Keep pushing bro, it’s normal to be scared and uncomfortable. I’m 24 and seeing your videos inspires me seeing your proses and emotions that come with growing and building a business.
If you want to become super rich, build a residential service division, new llc, to sell. The commercial division is just a cash cow. Residential companies are more valuable because one relationship can not hurt the biz, unlike construction, so anyone can buy it and take it over. Go rezi and sell for 100 mil.
Im glad to see you didn't miss a beat with the videos. I was worried about you there for a bit. You almost need to run service and construction like 2 separate businesses. It sucks for your guys to be working on a job and get pulled off to go do a service call. I worked for a company that did that to me and it was the main reason I left. I couldn't get anything done and spent more time packing my tools up than actually working. You need separate guys for each division. Truck stock is a lot more for a service company too. You need a lot more parts. I recommend getting a utility body van for service. I always had utility body vans working for other people. When I started my own thing I bought a regular ford van. It's very hard to have enough stock on the truck to run service. I spend a lot of time now running back and forth to get parts. It looks bad for the customer too when you need to leave and get parts. It's amazing how different service and new construction plumbing are. I like the new shop. You need to get a big Ole boss chair for that office to do videos from. You are too good for the garage now. You have reached executive status.
You are so right about the keeping it separated. I’ve been there too, and it doesn’t work. It’s just like you said, you end up just unloading tools and reloading tools all day and not getting shit done. I actually like your idea of the utility body van. I like the long wheelbase normal vans for construction, but I think for the service guys you’re spot on with the utility bed van. I honestly think that’s what I’m gonna do. I appreciate that comment. My main vendor came out to the shop on Friday and is looking to set up a consignment deal with me where will store a shit load of material of basic items I stock and he’ll come by once a month and have a beer with me and go through what we used. I think could be a huge money maker, but I’m worried about guys getting careless with the stock and being wasteful and it ending up costing me more money. It’s a total pain in the ass to have to go somewhere though to get a half inch 90 or a fill valve or some stupid shit like that though and it does make you look unprofessional. I’m definitely going to have to come up with some sort of system for the stock items.
Just curious what the utility body vans are? Are they the ones with all of open door latch locking shelves on the outside of the body? So more space for the inside?
@@PlumbingBanana it’s just like you said. It’s vans with the utility boxes on the side but still a covered interior part. If you stick it right they can be super sweet for residential service. You can get quick access to so much but still have a big part of the van for water heaters, sewer machines etc.
I say it can be very profitable! Was remodeling a new house I just bought in a semi rural area. My plumbers are making between 60-98 dollars an hour! Had no choice really. The city that was close to the house is about 30 miles away and those plumbers did not want to even travel. So basically you get what u get. I spent 8k in a second with fixtures I bought and the labor. From new water heater, toilets slab leak reroute through the attic. Shut off vales etc. U definitely had to think outside the box! One company I did use had all separated divisions camera scoping, plumbing, hvac etc! They all were not cheap but had to had the drains looked at with septic to ensure all the new work would drain! I have all the faith you can do residential! Investment in yourself and supplies will definitely pay for itself in the long run! Scrap on!
Heavy is the weight of the crown brassman. My 2 cents is full send on the service tech. Maybe not all 3 at once but the service end of shit will always be flowing. I worry about intrest rates driving down new construction, but im not tapped into that scene so its just speculation. To quote you "people always have to take a shit, its recession proof"
That’s a really good point. It would be really easy for me to sink 100 grand into this and lose it all. I’m gonna try to be a little smaller scale on this one. One thing I didn’t mention in the video though is whenever I get two more dedicated service guys I’ll definitely need to get another office worker. I would need someone to help with the dispatching and the billing.
@@treenopie those options are available, but I don’t think I’d wanna go with it because I’ll inevitably need to expand my office staff anyway. I feel like there would be a lot of labor pains and using a service and it would still take a lot of getting used to and then I’d have to eventually transition to a full-time employee anyway, and have to go through that all over again. I’d , probably rather just bite the bullet and hire somebody.
I opened a residential/commercial service shop. The one van fully stocked is 80-100k. The challenges ive had are mainly needing a CSR to answer the phones and scheduling and someone to do the invoices. Even for one service van the time spent on scheduling, and invoicing is insane. Also getting paid on time from some of these property management companies can be difficult. You have to have enough cash flow to float until you get paid. Also everything is always an emergency and you need to be able to call customers and reschedule alot to get to the emergency call. I try and only schedule two service calls a day just so it leaves time for an emergency call so i dont lose customers.
I already have a lot of shit because I’m an established company so I’ll save a little bit as I’m not just starting out but it could still easily get up to 80-100k like you said. I already do a shitload of work for property management companies and the stretched out pay is actually beneficial for me at this point. I’ve been billing like 60-80k/ month in commercial service a while and now the checks are just regularly streaming in. With the residential I will collect on site. The CSR is going to be tough but I need one anyway and I can get them to help with me book keeping and billing wich will be nice. We’ll see where it goes.
Two or three of my guys are doing about 60% service but that’s mostly projects and infrastructure type work. It’s probably been a month since we’ve worked on a toilet. The majority of my guys are still doing mainly construction projects. The service work I do now is with three or four customers who I bill. None of my guys collect on site or invoice themselves. In order to switch it up to actual service I’ll need to get techs that are actually doing their own invoices and often times collecting on site. I’ve never had one employee collect a payment. It’s gonna be a pretty big transition, which is why I feel like I need to just hire strictly for that and keep it separated. my billing is easiest as shit right now but once I start collecting a whole bunch of little tiny payments and having a whole bunch, a little tiny calls it’s gonna take a shit load more office work for me. I’ll definitely need another employee to help in the office as well.
That sounds like the perfect work day to me…water heater in the morning, drain cleaning call in the afternoon. It always baffles me how many guys hate drain cleaning. I love it. It’s such easy money, what’s there to not like about it
Because the drain cleaning calls always come at 3:30 when you’re already heading home and it’s an hour away from the house and then you gotta fight rush-hour traffic. So for you to go do that 30 minute call it added like 2 1/2 hours to your day minimum, that’s what drove me crazy about it. Also, it’s the unknown. if I show up to a call where it’s a broken pipe or a leak I can know exactly what I have to do to fix it and how long it’s gonna take. With a drain there’s a lot of variables and who knows what the fuck is going on.
Brass. I work for a service & construction mechanical shop (Union shop) in Ontario, Canada that pays top rate. I bid my own jobs, make my own material list, complete the jobs etc. lots of freedom and I love it. But they don’t incentivize me to take calls if I’m done early (which is usually the case)- I could make them a lot more money if they did. That idea of throwing a extra $100 everytime there’s a late afternoon drain call would be good idea.
You’re right about that. with the crew of three guys and one truck I can do about 750 K in construction/build-out at about a 35% margin but if I do it right I can get one service tech to do 500-750k by himself on a 45% margin. It just takes a lot more infrastructure to build that up. I feel like I kind of have that infrastructure now.
It’s tough but not impossible . I usually just offer about $10/hour more than other companies and tell them to give me there dream list of tools and packouts and I’ll get them for them. Guys are more willing to come my way after that stuff. You can buy talent but you can’t be cheap.
Dial the core business in before spreading out, it sounds like you're at another point right now where you're unsure of what you want to do. If you want to do residential service be prepared for 20-25 billable hours per week, callbacks, material wastage, customers rejecting quotes.. you'll be peering over your P&L after a month shooting a video about how you're now an ipad salesman because paying a guy to do a few 30min jobs per day "fairly" is drying your cash reserves up
Keep pushing bro, it’s normal to be scared and uncomfortable. I’m 24 and seeing your videos inspires me seeing your proses and emotions that come with growing and building a business.
Hell yeah! Thanks dude. I’m trying my best to not glamorize it or bullshit y’all.
If you want to become super rich, build a residential service division, new llc, to sell. The commercial division is just a cash cow. Residential companies are more valuable because one relationship can not hurt the biz, unlike construction, so anyone can buy it and take it over. Go rezi and sell for 100 mil.
Borrowing has hidden costs people don't realize they're paying.
Yeeeeeee hawwwww.... love to see your gonna expand back into residential. TOTAL TAKE OVER
Im glad to see you didn't miss a beat with the videos. I was worried about you there for a bit.
You almost need to run service and construction like 2 separate businesses. It sucks for your guys to be working on a job and get pulled off to go do a service call. I worked for a company that did that to me and it was the main reason I left. I couldn't get anything done and spent more time packing my tools up than actually working. You need separate guys for each division. Truck stock is a lot more for a service company too. You need a lot more parts. I recommend getting a utility body van for service. I always had utility body vans working for other people. When I started my own thing I bought a regular ford van. It's very hard to have enough stock on the truck to run service. I spend a lot of time now running back and forth to get parts. It looks bad for the customer too when you need to leave and get parts. It's amazing how different service and new construction plumbing are.
I like the new shop. You need to get a big Ole boss chair for that office to do videos from. You are too good for the garage now. You have reached executive status.
You are so right about the keeping it separated. I’ve been there too, and it doesn’t work. It’s just like you said, you end up just unloading tools and reloading tools all day and not getting shit done. I actually like your idea of the utility body van. I like the long wheelbase normal vans for construction, but I think for the service guys you’re spot on with the utility bed van. I honestly think that’s what I’m gonna do. I appreciate that comment. My main vendor came out to the shop on Friday and is looking to set up a consignment deal with me where will store a shit load of material of basic items I stock and he’ll come by once a month and have a beer with me and go through what we used. I think could be a huge money maker, but I’m worried about guys getting careless with the stock and being wasteful and it ending up costing me more money. It’s a total pain in the ass to have to go somewhere though to get a half inch 90 or a fill valve or some stupid shit like that though and it does make you look unprofessional. I’m definitely going to have to come up with some sort of system for the stock items.
Just curious what the utility body vans are? Are they the ones with all of open door latch locking shelves on the outside of the body? So more space for the inside?
@@PlumbingBanana it’s just like you said. It’s vans with the utility boxes on the side but still a covered interior part. If you stick it right they can be super sweet for residential service. You can get quick access to so much but still have a big part of the van for water heaters, sewer machines etc.
@PlumbingBanana I've had both kinds. I didn't like the side boxes because they eventually leak. I like all my stuff in one box.
I say it can be very profitable! Was remodeling a new house I just bought in a semi rural area. My plumbers are making between 60-98 dollars an hour! Had no choice really. The city that was close to the house is about 30 miles away and those plumbers did not want to even travel. So basically you get what u get. I spent 8k in a second with fixtures I bought and the labor. From new water heater, toilets slab leak reroute through the attic. Shut off vales etc. U definitely had to think outside the box! One company I did use had all separated divisions camera scoping, plumbing, hvac
etc! They all were not cheap but had to had the drains looked at with septic to ensure all the new work would drain! I have all the faith you can do residential! Investment in yourself and supplies will definitely pay for itself in the long run! Scrap on!
Heavy is the weight of the crown brassman. My 2 cents is full send on the service tech. Maybe not all 3 at once but the service end of shit will always be flowing. I worry about intrest rates driving down new construction, but im not tapped into that scene so its just speculation. To quote you "people always have to take a shit, its recession proof"
Go for it's bro. If you vision it, it's time to do it.💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾
Nice man! 💪
slow and steady wins the race
Sometimes. Sometimes fortune favors the bold
Continual improvement requires experimenting, the trick is to minimize overall cost of experiments.
That’s a really good point. It would be really easy for me to sink 100 grand into this and lose it all. I’m gonna try to be a little smaller scale on this one. One thing I didn’t mention in the video though is whenever I get two more dedicated service guys I’ll definitely need to get another office worker. I would need someone to help with the dispatching and the billing.
For the experiment can you contract the extra office work with a service agency, or a temp service?
@@treenopie those options are available, but I don’t think I’d wanna go with it because I’ll inevitably need to expand my office staff anyway. I feel like there would be a lot of labor pains and using a service and it would still take a lot of getting used to and then I’d have to eventually transition to a full-time employee anyway, and have to go through that all over again. I’d , probably rather just bite the bullet and hire somebody.
I opened a residential/commercial service shop. The one van fully stocked is 80-100k. The challenges ive had are mainly needing a CSR to answer the phones and scheduling and someone to do the invoices. Even for one service van the time spent on scheduling, and invoicing is insane. Also getting paid on time from some of these property management companies can be difficult. You have to have enough cash flow to float until you get paid. Also everything is always an emergency and you need to be able to call customers and reschedule alot to get to the emergency call. I try and only schedule two service calls a day just so it leaves time for an emergency call so i dont lose customers.
I already have a lot of shit because I’m an established company so I’ll save a little bit as I’m not just starting out but it could still easily get up to 80-100k like you said. I already do a shitload of work for property management companies and the stretched out pay is actually beneficial for me at this point. I’ve been billing like 60-80k/ month in commercial service a while and now the checks are just regularly streaming in. With the residential I will collect on site. The CSR is going to be tough but I need one anyway and I can get them to help with me book keeping and billing wich will be nice. We’ll see where it goes.
If your guys are already doing 60% service like you said why not just dump more fuel on that? It’s obviously in demand.
Two or three of my guys are doing about 60% service but that’s mostly projects and infrastructure type work. It’s probably been a month since we’ve worked on a toilet. The majority of my guys are still doing mainly construction projects. The service work I do now is with three or four customers who I bill. None of my guys collect on site or invoice themselves. In order to switch it up to actual service I’ll need to get techs that are actually doing their own invoices and often times collecting on site. I’ve never had one employee collect a payment. It’s gonna be a pretty big transition, which is why I feel like I need to just hire strictly for that and keep it separated. my billing is easiest as shit right now but once I start collecting a whole bunch of little tiny payments and having a whole bunch, a little tiny calls it’s gonna take a shit load more office work for me. I’ll definitely need another employee to help in the office as well.
That sounds like the perfect work day to me…water heater in the morning, drain cleaning call in the afternoon. It always baffles me how many guys hate drain cleaning. I love it. It’s such easy money, what’s there to not like about it
Because the drain cleaning calls always come at 3:30 when you’re already heading home and it’s an hour away from the house and then you gotta fight rush-hour traffic. So for you to go do that 30 minute call it added like 2 1/2 hours to your day minimum, that’s what drove me crazy about it. Also, it’s the unknown. if I show up to a call where it’s a broken pipe or a leak I can know exactly what I have to do to fix it and how long it’s gonna take. With a drain there’s a lot of variables and who knows what the fuck is going on.
Brass. I work for a service & construction mechanical shop (Union shop) in Ontario, Canada that pays top rate. I bid my own jobs, make my own material list, complete the jobs etc. lots of freedom and I love it. But they don’t incentivize me to take calls if I’m done early (which is usually the case)- I could make them a lot more money if they did. That idea of throwing a extra $100 everytime there’s a late afternoon drain call would be good idea.
💪
Just ordered the ridgid 70803 mini camera 100’ 5k hoping it will be enough for residential
I haven’t looked at that one until just now. That seems perfect. I think it would be ideal.
Residential service will bring you in a shit ton of money every week. You’re leaving money on the table and I ain’t talking about chicken feed.
You’re right about that. with the crew of three guys and one truck I can do about 750 K in construction/build-out at about a 35% margin but if I do it right I can get one service tech to do 500-750k by himself on a 45% margin. It just takes a lot more infrastructure to build that up. I feel like I kind of have that infrastructure now.
Hard to find good service plumbers that can write invoices and speak with clients
It’s tough but not impossible . I usually just offer about $10/hour more than other companies and tell them to give me there dream list of tools and packouts and I’ll get them for them. Guys are more willing to come my way after that stuff. You can buy talent but you can’t be cheap.
🦨
Looking at a Job only doing drain cleaning for around $30/hr, that seems low after hearing your numbers. 😂😂
Depending on your area. Outside of big cities, it might be harder to get more than 30.
Dial the core business in before spreading out, it sounds like you're at another point right now where you're unsure of what you want to do.
If you want to do residential service be prepared for 20-25 billable hours per week, callbacks, material wastage, customers rejecting quotes.. you'll be peering over your P&L after a month shooting a video about how you're now an ipad salesman because paying a guy to do a few 30min jobs per day "fairly" is drying your cash reserves up