Everyone knows what a proverb is… A saying that expresses a truth often based on common sense. Proverbs sound simple, but unless you hear them often and apply them, they are just statements that sound good in theory. I came up with the below 38 profitable plumbing proverbs. When you review these proverbs, stop and think about how you are implementing them in your own business. If you are not living these profitable proverbs, pick a few and decide what you need to do in order to implement them. Once you do, you will see how they can increase your businesses efficiency, making it more profitable!
- Owners should study the craft of business harder than they studied the craft of plumbing. Business success depends on business acumen, not technical aptitude.
- Never apologize for making a profit. Profitability is not a sin, it’s an obligation.
- Keep growing. Always grow. Once you stop growing, you start dying.
- Social media is not a waste of time. It’s a place where you can find customers, prospects and future employees.
- Successful plumbers embrace business innovations while others cling to the past.
- Marketing is a conversation. Speak with your customers, not at them.
- Charging customers more for less experienced, slower plumbers is less honest than charging everyone the same price.
- Unknown to most plumbers, the plumbing codes do not require white service vehicles.
- You are not your customer. You do not look like her, think like her, or share her sense of humor.
- If you aren’t marketing your company, you’re winking in the dark. You may know what you’re doing, but no one else will.
- Fail to charge enough and you subsidize your customers.
- More than ever, online reviews mean you cannot win a fight with an angry customer. Budget a reserve account so you can do what is necessary to soothe the customer and move on with your life and business.
- Without goals, you lack a destination. Without a plan, you lack a map.
- Absent coercion, a fair price is whatever a willing seller and willing buyer agree upon.
- Stupid plumbers know it all. Smart plumbers learn from everyone they can.
- All business owners are subject to incentive pay with the ability to increase their income through better performance. Smart business owners allow their people the same ability through incentive pay systems.
- Your lifestyle should not be constrained by your business. Instead, your lifestyle requirements should dictate the size of your business.
- If your business cannot operate with you, it’s not a business. It’s a job. It’s a job with lousy hours and a son-of-a-gun for a boss.
- The best customer is a repeat customer.
- The plumber who does not read the trade press and business books is no better off than the plumber who cannot read in the first place.
- Smart dispatching will double the bottom line.
- Customers are not always right, but they are always necessary.
- Some people are not meant to be your customers. You cannot deliver the service they want at the price you require. Fire them.
- You cannot perform better than your people.
- Hire slow. Fire fast. Be careful and deliberate before introducing new personnel into your company culture, but do not hesitate to remove those who are adversely affecting it.
- Successful plumbers emulate top performers. Unsuccessful plumbers envy and resent them.
- Your people cannot treat your customers better than you treat them.
- If you’re coasting, you’re headed downhill.
- Your financial statements are your scoreboard. Without them, you do not know whether you are winning or losing.
- A well-run business is one that’s built to be sold.
- After-hours calls are not interruptions or burdens. They represent real people who desperately want someone to solve a problem and will pay for it.
- Drama belongs on television, not the office.
- It costs too much to make the phone ring to trust the least paid person you can find to answer it.
- Your company cannot grow past your ability to recruit and develop talented people.
- The more people you know, the more business will flow your way. Network through leads clubs, service clubs, alumni organizations and the chamber of commerce. You have to eat lunch. Eat it with community centers of influence.
- Your success is a reflection of the value you deliver to society. To become more successful, find ways to deliver more value.
- Training is not an expense, it’s an investment with a strong, positive, short and long term return.
- Service is show business. Give your performances flair.
Need marketing ideas specific to plumbing? Download the FREE Plumbing Marketing Toolbox app from the iTunes store or Android marketplace. If you find it harder to turn a profit than to turn a wrench, you need the Service Roundtable. For help with the business of plumbing and other contracting, there is no better or more affordable resource than the Service Roundtable. Call 877/262.3341 or click ServiceRoundtable.com. Matt Michel is CEO of the Service Roundtable, contracting’s largest business alliance.