blow. Maybe things are tighter and they don't have money to blow, but surely, surely they've got money that it makes sense to put into their greatest investment, the house, the house that where all their equity is, that the house that keeps them warm and keeps them cool and keeps them safe, keeps them dry, right? Gives them pleasure, makes them feel comfortable, is their pride and joy. Most people have money for that, right? They're not buying Corvettes or whatever new car people want these days, right? But but surely they've got money to take care of their greatest investment, their home, right? So why not? Here's an idea. Why not share with the customer the best you got? Like the best you can do, like with all the bells and whistles, just for fun. Don't you want to do that today? Don't you want to go on a call and do all the cool stuff, like put the tempering valve on the water heater and the circ pump and that try that new flood stop you keep hearing about, and maybe install that uh stainless steel tank that has that lifetime warranty? Wouldn't that be a cool call to do all that stuff so they don't have to wait for hot water so they have more hot water than they ever had, so they can turn their water off from their phone or adjust the temperature, all the stuff, you know, so they don't have to worry about the water heater leaking ever again on their carpet in the basement, you know? Like, if you don't offer that, no one's ever gonna buy it. But what if you offer that and then offer a couple other options and then of course, of course, offer your, hey, if you just need me back and going, you know, this is what I can do, and let's see what happens. I know what will happen. Some people will spring for those for some of those higher options, and it's because you offered it. Does that make sense? So I know when you're tight and things aren't going well, you just want some money. But the way to get some more money is to offer more options and trust that people aren't maybe like you or or they they might be tight financially, but of course they're gonna invest in their home. Does that make sense? Two things. Number three, what let's document where we're at. Why don't we just write down where we're at? Like it's in our head and we're just stressed out, but sometimes writing it down on paper, like this is how much I owe the supply house, this is how far behind I am on my taxes, this is how long it's been since I've paid myself. Right? I've been there. It's true, it happens, right? Why not document that and get it out of your head? And then you can start making targets. Like, okay, how do I pay that? Now you can start asking your mind smart questions. Like, hey, how do I pay off the supply bill? Who's got my money? The customer's got my money. How do I serve the customer better so they'll give me more money? How do I serve the customer more so they'll give me more money so I can pay the supply bill? Right? So why not get it on paper? Document where you're at. What's really cool is surely, surely you will dig yourself out of this situation, right? If you're stubborn enough. I remember one time uh uh someone told us, Dennis, you're basically bankrupt. You're just too stubborn to admit it. Are you too stubborn to quit? That's one of the that's it's kind of necessary if you want to be in business. You've got to be stubborn. So surely you're gonna get out of this. But if you document where you're at and then dig yourself out and then look back, that will be a treasured, that will be a treasured document. And what it will do is it will tell you, hey, this is how bad it was, and I got myself out. So now where I'm at, if I think it's bad, I can get myself out again, right? But it also gets you out of your head and then gives you something to tangibly work on. So that's number three. Start having meetings, start having training meetings. Most people have meetings to say, this is what we need, or this is how bad it is. Let's just start training. We one time we had an apprentice that started, and he was the nephew of one of my best plumbers. And so we wanted to give him the best apprenticeship. So we started a code class an hour before our service meeting. And so we all dedicated ourselves and showing up early. So we would show up at 6:30 in the morning. I brought donuts and we drank coffee and ate donuts, and we started going through the code book and started teaching this kid code. And it kind of became the cool place to work. But what it did was it got us off of the stresses of everything and started focusing us on what we could do and how to do what we do better. It started making us feel proud of ourselves. Like, who else is having a meeting at 6:30 in the morning, right? Started giving us some confidence. And then that that poured into the service meeting. Like, hey, we we know our stuff, right? We know our stuff and we're smart and we're we're focused and we're trying to get smarter and we deserve to get paid well, right? And then then into the service meeting, we started working on, hey, how do we get more out of the calls? Like, how do we please the customer? How do we get more reviews, right? And we started having positive meetings. Meetings aren't meetings are a time to acknowledge the truth, right? Where are we really at, tether ourselves to reality, but they're not really a place to beat each other up, in my opinion, not at my company's, but they're a place that we can figure out how to how to be better and what who's doing what, who's doing well, and how do they do that, right? And start doing that. It will it'll make your company feel better, make you feel better. It'll it'll get you going, it'll get you some traction. And then maybe the last one is answer the phone for crying out loud. Answer the phone. When I when I call companies, it's so hard to get someone on the phone that it goes to voicemail, it rings and rings and rings, or it's AI. Um, it's like you pay, we pay so much money to get the phone to ring, and then we don't answer it. We don't answer it. And then book the call for crying out loud, book the call. Back in the day, when I talk to customers, I say, hey, can you take another call? And they they they so many people will say I'm booked out three weeks. And we were one of those companies where if we I think we had four service techs at the time of this story, and we had four service techs, and if we got three calls for all four guys, so if we had 12 calls on the board, we would stop taking phone calls. We would say we're booked. Because we wanted to be honest. But you know what honestly happened? We would turn two or three calls away because we were booked, and then a couple of our booked calls would call and say, hey, something came up, I gotta reschedule. And we'd be like, dang it, we turned people away. So we learned to book every call. Book every call, and if we have too many calls, then then guess what? We get to juggle a little bit and figure out what calls we're gonna go to. And maybe you have to reschedule. Customers reschedule us. So it's kind of a balance here. We of course we want to take every call, right? But customers juggle us. How many times have you had someone on the schedule and then you call and say we're on the way, and it's like, oh, we already had someone out? Right? So book the freaking call. And then do everything possible to get to it. But book the call. All right, just a few things. Just a few things you can do today or tomorrow, or maybe do one today and one tomorrow, and one the next day, and then next week do it again, right? But these are just a few easy things that don't really cost any money that you can do is start digging yourself out, start getting some traction, stop, stop spinning and going around in circles, get a little bit of traction, and start going in a better direction. And if you pay yourself first, you have a little bit of money in the bank. And that's how it all starts. So, alright. Have a good week, have a good, have a good week. If you like this kind of stuff, like and subscribe. Trade traction is all about trying to help contractors that are spinning their wheels and are tired of working for free. Finally get some traction and turn a profit and build the business you once dreamed of. All right, have a good week.