Today's guest, Mike Braun, has been in the gutter business, gutter cleaning business and now once again in the plumbing business. Joe Crisara discusses 'The 3 Keys To Plumbing Success' with Mike and how Mike is hitting a home run with his plumbing business!
This episode of The Service MVP Podcast will not only educate you but motivate you as well to grow your service business.
This is a must listen episode!
Contact Joe Crisara Service MVP.
Podcast Episode Transcription:
So I'm 1.86 million the total sales numbers don't mean nothing to me the numbers you don't never really talk about Numbers it's all closing and I don't care if I close a $500 job or a $5000 job or a $25,000 job I wanna help a customer welcome to the service MVP podcast this is where you go to learn how to use pure motive service to create higher value to grow your results grow your results and now here is your host America's service sales coach Joe Crisara alright everybody well Welcome to the service MBB podcast and my name is Joe Coursera America's service sales coach and we are here today with one of my best friends in the plumbing industry today's subject is going to be called three keys to plumbing success and we brought with me again a dear friend somebody who has invested in his own success his name is Mike Braun he's from Minnesota he is a plumber he has had a license for 16 years Mike welcome to our podcast welcome Joe how are you my goodness I see you're a man of few words Mike but he's definitely a man of bigger action when he comes to using our system and taking it Mike why don't you go ahead and just share with the people who are listening just a little bit about kind of how you got started plumbing and then how many years you been doing this and what led you to the service part of plumbing go ahead and tell us about that absolutely Joel through high school I actually wanted to be an electrician got zapped a couple of times they said hell with this start looking at the plumbing world while I was looking at that I was doing rain gutters in the nights and weekend started when I was fifteen doing gutters and nobody ever heard of a gutter guy so I concentrated on plumbing and I started doing new construction graduated January 15th 2005 start plumbing January 17th 2005 doing new construction and remodels and then during this whole process I'm doing gutters on the nights and weekends and we just did new construction there's a lot of work it didn't matter how cold it was how hot it was you busted your balls and then the you know the economy crashed I sat on unemployment for one week and I said well this is silly I'm going to concentrate on my gutter business me and my wife really put the hammer down on that we grew to I think our Max we had 1213 guys going very fun industry to be honest I just got burnt out of dealing with drunks and drug addicts that's that industry and then after about eight years we decided to put that company on the market I was told that it's going to take a year to sell I think it was 90 days later we were close we sold the business I took a couple weeks off started I was going to go back plumbing again and then all of a sudden I end up buying a gutter cleaning company ran that for a couple of years and then I said to hell with it once I sold that I want to get back into plumbing and I didn't I was nervous to do what I was nervous of service so actually what I did is I went around the twin city metro here and interviewed with a bunch of different service shops around town and I started with one service shop I really liked the process the way they did everything I went interviewed a couple other companies and then all of a sudden I ended up committing to them that was two years and two months ago there's some things that I was fearful for but now it's fun and I'm constantly learning and educating myself and growing every day I wanna give you special praise Mike because a couple things you know Mike Works for a company I'm not gonna bring up any names of the company he started with that company a little over two years ago he called me about I don't know maybe a year ago about a year into it he must have like you said you found me on Facebook right Mike yes Sir Yep we're in next our organization and they have some great training I did their training but I wanted more and I wanted more and more and more I I just feel like you know just like reading one book you're not going to get everything and I I did some research online watching all these different Facebook groups and everybody kept mentioning this uncle Joe and I said who the hell is uncle Joe so I started doing some research tonight I found this and I kind of Start the Joe and it was life changing it was it was really cool well I tell you what I I agree next door is a great organization and you know definitely I'd say a lot of our members a lot of lot of people like coach our next our members and definitely recommended for people to get into more of a professional mindset that's really what I think the best thing that is done in the in the financials and they do a great job people with the basic training they do a great job with that this is just like you said another layer on top of all that it enhances it and I agree with that I think it's just everything working together everyone working to do the same thing which is make people like you successful Mike with this being That two years later Mike you said you you're finished this year it's your second year doing this as a plumber the reason we have him here Mike is the three keys the plumbing success are is because Mike can share his number on the second year Mike what's your second year numbers you're going to wrap it up right now or that you did the week New Year's leave will be tomorrow and New Year's Day is on Sunday today's Friday so go ahead and tell us Mike what are you wrapping the year up here so I'm 1.86 million and I the pretty cool thing about me the total sales Doesn't mean nothing to me I concentrate even my leadership team my managers like the numbers you don't never really talk about the numbers it's all closing and I don't care if I close a $500 job or a $5000 job or a $25,000 job I want to help a customer obviously we all know the $25,000 jobs are cooler but at the end of the day if I'm helping a customer and doing a great job they're gonna call us back they're gonna be a customer of ours for life and supposing this for everything for me and I finished the year out and I was pretty proud of it I think I finished it like a 77% close rate and the other thing too is I mean the difference between like the service stuff you can figure it out and get traction when I was doing new construction it was 4060 hours a week sun up till sundown I finished this year I think I finished like $1400 I took a ton of time off this year and if you really concentrate on your craft and concentrate at being better than you were yesterday stop looking at all the noise around you and really focus on what you want to do you don't have to work all that hours just be really you know be very effective on the hours that you're there yeah I think that's the key and we always talk about ironically focusing on the money part of it is the Exact opposite thing we gotta do to be successful I think we talked about this before yeah absolutely you know I see a lot of people looking at everybody else around them dude put your head down and grind and money is money is the money is the result of doing the job well and it's not something you can focus if you focus on money most like you're not going to make any always say right and so Mike let's just go right into this three steps of of plumbing that says I know I probably couldn't have a 12 hour interview with you and really kind of So let's just go ahead and try and move forward to this material the three keys to plumbing success that Mike can share with you for all of you plumbers listening out there who say that oh this is an HVAC you can't do that much and here's what I look at it 1.8 million 1.86 hundred $1000 you're talking about $660,000 that is 1.8 million $660,000 in trust that people have trusted their project to you and you have completed the project satisfactory and you would be able to keep going if you weren't making sure that you're executing a trusted project for people that make sense absolutely and it comes down to like I said we can mean you can ramble on for 12 hours about this stuff because it's so fun and I I get consumed by it actually my wife just gets married and I get consumed by and I just read and I read the same page I mean the front when I was in your class the book that you had developed the total version book the front page is filled with notes and I gotta read that page every at least once a week and just go through all my little notes all the little tidbits that we just talked about in class and it's so helpful and just changing your vocabulary so you know jumping into the you know the three things that I think are really successful one of the biggest eye opening things for me and even some of my team around me like what the hell you talking about Mike but like so I say Joe you're your toilet flapper is is worn out you're Jump on home depot's website you're gonna say ohh toilet flapper it's it's 699 so why does Mike want to charge me 285 or $300 for it right but if we start talking about a water level control system and I almost when I do my calls I almost play dumb what is it's a water level control system or what's that it's the water level control system it's inside the tank but if you sit down and talk about a flapper all you're doing is throwing money off the door and one of your number one things is I I forget your exact words but every task you do has got to be worth it's worth typically $500 right so we don't talk about a wax ring I talk about we're going to rebuild all the mounting hardware and reset all the all the critical sewer connections holy smoke the sewer connection so basically you're saying number one is get rid of the industry jargon and adopt and adopt A more professional way of communicating the service not the parts yeah yeah I shut off valve that that that that's worth $2.85 on art right but if we talk about the emergency disconnects that control your water distribution system dude you're going to start you're going to Taking these 2002 thousand $3000 average tickets I really like what you talk about a system right where you got a hole in the water pipe no you gotta failure in the water distribution system and that I it blew my mind and I came back and you know some of our install team was like what the heck does this stuff mean right I'm like dude it just dumb it down to plumbing terms but I'm using it as a as a as a sales process but I think also Mike it clarifies what the customer benefit is right like we're gonna rebuild that water level control system which is I mean to say I mean if you want to give people the parts that means the consumer has to do with themselves in a way like here's your flapper It's like go figure that out it's like dude no we're gonna rebuild cause it's not just the flapper you put you put the flapper in but you it's like you don't test it and adjust things and make sure things are cleaned up in there to make sure that if you did a flapper it would work it's going to actually work and of course doing the flapper with an old toilet is not going to work very well because now that's another secret I think about part of it which is number 2 we move right into that not that you can't continue on number one but #2 is moves quickly quick here is leave your mother in a truck and look at the big picture instead of looking at just the flapper what's making that flapper go back go ahead Mike could you expand on #2 which leave your mother in the truck you told me I love this I I just thought of it as a beautiful story so last year we brought on a fantastic plumber and when he came to us I called him a broke fix plumber you are a broke fix plumber you walk into the house and you fix that wax ring you fixed that flapper we walked into a house and the lady said it was a the toilet kept running I'm like fantastic 10 year old house really icky water I walked upstairs and it was a Kohler it was a Kohler toilet with the canister Clapper I looked at it and I'm like just sit back and watch this I I told the the And that was with me so watch we're gonna put together some really cool options for this lady says what do you mean I said let's put together some premium mid-grade and economy solution for this lady walked out to the truck and I put together 5 new toilets right this house is 10 years old five new toilets I think it was like $5500 whatever was 6000 months and then I broke it all the way down I broke it down to rebuilding all of our toilets right so new toilets rebuilding all of our toilets replacing just that one toilet and then also like rebuilding just that one toilet right and the way I went inside and I I spelled it out to her I said hey I'm happy to do any which option you want to do but here's kind of what my thought process on this this toilet just happened to fail you mentioned to me earlier that you're very busy you travel a lot I wanna take all the ease off you so I'm happy to rebuild that clip but also that toilet just happened to fail first all these other ones are gonna fail too she says Mike why are we talking about this replace all the toilets and he looked at me he's like dude we just came here for a toilet flapper and you just sold $5500 in total I said dude did I did I do anything crooked cause you know Joe you've seen this a million times when you're doing when you're doing really good and successful people go oh Joe's crooked Joe's assignee salesman Joe's yeah no deal so leaving your mother in the truck is it's some people go well especially plumbers right when the plumbers are transitioning into the sales position plumbers know what it takes to fix it right they know it's a 30 or $3 flapper right well why are we charging 300 or they know it's a $700 water heater why are we charging 3500 whatever we're charging right you gotta realize these people are paying a professional you set the stage for that professionalism for of them if you come in sloppy I had a very successful appliance store come to my house the other day and put new washer dryer in I both lost my hip when they came in my house and they didn't put shoe covers on I like was ready to freak and I'm making a point to make sure the homeowner knows that I'm putting shoe covers on to protect their floor going back to living another truck man lay it all out on the table open your eyes to everything in the home when you follow a process and I will admit sometimes I I struggle getting into a process right like I really struggle if I go to a home for a sump pump how do I get upstairs in the master bedroom or master bathroom that's a struggle but if you if you stick to your process last night I went to a house for fixing leaking kitchen sink I walked out of there just over $10,000 and I walked out of the water heater softener kitchen sink two lavatory sinks right and a gas regulator how did I do that I just brought that all to her attention and I stressed and I said you can To the one time we can do this on a rainy day but my biggest fear is for you is to have this 22 year old water heater fail on you on New Year's Eve when you can't have a service professional be all here two days well Mike let me just tell you something you kind of speak to exactly what I've always said most plumbers think that consumers feel this is a bother to having a plumber in their house the consumer is like man if I could have a plumber stay in this house and take care of all this stuff if they offer me this stuff I would do it and so by offering the premium option and leaving In the truck and say you know what this is a faucet league what are people because the mother in a truck is saying don't go to the other stuff they're not gonna want the water heater and water heater but you're like you know what mom stay in the truck I'm just going to offer him everything and let the client choose for themselves and I think that what most people don't realize is that when you got a professional plumber in your house you would like them to stay here and get things because that's what you found like over the whole this one year with success you've had sometimes I mentioned to like my manager I'm like hey man I really apologize I'm really slow and he's like no dude Whatever you do don't change what you're doing I'll go to a house for three hours right and I try to spend an hour just talking about I've been a I've been a Packer fan I've been a New York Giants fan you know just get on the scene the same age as the client and we always talk about you should be able to walk out of that house in the next day tell anybody five things about that customer and if it's their dogs name or their kids go all this stuff and if you create a friend people wanna buy my friend
And if it's their dog's name or Game become a friend give every Give the best service you can and how would you like it if I came to your house Joe and you had to call me back two days later because I didn't look under the sink next to it and it was an inconvenience for your life you couldn't go out on your yacht to cruise around the ocean yeah I think you're I think you're a lazy Plummer who's too busy to look at that stuff that's like a thing absolutely while Mike man I'm falling in love with you all over again except for one thing you said even Packer fans why no no no no no no no no Oh no I've been I've been I've been to San Francisco fan you just said you're daft to who you're right just teasing you Mike I'm just teasing you but because you know the Packers I mean come on I'm just teasing you like let's go on the number three OK let's get back on track which is you said number #3 is that you are a student I was gonna give everybody this thing here Mike's company did not send them to our training Mike said I'm going to pay for my own training Mike how important is it for you to keep learning and you keep consuming information to learn more and you Michael just called me randomly like Joe I got this from what do you think I should have done there I'm like Mike get Melissa on the fly 7-7 minutes or less than he's I got it Joe he goes out there and it turns out in the 20 then he called me he's got 20,000 on that one because they did that Mike tell me about how important it is that people have to the learning doesn't stop once you get your license and you're done you keep learning that's the part that really impresses me the most go and talk about being a student like #3 oh eyes and ears open at all times nonstop Literature so I'm in the process it's funny I'm in the process right now starting a hobby farm so I always say on the weekends is my time but during the week is my profession time so every morning I'm I live half hour 45 minutes West of the Twin Cities every day when I drive in I've got videos playing on my on my phone and I forget who wasn't it was Warren Buffett said you know if you spent so many hours on your phone a day you can you can get a four year college degree right soon constantly learn and if you find a 5 minute video clip that you love I watch that damn thing on replay right so it's constantly learning like I'm going to another next start event next is a great process right there they're fantastic your stuff is fantastic I've seen I would love to go out to see like victor stuff right I want to keep learning and what I've done I've created my own I call it hybrid process right your process is fantastic the process that I learned before is fantastic when you constantly keep learning and educating yourself I think you're just going to become better and better you look at sport professionals on the weekends Weekdays leaders don't sit around they constantly gotta be in shape and learn it at first it was really tough for me because all the training stuff out there in the home service business so much busier towards HVAC and I would love to sell HVAC I think I I think I would I would crush it I think it would be really fun at the end of the day it's all the same right i mean a cracked heat exchanger exchanger right is no different than a burnt out burner assembly on a water heater right cracked sewer pipe or whatever right yeah yeah so when you're constantly learning it's funny because in my organization I reached out to everybody on my direct peers and said hey you know would be really cool once every two weeks we're just sitting on a round table around the table and say hey how do you handle this call right and how do you handle this call what do you do on this objection like me personally I'll admit the number one call I need a softeners I cannot figure out how softeners right we have a dude on our team the guy crushes water solids I wanna pick his brain there's nobody else calling him how to pick his brain and truthfully I'd like I think that's how 90% of the trades actually learn stuff is because you can't learn it in school but when somebody said we all leave the trade school we don't know anything until we get in the field and talk to an actual plumber or another crazy guy he's like he teaches us that little trick of the trade if you will could just be one small word or one small phrase right Mike even not even learning like to better my craft but you know being a student when I go into a customer's home I'm a student I want to learn about that customer and learn their lifestyle and learn what they're about and how many kids they have and you know start talking about dry skin and water quality and gas leaks and future expansions and can I set them up better for future of the family and that goes back to not even learning at home how to be better in training like a sales process and everything else but also just being a student of your client and I think you can present them better solutions if you know your client right One of the biggest things I was asking do you know how long this Smith is gonna live in her home no I didn't ask that question dude you just you screwed yourself if they're going to be there 15 years start talking about a tankless water heater right even money and being green and show them everything possible do they really like that toilet I love it when I sitting at the table with the older generation they're tall and they're trying to get up off this old toilet and I'm like hey do you ever know like when you put a holiday gas station that nice commercial toilet we can put them in your house yeah let me tell you about get your checkbook out and I'll tell you more while Mike But you know what as they say a good meeting starts on time but a great one ends on time and you know like I said I I feel like as much as we have talked in the past we definitely feel like we need to talk more and definitely let's make a commitment that we do talk more in 2023 what do you think of that yes Sir I'm honored that and for sure and Mike I wanna say thank you again for sharing this valuable information to inspire thousands of plumbers will be listening to this and thank you for being just a good friend Mike because that's really the biggest thing I got from him is that his friendship is just gives me a chill on my spine to realize that Mike is my friend and I really appreciate that Mike absolutely thank you very much I appreciate everything you do for me person also for the industry your content is fire man well thank you so much and we appreciate that everybody have a great one we'll see you on the next episode everybody have a good one now!
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