Transcript
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Introduces the common trap plumbers fall into when starting out and explains why many end up with a stressful job instead of a scalable company. The speaker frames the lesson as a blueprint for building a real business.
What no one tells you about starting a plumbing business is not what you think.Most guys start a plumbing company for two reasons.They're a great plumber and they hate their boss.So, they buy a truck, print some business cards, and they jump out on their own.Two years later, they're working 80 hours a week or more and they're stressed more than they've ever been in their life.And by the way, they're bringing home less money than they made as the lead technician.Why?Because they didn't build a business, they built a job with more risk and no paid time off.If you want to start a plumbing company that actually scales past a million dollars, you got to stop thinking like a plumber and start thinking like a CEO.And I'm going to give you the exact blueprint that nobody handed me when I started.
If you don't know me, my name's Roger Wakefield.I'm a master plumber.I built a plumbing company from a single truck.I scaled it, I sold it, and now I spend my time helping other plumbers do the exact same thing without bleeding for 10 years to learn the lessons.What I'm about to walk you through is not what your buddy who's been in business for 6 months is going to tell you.It's not the LLC, the truck wrap, the Facebook page.Those are the easy parts.Those are the parts that fool you into thinking that you have a business.I'm going to talk about the four things that actually separate the guys clearing millions of dollars a year from the guys quietly going out of business and going back to work for somebody else.So, let's go ahead and jump into it.
Explains the E-Myth framework and the difference between technician, manager, and entrepreneur roles. Covers the importance of knowing your fully loaded hourly cost before launching.
Okay, first of all, the reason 80% of most plumbing companies fail in 5 years, there's a book, The E-Myth by Michael E.Gerber.That was my first coach and I remember walking on stage with him and talking to him and I had everything written out as to what I was doing and going to do and how I was going to doit.He looked at us, "Man, this is amazing.This is great.This is great."And he kind of handed it back to me and I went to walk off and he pulled me back and I looked at him.He said, "There's only one thing wrong.You got to fire the plumber."I was trying to do everything.Now, the E-Myth book by Michael Gerber tells you if you're starting a business and you haven't read this book, stop this video right now.Get online, buy it, read it, then come back here.
The whole idea is this, there are three people inside every business owner.The technician, the manager, and the entrepreneur.Now, the technician is the part of you that loves doing the work, pulling a water heater, repiping a house, solving the problems with your brains and your hands.That's why you got into plumbing.You're good at it.You freaking love it.I know the feeling.But, the problem is when the technician starts a business, the technician runs the business the way that a technician would, which means you do every estimate.You answer every phone call.You run every emergency call yourself.You do the books on Sunday night if you have time.You are the company.Now, take you out of the truck for one day, the company doesn't make any money.That's not a business.That is a self-employed plumber pretending that he owns a business.
That is a job.A business, that's something that runs when you're not there.And until you build that, you do not own a business.You own a job that requires you to also do payroll on weekends.And in part number two, the math that nobody did before they quit their W-2.Now, this is where most guys even lose the war before they even fire the first shot.Let me ask you a question.What does it actually cost to put one truck on the road for 1 hour in 2026?Not your hourly wage, not what you charge for a job, the actual fully loaded cost.Do you know?Well, truck payments, insurance, trade insurance has gone up about 30% in the last two or three years, fuel, the technician's wage, the workers comp, the health insurance, tool replacement, uniforms, phone, CRM software, bookkeeping, marketing, the CSR, the customer
service rep, who answers the phone to book the call to get them out there, the portion of your office that rent is responsible for.And of course, your office rent that truck is responsible for.You add all that up.For most one to three truck companies, a billable hour on the road costs you somewhere between $100 and $200 before you've even made a single dollar of profit.Now, think about the guy charging $95 an hour because that's what my old boss charged 10 years ago.Well, he's not running a business.He's running a charity.He's giving away his time for free, and he doesn't even know it yet because his personal checking account is propping up the company.He's refinancing his house the second and third time to put money back into the company.Rule number one before you start, know your number.Run the math on what one truck on the road costs you per billable hour, fully loaded, and price above that with margin to cover slow weeks, equipment failures, and a paycheck to yourself.
Cuz if you're not paying yourself, it's really not even a job.If you can't quote me your fully loaded hourly cost off the top of your head, you're not ready to start a company.
Outlines the three foundational systems to set up first: a flat-rate pricing book, a reliable phone system, and dispatch/CRM software. Emphasizes that these must exist before the owner starts operating.
And then part three, the three things you build before you turn a wrench on your own.This is the part that everybody skips, so everybody fails.Most guys go get their license, register the LLC, buy the truck, get a phone, start advertising, and go.They are a company.That's exactly backwards.Here's three things you build first, and you build them in this order.Number one needs to be your pricing book.Flat rate, not T&M.Flat rate.Every common job that your company will run, water heater, garbage disposal, toilet rebuild, hose bib, a main line clearing out, slab leak, leak detection, it all has a price written next to it.Same price for every customer.I don't care how nice the house is, or how horrible it is.Same price your tech reads off of the iPad.That way when you've got it in there, they're ready to go.
Now, this does three things.Number one, it kills the awkward what do I charge this lady moment that every new owner does, and they're normally under bidding by 30% cuz they want the work.Guess what?Your competition is higher because they understand what it actually cost to work in your town.Number two, this price list makes your techs interchangeable.Three, it doubles your close rate because the customer trusts a printed price they can see in a book more than a guy doing math in his head.Second thing you set up is your phone system.This is the one that bites everybody.Your phone's going to ring while you're under a house, while you're under a sink, while you're holding a toilet tank trying not to break it.You're not going to answer it.That call will hire the next plumber on the Google list inside of God, 30 seconds to a minute, maybe.
Industry data on this is consistent.Somewhere around 40 to 50% of calls to small plumbing shops go to voicemail.40 to 50%.Every one of those is a paid Google click that you just let go of.You paid for the ad, you got the call, you got the click, and then you let it go.Before you go full-time, you need a plan.Now, there's options.Hire an answering service that does intake calls.Hire a part-time CSR working from home, or if you're solo, your spouse.In writing, you're hired.Give them a script.You are going to pay them like a real employee, because trust me, they are doing real work and they're going to earn every bit of it.And then number three, dispatch and CRM software.Now, there's a lot of great software out there.Pick one.Yeah, they cost money.Yes, you need it on day one.
The guys running on text messages and paper calendars in 2026, they're losing every bid to guys whose technician can pull up the customer's full history before they even ring the doorbell.Some of the calls are Some of these services are great.You can even listen to the customer's call in, so you don't hear the same thing that the dispatcher's telling you.You get to hear the fear in their voice.You get to hear everything.You build those three things before you take a single call as the owner of a new company.If you don't, you're not starting a business, you're building a hobby that's going to eat your time, it's going to eat your marriage, it's going to ruin your relationship with your children.Remember that.
Breaks down the correct hiring sequence as revenue grows, starting with CSR and dispatch support before adding technicians. The focus is on removing work from the owner’s plate and avoiding another self-created job.
And then part four, the hiring order everyone gets wrong.Now, this is a quick gut check.You hit 100 grand a month.That's a great freaking month.But you had a hundred grand a month in revenue, you can't keep up.You need to hire.Who do you hire next?90% of new owners say another plumber.That's the wrong answer.The extra plumber needs jobs to run.Where are those coming from?Cuz if you hire another plumber, he's just doing all the work that you were doing.Now you're not doing anything.Now, where do all those jobs come from?The phone.Who's answering the phone?You, between calls?So now you've got two techs whose schedule depends on the boss being able to take 10 calls between visits, between the calls he's running.The right answer is a customer service rep.You need a CSR, someone whose entire job is to answer the phone, book the call, and confirm the tech's going to be there.
And then confirm that the homeowner's going to be there.Real hiring order and sequence, CSR and dispatcher.They can do this be the same person.They book your calls so you stop dropping them.Second tech, only after the CSR is keeping the schedule full.Are they doing callbacks?Are they doing outbound calls?And get a bookkeeper, a part-time accountant.It doesn't have to be full-time.Once you hit $40,000 a month revenue, get the books off your kitchen table.Then you need an office manager.When you've got more than three techs and the CSR is drowning, an operations manager is fantastic.And then when you've got five techs or more, get a service manager.Because if you've got five techs and you outrunning calls, get somebody to help manage things.Get somebody that can help the other plumbers so you can do what you want to do.
Here's the rule.Every hire should take work off of the owner's plate and let the owner do higher leveraged work.I saw this one time I was at a networking meeting in a guy he up.He says, "I need uh I need to hire somebody that I can pay 20 bucks an hour."Somebody on the other side of the room said, "You need to hire somebody you can pay $20 an hour so you can be out making $350 an hour."Think about it.The more $20 an hour people you hire, the more you can get out and do what you need to do.Hire these people before you hire the technicians.Because the minute you hire somebody who needs you to keep them busy, you just bought yourself another job.
Covers the key weekly numbers a CEO should track, then contrasts the long-term outcomes of building a systemized company versus staying stuck in the truck. Ends with a call to action to start thinking like a CEO and build for exit value.
And then part number five, the numbers a real CEO watches every single week.This is the second part that the technicians never do.You can't run a business off your bank balance.If your management report is how much money is in the checking account on Friday, you're flying a 737 with no steering wheel.With no nothing.You're just flying.Here are the four numbers you got to look at every single Monday morning with no exception.One is your booked call rate.Of the calls coming into your office last week, what percent turned into actual scheduled appointments?If it's under 80%, you've got a CSR problem.It should be 90 to 95%.That's a rocking CSR.Pay her more money.And while I'm talking about CSRs, a lot of plumbers think that should be the cheapest person I hire.Do you really want the cheapest person you hire being the face and the voice of your company?
Cuz that's who's talking to your customers first.That's up to you.Number two, your close rate.Of the appointments that your technicians run, what percentage turn into solid jobs?Is it under 70%?You need to work with that plumber on sales or your pricing presentation.They should literally be closing 80 to 85% of every job they go on.And then number three, your average ticket.Total revenue divided by jobs ran.Now, is it trending down?Is it trending up?Are you even watching it?Your guys are selling band-aid repairs instead of full replacements if the replacement is really needed.Or your pricing book is out of date.And then number four, net profit per job.Not revenue, profit.If you don't know what each job actually netted after all the costs that we listed back in part two, you don't know which jobs are making you money and which jobs are killing you.
These four numbers, every Monday, 20 to 30 minutes, that's the meeting that separates a real CEO from a guy who owns a truck.And this is the last thing and it's the most important one.Why are you doing this?Most guys answer, because I want to be my own boss.Fine, but here's the better question.What does this look like at your 10-year, your 15-year, your 20-year annual date?Any idea?Because there's two paths.Path one, you build a company that runs without you.You step out of the truck.You spend your time on the systems, hiring, and the four numbers that you look at.By year seven, eight, or nine, you've got four to six trucks running.You're working 40 hours a week and the company is worth real money.When you're ready to be done, you sell it to a competitor.Or you roll up.
And one thing I tell people is when you get ready to sell, don't just roll up, roll out.Buy an electrical company you can advertise to.Buy an HVAC company you can advertise to.You do all this, you can get your EBITDA number goes way up.That's the exit.That's equity.You have built a business worth value.Path number two, you stay in the truck.You scale to two, three trucks.You're still doing every estimate.The company can't run without you.You're the estimator.You're the salesperson.You're the boss.When you're ready to be done, you sell the truck and the customer list for maybe a hundred grand.I've seen people sell businesses doing almost a million dollars for a hundred grand.That's 20 years of work for $80,000 of equity.All they're buying is your list, any tools you have, any equipment.That's a job with extra paperwork.
Which path you're on isn't decided at year 10.It's decided in the first 6 months.And it's decided by whether you build the systems, the pricing, the phone, the software, and the hiring discipline I just walked through.Stop thinking like a plumber.Start thinking like a CEO today before you turn the first wrench on your own.Here's what I want you to do.If you're already running a shop right now, drop your current revenue in the comments.Make a new channel.Start a new name so nobody knows it's you.Just a number.Now, I try to read all these.And the next video in this series is going to be tailored to that revenue that most of you are stuck at.If you're thinking about going out on your own, write down those three things from part three before you do anything else.Pricing book, phone system, CRM.
Don't quit your W-2 until those exist.Now, I'm working on a follow-up video for the exact pricing model that I used to get my first shop from $300,000 a year to just over a million dollars a year.So, whatever you do, hit the subscribe button and ring the bell that way when that video comes out, you know.You're not in this trade because you're scared of hard work.You're in it because you want to win.So, go build a business, not a job that comes with a truck.I'm Roger Wakefield.I'll see you in the next video.And whatever you do out there today, do it safe and hit it effing hard.