Plumbing is a great field to enter — whether you’re an aspiring plumber or someone who wants to start a business. Despite whatever happens in the world, there will always be a need for professionals to handle home issues. That’s why it’s no surprise that the plumbing market is expected to grow by 4.2% through 2025.
Are you considering starting a plumbing business and unsure where to start? Follow the guide below to go through the process of starting a company the right way.
Set Business Goals
The first step to creating a plumbing business is to define your business goals. Are you looking to create a small shop in your local area, or do you want to build a massive brand that expands to several locations?
The initial goal-setting process will help you determine this. You’ll define your target customers, set your prices, find the equipment you need, figure out who to hire, and much more.
You can also use this process to create a business plan to follow. This plan will give you a roadmap to follow to reach your goals. You may not follow it exactly, but it will give you guidelines to follow that will make the decision-making process easier.
Find Funding
Although you may not need a ton of money to start a plumbing business, you will need some to start. To begin, you’ll need a location to work from. This means buying a commercial building or renting.
You’ll also need plumbing equipment and consumable supplies. Once you get all the products required for plumbing jobs, you’ll need a team to serve your clients.
Come up with a budget to account for those costs. You’ll have your initial costs for one-time purchases and monthly costs for everything else. If you can’t fund everything yourself, look for loans from local lenders or private investors.
Register Your Business
Once you have a plan in place, you’re ready to make your plumbing business official. This means creating a business in your location and getting the proper licenses.
You can ask your local government which forms to fill out for your new company. If you aren’t sure which type of business to form, consult a local attorney who knows the rules to get advice.
Once you register your business, you need to get the proper licensing. Local governments want home contractors to understand the local building codes. See what you have to do to get licensed and take those actions.
Purchase Equipment and Supplies
Now that you have a business entity in place, you can start buying equipment and supplies for your business. To start the process, find a location to work from. Check your local area for a business property with the space to house employees and plumbing supplies.
Once you have a place to operate, the next step is buying equipment. Stick with the best products available to make sure you can serve your customers well.
After that, you can focus on smaller items that are consumable. Find a reputable vendor you can keep going back to. If possible, see if there are bulk deals if you buy a lot at once.
Invest in Software
Successful plumbers can handle a lot on their own. However, there’s only so much time in the day to focus on the important work — and you don’t want to waste that time working on things that don’t move the needle.
That’s why it makes sense to use software wherever possible. Start with the mundane administrative tasks. These are the things that are automatable and easily handled by software.
Plumbing software is also available that’s unique to companies that work in the service industry. Take field service management software, for instance. You can use this software to manage your field workers and centralize your service operation in a single piece of software.
Hire a Great Team
You won’t be able to do everything on your own when you own a plumbing business. Even if you can handle all the calls yourself, what happens if you get calls on the job and can’t respond when people need help?
You need employees to take on some of the work. You need a receptionist to handle calls and take messages at a bare minimum. Ideally, you’ll also hire other plumbers to take on extra work.
You also don’t need to hire everyone as an employee of your company. You can hire freelancers and agencies to take on work outside of your area of expertise — such as accounting and human resources. This will free up your time and allow you to work on other important work.
Market to Potential Customers
Even if you do an amazing job as a plumber, that isn’t enough to win customers. You need people to find your business if you want to make money. To do this, you need to learn how to market your business.
One of the first things to do is set up a website. Your website will discuss your services and why people should choose your plumbing company. Once you build the website, you can sign up for Google My Business and show up for local searches.
After that, determine where your ideal customer hangs out online. Set up marketing campaigns using social media, paid ads, and other methods to reach those people.
Starting a Plumbing Business Takes Work
You can’t just rely on your skills as a plumber to create a plumbing company. You need an entirely different set of skills to manage your business and acquire customers.
Part of those skills is learning how to set up a business correctly. You must create a plan, manage your budget, fill out the paperwork, and get more customers. Now that you know the steps to starting a plumbing business, you’re ready to take the first steps in building your new business.
Of course, you’ll need to learn much more if you want to build a plumbing company that lasts. Read more posts on the blog to learn about business efficiency and successfully managing a business.
