Plumbing is one of the most lucrative trades. You can make a great income from it. However, those looking to make big money should consider starting plumbing businesses. These help you get out of the wage labor cycle and allow you to leverage the productivity of others.
In this post, we take a look at how to build a fantastic plumbing business from scratch. Here’s what you need to do:
Find Your Specialist Area
The first step is to find your specialist area – the thing in plumbing that you do better than everyone else. For instance, you could be your city’s leading provider of:
- Drain unblocking services
- Toilet unblocking services
- Commercial piping
- Water tank and gas boiler installation
- Pipe cleaning and servicing
- Pressure monitoring
- Diagnostic plumbing
- Bathroom renovations
Once you know what you want to focus on specifically, you can start to create a name for yourself. Customers don’t just want general plumbers – they want people who can solve the specific issues that they face right now.
Get Educated And Start Working
The next step to building a rockstar plumbing business, like Inner West Sydney emergency plumbing and get deep into the understanding of your trade. The more you can learn about it, the more successful you will be.
If you want to focus on a specific area of plumbing, then it makes sense to work with someone who already operates a business in that field. They can show you the ropes, so to speak, so that you know how to build your own business in the future.
It doesn’t have to be a long slog. You don’t have to work for an existing plumbing firm for very long. However, you do want to pay attention to how they operate and the structures they put in place to make money. Then, once you’re ready, all you need to do is leave and copy their methods.
Sort Out All The Legal Stuff
When setting up a plumbing company, you’ll need to decide on a formal business structure, usually LLC or LLP, and then register with the tax authorities. Only complete your registration if you are about to trade. If you are not ready to trade, don’t register, as you will face various reporting and compliance requirements.
Write Your Business Plan
Most plumbing companies launch head-first into the industry without a real plan for how they’re going to make money and be successful. Generally, speaking, this is a bad idea. You need a document somewhere to remind you what you’re going for and what you would like to achieve.
When creating a business plan, include both inspirational and practical elements. For instance, if you want to generate $1 million in revenue, state that as an objective and also write down what you need to do to get there.
Hire The Right People
As a plumber, there’s a limit to how much you can earn working for yourself. No matter how skilled you become, or what hourly rate you charge, there’s a limit to the number of hours in the day.
However, when you hire other people, it changes the dynamic. All of a sudden, you’re able to sell their services too, creaming the surplus off the top for yourself.
It all depends on hiring the right people, though. If you employ the wrong colleagues, it’ll harm your brand and you won’t be able to grow as fast as you like. In some instances, your company might actually shrink.
Streamline Management
Managing field employees is notoriously challenging. However, these days there is more technology than ever before to make it happen.
Explore employee scheduling best practices. Make sure that people know when they are supposed to work, and where.
Also make sure that you remain in regular contact with those in the field. Offer them feedback from clients, and then ask them to rate how much they enjoyed working on a particular task.
If hiring contractors, not employees, use software that allows them to pick and choose the jobs that they take on. Also, get solutions that allow you to pay them directly for the work that they do so you can avoid clunky payroll software.
Reduce Your Expenses
While growing revenues is important in plumbing businesses, so too is reducing your expenses. Cutting them by just 10 percent can have the effect of making your business more than twice as profitable.
For instance, suppose that you reduce costs from 90 percent to 80 percent of revenue. Your profits jump from 10 to 20 percent – a doubling. Cutting costs could involve setting up your office from home or using cheaper, more effective marketing services.
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