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Technology and a flood of new and improved products and equipment over the past decade mean many plumbing businesses have become more specialised.
Some plumbers just do blocked drains, others focus on commercial backflow, some only do hot water and others just do pipe relining. We have several clients who just do taps and toilets.
While it makes good sense to specialise, it presents a dilemma - what to do about enquiries for other services?
From a marketing perspective, the last thing you want to do is spend money on advertising and then knock back work!
And trying to advertise specialist services can be challenging.
The solution?
Form working relationships with other plumbers.
If you are busy doing all general maintenance work it could make sense to outsource some services - like blocked drains for an example.
If you send all of your blocked drains enquiries to a specialist drainage company, it could save you having to buy all of the gear.
Renee Horsnell from Aqua King says they have formed informal partnerships with multiple plumbing businesses throughout Sydney.
"We work closely with plumbers who now add value and revenue to their business without the capital outlay", says Renee.
"We specialize in pipe relining, CCTV & jetblasting and are currently affiliated with plumbers within the Sydney metro area that use our relining service for the jobs that they find too difficult to dig up or not feasible to dig up.
We offer our service to them at a reduced rate and they have access to our technicians to ask for quotes or any queries they have.
These plumbers are generating revenue just by using our service and having their workers earning them income on other jobs", she said.
Two way street
Of course it's no good just handing out work with no return!
You can outsource work and get a 'trade discount', so you can still charge a margin like the Aqua King model.
In other situations, you could swap work - a drain business can send out hot water installations and vice versa. There might be some give and take, but everyone should win!
Get connected!
So start the conversation.
Talk to some of your local colleagues and see if you can organise some mutually beneficial relationships.
Do you specialise?
Do you have professional allegiances?
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