Plumbing is More Important Than Ever
The residential plumbers in the Service Nation Alliance meet in online Advisory Boards weekly. With people stuck in their homes, flushing who knows what down the toilets, they report that work has been surprisingly robust. Drain cleaning is especially good.
People are using their plumbing more. More use means more problems and more opportunity for you. Being stuck at homes means it is harder to escape home plumbing problems by running to the office.
Being stuck at home also means that people are available for a service call. No one needs to stay home from work to wait for a plumber. They are already there!
With bottled water and toilet paper in short supply, this is a great time to sell water purification and add-on bidet seats. If your suppliers run out, take deposits for the day they are back.
The coronavirus is a health crisis. Plumbers protect the health of the nation. When everyone goes back to work and some sense of normalcy returns, health will remain a key concern for many people. You can be a solution provider. In addition to water purification and bidets, you can offer self-cleaning toilets, touchless faucets, touch on/touch off faucets, and antibacterial coatings on porcelain. More people will be more interested than ever before.
Build Walls Around Your Attitude
When the economy was in recession in 2008, the single biggest difference between plumbers who performed poorly and those who did well was the attitude of the owner. Your attitude is precious and it is under assault. A good portion of the nation has gone negative. In part this is because the news media has not merely gone negative, it has gone hysterical. Unfortunately, this has infected some in the contracting community. Ignore them. Ignore the media too.
In practical terms, you cannot completely ignore the media, but you can avoid it. Check the news in the morning, then avoid it until the end of the day. Instead, play positive podcasts like the Profiles In Prosperity series that features contractors sharing industry best practices. Listen to Dave Ramsey’s Entreleadership podcast.
Advertise on Social Media
Digital marketing giant, Scorpion notes that searches and conversions for plumbing are up while advertising costs are down. This means that consumer demand is present, but plumbers are running scared and trying to save their way to prosperity. That means this is the perfect time to step up your advertising—and since people are spending more time than ever on social media, it’s the place to be.
If you have never advertised on social media or never participated, start. Think of it as a great big conversation that you can be part of without leaving your computer or phone. Engage with people. Share information. Answer questions.
Will the pandemic hurt the economy? Of course. It will. Will it hurt plumbing? Not nearly as much as other industries. People always need plumbing and plumbing is an essential industry. You can work when others cannot. And you can put forth a little extra effort and more than overcome any economic headwinds that affect the plumbing industry. This is especially true if your competitors are turning turtle and hiding until the crisis is over, cutting their efforts to find customers just when it gets a little harder to find them.
Hire
Frankly, if you step up your marketing and advertising, you might find the greatest challenge is putting people in trucks. You might have too much work! So hire great people who are working for timid company owners. Rather, they are not working because their company owners are timid. This is going to be one of the best times in a decade for recruiting.
Positioning for the Future
The coronavirus crisis is health driven. It is likely to be a V shaped economy. Down fast and up fast. It is the actions that you take before the bottom of the V that will determine how high and how fast you climb. Position for a strong recovery and you will leave your more fearful competitors in the dust.
Be bold. Be strong. Lead with a servant’s heart and you will be fine.
For help managing through this time, join the Service Roundtable. It’s only $50 a month and has more information, tools, resources, and buying power than anywhere else in the industry. Join at www.ServiceRoundtable.com, or call 877/262-3341.