hiring

Are you happy in your current industry? You’re not alone if you don’t feel content with it. You want to be able to give your job your all but if you are finding yourself needing, craving something different, then you might consider starting a trade. It doesn’t matter where you are in your career right now, because learning a trade and starting your own business can and will make a big difference to your future. 

Finding the right information about starting your own business often starts with running some research and statistics on small business success. There is a lot to learn about going it alone but that doesn’t have to be too difficult. The Lendio small business statistics list is always better to understand when you have a goal you want to aim for, and the infographic below can talk you through some of the things that you need to know!

Infographic Design By Lendio

When you’re running a plumbing business, you will always face challenges managing your company and ensuring that you deliver the best service to your clients. Once you are aware of these challenges you will know the best ways to handle them. Here are some key examples that you should keep in mind. 

Avoiding Disruption 

First, you need to make sure that you are taking steps to avoid disruption in your business model. Significant levels of disruption are an issue, particularly if you are working for commercial clients. For instance, you might need to provide your client with an underground tank replacement at an operating business property. To avoid disruption, it’s important to make sure that you can be flexible to client needs. To steps to work around their schedule. This is one of the best ways to earn a positive review or a referral. We’ll discuss this further down. 

Maintaining Trust 

Whenever clients use a plumbing service, they want to hire a company they can trust. They will always be weary about whether they are protected financially and if there are any hidden risks of using your solution. You need to take steps to put their minds at ease. One of the ways that you can do this is by offering both guarantees and warranties on your services. You should also provide various contact points that customers can use if they do ever have an issue. 

Earning Positive Reviews 

Next, you should aim to gain positive reviews for your plumbing business. Without the right positive reviews, you are going to struggle to build up your client base. You might find that new clients will not provide your company with the chance it needs. This can be troublesome if you are just getting started in the plumbing industry and you don’t yet have a loyal base of customers. To earn positive reviews, you need to put a strong focus on customer care and client satisfaction. You should also remember to ask for reviews and feedback. Even a few mixed reviews create a more positive impression than zero reviews connected to a new business brand. 

Hiring The Right People 

Finally, you need to make sure that you are hiring the right people in your plumbing business. A lot of plumbing companies these days are choosing to use the services of freelancers. While they may help cut costs, freelancers can cause issues because they are not as loyal to a company they’re working for. They can simply move onto the next project or company that hires them. You will also struggle to build up a significant relationship with freelancers. As such, it might be best to instead use a recruitment agency and hire the best permanent workforce with the right skills, qualifications, and experience. 

We hope this helps you understand some of the key challenges that you can encounter when you are running a plumbing business and the steps that you should take. In doing so, you can beat your competitors and keep your profit levels healthy. 

If you’re looking to build up the services that your plumbing business can offer to your local community, then at some point, you’re going to have to look beyond what you, yourself, can provide and will need to grow your team. If you don’t want to rely on sub-contracting alone, then you need to learn about what you can do to build and manage your own team. Here are a few tips on how to do that.

Put the right hiring practices in place

One of the most common problems when managing a plumbing business is finding and hiring people with not just the skills that you need, but the same approach to plumbing and customer interaction. Finding skilled workers alone can be tough, but you need to make sure that you’re specific in the skills that you’re looking for, while also keeping an eye on the attitude of the worker. Do they have the same attention to detail with customer relationships and customer service as they do with the plumbing?

Know how to retain your team

Once you’ve hired the right team, you want to make sure that you can keep a hold of them, as well. However, that’s not always as easily said as it is done. Retention has to begin from the very beginning, with a set and reliable onboarding process that welcomes them to the team. Aside from offering competitive wages and benefits and offering the training and education to help your team grow, you can help better retain your plumbers by showing some appreciation now and then and taking their own needs, such as their work/life balance into account.

Get to know your responsibilities

As an employer, you’re going to suddenly find yourself dealing with a lot more responsibilities. Most important is providing a safe working environment by teaching what safety skills you need to and providing the PPE necessary for every job. Second to that is ensuring that payroll is handled correctly, not only in terms of paying your team the agreed amount on time but also making sure that you get your taxes right as an employer with an online federal tax id number filing service. There are, of course, other legal responsibilities that you should take your time to get acquainted with to make sure that you’re actually doing your job as an employer.

Build your management skills

As an employer, unless you have a large team with management in the middle, then you are also going to be responsible for directing your team. As such, taking a management course can help you learn how to communicate with them, manage their morale, and treat them with the appropriate levels of respect and trust. Not everyone is a born manager, it can be more difficult to direct a team of employees than you might think, so it’s worth seeing what you can learn.

As an employer, you have to deal with many responsibilities and learn new skills. The tips above can help you do just that.

If you’ve stumbled across this article, then the idea of being your own boss must have been on your mind for a while now. Perhaps you are working for another person’s plumbing business and believe you can be a business owner too. Maybe the boss sucks! Or you think you have enough experience to finally start your own business. Either way, one thing is certain–starting your own plumbing business is never a bad idea. 

While the road to every successful business has its ups and downs, the shortage of plumbers in the economy only means one thing–there could never be a perfect time to start your plumbing business. Besides, reaching the break even point is easy for such businesses, making them an even more viable opportunity. 

So, are you ready to sail this island? Once you have decided to be a boss, you need to be ready to put in all the hard work, but in the end, it will be worth it. This guide puts together everything you need to know about converting your plumbing skills into a successful venture.

Set Goals

Before starting your business, here is an important question you should ask yourself: what is the reason for starting this business? Is the goal to grow income? Do you want to have more free time on your schedule? Are you trying to build an empire?

People have different reasons for starting their own plumbing business. Your objective is the foundation upon which to build your business. Consequently, there is a need to be clear on the reason for starting your business. A business that you begin with no objective has a high chance of collapsing even before it picks up.

Create a Business Plan

Put simply; a business plan is a document outlining your business goals and objectives and activities to do to achieve them. Although it takes time to develop a comprehensive business plan, it will be worth the hassle in the long run. A comprehensive plan gives purpose, structure, and a clear-cut strategy to your business, allowing you to start with more minor hurdles.

Here is what your plumbing business plan should include:

• Growth opportunities
• Financial projections
• Financing
• Marketing strategies
• Short and long-term goals

Hiring

If your goal is to build a successful plumbing business, you know that hiring unqualified plumbers is out of the question. It is, however, essential to consider the qualifications you already have and those you might need in the future. When you are starting, minimum requirements are crucial. Then, with time as your business establishes itself, you can bring in some training.

After gaining further qualifications, you will be able to provide more services, and resultantly, you will make more money. Once you have the right capabilities, you can work on:

• Water recycling systems
• Central heating
• Gas and oil-fired appliances

One thing that potential customers look for when searching for plumbing services online is your credentials. For this reason, it is vital that you display your qualifications, as doing this helps you garner trust and more contracts. It would also be best to stay up-to-date with qualification requirements as they vary from state to state.

Finding Finances

Once you’ve sorted out the minimum requirements for your employees, the next thing to do is raise capital for your business. Every business requires cash, and the plumbing business is no exception. You will incur high costs in acquiring equipment and a vehicle, but you do not have to worry if you are operating on a tight budget as you could opt to get cash from a third party.

If you cannot raise the required amount independently, you could approach your bank or any other lender for small business loans. Most major banks have small business departments that provide a wide variety of financial options:

• Credit cards
• Business accounts
• Small business loans

These departments usually have business experts that will offer you guidance, and you’ll be able to contact them whenever you need any advice or clarification. 

If you decide to follow this path, ensure to bring along your business plan as no bank will lend you money if you lack a comprehensive plan on how to utilize it.

Alternatively, you could go for government financial schemes or ask for help from friends or family. Another option is looking for angel investors who might be interested in your business idea.

Marketing Your Business

It is unlikely that your business will be a monopoly as there will probably be other similar businesses in town. This means that competition will be tough, and it is, therefore, your job to convince potential customers that your business has more to offer compared to the rest.

It would be best if you began by creating awareness of your business. Once people know that there is a new business in town, they will be willing to stop by. If you strongly believe you could find your target market on social media, then, by all means, go for it. After all, the end justifies the means.

Now that your business is up and running, you should regularly do a SWOT analysis to determine what is going right and what needs some work. This, coupled with learning from other similar businesses in the market, is important if you want to establish a legacy.