In this powerful episode of Potty Talk LIVE, Richard shares how best to stock your plumbing trucks for success and how to avoid the common mistakes.
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3 Golden Nuggets
- Stock Common Items; This is different for every company and every market, but you need to stock what is common for your customers. That way your plumbers are saving time not running to the supply house for every single job.
- Pay as you go; You never know when you’re going to have a down week, and if that week comes, it will be harder to make your payment to the supply house. So pay as you go.
- Keep it Simple; Implementing huge system changes, no matter how well intentioned, can make life much more complicated. Don’t overdo it.
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Show Notes
Stock for the Common Items
[08:48] What’s most commonly used? There’s all these different kinds of jobs, but you really look at what are the common things; the common repairs, the common repairs, the toilets, the kitchen sink.
And what’s the common parts that you’re replacing on the common repairs? Don’t worry about stocking to fix the specialty items that you come across every other week or month or so. Just stock for what is common in your area. Brand, finish, and the like.
For the uncommon things that you don’t have on your truck, you’re gonna go get them. And you’re gonna charge for that time to go get it.
Pay as You Go
[21:20]One of the quickest ways to get into trouble, especially starting out, is having this 30 day, same as cash deal with the supply house. All of a sudden you have this huge bill at the end of the month, and you’ve already spent the money for the jobs that was used for, and maybe you are slow the last week of the month. And now you don’t have the money to pay it. Then this is huge. It could be $5, $10,000, or a $30,000 bill, whatever it is. That is overwhelming.
There are things you can do, like put the money aside every day, but that forces you to have to be on top of, “How much do we have in parts today?” and who has time for that.
It’s easier just to pay as you go. Pay as you go, so you can have a debit card or credit card on file with the supply house. You’re collecting as you go from from your customers, that’s why we’re having Mr. Jones pay today.
Keep it Simple
[27:35] You don’t have to get all elaborate with your systems. There are very few plumbing business owners that can take their company, implement complex systems, and make it work.
When we get into all these intricate systems and try to get your guys to jump through all these hoops and do all this stuff; they just aren’t going to do it. It might look fancy and sound cool and you could do it yourself…but your guys won’t.
Needing to work within elaborate framework will keep your guys from being able to best serve Mrs. Jones. And really, why else are we in business?
Richard’s Call to Action
If you want to learn more about numbers that matter and how to best run your plumbing business, why not schedule a free 30-min strategy call with us? Let’s talk about your goals and where you want to be this time next year, and we’ll help you create a path to make that happen. Schedule your free strategy call here today!
