This is the 5th in my ongoing series of interviews with small business owners. The goal is to tell a story in which other small business owners will find encouragement, ideas, and confirmation that what they are experiencing is shared by others! These interviews are about extending our sense of community as small business owners.
Brody Funk – Owner of The Super Plumber
In 2006, Brody Funk moved to Vancouver Island in British Columbia and established The Super Plumber. The Super Plumber is a plumbing business based on the radical notion that the primary product is people, not toilets and hot water tanks, and that a customer should know exactly what they are going to pay before they buy (flat pricing rather than time-and-materials).
The result is a business aimed at treating people well, increasing transparency and profit margins, and reducing complexity for customers and technicians.
Brody’s gift as a business owner is that he combines a commitment to systems and consistency with an equal commitment to people. He sees that the two things go hand-in-hand: when you are committed to your systems, your customers experience greater consistency in service. Also, great systems and great training help create a confident workforce that ‘gets’ the organizations goals, and team-members are equipped to help it achieve them.
Brody’s success is remarkable. In just under 6 years he has increased revenues, the size of his workforce, and market share. All while improving his profit margin several points per year every single year.
And all this in an economy where common wisdom has business-to-consumer businesses struggling.
Brody’s performance is enhanced by is his consistent focus on the business rather than on worrying about the environment. A lot of business owners like to talk about “keeping the eye on the ball” but never define what the ball is, and therefore can’t keep their eye on it. Brody’s ball is his people: his employees and his customers. That’s where his eye is, and minor distractions like an imploding consumer economy barely warrant a glance.
Hello Brody. Tell me about the beginning.
“I started in Saskatoon in the trades in 1999. I was working for a plumbing company between 2004 and 2006 that was using the flat price system promoted by PSI (Plumber’s Success International) and related industry round tables. There were lots of things at play that had me ending up on the west coast and starting The Super Plumber.
My mom and dad live on Vancouver Island and we were out visiting quite often. On some of those trips I would look through the Yellow Pages and interview with plumbing businesses looking for a job with a business that was using the flat pricing system. The idea of moving out was in the back of my mind. I was really committed to the idea of working for a company that used flat pricing and the other systems I knew worked. But I just couldn’t find a business like that!
The more I looked, the more it seemed like the businesses out here were behind the competitive environment I was used to in Saskatchewan where the transparent, flat price, highly systematic approach to running a trades business was a lot more common.
So one day I just decided this was ripe territory for me to start my own business. The turning point came when I talked to my dad about it and told him about the business idea. When he thought it was a good idea, it gave me the confidence to take the next big step.
Things happened fast after that. One day I just said flat out to my wife “We’re moving. I’ve already phoned PSI and things are in the works to set up a business with a PSI membership on Vancouver Island.”
I made the decision so quickly that I told my boss that I was leaving the company and moving to BC, just one day after he had promoted me to a management position!”
What is the biggest challenge in your business right now? What are you doing to deal with that?
“People. Building the team I need to keep growing The Super Plumber into the most successful plumbing business on Vancouver Island.
It is easy to get business, but it’s hard to get people. And the people are everything to my business.
This is a service-intensive, face-to-face business. We don’t sell plumbing; we sell service provided by people. That’s how important they are. My product is my people.
Even in our ad in the Yellow Pages emphasizes that we sell service, not plumbing as a commodity. And when you have that approach, you have no competition. Anyone can sell and install hot water tanks and toilets. Those are just commodities. People are the only thing that make a difference.
In order to be successful with The Super Plumber, you have to have a great mix of knowledge, technical and manual skills, and people skills. The people skills matter the most, but the technical side is so important. Finding people with that right mix is really hard here.
The best solution I have is to hire green and train like crazy. I hire for attitude and personality and then train for the technical and sales skills. The biggest reason for this is that we do business differently than other contractors, and learning, understanding, and absorbing our culture is just way easier when they come to us green.
It’s not just the employees that need to relearn what plumbing means; it is a challenge to educate the customer. But again the solution is our people. Everyone, from our office team to the guys who show up at your house, trains every week. We are constantly refining our ability to communicate our message; we roll-play like crazy… we do everything we can to put people at ease, make things as simple and transparent as possible, and completely change all the fears people have about having a trades person out to their home.”
What is your biggest success right now? What is your role in bringing that about?
“[Laughs] People!
My people are incredible. Every single one of them has bought into the philosophy of the Super Plumber, they are so well educated, and really see the vision for what we are doing that makes us better. Just as importantly they see that the long-term success of the Super Plumber equals their success. They know that anything they do to support our mission will turn right around and support their own success. I make sure of that.
And we have the proof that it works. We are on track to grow exponentially in 2011/2012. And our team definitely sees benefits from that!
My role in getting us here was surrounding myself with all the smart successful people like the ones at PSI, the Service Round Table, my buddy Dennis McKee at The Furnace Guys in Saskatoon, my business coach [interviewer's disclosure: that's me].
It’s in my fricken’ DNA. When I see something that someone can prove to me works, I don’t think about it, I just do it. I don’t analyze it to death. I don’t question the success of others. And I raise the bar as quickly as I hit my targets.”
What concerns you the most in the business environment right now?
[Brody sat still thinking about this question for a long time] “Nothing. Really! I just don’t focus on that stuff. I need my focus for my team and for my customers and my own business.
In fact when I do look at my competitors at all, I just notice that they are falling down on the job of taking care of business. I listen to all the excuses they give about why this system or that system won’t work, and I capitalize on that mindset.
Any time I hear something like “That won’t work here in Nanaimo.” Or “That’ll never work in the Cowichan Valley,” all I think is “Good, I’ll be taking your customers then.” When someone tells me something won’t work, that’s just a challenge to dig even deeper.
I know we are the black sheep. That’s fine by me. In this economy I just see trades guys, especially some of the older businesses, walking away from new opportunities and basically giving up. We’re ready to step up. The economy hasn’t slowed me down one bit.”
What’s next? Where do you see your next growth opportunity?
“New markets. We just bought out our first business in Victoria and we’ll be growing that market.
I’m a huge fan of Jim Abrams from PSI, and absolutely believe what he says about success in this industry: it’s all about expansion, acquiring market share, and doing that as rapidly as can be managed through acquisitions. The Victoria one was the first, but it’s a long way from the last.
Also I really believe what one of the successful business owners told me at a recent Service Round Table conference: “Never take your finger off the button.” And by that he meant that in the service industry, micro-managing the service process is something you can never stop doing. There is a lot of room for initiative, but when it comes to how my people interact with customers, I don’t take my eye off that for a second.
The numbers too. Having things like monthly profit and loss reports is basically useless to me. That month is gone, and there is nothing I can do to fix it. I need my numbers every day, every minute if I can get them. If something is going sideways I want to know about it and fix it right now. I live by my DMR’s [Daily Management Reports].
Another thing we have coming up is the next step for our team: we will be looking for people to take on the direct management of the three markets we are in. I want to focus on building that part of our team so they can lead in those markets. Then in turn I can focus on building up the whole business further. Again, it’s all about people.”
Thank you, Brody!
Related Interviews
Up At Night: Interviews with Business Owners – Christina Platt (Bamboletta Dolls)
– Aaron Bichard (Green Entrepreneur, Cowichan Recyclists)
– Wendy Bowen (Physiotherapist, Start Line Physiotherapy)
– Mark Paetz (Sign Maker, Marks Instant Sign Shop)
I work with business to redesign their futures help them become what they were intended to be in that initial vision… Want more out of your business? Contact me. From my home base on Vancouver Island, I provide planning and coaching support to businesses across Canada.
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