Home Services Success Stories

Plumbing The Path To Trust

• Peakzi • Season 1 • Episode 2

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A housing crash. A hard pivot. And a promise to be the crew your friends actually recommend. Laura Engstrom, president of Alternate Design Plumbing, joins us to share how a service-first mindset turned a new construction slowdown into a thriving residential brand built on trust, quality, and community referrals.

We dig into the early lessons that shaped her leadership—cleaning homes, property management, and restaurant work—and why relief is the real product in home services. Laura walks us through the 2008 decision to exit new construction rather than slash prices, and how a relentless focus on integrity, communication, and doing it right the first time created staying power across economic cycles. We talk frankly about DIY pitfalls, unlicensed handymen, and the operational discipline required to protect customers and your name.

Hiring gets real here too. Laura shares the simple signal she trusts most—initiative—plus her two-step interview process, why the team must approve, and how the 90-day probation turns promises into proof. We also explore the digital front door for home services and how partnering with Peakzi to build FAQs and helpful blogs is boosting visibility for AI-driven search and customer queries.

If you lead a home service business or care about building a resilient, referral-worthy operation, you’ll hear practical takeaways on culture, standards, and reputation that travel beyond plumbing. Stick around to the end for how to connect with Alternate Design Plumbing, tour their working showroom, and keep your own brand visible and credible in a changing market.

Peakzi Podcast: Home Services Success Stories - If this conversation helped you, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share it with a fellow owner who needs a boost today.

Peakzi Podcast: Home Services Success Stories

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Home Services Success Stories podcast, powered by Peaksy, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business. And on the show today, we have Laura Engstrom, who is the president at Alternate Design Plumbing. Laura, welcome to the show. How are you? Good, Julian. How are you doing? Doing really great. It's great to have you on.

SPEAKER_01:

Good, thanks. And it's Monday.

SPEAKER_00:

Here we are. It is Monday, and we're recording, and I appreciate you carving out some time. I know scheduling is always the most difficult part. So uh so Laura, take a minute just to introduce yourself to our audience, if you would.

SPEAKER_01:

As Julian noted, I'm Laura Engstrom with Alternate Design Plumbing. We are a residential plumbing contractor. Our tagline is we're the good guys your friends told you about. And that has been such a lead-in to build rapport in the community with our fellow business owners who then comfortably refer us because they know we are the good guys. And so once we get into the residential homes, we meet the homeowners. They usually fall in love with my technicians and we uh we're in good. So what we've done and how we've built it with the also with the input from certain paths has been very, very successful.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, we're definitely excited to dig in more about the business and why you have become a success. And that's the whole purpose of the show is to share the secrets of success for uh our our future guests. So, but just a bit about you, Laura. It's interesting about your background because you've always, for the most part, been self-employed most of your adult life. You've worked in property management, different service roles. So, what drew you to entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I was always a little bit of a rebel. Um, I've been a hard worker and I always, whatever jobs I had, I was always appreciated by my bosses. And I liked the freedom of interestingly, my home services history started with cleaning houses, and there's tremendous freedom in having that as your source of income. You have some people who you become very, very intimately familiar with and who you build a tremendous amount of trust with, and you realize that what, in the eyes of many, would be mean menial labor is genuinely a lifesaver for many a man and woman out there who is trying to eke their way through everything that pulls at them during the day, but they can come home and their house is clean. I always like the expression, I think it was Zig Ziggler that would always say, you know, it's always nice to hear the vacuum cleaner running, especially when someone else is running it. So there's so there's some truth, and no matter what your service is that you bring to someone, it's a service that they need. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for you to start a business. So I started out in cleaning houses, so I understood that providing a service is something that goes all the way to the heart of another human being because you take something off of their plate that brings them relief, but they also know it's being done well, being done right, and they take comfort in that, and they take comfort in having a clean home. So that was many moons ago, and so I had done that for quite some time, and then I ended up working at a property management company at an apartment complex, and that again, uh, doing background checks on people, trying to find those suitable apartment for them and their family and their needs. Then I also worked at a restaurant as a waitress uh in the evenings and on the weekends while I was doing the property management. So there again, it was service industry where I understood how important it was to bring a smile to people's faces. And when you when you can do that through their belly, then you always know you're gonna be successful. So yeah, by by saying landing in the plumbing industry as a as a service industry, everything just kind of kept bleeding toward me having what it takes to understand what people are looking for and what makes them happy and what they're willing to spend their money on.

SPEAKER_00:

I think there's a lot of very interesting insights there. So it first sounds like you were drawn to entrepreneurship because you've always been kind of a rebel, an independent person. And you you said the word freedom a few times at least, right? And then because of that, you property management, it sounded like food service, a bunch of different things, but you gained a very uh a keen insight into the benefit of the service of others, and you've always been taught in a very where the rubber meets the road, speaking to the customer, understanding what truly motivates them. Um and that's that's really, really cool. So, so how did you ultimately decide on plumbing? What was the genesis story there? A relationship.

SPEAKER_01:

I ended up in a relationship with David, and he had he had started this business, and um at the time I was working, so I wasn't really active, proactively involved in the day-to-day of running the company, but over time I got involved in helping around the property here at the at the where we run the business out of. And work in the office because the gal that David had had in here with him for many years was retiring. So we hired this young girl, and she was uh I fired her. About three and a half, four months into it, I fired her, and I ended up coming into the office. I had to get trained on QuickBooks, I had to figure out what, when, and where. And so that's how I ended up in the office working with David. So not only was it our dream offsite to see this be successful, but then I became a crucial part of the team in the day-to-day trenches to make sure it was successful and it was run well and with efficiency and integrity and all those details that have to be monitored and addressed were all handled to assist David largely.

SPEAKER_00:

So you came in to primarily assist him, but you are now, of course, the president of the company, right? Did you see yourself becoming the president? What did it just happen organically or what happened?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. Um it was just an evolution. Um, David's gone through many different phases of the company. We got out of new construction in 2008. The interesting part about hiring that girl in 2006 and her being an epic fail uh and bringing me into the office was good in that 2006 was when the boom or the crash, the housing crash started to manifest itself behind the scenes. Uh, we started feeling the squeeze from the builders. They all wanted us to sharpen our pencils, and there was we were not ones to concede, you know, we brought a lot of quality to the jobs, they didn't have to babysit us, and we were arguably not willing to lower our pricing. Um, so it got to the point where the builders started shopping and they started finding plumbers who would do the work cheaper than us. And then there was another builder that was into us for some significant amount of money. And so we ended up in 2006. We fired one builder and we had another builder let us go. And by 2008, that was when we found certain path, and we completely shut down new construction in our business, and we overnight basically switched from new construction to residential service. And that was that was what has kept us going through everything, through all the changes in the economy, through all the changes in our personal lives. There's been nothing easy about any of this. You can imagine. Anybody that starts anybody that starts a business understands what's that what that's like. And that's essentially what we did is we restarted the business, but we completely changed what we were doing in the business as far as the type of service that we were doing. Am I answering your question, Julian?

SPEAKER_00:

You are your and it sounds like there was a definitely a significant shift. And I think as most of our listeners are other business owners, they can certainly empathize with the constant change and the adversity and all that. But you have been servicing Central Florida for 30 years, you're certainly a leader in the space, despite all the adversity, despite all the changes. What do you think has been the secret to your longevity and growth?

SPEAKER_01:

Quality and genuine concern. Um as my historical background, not only in work, but just in how I was raised, I was I was always genuinely interested in other people and to bring a service to them that I knew they needed, whether they knew it or not. Um being connected to people makes you realize that your quality, your integrity, all those things that people are looking for is valued. And so we've focused on that. We've done people right, we've done our employees right, we take good care of all that we have as far as our vehicles, our employees, our equipment, our homeowners, our property, ourselves. So that way when we go out and we want to take care of others, they see that we come from a place where that's what we do. So I've never betrayed that part of who I am. And I've always focused on what would I want done for me. Isn't that how we do it? The golden rule do unto others as you would have done unto you. And that's easy to go by. That's an easy way to live. There's no trying to remember what you said or you know, making up for failures because you just don't. You go and you do it, you do it right the first time. You take good care of people, and there's always a reward in that. And the reward has been that it's kept us going through the ups and downs in the economy, it's kept us going. And some years are better than others, but that's business.

SPEAKER_00:

I think what you said was absolutely beautiful. What I heard was number one, quality. And number two, you're bringing sort of who authentically you are to the business. And that is you are a lover of people, you have a deep background in serving people and understanding the importance of doing that and not just your customers, but your employees, and that trickles down and creates a culture of excellence. So I think all that makes a lot of sense. Um, you also did mention, you know, there are some some challenges within the industry, and you face pressures like DIY culture, unlicensed handyman, workforce cultures, uh what workforce challenges. So um, which of these has been the toughest? And how are you continuing to innovate and improve?

SPEAKER_01:

Which of these is the toughest? All of them, all of them, and as we go forward, um all of them are evolving and changing, and and sometimes you feel like all you do is climb the wall. You know, the do-it-yourselfers. I I totally respect and admire when people are inclined, whether it be mechanically or whatever, if they if they can figure something out good for them. It's when they start going and trying to help their neighbors and their mom and everybody else that they start to compromise other people in other homes. And that's what's scary. The handyman, good grief, any one of you that's on the next door app can see every day somebody's looking for lawn maintenance, an electrician, a roofer, a plumber, you name it, they're looking. And they're and they have that mentality that if they go onto an app like that, they're looking for references because people don't run into each other downtown anymore and talk to their neighbors about who do you use for this or that. They're looking for the comfort of getting someone that's a referral to them in a sense, so that they feel like they're getting led in the right direction because they don't know and they know they don't know. But when you look on those next door apps and wherever else you may go just to kind of follow what the community's doing, and you realize how many people out there are lying and cheating and thieving and hurting other people. There's a lot of people out there that can talk a good talk and they cannot deliver, and the homeowner doesn't know until it's too late. And the homeowner doesn't know they don't know. And as for the employees, David and I were just talking about it this morning. I I what do we know? We know that when you start a business, you create jobs, and then someone else comes in and chooses to fill that job, but you create that job. So the employees have a tendency to forget that we don't need them, we could just shut down, or we could hire someone else because we created that job, but we created that job because we wanted to give someone else an opportunity, and it that whole circle of why people build a business and especially as we watch our culture change, and so many of the small moms and pops are getting bought out by big corporates, and people don't even think about what it takes to run a company or to be obligated or committed to someone. But we create a job for someone, and when they come in and they agree to take that job, we as the co-creator have rules, boundaries, and limitations that we put on that job that we've created. And the employees nowadays, and I don't and I'm not just gonna say it's uh Gen X and Gen Z, it's even millennials very much so, and even some of our baby boomers. They they decide that they're gonna come in and tell us how it's gonna run or what time they're gonna show up. And you just scratch your head. You don't want to fire them because they're a good worker when they're there. But yet you let one get away with it and then they all want to get away with it, and you hate to let go the guy who wants to come in an hour away. We have to have some rules and boundaries because in order to provide the service that we have that we provide, when we tell someone we're gonna be there at nine o'clock in the morning, we need our tech to show up at seven and get his truck ready and be there for training and then get him dispatched to the job. And they just have their own idea of what time to show up. And it's I don't, I'm sure that others are running into it and it's mind-boggling to me. So yeah, those are some of the some of the uphill climb of running a business. And I think we're all experiencing it.

SPEAKER_00:

So, what kind of tip would you give to other home services business owners in terms of a hiring strategy or hiring tip to make sure that you're bringing in the best people?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, thank God for the 90-day probationary period, right? Because people can sell themselves all day long, but they can't always deliver. Um, I have I and I and one of the other things I've experienced over the years, Julian, and this is gonna sound crazy to say, but it seems to be true over and over. There are every time I advertise for plumbers, I get absolute it's just not good. It's like the bottom of the barrel comes shuffling in the door or calling. And I always teased, I've teased for 20 years of being in the business. I've teased that I I let the plumbing god send me in a good plumber. And I have had some of the most amazing people walk in the front door of my showroom looking for a job, and that alone is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone with initiative, someone who's got enough initiative to get up off of their rear end and go looking and go walking in, cold calling at a plumbing company to see if they're looking for help. And you can be assured the timing is almost always beautifully right when we're looking, someone comes in the door. So that very fact that they've walked in the door and they have the initiative to do that, and they're not just there to fulfill an obligation that they have to keep collecting unemployment, they're literally looking to work. If they come in the door and there's that to begin with, that's that's the first beautiful thing when you're looking for help, but there's no guarantees on that. And then the interview process, I always interview them myself, and then I make them come in the next day at start time to interview with the crew with the techs, and they have to pass the muster. Um, so it's been a it's it's been a it's been an ever-changing and another evolving part of running the business is trying to figure out what our rules and boundaries are going to be, knowing that the next generation of plumbers walking in the door have different work ethics than David and myself. So I don't know if I can give the best advice for the next person watching this podcast. I I'm still figuring it out myself. I I just know that I I watch for what is heartfelt, them looking me in the eye, and then how they deliver once they get here, and then go from there.

SPEAKER_00:

I appreciate the honesty because you, as you know, are certainly not the only ones struggling with finding great talent. But what I did hear is that the the first characteristic trait is is um is initiative. Is this person a go-getter, right? Then not only do you interview this person yourself, but you have them meet with a team to make sure they're culture fit, you have multiple different takes. But ultimately, just like you mentioned, hiring is kind of a gamble sometimes. You do the best that you can and see kind of how they turn out. You mentioned the 90-day probation. There's no there's no results like results, right? So see how they see how they play out. Um, great, great, awesome. And I think I think that's actually a pretty pretty decent takeaway. So this show was brought to um this show is brought to us by Peaksy. So tell our audience what is Peaksy for those who've never who who have never heard of it before, what is it?

SPEAKER_01:

They are our step into the world of AI. As much as I may have my reservations about it, I also understand that if we don't stay on the cutting edge, we will be left behind. And right now, in this day and age, it appears we will be left behind rapidly. So we want to be accessible to any clients, and Pixie is helping us maintain our presence on the internet in the AI part of the world. So they are helping us uh build our frequently asked questions so that when people are speaking into their devices and they're asking questions that could be triggered uh to resources that Peaksy has helped help build for us, then we can become a resource that people are steered toward. Um we're also working on our blogs that will drop a couple times a month. And that again is where AI will pull from, and they seem to know how AI works and what it's looking for, and helping us have the content out there and accessible so that we will be part of what people find when they're searching. So I'm excited to have them as a resource, as a part of our team to make sure that we, as I mentioned, stay on the cutting edge. Um, we need to be available to people, and people are using their phones for just about everything. I think some of them are replacing a spouse with their phone, but you know, we've got to be there and be available and be found, findable.

SPEAKER_00:

So, what would you say has been the most tangible benefit of using Peaksy so far?

SPEAKER_01:

Um Well, I'm seeing that even Google is noting that we're getting more visibility, um, which is good. I think part of what we cleaned up and added into our presence using Peaksy has um helped us. We've had a very good presence online, especially with Google, but it looks like it's it's um improving as well. Tangible, I'm not sure yet. Um, we're still fairly new to the team. Um, I'm excited and looking forward to seeing how we can possibly find a way to even track any of what the results are from what we're putting into this.

SPEAKER_00:

Gotcha. Okay, so definitely from a visibility standpoint, um, it's it seems to be generating results. You're also new to it. So the the benefits are gonna continue to unfold. So I appreciate you sharing that. So, Laura, help us begin to sort of land the plane here uh for us. So, so what are you what do you think about the future of your business, the future of alternate design plumbing? What are you most excited about? And what else do you want us to know about your success story?

SPEAKER_01:

I think we're gonna be here forever. I have been uh maybe not me and David, um, but I'd like to think that there's gonna be a next generation that's gonna come in here and get keep this ball rolling because we have we all know and we all see that the home services industries are needed. And until they can make robots that can figure out plumbing and crawl under people's houses and dig ditches, I I think we're safe to we're safe for another couple of decades, decades, I'm hoping. So my vision is that we can continue to be visible in our communities, that we can continue to provide that service that people are looking for, that they we can provide that service with the honesty and the integrity that they need, because people's wallets are being squeezed. And when they spend the money, they want to be able to spend it wisely and know that the work gets done right and there's proper insurance if there's ever an issue that we're protected, the homeowners protected, our plumbers are protected. We want everybody to know that they're working with a credible company. So my vision is that there's gonna be just a vast array of people that come on board with our company as a client, and that our plumbers are gonna stay busy as many days of the week as they want to work, and we're just gonna continue to grow and grow and grow.

SPEAKER_00:

Love that, love that very much. So, so Laura, tell our our audience how do they connect with you, learn more about the business, connect with you personally, share all that.

SPEAKER_01:

Any of you can go to our website, alternate designplumbing.com. We've got a great showroom here. Uh, it's not a big one, but we've got a lot of functioning fixtures, so you can come in and play with the faucet before you buy it. We you can flush the toilet before you buy it. We got just some cool stuff. Um we've got guys in trucks. We like to call our warehouse on wheels. So if you see us on the road, you can always give a call. Our phone number is 386-774-8080. You can reach me via email at Laura L-A-U-R-A at alternate designplumbing.com. We're on uh LinkedIn. Um, I'm on Twitter, and that's about it. I'm not telling anybody anything else.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think that's plenty of contact information. And we'll make sure to have all your contact uh info in the show notes as well so our listening audience can reach out to you. So, Laura, this has been really wonderful in a world full of AI and automation. It's so cool to see like your love for people and humanity into a business. And um really appreciate you sharing your story with us today.

SPEAKER_01:

My pleasure, Julian. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

And everyone else, thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Home Services Success Stories Podcast. As always, make sure to subscribe, comment, and share. And we'll see you next time on the next episode of the Home Services Success Stories Podcast powered by Pixie.