Tired of Being Busy and Broke? Here's What To Change

If you're a plumbing contractor staying busy every day but still wondering why there’s no money left at the end of the month, this episode of Trade Traction breaks down exactly why busy does not always mean profitable.

In this episode, we cover the 3 biggest profit mistakes plumbing companies make that keep contractors stuck working hard without building real financial freedom:

• Why charging more is necessary if you want to stop working for free
• Why offering more options increases profit on every service call
• Why paying yourself first changes everything in a plumbing business

Too many plumbing business owners believe that full schedules automatically create profit—but without proper pricing, upselling, and profit discipline, even a busy plumbing company can stay broke.

If you want to build a profitable plumbing business, improve plumbing sales, and finally create the company you once dreamed of, this episode will show you where to start.

Chapters

00:00 Why busy plumbers still stay broke
01:12 Why customers always say “that’s expensive”
04:08 Why plumbing contractors must give options
07:25 Charge for the truck you actually want
10:14 Why correct pricing still leaves you broke
13:05 Sell more than they called you for
17:42 The hidden profit in offering upgrades
21:18 Why paying yourself first works
25:07 Profit First for plumbing contractors
28:44 Small price increases that change everything
32:10 Why plumbing is worth charging more for

If you're serious about growing a plumbing company that produces real profit, subscribe to Trade Traction for weekly strategies built for plumbing contractors.

#PlumbingBusiness #PlumbingContractor #ProfitFirst #ServiceBusiness #TradesBusiness #PlumbingSales

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

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Are you running from job to job, staying busy all day, but at the end of the month, it still feels like you've got nothing to show for it? In this episode, I'll show you exactly why being busy doesn't automatically mean you're profitable and what you need to change right now if you want to finally stop feeling broke, even when your schedule is full. We're gonna cover three things. First, why you need to charge more. Second, why you need to offer more, because if you don't offer it, they can't buy it. And third, why paying yourself first is possibly the only way to make sure there's actually profit left at the end of the month. If you're trying to working hard and still wondering where the money went, this episode is for you. I'm sure you've heard it. You've got to raise your prices, right? Like raise your prices, charge the right price. But but how? Like every time you quote a price, the customer is saying you're too expensive. Like have you ever noticed that that whether you charge, whether you say$300 or$3,000 or$30,000 even, the customer's gonna say, wow, that's expensive. Have you noticed that? And and um it's it's frustrating, right? It's like, well, it's$300. I mean, come on. But they still say it's expensive. Have you ever wondered why? What else are they gonna say? Have you ever thought about that? What are they gonna say? It's no, that's not right, or that's not the code, or that's the wrong price, or like what do you expect them to say? You don't expect them to say, well, that's a good deal, right? Like they like they want to say it's expensive, so they're actually hoping you might lower the price a little bit, right? But here's the next thing. So, first of all, what else are they gonna say other than that's expensive? Well, yeah, it is expensive. But second, um in comp compared to what? Like$300 by itself is expensive. It's$300, right? But if it's compared to$3,000, it's only a tenth of$3,000. So it's now it's inexpensive compared to$3,000, right? And it's cheap, cheap, cheap compared to$30,000. So have you ever wondered why people want free estimates? You see, back in the day, back in the day, we weren't very sophisticated as contractors, right? And so we would just give them a price. This is my price to do the work. And so they got wise and they said, well, I need some options here, so I guess I have to call someone else. So they call someone else and get their price, and then call someone else and get their price. And guess what? The prices were different. And so the more prices they got, the more options they got. And that's kind of smart, isn't it? And and really, that was our fault as contractors back in the day. I'm sorry, the old contractors did this to us. Uh, but what else do they what else do you want them to do? Well, so now a sophisticated contractor gives customers options. I suggest five, at least three. Some people say seven or ten, but give them some options. And then they've got 300, 3,000, and 30,000, just to be simple, right? But now they have something to compare to, and they go, well, 300 is a lot less than 3,000. What do I get for 300? Or what do I get for 3,000? Or maybe I do want 30,000, right? Maybe maybe they do. Maybe they just bought the house and they want the whole thing remodeled, right? I don't everybody's different. We don't know at pe how people are gonna buy. So you got to give them some options and let them choose and compare. So, but first you have to charge the right price. So, how do you do that? Well, first of all, you got to figure out what it costs for you, for you to put the right product on the product on the road, your product and service. How much does it cost? And here's a little trick that you probably haven't heard anywhere else. You have to charge for it if you want it. So if you're driving around in an old van and you say, well, this is my this is how much it costs me to put this service on the road, well, you will never have money for a new truck. So if you actually have to charge for the new truck, the truck that you want, you have to put that in your budget so that the customers will give you the money to get the truck. It's kind of this weird thing. Where do you think that money comes from to get the things that you want to provide the service that you want to provide to attract the plumbers you want to attract? It comes from the customer. So you have to charge the price it takes to put on the service and provide the value that you want for your customers. Does that make sense? And then here's the next thing. I'm here to tell you, even if you get the price right, if you figure out what the right price is and you're dead on, you're still going to be break-even unless you do more than they called you out to do. You see, back in the day, we we got really we figured out what our price should be and we got really good at it, but we were still break-even. And then there was a consultant, one of my favorites, he said, his name is Bill Palmer. Bill, you changed my life. But he said, if you don't sell something extra, you're a breakeven company. And I, my ears perked up because I was a breakeven company and I was charging the right price. You see, if they call you out for a disposal and you just fix a disposal, um, that's that's all that's that's selling what they called you out to do. That's like going to the grocery store and always just getting the milk that you went for. That's like going to the movie and just watching the movie. That's like going to the gas station and just getting gas. It doesn't quite work. Like the gas station needs you to buy some convenience stuff, right? Some Red Bull or a pepperoni stick or whatever you buy there to make it work. The theater needs you to buy some popcorn and and uh some nachos and uh a large diet coke or whatever it is, right? They actually need that to make it work. And I actually don't, I'm not an economist. I just know how, I just know what works. And in this for this thing, I actually don't know why. But charging the right price doesn't quite work. Like it'll keep you from going bankrupt, maybe, but there'll be no extra. Like the extra comes when you sell extra. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe that's the answer. But anyway, you got to sell something extra. More than they called you out to fix. And you do that by offering more. You don't sell it. You you just offer. And and the only way you can offer is you got to know what you're doing. Have you ever thought about it? The the that's I don't know if the right word is it immature. The the new plumber, the plumber that's not been plumbing very long. Even if you've got a license, you still haven't, you've only been plumbing for four years or whatever, and you still don't know how to do everything. And you might be able to repair, replace, but you don't know how to upgrade, or, or maybe you don't know how to repair, right? And so as a as a technician matures in experience, they they learn how to do more things and they're able to offer more. And so when you're able to offer more or even upgrade a situation, or even add to a situation, add a feature and benefit that the customer might appreciate. Like if they're waiting for hot water, uh I mean, are you just gonna replace the water heater or are you going to offer to put on a circuit pump so they don't have to wait for hot water anymore? And they don't have to buy it, and a lot of them won't. But several will buy it if you offer it, right? And so that's how you sell more than they called you out for, is to become aware of and grow in your skill set so that you can offer more things that the customer might appreciate. And some of them will and some of them won't. Most of them won't, but several will. And that extra will change your life. That's where all the juice is in the business. This is the extra. Even when you charge the right price, you still got to sell extra to get the juice. I learned that the hard way. It took a long time. So many people told us to charge the right price. You have to charge the right price and sell more than they called you out to fix more often than not. Does that make sense? All right. That's that's the first thing is charging the right price and and sell more than you were paid for. Sell more than they called you out to fix, right? Um yeah, that that that that's super important. The third thing is pay yourself first. Have you ever noticed that that you spend all you all the money that comes in, there's always the expenses to go out. And at the end of the month, there's nothing to show for it. Um in the Profit First book by Mike, um, I don't know his last name, but Profit First, he says the revenue, it's the old accounting is revenue minus expenses equals profit, and there's usually nothing to show for it, right? Does that feel that's how we were for years? But maybe the new accounting is revenue minus profit equals expenses. Think about that. So you just carve out a little bit for yourself. You say, hey, I'm gonna take a couple percent off the top. Like if I get a$100, I'm gonna take five bucks and put it over here as profit, and then figure out how to keep my expenses within that 95. Does that make sense? Just a quick little example. But what happens is when you pay yourself first, wow, I think that's what my mom told me to do. I think my dad told me, I I think my grandparents said to pay myself first. I think, haven't you heard that before? You you know, we we we might do that in in life, like a lot of us have 401ks, or you know, we we've disciplined ourselves to take 10% and save it. But what why don't we do that in business? And that's what that's what Mike in the Prophet First book is talking about. Is why did we not do that in business? And what if we did that in business? We did that in business. Once we learned that, we started to pay ourselves first. And what would happen is, well, first of all, it's scary. It's like, well, how am I gonna do this? Like, I thought we were broke before, and now I'm gonna take a few percentages off to start with. Now what do I do? Well, what it does is it sharpens your it sharpens your senses. You're like, you get you be more careful how you spend your money. You start looking for ways to save money and not spend so much. You look for ways to do a little bit better on the calls that you have. You look for ways, you look for the most efficient marketing you can do. And it and it focuses and it hones your skill to become more efficient with those dollars. And that's what it takes to run a profitable company. Profit doesn't just fall out of the sky. Um it's work. You have to carve it out. And if you if you wait till the end, see, there's this, there's a one of the laws, one of the laws out there, not Maslow's law, but one of those laws says, Parkinson's law, maybe, says that your needs always equal your expenses. Have you ever noticed that? It's called another way to say that is lifestyle creep. You ever heard of that? Like you get a raise, and so then you buy more stuff. We get a raise and we buy a new house, and so we don't have a raise anymore, do we? Because our expenses went up. Well, that's that's kind of how it is. Um, because there's always needs. The business, you think personal life is busy or is needy. Imagine a business life is needy. There's all these needs, and you got employees wanting stuff now. You not only do you want stuff, but your employees want stuff. And if you have a growing business, your company needs stuff. Like there was a time for us where we needed a new shop. Like we were bursting at the seams. It was crazy. Our business required us to get a new shop. So your business will require it, it needs it to it needs cash too to grow. So, but when you start paying yourself first, taking your profit out first, what happens is you get more keen on how you spend your money, and you get more keen on how to do better with the calls that you have. And that is the essential ingredient to running, growing, and building a profitable business is being careful that you do the most with the calls that you get and you're efficient with how you spend your money so that you have profit. And the trick that maybe the neatest way to do that is to pay yourself first. Just take the profit out first. When we first started doing this, what happened was my business partner would come to me and say, Hey, if we don't sell this much more money by the end of the week, I'm gonna have to take that money out of profit to make payroll or to pay the supply bill. Well, I didn't want to do that. And so, you know what I do is I would follow up on the calls that I didn't sell, right? I would I I would be careful how I spent my money or I try to sell more. I'd rather sell more than be careful how I spend my money. Does that make sense? Like I want to buy the stuff. So I would rather push on how do I how do I do better in sales? And I don't mean by being pushing aggressive, I mean by having a better system that works better, that customers like, that my plumbers can actually do as well, right? So those are three things that you can do right now is is charge the right price, charge for what you want, but then you have to actually do more than you're called out to do, and then pay yourself first and try to figure out how to live on the rest. You want when I talk to the apprentices about that, and they're like, well, I don't make very much money, it's kind of hard. And you know what I say? I say, that's life. Isn't that life to live on what's left? I mean, that that is most of life is trying to figure out how to carve out a life off of what's left after we save some money. Does that make sense? So if you'll do those three things, I guarantee you they will change, it will change so much for you, and it will change quickly. So, yeah, raise your price. Like all the other prices are going up. Why do we have such a hard time raising our prices? Do you not realize that you are a tradesperson? Maybe a plumber? Haven't you heard there's not enough plumbers out there? Don't you hear it in the news? Don't you realize it? Don't you feel it? Don't you know how hard you've worked to become as skilled as you are? All the investment you've made in your tools and your time. Don't you deserve to get paid well? Right? What why do we why is it so hard to raise our price? One thing I suggest to some of my contractors that I work with is just raise your price 1%. If you'll do that once a week, first of all, no one will notice. And after 10 weeks, it'll be 10%. You've raised your price 10%, and no one really noticed. But I mean, McDonald's is raising their prices, the gas station has no trouble raising their prices, right? I was uh like everybody's raising their prices. Why don't we? And I think one of the reasons is because when we say our price, people say that's expensive. And let me just remind you that what else are they gonna say? They don't know it. That's why you're there. They don't know anything about what you do. And so if they did, they know plumbing's expensive, they would have fixed it themselves. Does that make sense? So if you're there, they need your help. And of course it's expensive. It wasn't in the budget. How many people have line item plumber repair in the budget? We're not in the budget. This is an emergency. Of course it's gonna be expensive. What else are they gonna say? So don't when they say it's expensive, maybe don't take it so personal. Say, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is expensive. But then also have something to compare it to, have some options for them. So compared to what? Compared to 30,000? Well, 3,000 is a pretty good deal, right? Does that make sense? All right, I'm here to help. The trades are the place to be. You are in a great place at a great time. If you're struggling to make ends meet, if things aren't going well, I have a promise for you. If you change, everything will change for you. Let's do this.