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Owned and Operated #181 | From Plumbing to Profits: One Entrepreneur’s Journey to Business Success & Growth Strategies
Thinking about starting your own plumbing business?
In this episode, we dive into the inspiring entrepreneurial journey of a skilled tradesman who transitioned from working as a plumber to launching his own successful plumbing company. He shares the real challenges of the first six months, the importance of branding, and how leveraging business tools can streamline operations. Learn how he overcame obstacles, balanced work and family life, and built a thriving business in a competitive market.
Shout Out to FieldPulse 🚀
FieldPulse is an incredible Field Service Management platform that helps you save hours each week while keeping your operations running smoothly. If you're looking to streamline your processes, stay competitive, and focus on what truly matters, FieldPulse is a game-changer!
🔗Book your demo here
💼 Special Thanks to Service Scalers!
We’ve been partnering with Service Scalers to maximize our Local Service Ads (LSAs) and optimize our Google My Business profiles, and the results have been incredible. With hundreds of thousands in sales and 900+ calls in a single week, GMBs are now our top-performing organic lead channel. Want to learn how Service Scalers can do the same for you?
🔗 Check them out here
Episode Hosts: 🎤
John Wilson: @WilsonCompanies on X
Jack Carr: @TheHVACJack on X
🎧 Episode Guest:
Owned and Operated #181 | From Plumbing to Profits: One Entrepreneur’s Journey to Business Success & Growth Strategies
[00:00:00] November and December, I think we got a total of like five or six jobs. It was tough.
Knowing how to plumb does not mean you know how to operate a business. It was, uh, yeah, sink or swim. What's one mistake you'd tell plumbing business owners to avoid? I would say.
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CRM estimates, invoices, project management, team communication in a detailed reporting and insights field. Pulse will transform the way that your team operates. Saving you time and finding revenue potential you didn't even know existed. Whether you're a small [00:01:00] business looking to grow or a larger company ready to scale, field Pulse gives you the tools to increase productivity and keep everything running smoothly.
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Check it out. Woo. Welcome back. Beat you to it. Dammit. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Uh, today on our show, we have a special guest from Portland, Oregon. We have Kenny Bush, who's the owner and operator of Da Vinci's Best Plumbing. Welcome to the show, Kenny. Hey, Kenny. What's up guys? Thanks for having me.
Nah, dude, this is, this is gonna be fun. Uh, you know, like I said off camera, we, we don't often get a chance to talk to people like [00:02:00] pretty fresh into their entrepreneurial journey. And it sounds like you've had a really strong, like first 18 months. So I'm excited. Uh, I think this is gonna be a lot of fun.
So you've, you started a plumbing company, you've got a great story to tell, uh, I'd love it if you just gave us a little bit of a background on the last, like what, what got you into plumbing in the first place? Uh, so I grew up farming out in a small town, uh, burns, Oregon. Uh, you know, it's, it was a two hour drive from the nearest city, you know, and grew up farming.
Then I ended up moving, uh, to the Portland area. Mm-hmm. And plumbing just came easy to me. I mean, I, I spent years building, you know, wheel lines and pivots and running sprinkler systems and all that kind of stuff. Um, so plumbing, I. It, it made sense. Yeah. Uh, from the get go and like I had, I had the work ethic and the drive to do it, you know, had a new family at the time and yeah, [00:03:00] I was just ready to go.
I, I found something that I enjoyed and I could stick with and make a good living. I.
Jack Carr: And when, when did you catch, I'm always interested, when did you catch the entrepreneurial bug? Was it really early on in your journey or was it sometime during that 15 year plumbing stint you said, I just wanna do this myself?
Uh, so honestly it was, um, it was in 2023, so like I had, I had no intent on starting my own thing. Didn't even think it was a possibility, you know, like it, I didn't have the capital to do it. You know, all these excuses. I told myself in my head that, you know, like why I couldn't do it. Um, so I had, and the, what was it?
Uh, the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. So I left one company, went to another, basically it was a big company, but it was a, you know, like a machine with too many moving parts, not enough oil. Um, you know, it was, uh, pretty bad when you're working for somebody that doesn't know. [00:04:00] Half of what you know about, uh, plumbing or even what they're doing.
You know, like, I can do your job better than you can. What the heck? I got offered a partnership by a construction company, which gave me the idea, you know, like I started diving into the legal aspect on how to start the, the business, but what it, it turned out to be like I was basically. Being, uh, an employee for this, this construction company, and getting 10 99 of 50 bucks an hour.
So it didn't pan out. And you know, like I did it for about six to eight months. And then after that, um, uh, wife and I like decided like, you know, can't, can't do this with this guy. We need to get our own thing going. Um, which, and I already bought a box truck, you know, like, 'cause I was, I was thought I was going [00:05:00] business partners with somebody else.
Yeah. So I was working out, what? I had bought a box truck, an old 94 F three 50 repurposed U-Haul. Um, heck yeah. You know, and it's, it's still my favorite truck. It rides like a Cadillac and it is, it's. Um, that it's got the big block four 60, so it, it guts up and moves whenever you want it to. But anyways, after, you know, feeling taken advantage of on that aspect, you know, I'm not calling myself a victim because like I put myself in that situation, uh, but decided it was time to get our own thing going.
We had already. Come up with the name. Um. Mm-hmm. 'cause back in February of 2023, we came, came up with a name and incorporated because that's how the guy was saying, oh yeah, I know you need to start your own LLC. Mm-hmm. And pay that LLC. Um, I mean, I was a few [00:06:00] things short of being completely legal. Because I didn't have my c, c, B and everything yet at that time.
Yeah. Yeah. I
Jack Carr: think that's a real common way that people get started is they start into the sub as a sub in the trade. They Oh, yeah. They get their toes dipped in, they bought by the truck, and then they're like, I'm almost there. Like, why not just get my license and, and run? Yeah. Yeah. So how did, how did you come up with the name?
'cause I, you know, there's a lot of different names out there, da Vinci. Well, and the branding looks good. Yeah. It's, it's unique. I'm gonna Google a truck picture here
in a second,
Jack Carr: but, but super unique. It's not like a plus one. Plumbing or best plumbers. You know, the typical Wilson Wilson doors are not your last name.
Right. That's a good looking truck. This is what our newer trucks look like. That is really cool. I love that you have a model too, for anyone not, not, uh, watching on Yeah, just get on YouTube. Yeah, get on YouTube. I can't explain this, but it's a really cool model. Truck
collection doors. Election doors.
Jack Carr: That's sweet. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what our trucks look like now, the, the newer one at [00:07:00] least, uh, the. Um, the older ones, of course, they're, they're the old box truck, the old U-Haul, you know, the big old square body and the, the, uh, like little grainy cover or whatever it's called. Yeah. Over the top. Um, but I mean, they look, once they're wrapped once the, I mean, like, they look sweet, they look brand new.
I mean, you couldn't tell, you want Oh yeah. That it's just an old U-Haul truck driving down the road. Yeah. Because it looks legitimate, you know, and that it just. It takes a new wrap, you know, a new skin put on an old body and it, it looks brand new. It's, uh, it's pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we used to do too.
I, I remember when we were, uh, when we were smaller, like the, our, my only measurement for like, am I gonna buy this truck? Was, was it below $17,000? Like. Well, 17,000 and a hundred thousand miles, I think. [00:08:00]
Kenneth Bush: Yeah.
Uh, it was those two qualifications, and this was like a decade ago now. But, but I, I, we, we still have a few of those, of those, like I bought you for 16 five back in 2017.
Yeah. We, our first truck we got for, uh, right around 7,000. The guy, he was asking 5,500 bucks on Facebook marketplace, you know, and, uh. I, I had part of it. I mean I had, we had 5,000 bucks in the bank, you know, and that's what we had to start out with. Like, gotta buy tools, gotta buy. Yeah. You know, all sorts of stuff.
Um, but we, I made him an offer, you know, 'cause I shoot, didn't have the credit, didn't have the capital, nothing like that to start out, uh, made the guy an offer, you know, like, well I can go to the bank and get a loan and pay them an interest or, sure. You can carry the loan and I pay you the interest. So we just chopped it up to like [00:09:00] 7,200 bucks, you know, just threw it, threw a little extra on top of it for him and had him carry the loan.
And it, like, I paid it off in four months. So, I mean, it was, yeah, it was, uh, easy for him. An extra, you know, 1700 bucks in his pocket. Something that I find interesting, especially like you've been in plumbing for a while. I, I've been in plumbing for a while. I remember 15 years ago, and I remember it used to be kind of common for guys to go off on their own.
Right? Uh, it was, it was like, you know, the average business size was a lot smaller. There weren't a bunch of Goliaths freaking everywhere.
Kenneth Bush: Yeah.
Um, you know, I, I remember average size of companies to be like 10, 10 people total. And, uh, so it was, it was a natural career progression 15 years ago to go off on your own because it was likely that you'd make more money.
What I've always wondered is like, [00:10:00] how nowadays that might not be the case because you can make so much money working for these companies. Like how do you, how do you get over the hump on that? And that's like a real. Curiosity of mine. Like I have guys that make hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's hard to imagine that they would ever want to go start something because literally all they have to do is show up to work, do a decent job, and they'll make like 180 grand.
Yeah. So how'd you, how'd you mentally get over the hump on like, hey, this is easy, this is hard. Uh, so, you know, knowing your worth is, is one big thing. Um. Especially like knowing what you can do. And I mean, so me, I have, I have a DHD and if I'm not challenged, if I'm not intrigued by a job, if I'm just going there and going through the motions, it's, it's over, it's done.
You know, like I am, I'm bored with it. So getting my own thing going [00:11:00] was intriguing. I got to hyperfocus and learn, um, on, you know, what I, what I could do basically. Yeah. And uh, I mean, I spent, I spent a year or so like reading up on, because like. The, the first business idea, I thought I was gonna go flip houses, right?
Yeah. Like, I thought that was gonna be good. I had a few friends that we were planning on doing this and looking at like how much capital and how much credit it's gonna take to flip houses for, you know, very little. Like, there's a lot of risk, but you don't get as much profit. Even, you know, you can spend six months on a, on a house flip and make, you know, 15,000 bucks.
Yeah, like it's, there's a, I didn't see that as working out too well, and I was like, well, why don't I just do something that I already know and plumbing, you know, like mm-hmm. Seeing how much, uh, [00:12:00] these plumbing companies are, are making, um, you know, like, shoot, we can charge whatever we want to charge, really, you know, like that's, that's the whole thing.
Yeah. It's a specialty trade. Um, you know, same with hvac, same with electrical. You know, like the, the specialty trades is where it's at. You know? Yeah. I mean, the handyman can say that he can do it, but we still have to go in and fix his mistakes all the time.
Jack Carr: Yeah. So as you start, you, you incorporate the name, you become the sub you, you start deciding, I'm gonna do my own thing.
How did those first six months go? Because I know from a, like I, I, John, I don't know about you, but I've never started up. We acquired everything that we've had. So phones were ringing for us, day one, hour one. Mm-hmm. We had leads coming in. We weren't scared of, of people sitting. How was that first six months for you and that process of like, I need to ramp this up, I'm just sitting at home and this isn't what I expected.
Or maybe it's the opposite. I don't, I don't know.
Uh, so it was. [00:13:00] You know, like said, it was November 1st is when we got our business license and got legal, um, legit. Right. So posting on every, you know, like Facebook, we were trying Yelp, you know, and Google the hustle, like you're trying everything.
Kenneth Bush: Yeah.
Um, November and December, I think we got a total of like five or six jobs.
So it was, it was tough. Um, yeah. And then January came along. Still kind of slow in the beginning and like January 11th or something like that, we got hit with a big freeze. I was just gonna ask Yeah. What's the weather
Jack Carr: like in January? There?
Yeah. Like, well, this January it was rough. We didn't have a freeze.
We didn't have,
Kenneth Bush: mm-hmm.
I mean, we got below, you know, freezing. A couple times here and there, but it always warmed back up in the daytime. So we didn't stay cold, you know, we [00:14:00] didn't get cold and stay cold. We just got cold and warmed right back up during the daytime. Mm-hmm. So there was no big freezes. Um, but yeah, last winter we went from having nothing on the board to being booked three weeks out and just, just like that.
I mean, it was like overnight and it was, uh, I went from. You know, being in the office trying to get everything organized put together, you know, and we had a, we had just, I think January or February, I believe, I think February we started with field poles. Uh, we were trying, yeah. Um, might've been a little bit sooner, but getting it all organized.
So, I mean, I, I didn't get a lot of sleep that first year. Um mm-hmm. It was, it was kind of rough. Just, uh, I mean, I still don't get much sleep. I was just gonna say, wait, did that change for you? Because I, you know, no, we're sleeping like a baby now. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I, I run the [00:15:00] emergency calls and we have a late night call come in, you know?
Yeah. Our, one of the things we offer, like the employees, which employee? We only have one right now. Is. Mm-hmm. You know, no weekends, no nights of weekend work. Like you're, yeah. You work your regular schedule and go home. Yeah. And do what you wanna do. You know, me as the business owner, well, like, I'll, I'll take on whatever I'm, shoot, I have a hard time sleeping anyways, so it's, uh, might as well go to work and make an extra thousand, 2000 bucks.
Kenneth Bush: Mm-hmm.
You know, at, at 10 o'clock at night. Why not? Yeah. How are you handling, like, you know, you talked about, uh, bringing on field pulse, but administratively sounds like you're driving revenue. Are you in the truck full time? Like, who's answering phones? Who's putting in customer info? Who's doing all that stuff?
All right, so we have, we have a, like I do that sometimes when I'm sitting here at the computer, like I'll answer the [00:16:00] phone. Um. My wife, she is majority business owner. Um, so she is, she, she left her job in January of last year. She was a, a meat wrapper. Right. So she had no experience in answering phone calls and putting mm-hmm.
In computer information. Like she, you know, probably hadn't been on a computer really, except for training for job and school, you know. Yeah. High, high school probably, you know, and, uh. So it, it was a learning experience for her, uh, me. Like I was trying to manage everything. In the very beginning. I was, uh, yeah, I was trying to do all the books.
I was trying to, well, I messed up the books. Like I found out that is not my place. Yeah. So, uh, luckily, yeah, my wife is, she now manages the books. Um, she answers the phones. She, you know, like she manages the stuff at the office. [00:17:00] Um, and it's, it's great, you know, working, working with my partner, um, you know, to create not only a family, but we create our, our other baby, which is our business.
You know, like we're watching it grow at the same time. It's, uh, it's really special to, to do something like that with the partner and, um, you know, a spouse because it's, it's, uh, I don't know. I, I just watched another. Plumbing business who partnered up with a friend and one was a plumber, one was the, uh, it guy, right.
And that business just, just closed his doors, like, and not ear later. Kind of wild seeing how quick it can happen to other companies. But it's, it's cool watching it, you know, like, like, oh man, we, we escaped the. The downfall. Um, yeah, the first year. Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. Yeah. You did. Yeah. And like seemingly strong, right?
You said in your first, uh, year you guys did 600,000 in revenue. Like that's a, that's an awesome first year. Yeah. Yeah. We did pretty good. Um, you know, when we had, uh, had a, another plumber who I used to work with at another company, um mm-hmm. Hired him on, he was tired of. Uh, jobs. He was tired of union and like, all sorts of stuff and Sure.
Board. And because like I had been talking to him, I was like, you know, because I, I bought a second truck, um, and I'm building it out and, you know, call and talk to him. What are you doing? I'm building your truck bud waiting for you to come on board, you know? Mm-hmm. He was stuck on, he is like, no. He is like, I think if I do something, I'm gonna do it for myself.
I don't want to go, you know, work for anywhere else, but. Uh, eventually, you know, like he didn't have the capital, he didn't have anything set up. So he came and worked with us. Uh, he worked with us for, uh, five, six months. [00:19:00] Yeah. And we were both running full-time for a little while. Uh, both of us were in the trucks and running jobs.
Uh, of course we give, you know, our employees, they get first, first dibs on jobs. Um, you know, like that's just, they gotta make their money. Um, I mean, 'cause we're gonna be getting paid a little bit off of them working anyways, so I mean, it's mm-hmm. They gotta make their money, make a good income and, you know, stay happy with their work.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Do you find that, that being from the industry helped you out in that sense with hiring and getting contractors on board and making those networking connections? Yes and no. So
I found out that. Being a plumber, knowing how to plumb, like has nothing to do with like, does not mean you know how to operate a business.
Like it is very true. It is nothing, [00:20:00] nothing like it. You know, like, 'cause like other than. Having a drive to do the work, to do, you know, to improve on everything. You know, that was, I mean, that's, that's all I had going for me was the drive. Like the, the past plumbing experience did not give me a leg up on, on anything, on running a business.
It was, uh. It was still just as hard, and I wish I would've learned a little bit more before I jumped on in, but it was, uh, we, we jumped in and, you know, burned the boats. You know, like we, that was, that was about it. We didn't have an option for failure. You know, my wife was. Pregnant when we started. Mm-hmm.
This whole thing, it was, uh, yeah. Sink or swim.
Jack Carr: I mean, that's, I, in my opinion, that's one of the best ways to do it. Just because there's no turning back. You're there, you're doing it. It has to work no matter what. It, it gives you a little extra. Um, I. Incentive to run that 10:00 PM call for that [00:21:00] $3,000.
Like, it's a lot easier to say, eh, I can go back to doing something else and, and not do that. Let's, let's change gears a bit. So you have the business up, you're running it, it's you, you're running calls, you have one guy working for, you're running calls. Talk to us about the structure of the business. How are you getting leads?
Where are they coming from? What services CRM are using where, like, what. Work us in on the business side and how you came to those, uh, decisions.
So in the, like the beginning, like I had, you know, like I was wearing all the hats, right? I was trying to do everything myself. I was, uh, I was going to the small business development center, um, and trying, you know, using free resources.
And I wanted to, you know, like I wanted a website, I wanted all that stuff. So I was trying to learn how to build all my own stuff, right. I'm gonna build my own website. Um, what happened was the, the, [00:22:00] the teacher, um, the guy that works for the SBDC, the teacher, he has his own like web development and everything.
Yeah. Like business, you know, and he is got some, some pretty big clients and a lot of 'em. So, I mean, um, after. After working with him a couple months and like, and I'm just like, this is going too slow. I can't get any calls off of my website because my website's like non-existent. It's still, you know, like I don't know how to code anything.
Uh, and I asked him, I was like, are you available to take on anymore? You know, he is. Absolutely. So we started up, um, and he's the one that actually turned, turned, uh. The design, right. So my first design was pretty rough. Um, it was just done on Canva, and that was, I, I made my own, but it was similar, right? It was the, the Vitruvian man holding wrenches.
But, uh, yeah, this [00:23:00] guy, his name's actually Guy, um, he took it, did the artwork. He's a graphic designer as well. He took it and changed it all around for us. But the. Web development. He created a webpage and it was, it looked so good, you know, like, still looks good. The, the change in having just Canva based looking artwork or, you know, whatever, to having a professional appearance.
Um, that, that changes everything. You know, like, especially when you're trying to charge people professional prices and not handyman prices. You know, like, you better look the part.
Jack Carr: And, and so did, did he also help you write, I mean, with your Google Business page and, and intro to marketing? Or did he just do the website and SEO?
Uh, so he does SEO, he does, um, he helps with like a lot of everything. So [00:24:00] we work together on the Google My Business, you know, getting that all set up. Like, I did a lot of it myself, and he just comes in behind me and fines, tune whatever I mess up. Um, which is kind of nice. But, uh, yeah, like, and he is, we're, we're just looking into, uh, the MailChimp avenue because, you know, we got, we got almost 700 contacts on that we've, we've gained over the last mm-hmm.
Year or so, and, uh. So we're gonna start a MailChimp campaign and you know, he's taking care of all that for us and it's, mm-hmm. It's really nice having a, a company to do all that kind of stuff for you. Um, and just, you know, not, not feeling the obligation to do everything yourself is huge, you know? Uh, it definitely when you're, yeah, finally just like, I, I can do a lot of stuff, but I can do a lot of stuff that's kind of half-assed.[00:25:00]
That I know nothing about. You know, like, am I gonna spend the time and energy to perfect myself in this area, or am I just gonna pay a professional to do it for me? And that's, you know, the same, same concept with hiring a plumber. You know, somebody else can do what I do. Yeah. You know, with experience. But you know, like when it comes down to it, you hire a professional.
So the latest thing that we've been working on is maximizing our LSAs, which is local service ads, and also optimizing our Google My Business profiles. So what that means is we're making sure that all of our LSAs are on when we need them, and they're maximized to give us the best ROI. And then for GMBs, it's been partnering with service scalers to drive.
Way more traffic through our GMBs. GMBs are almost like the new SEO. The more you put onto them, the better the performance. So our GMBs have been consistently getting better week after week after week, [00:26:00] and it is our currently, our single most impactful. Organic lead channel. So we'll sell hundreds of thousands of dollars a week through our GMBs.
And I think last week we got 900 phone calls. So really impactful, awesome investment, and we've been able to partner with service scalers on both of those things. If you wanna hear a little bit more about service scalers, check out service scalers. Dot com. How, how did, uh, how did technology work at first, I think you talked about starting off with Housecall Pro, uh, and then you trans, did you look at jobber?
Like what other alternatives did you look at? Um, I looked at Jobber. Uh, I didn't, never tried it out or anything like that. Uh, it just didn't seem like it was the right fit for us. Uh, but after we, after the, you know, trial on Field Pulse, like I knew it was. It was right. So, you know, having the mm-hmm. The price book ability to go in and change anything and everything in your [00:27:00] price book.
Um, so in, in the way that basically, I mean, I heck I can run you through like what a call looks like for us and how we do it. So like what we do is, um, you know, call comes in, blah, blah, blah. We collect information. So, and then when we dispatch. You know, push a button on Field Pulse and I added my own little touch, so I used to be a front man and singing bands and stuff, so they get a link, you know, to, uh, a video of me singing in the truck.
So, and it's nice, it's just makes it personable. Right. So now they know, like, now they get, they know a human's basically coming to help 'em. Yeah. You know, it's not, not just somebody that's. Random, right. So they get, they get a, an actual human being who has character and everything like that. Mm-hmm. Uh, gives them insight to me.
[00:28:00] Um, so, and then also send them, you know, customer communication with Field Pulse. You're able to send them a link that tracks your vehicle. On the way. Um, and then also a picture of the tech, you know, and that's, that's huge. People love that. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, once we get to the job, we switch the status right from on the way to, in progress, go through.
We assess the situation, we provide options, we provide free options on every job. Um, you know, a good, better, best. So it's not just you're stuck with one option and people feel backed in a corner. It's, you know, the power's in your hands basically to the customer. Give them the opportunity to make a decision on what level of service they want.
Um, people love that, you know? Yeah. Like you don't McDonald's because there's one thing on the, I, you know, like all one item on the menu, you, you know, they go [00:29:00] for options. So we, we do that, we provide options, good, better, best customer signs for the work to be done. We do the work and complete it and, you know, then we bill out.
Uh, after the bill out process, like I have a nice way that I like to that's not too, um, direct or pushy to ask for a review. Like I always say, not sure if you're a fan of giving reviews. I'm a huge fan of receiving 'em and I love to hear from you, you know, on Google. Like, uh, yeah. You know, and if you like, I can send you a link.
So, you know, just I created a custom status on, because, you know, you can create. Your custom statuses with custom triggers and everything like that Yeah. On uh, field Pulse. So custom status review link and it sends 'em a review link to their email and a review link to their phone through text message. Um, you know, and from that [00:30:00] we complete it.
And that's, I mean, that's, that's it. And I, yeah, you had a good amount of reviews. I was just looking at your GMB uh, 105. Like that feels pretty good for being year in. Yeah. And it's, uh, they're all, you know, legitimate reviews. You know, it's, uh, yeah, we didn't hire a company to come in and give us reviews, you know, we earned every one of them
Jack Carr: and how's, how, how has the reviews and, and all that.
How has that shaped your business in terms of having the, the Google train continue to roll? Have you noticed that that drive additional leads or where are you generating most of your leads from?
So Google, um, with SEO, with local service ads, everything, uh, Google likes to see the reviews. They want to see reviews coming in.
Uh, when you get a bad review, Google dings you, so Google is not gonna feed you as much when you get bad reviews coming in. They're [00:31:00] gonna feed the people that are getting positive reviews coming in, um, you know, because they're gonna, basically, they want to, Google wants to make sure their customers are being taken care of.
They're not gonna feed their customers to, you know, like the, the people that are taking advantage of the people that are doing shoddy work, uh, they're gonna feed 'em to the people with the positive feedback. Reviews are everything. Like, and I, I let people know that all the time. You know, like, reviews help us out a lot, you know, and that's, mm-hmm.
Even in our, our triggered, uh, message with the link to our review link, it's like, you know, uh. Uh, your reviews help our family grow because in all reality it does. You know, like, and that's, that's it. And it's, and also letting people know it's not just a business, you know, like we're a family. That's awesome.
When before we got on the air, you talked about, uh, Google, LSA and the GMB process merging and the [00:32:00] impact to your call volume. You wanna walk us through that a little bit and then like what, what have you done to try to gain leads? So yeah, mid-November local service ads and Google My Business merged. We tried Surefire Local for a little while.
Use their three month period that was, you know, in contract. I mean it was okay, just end result. Then it like we didn't get any better leads off of it. It was just an expense that wasn't paying for anything and even. You know, my, our SEO guy was saying like, you don't need them. Like, that is, he is like, we got this aspect covered.
Mm-hmm. Um, so we had, majority of it was just organic calls. Uh, for, you know, the last couple months we've had a lot of organic calls, you know, versus where we were getting. Three to five local service ad calls a day. Um, yeah. In the past and now we're getting, [00:33:00] um, maybe one or two. Um, and then sometimes none.
But it's, we're, yeah, we're slowly picking back up. 'cause I mean, I think we went, uh, December, I think we had like five local service ad calls through the whole month. Yeah, it was, it was kind of tough. Luckily we had some other big projects that we. You know, took on from previous customers that helped pull us through, you know, like right when we needed it the most too.
Like, I delve into the local service ads and the Google My Business, uh, read all about it on, you know, uh, finding out why we could have been, you know, like why we took a dive, basically. Yeah. Um, and it was just little things. Uh, so. There was a lot of little changes that we made, like in our Google My Business, it was Da Vinci's Best Plumbing, LLC, the Google Local Service Ads.
It was just Da Vinci's Best [00:34:00] Plumbing. So we had some mm-hmm. Discrepancies, um, between the two. So they weren't even correlating, they weren't feeding off each other. Yeah. So changing that, playing. Playing the local service ad game, basically, you know, going in and rating every one of their calls. Like, I, I rated every call from, uh, like May of 2020.
Yep. Four. Um, went back and I rated every call and you know, like just trying to pay their, play their game, you know, jobs that were, were not marked and booked. Or not, yeah. Archived or anything like that. Went through and, and did every job. Um. That was on there.
Jack Carr: Yeah. I mean we just, I just did a giant post on this and you've hit all the nails on the head on playing the local service game.
Uh, yeah. Local service ads game, and a lot of that, what we saw was huge improvements. When you rate the review it. [00:35:00] Or rate the job, it sends it back through the algorithm to let it know, Hey, this was good. Feed them more. This is not good. Take those off. Yeah, making sure that you're adding pictures to your local service ads.
And actually what was interesting that I found was that they prioritize pictures with faces in them as well as pictures for individual job types. So if you have a. Plumbing sink job type. You take a picture with a sink. If you have a tub job type, you take a picture with a tub and there's, yeah. If you go into the subcategories of all the LSAs, there's a.
Subcategories for each one, making sure to hit. And then I think you hit the nail on the head. Play the Google game. If there's a button for them, for you to click, click it like they want you to, they want you to fill it out. Yeah. And then reviews now through GMBs Drive velocity. They want good reviews. And I mean, sounds like you're doing all the right things across the board to to ramp your LSA back up.
Have you seen that, that increase since those, those implementations?
[00:36:00] Yes. So we're, I mean, it's. It's slow, but it is increasing. Um, you know, January was a little bit better than December and February, a little bit better than January, you know, and so on. Um, you know, and one of the things I learned, you know, is, is don't, um, I think one of the big things, you know, people will rate a call negatively if they don't book it.
Yeah. That's not the, the key thing to do. You don't wanna rate 'em mis, right. Just 'cause you don't book it. Like, if it has anything to do with your service industry, rate it somewhat good because otherwise mm-hmm They're not gonna feed you the jobs that you actually need. Just 'cause you didn't book it.
They want to charge you. You know, like the, yeah. Google doesn't do this for free. They want, they want to charge you. Give 'em a reason to charge you and tell 'em you like it. You know, like, I like being billed, you know, like, that's kind of nice. Yeah. I like
Jack Carr: spending Google money. Yeah. Yeah. For no reason. [00:37:00]
Yeah.
But it's, uh, yeah. Yeah. Google likes to like, they like to be informed, uh, put the notes in, you know, the customer's name. Yeah. Uh, put what type of job it was. Um, you know, whatever kind of information you can feed it. Feed it. Yeah. I'm, I'm all about that. Now, have you, um, have you, during that process, obviously you optimized your GMB makes total sense.
Did you figure out other lead gen activities to sort of de-risk GMB? Like how, how did you protect yourself from this in the future? Um, so that's our, our SEO guy has just been killing it. Like, uh, so we, you know, he, he generates three blogs a week for us. Um, and we are a top competitor with like the local giants.
Um, yeah. You know, on Google we have our, our ratings are, are high. And then also, you know, he shows us every week, you know, I have a meeting with him [00:38:00] and you know, shows me where we're ranking up next to the giants and a lot of times we're up ahead of them. Um, it's, it's. Pretty cool to watch and pretty cool to see how, um, you know, like how what he's doing is actually I improving the, the, you know, the call volumes and Yeah.
And uh, what people are searching and, you know, it's, it's interesting to watch it all unfold. Yeah. No, that is, when, when do you think you start bringing on like the next tech? Like when does that. What does that timeline feel like to you? So it's not like a timeline basically. It is, you know, when, when the service picks back up, uh, once I'm working full-time back in the truck all the time.
And then once, you know, like we got two trucks up and running full speed, we can bring out another one. I mean, 'cause we already have the trucks. We have 'em all ready to rock. We got four box trucks. [00:39:00]
Kenneth Bush: Yeah. You
know, all outfitted out. Um. Yeah, like, because I was, the way that we were climbing and growing in our first year, like I was, I, I was ready, like, I thought we were gonna need, you know, more than four trucks.
Like, 'cause it was, uh, the, the business was coming in and we couldn't keep up with the call volume. Like, and there was times we had to turn away jobs just because, you know, like we couldn't get to 'em fast enough. Yeah. The next one hopefully. I mean, shoot, may or June would be awesome, but, uh, yeah, come, uh, tax day and you know, hopefully after all that stuff, uh, we get some calls coming in, which April 15th is.
Not only my daughter's birthday, but it was Leonardo da Vinci's birthday as well.
Jack Carr: Hell yeah. Nice. So is that the, is that how you got the name then? [00:40:00]
Uh, so you never
Jack Carr: answered I'm still confused.
So the name actually came from, like, so I was looking up, you know, good quotes. Um, 'cause I, I, I like quotes, you know, like, um, and Leonardo da Vinci had a quote that was.
Water is the driving force of all nature. Right. And that one I was, that is perfect. I was like, we're gonna do, uh, at first it was, you know, da Vinci's drains, do we? No, I don't like that. Do we do da Vinci? Yeah. You know, and then I was thinking about, 'cause after, after doing, uh, some of the classes with the SBDC or, or you know, like just thinking about it, um, decided it was gonna be Da Vinci's Best Plumbing because.
What do people search for when they go to Google? Best plumbers near me. Right. Best plumbing near me. Yeah. Right. What if your name's already part of that search? You know, you're, you're gonna be ranked [00:41:00] a little bit higher than, uh, than a lot of the competitors that are, you know? Yeah.
Kenneth Bush: Mm-hmm.
John Doe Plumbing, you know, or, or whatever.
Yeah. And that was another thing. 'cause I didn't wanna name it after myself. 'cause guess what? Like. Who's gonna buy Kenny Bush Plumbing five, 10 years from now?
Jack Carr: You would be amazed. Well, yeah. I mean like George Brazil is a giant corporation, George Brazil and is not owned by George Brazil anymore. Yeah.
But it's
Jack Carr: still,
oh da Vinci's Best plumbing.
Like that's something I can scale, right? Like that's something I can, I can make big, I can, I can, yeah. You know, branch out across the nation if I needed to. Um, yeah. You know, I'm not, I'm not aiming that high right now, but, you know, the, the opportunity's there with the right name, with the right branding, um, everything.
Jack Carr: It's a fun branding play, that's for sure. I think that the name is great from a branding perspective. Uh, it's [00:42:00] definitely unique and memorable, which is always, always good to see.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's a name that people already trust. Right. Yeah. DaVinci, like, you know, people know that name. I trust it.
They're, they're already familiar with it, right? Yeah. So they'll be able, yeah. Even be able to remember it, you know, like, yeah. I feel like you'd get a lot of questions of like, is your last name DaVinci? I do like, that's. Yeah, I feel like that would come up a lot. I'm like, Nope. My last name's Bush. What is, uh, what's one mistake you'd tell new plumbing owners, like plumbing business owners to avoid?
Like, what, what would be the warning shot? Don't like? Okay. So know what you're worth and charge accordingly. Right. Don't go in and don't ever race to the bottom to try to just get work. Um, you don't wanna be the bottom dollar plumber. That's not, you know, like, and don't give your time away for free. You know, don't do free estimates, don't do none of that stuff.
Like, [00:43:00] make sure you're getting paid, whatever you're doing, you are making money and you're making enough money to cover all your expenses, plus have your growth and everything on top of it. So it's, have you made, have you made, uh, like Facebook groups or like, have you made other friends that are like pretty new on in the journey?
Uh, yeah, so even, uh, one of the plumbers that we had, you know, like I shared my price book with him and everything, you know, like, whatever, and, and try to try to coach him along 'cause I wanna see him succeed too, you know, like that's, I'm not, we, we both work for a company that they were mad as hell when we, like when we left and started our own things, right?
So, yeah, we're getting bad mouth and all this and like. I don't wanna be that kind of person. Like that is trash. Like that is trash. Yeah. If you're gonna envy or be jealous of somebody so much because they're not making you money, you know, like [00:44:00] that's. Yeah. That's, that's not the kind of people I wanna be.
If, uh, if you could go back and start over, like what would you do differently in those first few months? Had my wife start on the books instead of having me, like finance part, finances part? Yeah. Like that one was like I made. Such a mess of our 2023 and 2024 taxes. Yeah, it was, it was such a mess. Like we took a lot of money and a lot of time and effort from our accountant to fix everything.
Um, and also, yeah, uh, remain my wife, you know, like it took her a lot of our, like, she's still still working on, on, you know, last year's stuff, you know, like she's still trying to fix it. Which, so I stepped away from the, the finance part of it quite a bit. I don't do much with it anymore. I mean, I still pay some bills here and there, but that's, that's about it.
Um, I [00:45:00] don't try to do any bookkeeping, any accounting or nothing like that. I stick to what I know and. That is plumbing. Like that's
Jack Carr: good advice. Yeah. I mean, and a third party bookkeeper really isn't that expensive to outsource.
Uh, just make sure it's a legitimate company. So we paid out, oh
Jack Carr: no,
over $10,000 to a supposedly bookkeeper and accountant, you know, like they were a partnership.
Right. Um. We got taken. Yeah, we got taken for over $10,000. You know, like got told they were gonna do our taxes, that they were gonna fix our books. So we got our books scrambled even worse. And our taxes, we had to pay somebody else to deal. So, yeah. Um, rough. Yeah. Hire legitimate businesses. Don't, don't do anything.
A friend told me they ha know a guy that does this. [00:46:00] Don't do none of that stuff. Hire legitimate businesses, hire professionals. Um, and you know, that goes back to why we're in the trades as well. Right. You know, like, yeah. 'cause people, it's a good decision to hire a professional when you need help. Well, yeah.
Yeah. What are, what are your goals for the next couple years? Goals for the next couple years, I would say, you know, get, get three guys, uh, be able to step out of the truck completely. Um, yeah. Be able to get a, an office location where we're not working out of our house, you know, and, and be able to separate our home life from our business life.
'cause that is. That is, it's, it's rough and it's taxing on the relationship even, you know, like, just because, yeah, my wife and I, when we talk, there's not always, there's not always a lot of other discussion besides business now, you know, and it's, yeah, it, it has its own challenges there. But, um, yeah, [00:47:00] so business or my goals for the next couple, three years would be to, yeah, separate, uh, my home life and my business life.
And, uh, be able to take vacations. That would be, uh, that would be nice. That sounds
Jack Carr: good. That does sound good.
That does sound pretty nice. This was, uh, this was awesome. I, I appreciate you sharing your journey here. Um, it was, it was fun to get to talk to someone like early on in their entrepreneur. Journey.
I, I think this is my ninth. This is my ninth year. You still don't sleep well, Kenny, I I really hate to break it to you. Uh, that, that does not get better. It's, it's hard to remember the early, like the first year or two. Uh, just 'cause it's been, it's been a minute Yeah. For you. But I definitely remember just like drinking through a fire hose of just like, how do you drive leads?
How do you. Get people, how do you find [00:48:00] trucks that you can afford? Uh, what does pricing mean? Yeah, it's a lot. But I'm, I'm pumped for your success that you've seen this in your first year. I did find out leasing trucks is better than buying trucks. Buying used trucks. Yeah. Everything like that. You know, not only is leasing a hundred percent tax write off.
Kenneth Bush: Yeah.
You know, like buying the old U-Haul trucks, like we had to replace a motor in one of 'em already, you know? Yeah. And that was 10 grand down the, you know. Yeah. So it was, uh, yeah, we, uh, we, we've leased ours for, uh, eight years now. Seven years, and we learned it. Almost the exact same way that you just said you learned it.
Kenneth Bush: Yeah.
Except I think it was four engines, so it sounds like you're smarter than me, Kenny, you figured it out a lot quicker. It, it took at least four engines and, uh, an embarrassing amount of transmissions to realize maybe we should go newer. Yeah. It's just, you know, I think the thing is, is. Just [00:49:00] learning from the people around you, uh, surrounding yourself with like-minded people.
Yeah. Um, like you guys, you know, it's huge. Yeah. That is, that is everything. Create a network of people or join a network of people that are Yeah. Driving to excel in life that are business owners that are doing the same type of thing you are. It doesn't matter where they're at in the states or anything like that, you know, like, um.
You know, Facebook friends, we're not limited by our geographical location anymore. Like you can Yeah. And it's, it's the same thing going on over where you guys are at that is going on over here, you know, like, yeah. It might be different times and, but it's, it's, it's all the same stuff, you know? Yeah. So, yeah.
I. Yeah, that's why, uh, I'll give some selfless plugs for us here. But like the, our Facebook group has been a lot of fun. We have 800 people from all over the US and Canada, uh, in there, just contributing [00:50:00] every day. Um, it's been really valuable. We've been able to keep, you know, like vendors and stuff out. So it's really just other home service entrepreneurs asking each other questions.
Um, and that's also the whole idea behind our new product. Uh. The peer groups owned and operated pro, same exact thing. Uh, how do we surround ourselves with other people that we can just learn from and be supported from? Uh, so all, all about it. We're all about it. Well, well, thanks for coming on today, Kenny, this, this was awesome.
We loved having you on and very fun. We loved hearing your journey. Yeah, thank you guys. It was, uh, a lot of fun telling my story and I mean, we could probably go on for hours telling stories, but I. I am going to join your guys', uh, your, your group on Facebook. Oh, yeah. And I, yeah, join the Facebook group, follow along with you
Jack Carr: guys, and,
uh,
Jack Carr: yeah, stay in touch.
Kimmy, if people want to get ahold of you or find you somewhere, where should they go?
Um, I mean, [00:51:00] find me on, on Facebook. Uh, I mean, my name's Ken Bus. Um, I mean, look for the Da Vinci's Best Plumbing truck. I mean, that's my, that's my. Profile picture, that's the easiest way. Or they can always go to our website.
They're now in the Facebook group. Da Vinci's. Best find them in the Facebook group. Alright, thanks Kenny. Yep. Thank you guys.
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