Julian Placino: 0:00

Welcome to the Home Services Success Stories Podcast, powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business. I'm Julian Placino, your host, and we've got another great show in store for you today because we have Mike Bears, who is the sales and operations manager at Paul the Plumber. Mike, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Speaker 1: 0:20

Great. Thank you for having me.

Julian Placino: 0:22

Absolutely. Excited to learn more about you and the business. So let's jump right in. So first off, tell us the name of the company, Paul the Plumber. Give us a bit of the Genesis story and the meaning of the brand.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Yeah, so uh Paul the Plumber, it all started where uh back in 2002, uh Paul is my dad, that's his name. Um, and it's actually funny how they came up with Paul the Plumber. There's an old show, like a kid's show on TV called Paul Bob the Builder. Um, and it had this catchy uh uh song that was its opening theme song. And so when my dad decided to start out on his own, the first couple calls here in, somebody said something like, Oh, call Paul the Plumber, and it just kind of stuck. And then um, yeah, they rolled with it from there. So that's how we came up with the name.

Julian Placino: 1:10

I knew it sounded familiar, and it is catchy, right? So yes, don't forget it's a Paul the Plumber. I like that. So, well, Mike, you joined the family business about eight years ago, and now you helped lead it as sales and operations manager. So, what was that journey like?

Speaker 1: 1:25

Um, yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. It was interesting at first. Um, I had always been around the business, but like I said, eight years ago, I joined full-time and was my first time like really being involved in the business. So I wore a lot of different hats to start. Um, my main job when I started was um to take over marketing and to start an HVAC division. Um, and with that came me being the HVAC salesperson. So um had to learn a lot, um, a lot of self-taught stuff in the HVAC world and then learning on from experience and everything like that. Um, did you know, answered the phones, dispatched, was you know, semi-warehouse managing, did a whole bunch of different stuff at first um to really kind of get my feet wet, and then you know, it kind of just kept growing and developing from there. So it was a lot, it was fun. Um, it was wearing a lot of different hats for sure.

Julian Placino: 2:19

So, how did you know you wanted to join the business whole time versus try different things, car rush your own path? I'm always interested about that.

Speaker 1: 2:26

It was um so I joined like midway through my senior year of college. And at the time it was like Christmas break, and I was lining up interviews for internships, and I had been working throughout school, so I had some options on going into sales and marketing for you know corporate companies and getting that kind of typical out-of-college job. Um, and I actually just started talking to my dad about the different options that I had and what I was looking to do, and that's when he brought up the idea of um why don't you come work for me? You know, we need um somebody to take over marketing, we're starting to grow. Um, I'm not really sure what I'm looking at with all that stuff, so I could definitely use your help with that. And then, you know, I know you want to do sales, you could try it with, you know, HVAC. We I want to get that side of the company going. Um and it just sounded really exciting with uh my dad and I have a great relationship, and I thought it'd be cool to work for him. And uh just the way he kind of outlined what I could do, it wouldn't be like pigeonholed to one thing, um, and I'd have a lot of freedom, which I don't think you get many places when you're you know just starting out of college. So that was very enticing.

Julian Placino: 3:38

And it sounds like he listened into kind of what your natural interests were, marketing and sales, and then also you know, wanting to start the the HVAC side of things. So uh go into that a bit. So you helped launch the the HVAC and electrical division. So, what went into building those new service lines and how have they helped shape the company's growth?

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, uh adding HVAC was a big part of our growth over the next few years. It was like, you know, fairly slow to start. You know, saying I had to really learn about all the different equipment and what went into it and all that stuff. And New Hampshire in our market, we have a mix of like HVAC, which you could say is your traditional, like forced hot air and central air conditioning. Um, and we also have boilers, um, which is wet heat, like baseboard heat. Um, so learning both sides of that, learning the equipment and the sales process. We had techs that could do boilers, um, but we only had like we had one tech that could work on forced hot air furnaces, and then one tech that understood how to service and install air conditioning. So I was working with them a little bit. Um I started taking on different leads that uh either in the techs or that we would market for, turning on the marketing for the HV to C side, started to generate different leads, and then um go out and sell the systems and learn a lot as you go out and see different things and start to sell different things and just kind of sticking to that. And we were able to, you know, get consistent enough to start be putting enough stuff in, serving, servicing it, selling maintenance plans on it. Um, and then we were able to kind of grow that and hire people or train internal people to learn that side of it instead of just the plumbing side.

Julian Placino: 5:21

Nice. So, what where does that stand in terms of the business now? Which what is it caught up in terms of revenue? Is it kind of 50-50? Like where's that stand?

Speaker 1: 5:28

Um, I believe the split now is like 52% plumbing, 48% HPAC. Oh, close. Um, it's pretty close. Yeah. And well, and I'll throw electrical in there now is very small. It's like less than a percent, but that's a little bit of a piece of it, too.

Julian Placino: 5:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, you've grown from six trucks to 40 to 40 in about eight years. You've added new service lines, and now it looks like electrical is the newest one. What do you think are some of the key decisions that y'all have made or done differently that's allowing you to really grow and make an impact?

Speaker 1: 6:04

There's been uh there's been a lot over the years. I think um we get very intentional about our marketing. Um we built a new website, really made five-star reviews like a massive part of our business. Um, and you know, incentivizing text to ask for reviews, putting processes in place with our software that made sure um they were getting messages out um to customers to ask for reviews after every job. Um, so that really kind of helped us with the Google side of things. Um, the the company that rebuilt our website took over our SEO, and I think they did a very good job for us. Um we got Google Local Services. We were very early to that, which helped. We were one of the first ones in our market to get into that. So just trying to stay ahead of the curve and be, you know, up to date, and then, like I said, ahead of some things too, um, to generate the lead volume. And then from there, using that marketing to bring in new people, um, grow our people too, obviously. But we were able to hire a lot more people as as the call volume went up.

Julian Placino: 7:12

Yeah. So it sounds like marketing, which is your expertise, the thing that your dad really wanted you to bring into the business was something that really helped uh grow and kind of set you guys apart. Um, so so when it comes to formulating a strategy, how do you look at marketing for home services?

Speaker 1: 7:27

Um there's a lot of ways to look at it. I I know when I first started, I was just trying to be a student and listen to any podcast there was out there that was um you know marketing driven. There were some that were home services specific and some that were just marketing specific. Um so I tried to listen and watch whatever I could on that side of things and stay ahead of the curve. Um I think we found some really good companies that helped us out. Like I talked about building our website and uh doing our SEO and then understanding the how like I would say it was probably you know six, seven years ago, like online reviews are always very important, but it just kind of really took off and it became a huge piece of how Google ranked companies and promoted them. And then that was kind of like the new word word of mouth marketing was how your online reputation looks. So we worked really hard on driving reviews. Um, and then just trying to get in front of homeowners in whatever way we could. We we did a lot more video on social media and YouTube, um, showing off of our different installs, pictures of things that we were doing, giving some behind-the-scenes tips, um, you know, so really getting intentional about trying to create a you know a social media presence that was helpful to the homeowners.

Julian Placino: 8:50

Yeah, I think those are all really good keys. And, you know, as you know, this this podcast is powered by Peakzi, your customer of Peakzi. And I'm actually really interested to hear what your insights are about this. Because whenever I ask um folks that we're interviewing, we're generally dealing with the owners or CEOs. And a lot of times they're like, uh, talk to my marketing guy about Peakzi. Well, you are the marketing guy, right? So so what has been your experience with Peakzi? What are you looking to it to help you accomplish?

Speaker 1: 9:17

So Peakzi, I'm I'm happy that they're there because I've gotten so in the weeds of our business that sometimes I am still the marketing guy, but I haven't been able to research and listen to things the same way I could when I first started and trying to be ahead of stuff. But AI obviously is a massive thing in our world right now. And obviously, though that'll shift our industry too. And um, you know, looking at some stats about how few people are actually clicking on things when they Google stuff. Um, I don't have exact numbers for you, but I just kept reading about like, you know, people are searching on Google, but they're getting answers right away. They're not clicking and going to sites, like seeing our PPC numbers go down, our Google local services is still very, you know, performing very well, but that's become more expensive. Um, so seeing kind of the decline of your traditional ads that have been working for so long and knowing people are um searching so much with uh with AI. Um, okay, well, we want to be the company that AI recommends, that ChatGPT or Gemini, whatever these companies recommend. And that's where we met uh Peakzi through certain path, got on a call with Bijan, and he really kind of, I was like, this is so much further ahead than I even like imagined. And I kind of got the same feeling talking to Bijan that I did when I was like, okay, this is gonna be our next local Google local services, which we were early to and helped us a ton. I'm like, if we can get onto if we can get our ourselves situated where we're gonna be recommended by all these AI search platforms and be the first ones to it, we'll be in a really good shape. So now while I'm with you guys and you guys are helping us get situated in that, I'm trying to learn more about the AI side myself so I can have a little bit more back and forth with Sean and we can kind of work it together. But I've just been kind of trusting um Peakzi's process so far.

Julian Placino: 11:13

Yeah, it seems like from a high-level overview from what I just got is that the nature of searching for information digitally is changing. Where most everyone before, of course, was using Google, but now people are going to Gemini and chat and Grok and all that. So what are you doing to be searchable from these agents, right? So uh I'm curious, having been on the platform now for I don't know, X number of months or what what was the most interesting feature? Any kind of significant outcomes you can share from using Peakzi?

Speaker 1: 11:41

Yeah, I would say something that was like the most interesting for us was watching some of the trends on what Peakzi and AI can predict on specific services that are being requested more over certain periods of time. It's really interesting to jump onto the dashboard and be like, oh, water heater um volume was up in September, or you know, and like trying to figure out why and see if that matched your numbers to see what you were doing. Also, the different comparative uh business analysis that it gives you. So we have like three other businesses that we can follow that are competitors of ours and seeing where they're ranking and what people are saying about them online versus what they're saying about us. I think it gives you a good sense of how you're being viewed by your customers and what you can do better and what you're doing well. So those are the very interesting features. The thing I'm most excited about is now seeing the value index on how um how well you show up when being searched by different AI models. Um, so that's the thing that I'm really hoping that we get better and better at. But Peakzi, it does like there's a lot of different things on there to follow. You can almost get lost in it a little bit with how many different things there are that you can look at. Um and AI is changing so much. I feel like every time I jump on a call with Sean, it's like, okay, he has some new stuff for me to work on and to iron out. Um, but yeah, so I'd say getting some of that real-time information on your market, your competition. And then again, I get excited about seeing where we're ranking or how we're showing up on AI search. Those are kind of the big things for us.

Julian Placino: 13:20

Yeah, so it sounds like all the different kinds of insights, and that makes sense because of your strategic mind when it comes to marketing, right? So I think it's one of the points. Um, anything else you'd like to share about Peakzi before we get back to uh uh your business and close out with a few more questions?

Speaker 1: 13:35

Uh I would just say the you know, Peakzi has been extremely professional and easy to work with. Like the communication is great. Anytime I have a question, I hear right back. Um, Sean, you know, always makes sure like on our monthly meetings, he takes the time to go over any questions that I have, explain things to me so that I really understand him because there's so much that I don't understand about the AI world and how everything is working right now. So he makes sure that you know I'm comfortable with the strategy and what we're doing. And uh say, you know, those have been things that have been making it easy to work with Peakzi.

Julian Placino: 14:08

Yeah, one thing is a platform, the other thing is the team. And the guys are really work with, so I appreciate you mentioning that. So um, so cool. So as far as as far as the excellence of the business, you know, the marketing is one thing being found, um, but the other thing is delivering the service. And the proof is in the pudding, you have, I think, thousands of five-star uh reviews and a 4.8 Google rating. So tell us a bit about your team. What makes them great? What makes them stand out in home services?

Speaker 1: 14:36

I think we have a group that um that likes helping people. Like we have, you know, we're all residential home services, so it's different than the new construction of the commercial world. You have to like working with people. Um, we have a lot of processes in place so that the way we run a service call should have the homeowner very involved. Um just kind of like I was talking about PC understanding, make sure I understand what they're doing for us. Like, same thing with our techs with our customers. We want to make sure homeowners understand what we're doing, why it's gonna solve their problem, the price point, all the things that are gonna make it a good fit for them to do work with us. Um, so you know, for us, that looks like you know, going there, getting the customer involved with the process, giving them, you know, three to six options on how we can help them today and letting them choose what's best for them. Um, and just offering that, you know, service with a smile. That's our that's our tagline. So we just try to be friendly out there and um try to help people's days. A lot of time when they're calling us, they're they're stressed out, something's wrong with their house. Um, it's a serious situation that people don't like dealing with. So we try to train our guys to go in there and help ease that stress and and get their problems solved.

Julian Placino: 15:48

So tell us about that. You said service with a smile, and your technicians are known for being professional, friendly, and also caring. So tell us how do you deliver that at scale? Is it is it is it hiring the right people? Is it training? Is it a mix of both? Tell us about that because it's it can be it can be kind of um just kind of seen as a platitude, but it's something you stake the brain on. So tell us more about that.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Yeah, well, like you said, definitely hiring and training. It has to be a mix of both. You never really know when you hire. You can get a good feeling, but you never know until they get into that truck and you know they're live and going. Um, but we do two trainings a week for each of our departments. So make sure we're consistently, you know, reiterating our values, how we want to come across the customer, the process on how we want to run a service call. Technical training, of course, because that's what it all comes down to. We need to be able to, you know, be out there and be good technicians and solve the problems. But a lot of times we're talking about customer communication, um, our process, making sure it's being followed and that we're following it. But we, like I said, we have a team of friendly people, of nice people that like talking and working with other people. So I think it comes naturally to most of our team.

Julian Placino: 17:02

Yeah, I think that makes sense. And you're right. Sometimes hiring is kind of a gamble, right? You don't really know until they actually start doing the the work. But that's why it's important to kind of pivot, see who the person is, see how they're working on the job. And uh, I think all that makes sense. So Paul the Plumber is very deeply rooted in the local community and seems to be very intent to give back. So tell us a bit about how you stay involved locally and why giving back is so important to the brand.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Yeah, um, it is super important. Well, we've been, you know, we feel that we've been very fortunate um with our business success in this community. And that's possible because of our community, right? They're the ones picking up the phone, calling us to help with their problems. So we try to give back as much as we can, and we are involved. I mean, uh, we're located in Derry, New Hampshire, which is the neighboring town to Londonderry, New Hampshire. Um I grew up in Londonderry, I coached the Londonderry High School hockey team. So I stay, you know, involved with that side of the community and talk to a lot of different people. And um, so one being a face and being out there hearing the community and all that stuff. But another is like, you know, the food drives that we're able to get involved in, the sponsorships that we can do for um different teams in the area, or even just um, you know, there's we we're lucky to be in a position where a lot of stuff comes to us and we can kind of help out where we can, but it's it's definitely important um for us to get back. And one of the things that we just wrapped up was a uh Thanksgiving food drive for a um uh organization in dairy called the Upper Room. They help out you know families in need um during the holidays. So, you know, we're lucky to be able to be in a spot where we can get involved with stuff like that.

Julian Placino: 18:44

Yeah, and that's awesome that you you definitely do pay it forward in in giving back to the community. I think that's great. Well, well, Mike closes out here. So looking ahead, what do you think is the future vision for for Paul the Plumber? What kind of legacy do you think you want to leave for the community or employees for uh for the team?

Speaker 1: 19:02

Yeah, um, so our vision, like I think I told the our team at the beginning of this year that we only service New Hampshire, but we want to be the best service company uh in the region, in New England, right? Like it doesn't matter if it's plumbing, heating, cooling, electric, or you know, whatever other services you could get. We want people to have an experience with polyplumber that just goes above and beyond anything that they're used to. Um, you know, what I'm hoping to create for our team is I just want people to be proud to work for polyplumber. Um, you know, have it be a place where people are excited to show up. I mean, it's a it's always a job at the end of the day. You know, I want people to enjoy their job, be proud to work here, um, uh continue to be able to be a part of our community and get back to it. Um, and then, you know, if we take care of all that stuff, like ourselves and our community and our and our team, they'll take care of the customers, and the customers will continue to use us. So those are kind of our thoughts on it.

Julian Placino: 20:00

Awesome. Well, I think that's a that's a great inspiring vision uh ahead. And you have a tremendous track record of success, and we certainly wish you all the continued success uh out there.

Speaker 1: 20:09

So awesome. Yeah, thank you very much.

Julian Placino: 20:12

Yeah, well, Mike, close us out. Show uh tell us your website, your social handles, how do how do folks connect with you?

Speaker 1: 20:17

All right, so yeah, it's uh paultheplumbernh.com. Um if you search Paul the PlumberNH on Facebook, that's where we'll come up. Uh at underscore Paul the PlumberNH on Instagram. Um, those are kind of the big ones we're on. We have a TikTok too. I couldn't tell you what exactly the handle is on it. We're still getting better at that. But um, yeah, our website, our YouTube, Paul the Plumber, you can find us there. We have some good insight and videos there, especially on the mini split side of things. Um but yeah, those are the places you can find us.

Julian Placino: 20:46

Awesome. And we'll make sure to have all that contact information in the show notes as well. So, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story, your background, um, and for being with us here today.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Yeah, thanks a lot, Julian. I appreciate it.

Julian Placino: 20:58

Awesome. Well, everyone, that is it for today's episode. So thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Home Services Success Stories podcast, powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business.