June 28, 2023 • 44 mins
The Bums discuss soft hands, having foreign parents, knowing your worth as a skilled labor.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Okay ladies and gentlemen, episode two. Did you think we'd get this far? Did you think
(00:12):
we'd make it?
Absolutely not. Especially not with the way that we're set up today. I mean, if you saw
the video, if we, because we're going to start doing video if we get past three podcasts,
I told them, we look like absolute slabs. Set up on the couch.
It's so, listen, this is going to be a way better setup. First of all, it'll be more
(00:36):
relaxed. They'll be able to tell it in our voices.
No shot. It's going to be a better setup.
It's just so hot. It's just so hot and humid.
We finished the work day today and we're like, we got to do the podcast today.
And it's the last thing.
The last thing we want to do is, which is anything.
And I was like, all right, I need a 15, 10, 15 minute nap, half an hour to 45 minutes
(00:58):
later. I'm like, I can't even move.
I think, so I think last week we talked about a whole bunch of crap and went off on tangents,
which is fine. But I think we talked about a couple good things, especially with the
whole college versus getting into the trades thing.
(01:19):
I actually want to, I actually want to point out the biggest plus is the tuition you save.
You're not dumping tens of thousands of dollars for a degree.
What depends because I remember last time we talked about me going to, I was going to
go to technical school, ITT tech for auto mechanics. And it's only a year and a half,
(01:41):
I think.
Yeah. But what do you get for, is it a certification or as a license?
I think it's just a certification. I don't think you need to, I don't know if you need
to be licensed to be an auto mechanic or you just need to be certified as an auto mechanic.
But they do help you with a lot of things like getting jobs and things like that after
school, but it's almost $30,000 for the tuition for the year and a half, which is crazy.
(02:05):
Yeah.
I didn't know it was that much.
It's crazy. If you go, I mean, I think they offer also HVAC, they do offer those types
of trades too, but it's very, very expensive. And if you don't get grants, you're paying
about $30,000 for that year and a half.
So we were talking, and I think you were at the conversation, that Paul had gone to his
(02:30):
kids' job fair or trades, or when his daughter was graduating, he goes over to the school
and it has all these tables and they're giving out scholarships and stuff like that. And
it was one trade scholarship being given out to one kid that wanted to do it. And to be
honest, the interest wasn't even there. So it would be nice to change that because we're
about to hit a really bad time where the average age of a plumber, I was watching a video the
(02:55):
other day, 60 years old.
Where in our area or just in general.
In this country.
Yeah, it's nationwide, the average. What are you saying?
We went to that plumber's board meeting for New Jersey and in the state of New Jersey,
this is a fun fact. This is a fun fact. There's what, 9 million people in New Jersey, right?
(03:18):
In the state of New Jersey.
I think so, yeah.
Okay, there's only 5,000 licensed plumbers in the entire state and most of those are
boomers.
And 10,000 hacks.
Yeah, most of those are boomers who at the end of the day, they're gonna, I mean, you
know, pretty soon they're gonna be retiring.
And there's nobody to fill those gaps.
Yeah.
(03:38):
There's nobody fill those spaces. Already we don't have enough plumbers. Can you imagine
what's gonna happen?
Plumbers, electricians.
Yeah, it's with all that stuff.
And this is something like, you can automate out fast food workers. They're doing it now.
I don't know if you've gone to these high tech McDonald's where you don't even talk
to a person. And you can make burgers on a conveyor line and in a McDonald's, you can
(03:59):
automate this stuff out. No one's going to retail stores anymore.
But you can't automate out plumbing, electrical, contracting, putting up sheet rock, all that
stuff.
I saw a robot put up sheet rock.
Oh, that's right.
I saw a robot put up sheet rock in a video, but it's not gonna become a thing.
But give them a corner. Give them a corner in like a bowing archway.
(04:21):
It's not gonna, yeah, it's not gonna be a thing. You're not gonna have a robot come
to your house to put up sheet rock.
Yeah. So I think, I think the median age of plumbers being 60, we're going to start feeling
the heat because they're still working. They're still out there working.
Yeah, they're just a little bit slower.
The old timers are still working in a couple of years. That's it.
(04:41):
Yeah.
So I think, I think, I know courts is trying to get involved in pushing a scholarship or
coming up, especially next year. And you know what? I hope other companies will catch on.
Like I think I'd be down to do it with a bunch of companies.
Yeah.
And I'll say, I actually posted something like this on Instagram that, oh, no, there
(05:03):
was a Facebook thread and Conway Plumbing is in River Edge. We see Conway all the time.
I talked to him at the plumbing supply house. So I'm, I'm part of a whole bunch of, you
know, River Edge groups and stuff like that.
Mom's group.
No, not in any mom's group because you have to prove your gender and the fact that you
have children, which I'm not a woman. I don't have children, but they, they were talking,
(05:26):
someone had posted a picture. Conway came in. They did a, he did a great job and they
posted a picture and there was this whole thread. Yeah, we use Conway for everything.
So I jumped on there and my comment was, you know, on paper, plumbing companies are supposed
to be really, really competitive and, you know, you're not praise each other. But to
(05:46):
be honest, this area has some of the best contractors and Conway is no exception. I
posted that and people were shocked that when you go to the supply house in this area in
Hackensack, we all talk to each other. We joke around. No one's fighting for, there's
endless work. There's endless work. So when we go down there, there's not much of a sense
(06:10):
of competitiveness unless you're busting chops.
Yeah.
Like if Rob comes in there and we're going to bust his chops. But if you go out, like
we were talking about my brother doing plumbing in Ohio, you go to a supply house out there.
Nobody speaks to each other. Everyone's cold. No one's helping each other. I've called tons
(06:32):
of plumbers around here for help when I'm stuck on a job. They have no problem reaching
a handout.
So,
Well, the difference in plumbing here versus over in, in all of those other states, you
go out to the Midwest, you go to the South. It's wildly different. I mean, you've talked
about it. I know a little bit less about what goes on in the Midwest, but you say people,
like their water heaters are mostly electric water heaters. They lease their, they finance
(06:57):
their, their utilities.
They lease, yep. They, they, they, they, they rent their hot water heaters. They rent their
AC units. They rent their boilers. So they're on a payment plan.
Yeah. We don't, we don't understand. So it was our, it was our teacher. I don't think
we realize how good we have it.
I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to put foam rubber around you.
(07:20):
Why?
Because you're getting a lot of blowback with the noise.
Every time you touch that coffee, swallow every time I drink my coffee.
Every time you touch the coffee cup, it's like, it's like you're leaning into the grand
candy.
I can see it bothering him, which is why I keep doing it. I'm an agitator.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just for the podcast.
(07:43):
So oh, here's something I wanted to clarify that my dad's hands are not as soft as I made
it out last, last week.
He was so bothered by that.
So I said, I sent him the podcast. I was like, dad, listen to this. Tell me what you think.
He's like, I think it's great, but I don't like that my soft hands were a big topic of
(08:07):
it.
I'm like, well, we're just pulling from reality here.
Yeah, I didn't show it. I didn't. I wasn't showing my friends this. I wasn't showing
it unless this takes off. I'm not showing anybody.
Listen, who knows? You know what? If we get five listeners, I don't care. I mean, it is
what it is.
Yeah. I mean, I enjoy it, which is why you can't tell your friends that you enjoy certain
(08:31):
things.
Oh yeah.
Especially your group of guys.
I'm like, you know what? This is my therapy.
Yeah. Like every time you go over your friend's house, they're going to like mock you with
like headphones and stuff.
Yeah. Don't say, don't talk about the things that you enjoy with them.
Or you'll just be heckled with.
Just drinking not at each other when you're with them.
(08:54):
So what else did we learn this week? Oh, I definitely, it's not that I learned this,
but it reiterated how much I hate working in the rain.
I think it's miserable. You know what else is great about working for Phil?
What?
Is that if it rains, if the weather is slightly out of whack, if it's not 70 degrees outside
(09:19):
and the humidity is not too hot and not it's, it's, he's calling it. He's like, I'm not
doing it.
That's not certain jobs I call.
I'm joking. I know. I know. I mean, there have been days. There was that, there was a,
we both came in, it was torrential downpour. There were like two hose bibs scheduled. I'm
(09:41):
like, I'm not working.
Yeah. It's, hose bib is not an emergency. You know, you don't have to work outside in
the rain for two hose bibs.
Plus it's raining. Your water, your lawn is being watered as we speak.
Yeah. They don't have to, we don't have to work outside on a day like that.
Well, here's another thing that we're starting to do this week is to wrap up that renovation
we had.
Yeah.
(10:01):
Which is nice.
Yeah. That renovation.
I mean, listen, it turned into.
How do you feel? How do you feel? Okay. You, there's two types of work in this business.
There's new construction. There's, which I can, I guess renovations can kind of go in
the new construction.
Renovation, new construction.
(10:22):
Yeah. Renovation, new construction.
Right.
Because you can renovate a bathroom and not a whole house, but there's new construction,
renovation, and then there's service work, which we're mostly service plumbers. We do
renovations, bathroom remodels and stuff like that. But what do you, what do you prefer?
And what do you think about those two?
At the size we're at, it's tough to do renovations because this is what I gather from renovations,
(10:47):
remodels and all that stuff. If you, it's okay if you, if you bump the table, putting
the coffee cup down, which is busting your chops before it.
So we're not big enough for renovations. I'd like to get to a point because I got to be
honest, if you can bang out a renovation quickly, if you can bang out the plumbing rough in
a period of a day and a half, you're golden because then all the other contractors can
(11:12):
come in. But when you're not, when you're, when you're only two guys and then the phone
is ringing off the hook for other people needing work and you have customers, you have to step
away, put it on hold, rearrange your schedule because the one contractor comes in, he's
like, oh, you guys got to move this pipe and then you have to stop what you're doing,
drive over. We're not big enough for it. But I would like to get to a point where we can
(11:35):
take a renovation or two and be comfortable, put four or five guys on it and be done with
it.
I think that for us renovations, we can do renovations, remodels, stuff like that, like
a bathroom.
A kitchen and a bathroom.
I don't even think.
I'm not even saying together, but we can do a kitchen.
(11:55):
Yes.
We can do a bathroom if it comes up.
It's got to be just the bathroom, just that controlled space because once we start getting
into going, oh, we, you know, let's do this bathroom now. Let's do this kitchen now.
Let's do this now.
This renovation we're doing.
I know. I know it gets away from, it gets, it can get away from you fast because the
homeowner, once you start opening things up, first of all, you start finding what the last
(12:20):
plumber did, what the contractor did with the house before you and you just open up
cans of worms and you keep moving on down the line.
Like the whole, the whole job will come to a screeching halt if there's an issue with
another trade being in there.
You know, who just, we needed to, they needed to re, re-support that entire bathroom upstairs
(12:45):
with brand new beams, brand new beams that went across the entirety of the kitchen.
We opened the walls and just found a nightmare.
It needed to get done. It needed to get done.
I mean, listen, that was more than just a renovation. We did a, we did the boiler, water heater,
we did the laundry room downstairs, we did the kitchen and not, it wasn't just a kitchen.
It's a kosher kitchen, which means you need the two sinks.
Yeah.
(13:05):
You need the two stoves and they put a bar sink. Now we're getting finally to the end
of it and it's turning into a beautiful, beautiful job. I mean, the homeowners picked
out beautiful tile, the countertops gorgeous, but to get there, oh, and then the other thing,
the other bathroom upstairs that we had to redo because when we opened the walls, we
found out that the shower pan has been leaking behind the wall for months. It looked like
(13:28):
years.
Yeah.
And there was mold and everything and the insulation was just absorbing it. But here's
what the homeowner told me that before they bought the house, no one had lived there for
like a year and a half.
They bought it with no one living there, which is even sometimes worse.
Yeah.
And stuff doesn't move when stuff doesn't get used. It starts to deteriorate.
(13:51):
I'm glad we're finally getting to the end of it.
Yeah.
It happens to us every year though.
Because heating work drops off and what are you going to take? You have to take a couple
of renovations here and there.
I agree.
I did turn one down today though.
I agree that you have to turn down renovations here and there.
(14:12):
As with the company, our size.
I think instead of, we just need to stick to remodels. If it's a bathroom, if somebody
wants to redo the bathroom, okay, no problem. We can do that. That in our slow season, not
even in our busy season. But it's very, very difficult with stuff like this where it does
get away from us.
(14:32):
I mean, listen, we basically did the entire house.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, that is true.
Like there's only one bathroom that we didn't touch.
That's my opinion. Service work to me is where it's at.
Because first of all, it's highly skilled. You need to know what you're doing. You can't
just go in there and be a schmuck.
So if you're going in there with knowledge on how to do service work, work on a boiler,
(14:56):
work on a water heater, fix some plumbing that you can access, change the sewer line.
For me, that's where it's at. Because you can get in, you can charge the customer properly.
You get in, you get out, you make your money and you move on.
You put a good warranty, you give them a great warranty and then you move on and then that's
(15:16):
it. You move to the next one. That's where our company size is set up for that we can
handle.
Yeah.
And I'm not saying like, like we know, we know a plumber, he's a single man operation
and he'll bang out a renovation. I don't know how he does it. I got to give the guy props,
but he will go do a, he'll go, yeah, I'm going to just do a renovation or remod, it's a remodel,
(15:39):
a remodel this weekend.
Yeah.
Okay. If that's the case, you're just running some PVC for some new fixtures and stuff, but
even still, man, I, I, it's, it's, it's the plumbing industry is tough to do alone. I
wouldn't want to do it.
Well, he's always got a guy. He's, he does most of the stuff himself, but I'm sure I
can ask him, but I'm sure he's just not, not even concentrating on any of his service calls
(16:05):
while that thing is going.
Yeah.
Well, that's you really have to shut your phone off.
He can't, he can't, there's no way. Cause every single time we're on one of those remodels
or renovations, our phone is like off the hook ringing and you always have to step away
every like couple hours. You got to step away for something.
And I mean, if it's not 70 degrees with perfect humidity, I get really, I get really testy
(16:32):
anyway.
Oh yeah.
Like Nancy will call with just a simple request and then it's like Pearl Harbor being.
Yeah, it sets him off. This is, this is where, this is where the courts, the courts start
to start to break down. I've worked with him. I've worked with his brother and these types
of conditions.
(16:53):
And you've met a lot of courts.
I've met a lot of courts is now they're great, friendly, fun as hell, but don't work for
them if temperature is not perfect. It's not work for them. Don't work next to them.
It is true. We're emotional people. We're an emotional, so you go, we're, courts are
(17:14):
all over the country. We're all different. But if you hang out with us all in a room
and you look around and you be like, you know what, these people are not different at all.
They're the exact same person squished into different bodies.
They're hilarious from the outside.
What else do we have to talk about?
There's a lot of passive aggressive.
No, there's no passiveness in the aggressiveness. It's just aggressiveness. Listen, we are our
(17:41):
grandfather's offspring.
Yeah.
I mean, he was such a ball buster. I told you everywhere we would go, he would make jokes.
Did I tell this story last week?
Yes.
Did I?
Yeah.
I was so excited to be in the C now.
I try to be nice to you about it.
No, I try to entertain your stories. It makes you happy.
(18:05):
Whatever, like you don't repeat anything. This kid comes in and thinks he's perfect,
perfect employee, everything. Anyway, what else we got? I mean, we're really just wrapping
up that renovation this week.
Yeah. It's right now. It's just bound.
Here's the other thing that it despises about renovations.
(18:26):
You do a lot of work. You're working in someone's house for months. You finally wrap up the
job. Like we have that house we went to today with the pool that's filling up. I don't want
to say the name, but we did a whole bunch of work there.
So you put a year warranty on the work you do, but if something happens two years from
now, you're kind of obligated to go and take care of it. Like you're stuck there. You're
(18:51):
the guy that had the hands in the house two, three years down the road. Now you can be
a ball buster and say, now sorry, your warranty's done. So you're going to pay for this visit,
which sometimes on some situations I do with those jobs when it's appropriate, but a lot
of times we'll just be like, let's just go take care of it.
If they're a good customer, you should take care of it because you know that you're getting
(19:14):
a lot of work and you have a good relationship with that person. But if they're not, then
I'm sorry, but you're running a business here. Like I said, I always go back to cars with
this kind of stuff because that's, that's my father's industry. But you remember when
I bought my truck, the one you have now, the one I have now, which I haven't seen in weeks.
(19:37):
Yeah. Too much gas. Where is it? It's at, it's at my father's property. You're just
not driving it because it's a gas guzzler. I don't, I don't feel like spending $100 a
week in gas. Right now, currently, I don't like to admit it, but I'll admit it now.
I'm driving a Prius. I put $20 in that thing and I drive it for three weeks. And if I don't
need the pickup truck, I'm not driving the pickup truck.
(19:58):
Are you going to keep that Prius? I'm not keeping it. If he needs to sell it, if somebody
calls him on it, then, then, uh,
You don't think you'll snag like a, like a girlfriend with driving around with that
thing? No way.
Like go picking her up. No way. I actually tried to take somebody out on a date. I said,
I'll pick you up at eight. I pulled up in the Prius and she said, absolutely not.
No way. Yeah. She said, no.
Are you serious?
(20:18):
I'm joking. Are you kidding me?
I was going to say, she's ridiculously dateable then.
She's going to say no.
She's going to say no. She's going to say no.
He drives the Prius. But, but, um,
You found her TikTok later and she's just like ripping on you.
She's ripping on me.
But, uh, so I gotta say, if that was a true story, I'd be like, you get that girl back.
You want to meet her? You want to meet her?
(20:40):
Invite her out for a beer.
I was describing my perfect first date. She, she rejected my Prius.
You say the Prius is pretty badass car though.
It's a great car. It's probably one of the best cars, but it doesn't, it doesn't take
away from the fact that it's very, very feminine.
(21:00):
It's soul crushing that car.
All right. Prius, Prius or a Volkswagen bug in yellow, both in yellow.
That I don't think, well,
Sunshine yellow Prius.
I have to go with the Prius too. There's nothing more feminine than a Volkswagen bug.
Apologies to anyone who's a male and drives Volkswagen bug.
(21:22):
I don't think there's any. I think you're offending maybe one person in the entire
A classic bug.
A million people world. What?
Maybe a classic bug.
Yeah.
I could, you know.
Yeah, that's nice. Those are nice people are doing nice things with those old buggies
too.
When my parents first got married, their first vehicle, and I remember it was the Volkswagen
van. It was a red and white V-dub van with the flat front. It had carpet in the back.
(21:45):
I'm trying to remember because this is when I was really, really young, but there was
brown shag carpet in the back. One seat. It was mostly open. I don't remember them driving
it for very long, but it was just a cool, cool vehicle.
They kept it. It would have been worth a lot of money.
I know. And they were worth nothing back then.
Yeah.
No one wanted them.
(22:05):
Well, everything was cheap then.
Well, the reason they drove it around because they went out of style. My parents were broke.
Yeah.
And that was the van they got. That the one they could only have. They had no seats in
the back.
But I want to just to the point that I was making was that truck that I have now. It's
going back to the warranties and obligated like that. I bought that truck. It cost me
(22:29):
like $25,000. Okay. It's a 2015 GMC Sierra. All right. They had dropped the price down.
I bought it from a brand new Lexus dealership. And they didn't want to give me a warranty
on the truck.
At all?
No.
Because it wasn't GMC. It wasn't a GMC dealership.
(22:50):
Okay.
So it was a Lexus dealership. Somebody had traded in that GMC. They didn't want to give
me a they didn't want to give me a warranty. I was like, are you kidding me? Like my father's
in the business. He sells $7,000 cars, $5,000 cars, $6,000 cars. He gives a warranty with
you.
At least 30 days.
Something. And they were like, no, no, we don't want to give it.
They wouldn't even give you 30 days.
(23:11):
They didn't want to give it to me. So I kept going back for I left the dealership. I went
there like three times. And eventually the third time they wanted to they started talking
about it.
A warranty. And I was like, listen, you guys are starting to bother me with I want the
truck. Okay. There's a reason why I'm back here the third time, but I'm not leaving here
if I don't get a warranty.
(23:33):
And I hate to admit this, but I was like, you've been dealing with me and I'm not that
nice to deal with. All right.
But you're going to bring your father.
I'm going to bring my father here and it's going to be over for you people because my
father, he's an immigrant and he's he's loud and aggressive and no shame. And he's going
to walk out of there. They're going to give the keys to that GMC with the three year warranty
(23:58):
power train bumper to bumper.
And he's going to and he's still won't be good enough.
Yeah. And that's what happened.
You brought him in.
I brought him while I brought I, I called him when I was there and he goes, put me on
the phone with the guy, put me on the phone, put me on the phone with the manager. I put
him on the phone with the manager. The guy comes back like 10, 15 minutes later. He's
(24:22):
like, all right, listen, you're going to get a warranty. We're so sorry.
I'm not even joking, dude. This is not a joke. You're going to get a warranty. The car is
25. Okay. They dropped it from 30 already because they couldn't get rid of it. You're
getting a warranty. And then what happened was, was that, did you hear any of this conversation
(24:47):
between him and your father?
No. No, I just gave him the phone and that was it. My father, he went 20 minutes, 15,
20 minutes on the phone with him. And I'm sure he said what I said, listen, I'm in the
business. I know what the car is. How are you going to sell a car at $25,000 with no
warrant? Like you're out of your mind. And my father, he told me the first time that
(25:12):
I went there when I was negotiating with them, he goes, get out of there. Don't, don't even,
I wasn't going to stay anyway. But three weeks after I had that truck, I don't know if you
remember catalytic converter went bad. That check engine like came out of catalytic converter
went bad. Now I have the warranty.
Right at the end of the warranty.
They didn't want to honor it. They didn't want to honor it because they said check engine
(25:33):
light doesn't mean because I got a warranty engine and transmission. And they didn't want
to honor it because the catalytic converter has nothing to do with the engine. It's got
to do with emissions.
Did you threaten him with another phone call from the father?
So that's exactly what happened.
Listen, I will get this man on the phone right now.
And once I threatened my father, he goes, listen, no problem. It's like an $1800 job.
(25:55):
That is so funny.
So he goes, $1800 job. And he goes, we got it. Sorry.
They just made 25 grand. I mean, to be honest,
They didn't make 25 grand. That's what they traded it in.
Okay. Well, you know what I mean.
But yeah, it's, you want, you want to get something for a good price. You bring my
father.
So how do we make this applicable to running a small business?
To plumbing?
(26:16):
Or just a small business?
Well, I can get my father on here. He can tell you.
Just have no shame.
Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of the point is what I'm saying. It's like, you have to be
good. He's good to his long time customers. He knows who's like, he's has repeat buyers.
A lot of his business is repeat buyers. Same thing with this.
(26:36):
You have a lot of repeat customers who you have to treat well because they keep using
you.
Now you have new customers that if they already start complaining and they don't like your
price and they don't like your, the way you work or the way, you know, the way we do our
business, then it's not, um, it's not the worst thing in the world to be like, listen,
(27:00):
I'm not the guy for you.
I'm not the guy for you.
Yeah.
Well, we have another company.
You know what? It was, it was, there was a learning curve for me because when I first
came into this business, I wanted like the customer was always right to me. And that's
just not true. And it's not bashing the customers because listen, we have 1200 customers on our
roster. We really don't have horrible customers.
(27:22):
No.
And we get the new calls we get, like they just fish themselves out anyway. You know,
they're not going to like us regardless of what they do. They're just going to go somewhere
else.
Yeah.
But what I had to learn, and it took me two to three, maybe even four years of the fact
that we're out there, we have acquired a certain amount of knowledge, a certain amount of tools
(27:46):
that you don't have. And I'm killing my body. I'm upside down under your vanity for two hours
trying to get this thing out and then in, I'm cutting myself. I'm hitting my head on
every pipe in the basement. Like we are, I do 100 times a week. Like I don't know why
(28:09):
it still hurts when I do it. I do it so many times, but we are out there and we've seen
all the problems that you're bringing us to your house for. We know how to fix it. Us
in the trades, we deserve to make a good wage. And I will find that like there is a general
consensus and this kind of bothers me a bit that people still look down on the trades
(28:35):
as when we come in, like you don't go to the grocery store and haggle over your bill. You
know what I mean?
Yeah.
And especially going to the grocery store when people are spending four, five, six hundred
dollars. Like the price is the price. And what we've done in the past couple of years
is we have spent hours sitting down, doing math, figuring out our numbers. What is our
(29:02):
average this month? Where do we need to be charging? Like we've spent hours on figuring
out where we need to be. So when I throw out a price, I'm not just pulling that out of
midair. I'm sitting down. Listen, I know, first of all, how much in an uncomfortable
position I'm going to have to be in for the next three hours. I'm going to know how many,
(29:23):
what kind of tools I'm going to need, how expensive they are. You know, the pro press
is only rated for up to a certain amount of presses. Yeah. Like all that stuff needs to
be maintained. The trucks out there, this truck drives all around Bergen County. Like
I'm sorry, you got to pay for that. You have to pay for that. You are well, you are more
than welcome to take my estimate and go find a schmuck that will charge you half price.
(29:47):
But you will get half price schmuck work. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it really
comes down. You're paying for the knowledge. You're paying for the knowledge. You're paying
for all that. You're paying for the tools, the knowledge. I mean, our tools cost a lot
of money. You can, you may have a win, win situation when you find someone who's half
(30:07):
the price. But I'll tell you one thing. That guy is not taking care of his employees. He's
not taking care of himself. You know what I mean? Yeah. He might not, he might not be
there for you when you call. I know this speaking for this company, at least. I know that I,
we constantly get compliments on how we react to how we respond to customers and, and calling
(30:33):
them back. I mean, just calling customers back. Our office, Nancy gets a lot. She gets a lot
of compliments. A lot of compliments. She does a great job in the office for, because we
hear all the time, we'll get, we'll finally get to a, we'll get to a job. And the customer's
like, oh, I, I, you don't understand. Like I can't even get a call back. I can't believe
you hear about us. And she goes, you guys answered. Yeah. The only ones that picked up the phone.
(30:59):
So that is, you got to pay for someone who's that responsive. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And it took, like I was saying before, it took me and I, I didn't come into this business
automatically thinking how much I, we deserve to charge. It, it took learning and getting
frustrated and failing and losing on the job to be like, listen, to know your worth. We
(31:22):
have exactly and charge your worth and don't be ashamed. There's no need to recoil from
that. When you talk to a customer and they're like, oh my gosh, it's that much. Be like,
yeah, it's that much. You don't say that to a lawyer. You don't say that to a lawyer
when he charges you $700 an hour to come to the courtroom to sometimes not even speak
(31:45):
to the judge on your behalf. And that's what you have to pay. Yeah. You know, like, you
don't say that to him. He went to law school. He, he, we spend, we spend the rest of our
lives in this, in this business having to stay in required continuing education. We
have to get the license first of all. And what we learned this year, you actually don't
(32:09):
own your license. The state owns your license. Yeah. The state owns your stamp. Yeah. So
you have to like, if you're not charging what you need to be charging, you're not a business
owner. You're just in a, you had just have a really risky job. Yeah. Well, remember what
(32:29):
Ronnie said to like pricing out your job. Let's say you go, let's say you estimate the
job at a five hour job. All right. And you get the job done in four hours. Okay. He had
a customer come to him one time when he finished the job and out like an hour and a half early,
he goes, Oh, so you're going to, you're going to charge me less for it because you, you
(32:52):
know, you weren't here for the full five hours. He goes, if I went over the five hours, if
I did six hours, can I charge you more? Can I charge you more? And he goes, you have a
good point. You have a good point. You're paying for the experience and some jobs do
go over time. Yeah. And some jobs get done in less time, but you estimate it out at what
you know, on average, that's going to take you. Well, here's the other thing. And I've
(33:13):
actually heard a couple of good points. That's kind of why we don't charge by the hour anymore.
Because it could screw over the customer. I mean, let's say we get stuck up. I'm trying
to think of a job, a simple one that we just, we got stuck up on like the customers on the
hook for all that extra time. But if you take your averages, if you take your averages and
(33:33):
you make sure you're charging enough for material, you'll meet your numbers and you don't have
to, and the customer is not like, well, what, you took so long because you're just trying
to make extra money. No. And here's the other reason why it's not good to charge by the
hour, because the better you get and the more efficient you become, you're punishing yourself
for becoming better because you're going to do the job faster. So why should you lose
(33:56):
money when you become more experienced? If you're, why don't you go charge the customer
a flat rate and just blast your experience all over the job and say, listen, yes, you're
going to pay this. You should find the right words for what you want to say. I know. I
don't know. I don't know. There was a job, I think you told me early on that there was
(34:19):
a boiler that was kind of whacking out on at a woman's house. Whacking out. Whacking
out. All right, move on. It was at a whack. And you found out that it was just a switch
for the boiler at the top of the stairs. Every time she thought it was the lights and she
(34:41):
kept turning off the boiler and she thought it was the light. It wasn't marked with the
red plate. It wasn't marked with the red plate, right? Didn't you tell me that? That was the
job that you did. I think you had the charger because I had the charger. That's my experience.
Like I knew that and you didn't kind of a thing. Yeah. Like we've, I figured that out
pretty quick. Yeah. And, and I went to go write up her bill. She's like, hold on. Who
(35:04):
was it? All you had to do was turn on a switch and tell me I need an electrician. I was
like, okay, well, if that's the case, then why didn't you do it? Why didn't you figure
it out? Why did you keep shutting off the lights and the boiler? We just, we just ride
around in charity trucks doling out knowledge and wisdom. Like it doesn't work like that.
But here's the thing. In some cases, yes, you do give, I've seen you go, I've seen you
(35:24):
do things because that wasn't a long time customer, right? It was a new customer. New
dish. Yeah. Yeah. We still have her. I had to explain to her now, but, and you explained
it to her, but you do that. You don't, you do that for a newer customer. You have to
charge. You have to prove to them that your experience that I knew this and you didn't.
(35:48):
This is why I'm charging you. But if it was like a long time customer, you would never
charge that. I know that. And you have to, you have to confidently present your invoice
to be like, listen, this invoice I'm presenting you, I know I'm worth it. Yeah. I know I'm
worth it. So whatever you come back at me with, I have an answer for you because first
of all, we've heard it all. And I know that my experience, I'm going to put into this
(36:12):
job and you're going to be better off for it. Yeah. Like here's the thing about plumbing.
When you install plumbing, you have to be good for the next half century. If you put
in a sewer line, you better be sure you don't want some hack doing it because you want your
sewer line to last until your kids buy the house. That's if the materials last. That
(36:34):
is true. See, and that's another thing we talked about that last week where you're going from,
you're going from mostly metal and heavy duty solid products. Everything is plastic. Everything
is plastic. I mean, PVC has been what been around since the 80s. I think PVC is great.
I think it's a great material. Yeah. Lightweight, durable. You know, if it catches, you know
(36:54):
why you can't use it in commercial applications. It catches fire. Super toxic. Yeah. And so
was lead and they use lead for everything. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you that's why that's
why we have this commercial job coming up. No, it's not even a commercial job. It's
that residential job in a really big house in the architects calling for cast dire. But
(37:16):
the stupid thing is the floor below it is all PVC and the floor above is all PVC, which
we're not changing. He just wants in the middle of the house. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
No, I'm trying to get him on the phone. He won't respond. But engineers think that their
God's gift to the world. And I don't know if this is completely true, but we did hear
that thing where architects make their money by writing into the plans more expensive. The
(37:42):
type of material because they get a percentage of that type of material that you're using
Yeah. That's why they'll put in expensive toilets and stuff like that. Not necessarily
the toilet, but they'll they'll recommend sometimes a certain type of pex or a certain
type of no hub fitting. He's requiring El copper. Yeah. El copper and cast iron. He's
(38:02):
probably getting a kickback. Yeah. That's that's and that's how they make their money.
Whatever. That's how they make their money. You know, I don't care how not that I don't
care, but people make their money the way they need to. But they I think engineers,
engineers go overboard like crazy. Remember the job we did where they called for it originally
they called for 12 inch diameter PVC pipe on that drainage, the drainage, the yard drainage,
(38:27):
and then they brought it down to eight inch because everybody talked them down and eight
inch was still insane. Yeah. I mean, it didn't even make sense. She hasn't flooded sense.
That's not true. Well, she flooded because the pump failed. Yeah. China. Yeah, there you
go. That Chinese pump. You know, it's it's funny that we just spent like 20 minutes defending
(38:49):
our numbers and then we're like ragging on the architect for making his money or whatever.
No, I don't listen again. I don't care what he makes. It doesn't bother me. But if you're
going if you're going overboard with, you know, the type of material that you want to
use, then he should know we should say something. I think well, mostly this mostly this week,
(39:10):
we've talked about pricing and numbers and I think besides putting in the work to figure
out what your numbers should be, it's confidently selling yourself as being worth those numbers.
That's the biggest thing. And if you lose the job, first of all, if they're if they're
going to hassle you down to the point where you're going to start taking off a lot of
money, you're going to lose. Yeah. There's no point in taking that job then you're already
(39:35):
losing with that customer. Don't take a job where you're going to lose money just to take
a job. Yeah. Even if you're slow, even if you're slow, because if you're going to take
this job just to take it to stay busy and you're going to lose anyway. Well, how do
you know that? Because you can kind of tell a lot about experience. You know that from
experience. Yeah. You've had that situation happen to you. You know those trigger words
(39:57):
that the customer uses those little triggers you'd be like and that make the hairs on the
back of your next stand up. What are those trigger words? Okay, give me your best price.
Give me your best price. This is my best price right here. Giving you this price. Yeah. If
you're calling me for the best price, by the way, that's my father. What? Give me your
best. I'm not paying for you know, he got. He has doesn't have a t-shirt that says that.
(40:22):
No, you know what happens? You know what happens? Sometimes my mom told me that he'll he'll
hassle with like the worker that's doing the job or whatever job it is. He'll haggle with
him. Let's say the guy gives him. Okay, it's going to cost $500. He goes $500. It's $200.
That's what you're getting. Okay. The guy will laugh it off, do the job and he'll say,
(40:48):
okay, it's 500 bucks. And my dad's like, here's 200. Right. And that's how he thinks. He thinks
that's it. It's over. Well, my mother will give the guy the extra three, the balance
of 300. But my father needs to feel good. Like he got that. He got him down to 200.
You can take you can take the man out of the Middle East, but you can't take the Middle
(41:09):
East out of the man. He got for the for him in his head and he's and he's sitting outside
looking at this beautiful project that the guy did. And he's like, I got that for this
price. You can do it. Next. Can you believe that I got down to that? We should have him.
We should we should get him on here because he's a business owner. Yeah, he's running
(41:30):
a small business 35 years. He's in business. Yeah. But you know, and his long time partner
left him last year. I mean, that's got to be yeah, he's got he's had to adapt. So it
was an adjustment. Yeah. I mean, he's not very tech savvy, which in today's day and
age, you know, you have to be very tech savvy, whether or not you like it, you know, social
(41:54):
media, all that kind of stuff. I'm just picturing him out in the back patio with his feet up
and just looking at a cigar and he's like, he's not realizing that your mom had had
paid the rest of the bill behind his back. This I got this for $10,000. So funny that
it really cost 20. Oh, just so content with himself. You just have to make he just has
(42:18):
to feel like he got a deal. That's why you know, the comedians of Ashmanis Galco. Yeah.
Well, when he talks to his father and he goes, he goes, I can't tell my father what I paid
for this thing. I have to give him parent price. It's true. Yeah. Because if you tell
your parents, especially immigrant parents, what you paid for something, you got ripped
off. It's ripped off. You got ripped off. You got it. What this gallon of milk for 350.
(42:42):
Oh, I could have made that. You have cows. You have cows. I've never seen a cow here.
Well, hey, that's the main focus today. Numbers charging right, having confidence. I like
I said, I want to highlight the word confidence. I've taught I've listened to guys try to sell
(43:05):
their numbers and they have they're not confident in what they're charging confidence. And that
comes from I'm going to be honest, sitting down, finally, finally hunkering down and
facing the music that you you literally have to write down all your numbers and figure
out where that it's not it's a pain in the ass, especially for guys who are in the trades
(43:27):
we're in the trades because we want to go out and work. We want to make stuff work. We
want to fix things. We don't want to have to come back and sit on a computer. Yeah. But
you have to do it. And once you do that, you have the confidence behind you to charge right,
make the money that you need to do and also put the in the customer in a good place long
(43:51):
term because they're all set now. You've got any of taking care of everything you've used.
You've blasted your experience all over the job site and they're good now. So I go on
and get blasting until next week. All of you blue collar workers go on and get blasted
(44:12):
and start blasting those job sites. But yeah, so I think this is this will be a good step
for next week. But guys, thanks for listening. It's always a good time, even though it's
only the second episode, but we're actually really enjoying this. And thanks again for
listening to our little podcast here. Peace out. Have a good one.
Okay ladies and gentlemen, episode two. Did you think we'd get this far? Did you think
(00:12):
we'd make it?
Absolutely not. Especially not with the way that we're set up today. I mean, if you saw
the video, if we, because we're going to start doing video if we get past three podcasts,
I told them, we look like absolute slabs. Set up on the couch.
It's so, listen, this is going to be a way better setup. First of all, it'll be more
(00:36):
relaxed. They'll be able to tell it in our voices.
No shot. It's going to be a better setup.
It's just so hot. It's just so hot and humid.
We finished the work day today and we're like, we got to do the podcast today.
And it's the last thing.
The last thing we want to do is, which is anything.
And I was like, all right, I need a 15, 10, 15 minute nap, half an hour to 45 minutes
(00:58):
later. I'm like, I can't even move.
I think, so I think last week we talked about a whole bunch of crap and went off on tangents,
which is fine. But I think we talked about a couple good things, especially with the
whole college versus getting into the trades thing.
(01:19):
I actually want to, I actually want to point out the biggest plus is the tuition you save.
You're not dumping tens of thousands of dollars for a degree.
What depends because I remember last time we talked about me going to, I was going to
go to technical school, ITT tech for auto mechanics. And it's only a year and a half,
(01:41):
I think.
Yeah. But what do you get for, is it a certification or as a license?
I think it's just a certification. I don't think you need to, I don't know if you need
to be licensed to be an auto mechanic or you just need to be certified as an auto mechanic.
But they do help you with a lot of things like getting jobs and things like that after
school, but it's almost $30,000 for the tuition for the year and a half, which is crazy.
(02:05):
Yeah.
I didn't know it was that much.
It's crazy. If you go, I mean, I think they offer also HVAC, they do offer those types
of trades too, but it's very, very expensive. And if you don't get grants, you're paying
about $30,000 for that year and a half.
So we were talking, and I think you were at the conversation, that Paul had gone to his
(02:30):
kids' job fair or trades, or when his daughter was graduating, he goes over to the school
and it has all these tables and they're giving out scholarships and stuff like that. And
it was one trade scholarship being given out to one kid that wanted to do it. And to be
honest, the interest wasn't even there. So it would be nice to change that because we're
about to hit a really bad time where the average age of a plumber, I was watching a video the
(02:55):
other day, 60 years old.
Where in our area or just in general.
In this country.
Yeah, it's nationwide, the average. What are you saying?
We went to that plumber's board meeting for New Jersey and in the state of New Jersey,
this is a fun fact. This is a fun fact. There's what, 9 million people in New Jersey, right?
(03:18):
In the state of New Jersey.
I think so, yeah.
Okay, there's only 5,000 licensed plumbers in the entire state and most of those are
boomers.
And 10,000 hacks.
Yeah, most of those are boomers who at the end of the day, they're gonna, I mean, you
know, pretty soon they're gonna be retiring.
And there's nobody to fill those gaps.
Yeah.
(03:38):
There's nobody fill those spaces. Already we don't have enough plumbers. Can you imagine
what's gonna happen?
Plumbers, electricians.
Yeah, it's with all that stuff.
And this is something like, you can automate out fast food workers. They're doing it now.
I don't know if you've gone to these high tech McDonald's where you don't even talk
to a person. And you can make burgers on a conveyor line and in a McDonald's, you can
(03:59):
automate this stuff out. No one's going to retail stores anymore.
But you can't automate out plumbing, electrical, contracting, putting up sheet rock, all that
stuff.
I saw a robot put up sheet rock.
Oh, that's right.
I saw a robot put up sheet rock in a video, but it's not gonna become a thing.
But give them a corner. Give them a corner in like a bowing archway.
(04:21):
It's not gonna, yeah, it's not gonna be a thing. You're not gonna have a robot come
to your house to put up sheet rock.
Yeah. So I think, I think the median age of plumbers being 60, we're going to start feeling
the heat because they're still working. They're still out there working.
Yeah, they're just a little bit slower.
The old timers are still working in a couple of years. That's it.
(04:41):
Yeah.
So I think, I think, I know courts is trying to get involved in pushing a scholarship or
coming up, especially next year. And you know what? I hope other companies will catch on.
Like I think I'd be down to do it with a bunch of companies.
Yeah.
And I'll say, I actually posted something like this on Instagram that, oh, no, there
(05:03):
was a Facebook thread and Conway Plumbing is in River Edge. We see Conway all the time.
I talked to him at the plumbing supply house. So I'm, I'm part of a whole bunch of, you
know, River Edge groups and stuff like that.
Mom's group.
No, not in any mom's group because you have to prove your gender and the fact that you
have children, which I'm not a woman. I don't have children, but they, they were talking,
(05:26):
someone had posted a picture. Conway came in. They did a, he did a great job and they
posted a picture and there was this whole thread. Yeah, we use Conway for everything.
So I jumped on there and my comment was, you know, on paper, plumbing companies are supposed
to be really, really competitive and, you know, you're not praise each other. But to
(05:46):
be honest, this area has some of the best contractors and Conway is no exception. I
posted that and people were shocked that when you go to the supply house in this area in
Hackensack, we all talk to each other. We joke around. No one's fighting for, there's
endless work. There's endless work. So when we go down there, there's not much of a sense
(06:10):
of competitiveness unless you're busting chops.
Yeah.
Like if Rob comes in there and we're going to bust his chops. But if you go out, like
we were talking about my brother doing plumbing in Ohio, you go to a supply house out there.
Nobody speaks to each other. Everyone's cold. No one's helping each other. I've called tons
(06:32):
of plumbers around here for help when I'm stuck on a job. They have no problem reaching
a handout.
So,
Well, the difference in plumbing here versus over in, in all of those other states, you
go out to the Midwest, you go to the South. It's wildly different. I mean, you've talked
about it. I know a little bit less about what goes on in the Midwest, but you say people,
like their water heaters are mostly electric water heaters. They lease their, they finance
(06:57):
their, their utilities.
They lease, yep. They, they, they, they, they rent their hot water heaters. They rent their
AC units. They rent their boilers. So they're on a payment plan.
Yeah. We don't, we don't understand. So it was our, it was our teacher. I don't think
we realize how good we have it.
I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to put foam rubber around you.
(07:20):
Why?
Because you're getting a lot of blowback with the noise.
Every time you touch that coffee, swallow every time I drink my coffee.
Every time you touch the coffee cup, it's like, it's like you're leaning into the grand
candy.
I can see it bothering him, which is why I keep doing it. I'm an agitator.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just for the podcast.
(07:43):
So oh, here's something I wanted to clarify that my dad's hands are not as soft as I made
it out last, last week.
He was so bothered by that.
So I said, I sent him the podcast. I was like, dad, listen to this. Tell me what you think.
He's like, I think it's great, but I don't like that my soft hands were a big topic of
(08:07):
it.
I'm like, well, we're just pulling from reality here.
Yeah, I didn't show it. I didn't. I wasn't showing my friends this. I wasn't showing
it unless this takes off. I'm not showing anybody.
Listen, who knows? You know what? If we get five listeners, I don't care. I mean, it is
what it is.
Yeah. I mean, I enjoy it, which is why you can't tell your friends that you enjoy certain
(08:31):
things.
Oh yeah.
Especially your group of guys.
I'm like, you know what? This is my therapy.
Yeah. Like every time you go over your friend's house, they're going to like mock you with
like headphones and stuff.
Yeah. Don't say, don't talk about the things that you enjoy with them.
Or you'll just be heckled with.
Just drinking not at each other when you're with them.
(08:54):
So what else did we learn this week? Oh, I definitely, it's not that I learned this,
but it reiterated how much I hate working in the rain.
I think it's miserable. You know what else is great about working for Phil?
What?
Is that if it rains, if the weather is slightly out of whack, if it's not 70 degrees outside
(09:19):
and the humidity is not too hot and not it's, it's, he's calling it. He's like, I'm not
doing it.
That's not certain jobs I call.
I'm joking. I know. I know. I mean, there have been days. There was that, there was a,
we both came in, it was torrential downpour. There were like two hose bibs scheduled. I'm
(09:41):
like, I'm not working.
Yeah. It's, hose bib is not an emergency. You know, you don't have to work outside in
the rain for two hose bibs.
Plus it's raining. Your water, your lawn is being watered as we speak.
Yeah. They don't have to, we don't have to work outside on a day like that.
Well, here's another thing that we're starting to do this week is to wrap up that renovation
we had.
Yeah.
(10:01):
Which is nice.
Yeah. That renovation.
I mean, listen, it turned into.
How do you feel? How do you feel? Okay. You, there's two types of work in this business.
There's new construction. There's, which I can, I guess renovations can kind of go in
the new construction.
Renovation, new construction.
(10:22):
Yeah. Renovation, new construction.
Right.
Because you can renovate a bathroom and not a whole house, but there's new construction,
renovation, and then there's service work, which we're mostly service plumbers. We do
renovations, bathroom remodels and stuff like that. But what do you, what do you prefer?
And what do you think about those two?
At the size we're at, it's tough to do renovations because this is what I gather from renovations,
(10:47):
remodels and all that stuff. If you, it's okay if you, if you bump the table, putting
the coffee cup down, which is busting your chops before it.
So we're not big enough for renovations. I'd like to get to a point because I got to be
honest, if you can bang out a renovation quickly, if you can bang out the plumbing rough in
a period of a day and a half, you're golden because then all the other contractors can
(11:12):
come in. But when you're not, when you're, when you're only two guys and then the phone
is ringing off the hook for other people needing work and you have customers, you have to step
away, put it on hold, rearrange your schedule because the one contractor comes in, he's
like, oh, you guys got to move this pipe and then you have to stop what you're doing,
drive over. We're not big enough for it. But I would like to get to a point where we can
(11:35):
take a renovation or two and be comfortable, put four or five guys on it and be done with
it.
I think that for us renovations, we can do renovations, remodels, stuff like that, like
a bathroom.
A kitchen and a bathroom.
I don't even think.
I'm not even saying together, but we can do a kitchen.
(11:55):
Yes.
We can do a bathroom if it comes up.
It's got to be just the bathroom, just that controlled space because once we start getting
into going, oh, we, you know, let's do this bathroom now. Let's do this kitchen now.
Let's do this now.
This renovation we're doing.
I know. I know it gets away from, it gets, it can get away from you fast because the
homeowner, once you start opening things up, first of all, you start finding what the last
(12:20):
plumber did, what the contractor did with the house before you and you just open up
cans of worms and you keep moving on down the line.
Like the whole, the whole job will come to a screeching halt if there's an issue with
another trade being in there.
You know, who just, we needed to, they needed to re, re-support that entire bathroom upstairs
(12:45):
with brand new beams, brand new beams that went across the entirety of the kitchen.
We opened the walls and just found a nightmare.
It needed to get done. It needed to get done.
I mean, listen, that was more than just a renovation. We did a, we did the boiler, water heater,
we did the laundry room downstairs, we did the kitchen and not, it wasn't just a kitchen.
It's a kosher kitchen, which means you need the two sinks.
Yeah.
(13:05):
You need the two stoves and they put a bar sink. Now we're getting finally to the end
of it and it's turning into a beautiful, beautiful job. I mean, the homeowners picked
out beautiful tile, the countertops gorgeous, but to get there, oh, and then the other thing,
the other bathroom upstairs that we had to redo because when we opened the walls, we
found out that the shower pan has been leaking behind the wall for months. It looked like
(13:28):
years.
Yeah.
And there was mold and everything and the insulation was just absorbing it. But here's
what the homeowner told me that before they bought the house, no one had lived there for
like a year and a half.
They bought it with no one living there, which is even sometimes worse.
Yeah.
And stuff doesn't move when stuff doesn't get used. It starts to deteriorate.
(13:51):
I'm glad we're finally getting to the end of it.
Yeah.
It happens to us every year though.
Because heating work drops off and what are you going to take? You have to take a couple
of renovations here and there.
I agree.
I did turn one down today though.
I agree that you have to turn down renovations here and there.
(14:12):
As with the company, our size.
I think instead of, we just need to stick to remodels. If it's a bathroom, if somebody
wants to redo the bathroom, okay, no problem. We can do that. That in our slow season, not
even in our busy season. But it's very, very difficult with stuff like this where it does
get away from us.
(14:32):
I mean, listen, we basically did the entire house.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, that is true.
Like there's only one bathroom that we didn't touch.
That's my opinion. Service work to me is where it's at.
Because first of all, it's highly skilled. You need to know what you're doing. You can't
just go in there and be a schmuck.
So if you're going in there with knowledge on how to do service work, work on a boiler,
(14:56):
work on a water heater, fix some plumbing that you can access, change the sewer line.
For me, that's where it's at. Because you can get in, you can charge the customer properly.
You get in, you get out, you make your money and you move on.
You put a good warranty, you give them a great warranty and then you move on and then that's
(15:16):
it. You move to the next one. That's where our company size is set up for that we can
handle.
Yeah.
And I'm not saying like, like we know, we know a plumber, he's a single man operation
and he'll bang out a renovation. I don't know how he does it. I got to give the guy props,
but he will go do a, he'll go, yeah, I'm going to just do a renovation or remod, it's a remodel,
(15:39):
a remodel this weekend.
Yeah.
Okay. If that's the case, you're just running some PVC for some new fixtures and stuff, but
even still, man, I, I, it's, it's, it's the plumbing industry is tough to do alone. I
wouldn't want to do it.
Well, he's always got a guy. He's, he does most of the stuff himself, but I'm sure I
can ask him, but I'm sure he's just not, not even concentrating on any of his service calls
(16:05):
while that thing is going.
Yeah.
Well, that's you really have to shut your phone off.
He can't, he can't, there's no way. Cause every single time we're on one of those remodels
or renovations, our phone is like off the hook ringing and you always have to step away
every like couple hours. You got to step away for something.
And I mean, if it's not 70 degrees with perfect humidity, I get really, I get really testy
(16:32):
anyway.
Oh yeah.
Like Nancy will call with just a simple request and then it's like Pearl Harbor being.
Yeah, it sets him off. This is, this is where, this is where the courts, the courts start
to start to break down. I've worked with him. I've worked with his brother and these types
of conditions.
(16:53):
And you've met a lot of courts.
I've met a lot of courts is now they're great, friendly, fun as hell, but don't work for
them if temperature is not perfect. It's not work for them. Don't work next to them.
It is true. We're emotional people. We're an emotional, so you go, we're, courts are
(17:14):
all over the country. We're all different. But if you hang out with us all in a room
and you look around and you be like, you know what, these people are not different at all.
They're the exact same person squished into different bodies.
They're hilarious from the outside.
What else do we have to talk about?
There's a lot of passive aggressive.
No, there's no passiveness in the aggressiveness. It's just aggressiveness. Listen, we are our
(17:41):
grandfather's offspring.
Yeah.
I mean, he was such a ball buster. I told you everywhere we would go, he would make jokes.
Did I tell this story last week?
Yes.
Did I?
Yeah.
I was so excited to be in the C now.
I try to be nice to you about it.
No, I try to entertain your stories. It makes you happy.
(18:05):
Whatever, like you don't repeat anything. This kid comes in and thinks he's perfect,
perfect employee, everything. Anyway, what else we got? I mean, we're really just wrapping
up that renovation this week.
Yeah. It's right now. It's just bound.
Here's the other thing that it despises about renovations.
(18:26):
You do a lot of work. You're working in someone's house for months. You finally wrap up the
job. Like we have that house we went to today with the pool that's filling up. I don't want
to say the name, but we did a whole bunch of work there.
So you put a year warranty on the work you do, but if something happens two years from
now, you're kind of obligated to go and take care of it. Like you're stuck there. You're
(18:51):
the guy that had the hands in the house two, three years down the road. Now you can be
a ball buster and say, now sorry, your warranty's done. So you're going to pay for this visit,
which sometimes on some situations I do with those jobs when it's appropriate, but a lot
of times we'll just be like, let's just go take care of it.
If they're a good customer, you should take care of it because you know that you're getting
(19:14):
a lot of work and you have a good relationship with that person. But if they're not, then
I'm sorry, but you're running a business here. Like I said, I always go back to cars with
this kind of stuff because that's, that's my father's industry. But you remember when
I bought my truck, the one you have now, the one I have now, which I haven't seen in weeks.
(19:37):
Yeah. Too much gas. Where is it? It's at, it's at my father's property. You're just
not driving it because it's a gas guzzler. I don't, I don't feel like spending $100 a
week in gas. Right now, currently, I don't like to admit it, but I'll admit it now.
I'm driving a Prius. I put $20 in that thing and I drive it for three weeks. And if I don't
need the pickup truck, I'm not driving the pickup truck.
(19:58):
Are you going to keep that Prius? I'm not keeping it. If he needs to sell it, if somebody
calls him on it, then, then, uh,
You don't think you'll snag like a, like a girlfriend with driving around with that
thing? No way.
Like go picking her up. No way. I actually tried to take somebody out on a date. I said,
I'll pick you up at eight. I pulled up in the Prius and she said, absolutely not.
No way. Yeah. She said, no.
Are you serious?
(20:18):
I'm joking. Are you kidding me?
I was going to say, she's ridiculously dateable then.
She's going to say no.
She's going to say no. She's going to say no.
He drives the Prius. But, but, um,
You found her TikTok later and she's just like ripping on you.
She's ripping on me.
But, uh, so I gotta say, if that was a true story, I'd be like, you get that girl back.
You want to meet her? You want to meet her?
(20:40):
Invite her out for a beer.
I was describing my perfect first date. She, she rejected my Prius.
You say the Prius is pretty badass car though.
It's a great car. It's probably one of the best cars, but it doesn't, it doesn't take
away from the fact that it's very, very feminine.
(21:00):
It's soul crushing that car.
All right. Prius, Prius or a Volkswagen bug in yellow, both in yellow.
That I don't think, well,
Sunshine yellow Prius.
I have to go with the Prius too. There's nothing more feminine than a Volkswagen bug.
Apologies to anyone who's a male and drives Volkswagen bug.
(21:22):
I don't think there's any. I think you're offending maybe one person in the entire
A classic bug.
A million people world. What?
Maybe a classic bug.
Yeah.
I could, you know.
Yeah, that's nice. Those are nice people are doing nice things with those old buggies
too.
When my parents first got married, their first vehicle, and I remember it was the Volkswagen
van. It was a red and white V-dub van with the flat front. It had carpet in the back.
(21:45):
I'm trying to remember because this is when I was really, really young, but there was
brown shag carpet in the back. One seat. It was mostly open. I don't remember them driving
it for very long, but it was just a cool, cool vehicle.
They kept it. It would have been worth a lot of money.
I know. And they were worth nothing back then.
Yeah.
No one wanted them.
(22:05):
Well, everything was cheap then.
Well, the reason they drove it around because they went out of style. My parents were broke.
Yeah.
And that was the van they got. That the one they could only have. They had no seats in
the back.
But I want to just to the point that I was making was that truck that I have now. It's
going back to the warranties and obligated like that. I bought that truck. It cost me
(22:29):
like $25,000. Okay. It's a 2015 GMC Sierra. All right. They had dropped the price down.
I bought it from a brand new Lexus dealership. And they didn't want to give me a warranty
on the truck.
At all?
No.
Because it wasn't GMC. It wasn't a GMC dealership.
(22:50):
Okay.
So it was a Lexus dealership. Somebody had traded in that GMC. They didn't want to give
me a they didn't want to give me a warranty. I was like, are you kidding me? Like my father's
in the business. He sells $7,000 cars, $5,000 cars, $6,000 cars. He gives a warranty with
you.
At least 30 days.
Something. And they were like, no, no, we don't want to give it.
They wouldn't even give you 30 days.
(23:11):
They didn't want to give it to me. So I kept going back for I left the dealership. I went
there like three times. And eventually the third time they wanted to they started talking
about it.
A warranty. And I was like, listen, you guys are starting to bother me with I want the
truck. Okay. There's a reason why I'm back here the third time, but I'm not leaving here
if I don't get a warranty.
(23:33):
And I hate to admit this, but I was like, you've been dealing with me and I'm not that
nice to deal with. All right.
But you're going to bring your father.
I'm going to bring my father here and it's going to be over for you people because my
father, he's an immigrant and he's he's loud and aggressive and no shame. And he's going
to walk out of there. They're going to give the keys to that GMC with the three year warranty
(23:58):
power train bumper to bumper.
And he's going to and he's still won't be good enough.
Yeah. And that's what happened.
You brought him in.
I brought him while I brought I, I called him when I was there and he goes, put me on
the phone with the guy, put me on the phone, put me on the phone with the manager. I put
him on the phone with the manager. The guy comes back like 10, 15 minutes later. He's
(24:22):
like, all right, listen, you're going to get a warranty. We're so sorry.
I'm not even joking, dude. This is not a joke. You're going to get a warranty. The car is
25. Okay. They dropped it from 30 already because they couldn't get rid of it. You're
getting a warranty. And then what happened was, was that, did you hear any of this conversation
(24:47):
between him and your father?
No. No, I just gave him the phone and that was it. My father, he went 20 minutes, 15,
20 minutes on the phone with him. And I'm sure he said what I said, listen, I'm in the
business. I know what the car is. How are you going to sell a car at $25,000 with no
warrant? Like you're out of your mind. And my father, he told me the first time that
(25:12):
I went there when I was negotiating with them, he goes, get out of there. Don't, don't even,
I wasn't going to stay anyway. But three weeks after I had that truck, I don't know if you
remember catalytic converter went bad. That check engine like came out of catalytic converter
went bad. Now I have the warranty.
Right at the end of the warranty.
They didn't want to honor it. They didn't want to honor it because they said check engine
(25:33):
light doesn't mean because I got a warranty engine and transmission. And they didn't want
to honor it because the catalytic converter has nothing to do with the engine. It's got
to do with emissions.
Did you threaten him with another phone call from the father?
So that's exactly what happened.
Listen, I will get this man on the phone right now.
And once I threatened my father, he goes, listen, no problem. It's like an $1800 job.
(25:55):
That is so funny.
So he goes, $1800 job. And he goes, we got it. Sorry.
They just made 25 grand. I mean, to be honest,
They didn't make 25 grand. That's what they traded it in.
Okay. Well, you know what I mean.
But yeah, it's, you want, you want to get something for a good price. You bring my
father.
So how do we make this applicable to running a small business?
To plumbing?
(26:16):
Or just a small business?
Well, I can get my father on here. He can tell you.
Just have no shame.
Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of the point is what I'm saying. It's like, you have to be
good. He's good to his long time customers. He knows who's like, he's has repeat buyers.
A lot of his business is repeat buyers. Same thing with this.
(26:36):
You have a lot of repeat customers who you have to treat well because they keep using
you.
Now you have new customers that if they already start complaining and they don't like your
price and they don't like your, the way you work or the way, you know, the way we do our
business, then it's not, um, it's not the worst thing in the world to be like, listen,
(27:00):
I'm not the guy for you.
I'm not the guy for you.
Yeah.
Well, we have another company.
You know what? It was, it was, there was a learning curve for me because when I first
came into this business, I wanted like the customer was always right to me. And that's
just not true. And it's not bashing the customers because listen, we have 1200 customers on our
roster. We really don't have horrible customers.
(27:22):
No.
And we get the new calls we get, like they just fish themselves out anyway. You know,
they're not going to like us regardless of what they do. They're just going to go somewhere
else.
Yeah.
But what I had to learn, and it took me two to three, maybe even four years of the fact
that we're out there, we have acquired a certain amount of knowledge, a certain amount of tools
(27:46):
that you don't have. And I'm killing my body. I'm upside down under your vanity for two hours
trying to get this thing out and then in, I'm cutting myself. I'm hitting my head on
every pipe in the basement. Like we are, I do 100 times a week. Like I don't know why
(28:09):
it still hurts when I do it. I do it so many times, but we are out there and we've seen
all the problems that you're bringing us to your house for. We know how to fix it. Us
in the trades, we deserve to make a good wage. And I will find that like there is a general
consensus and this kind of bothers me a bit that people still look down on the trades
(28:35):
as when we come in, like you don't go to the grocery store and haggle over your bill. You
know what I mean?
Yeah.
And especially going to the grocery store when people are spending four, five, six hundred
dollars. Like the price is the price. And what we've done in the past couple of years
is we have spent hours sitting down, doing math, figuring out our numbers. What is our
(29:02):
average this month? Where do we need to be charging? Like we've spent hours on figuring
out where we need to be. So when I throw out a price, I'm not just pulling that out of
midair. I'm sitting down. Listen, I know, first of all, how much in an uncomfortable
position I'm going to have to be in for the next three hours. I'm going to know how many,
(29:23):
what kind of tools I'm going to need, how expensive they are. You know, the pro press
is only rated for up to a certain amount of presses. Yeah. Like all that stuff needs to
be maintained. The trucks out there, this truck drives all around Bergen County. Like
I'm sorry, you got to pay for that. You have to pay for that. You are well, you are more
than welcome to take my estimate and go find a schmuck that will charge you half price.
(29:47):
But you will get half price schmuck work. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it really
comes down. You're paying for the knowledge. You're paying for the knowledge. You're paying
for all that. You're paying for the tools, the knowledge. I mean, our tools cost a lot
of money. You can, you may have a win, win situation when you find someone who's half
(30:07):
the price. But I'll tell you one thing. That guy is not taking care of his employees. He's
not taking care of himself. You know what I mean? Yeah. He might not, he might not be
there for you when you call. I know this speaking for this company, at least. I know that I,
we constantly get compliments on how we react to how we respond to customers and, and calling
(30:33):
them back. I mean, just calling customers back. Our office, Nancy gets a lot. She gets a lot
of compliments. A lot of compliments. She does a great job in the office for, because we
hear all the time, we'll get, we'll finally get to a, we'll get to a job. And the customer's
like, oh, I, I, you don't understand. Like I can't even get a call back. I can't believe
you hear about us. And she goes, you guys answered. Yeah. The only ones that picked up the phone.
(30:59):
So that is, you got to pay for someone who's that responsive. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And it took, like I was saying before, it took me and I, I didn't come into this business
automatically thinking how much I, we deserve to charge. It, it took learning and getting
frustrated and failing and losing on the job to be like, listen, to know your worth. We
(31:22):
have exactly and charge your worth and don't be ashamed. There's no need to recoil from
that. When you talk to a customer and they're like, oh my gosh, it's that much. Be like,
yeah, it's that much. You don't say that to a lawyer. You don't say that to a lawyer
when he charges you $700 an hour to come to the courtroom to sometimes not even speak
(31:45):
to the judge on your behalf. And that's what you have to pay. Yeah. You know, like, you
don't say that to him. He went to law school. He, he, we spend, we spend the rest of our
lives in this, in this business having to stay in required continuing education. We
have to get the license first of all. And what we learned this year, you actually don't
(32:09):
own your license. The state owns your license. Yeah. The state owns your stamp. Yeah. So
you have to like, if you're not charging what you need to be charging, you're not a business
owner. You're just in a, you had just have a really risky job. Yeah. Well, remember what
(32:29):
Ronnie said to like pricing out your job. Let's say you go, let's say you estimate the
job at a five hour job. All right. And you get the job done in four hours. Okay. He had
a customer come to him one time when he finished the job and out like an hour and a half early,
he goes, Oh, so you're going to, you're going to charge me less for it because you, you
(32:52):
know, you weren't here for the full five hours. He goes, if I went over the five hours, if
I did six hours, can I charge you more? Can I charge you more? And he goes, you have a
good point. You have a good point. You're paying for the experience and some jobs do
go over time. Yeah. And some jobs get done in less time, but you estimate it out at what
you know, on average, that's going to take you. Well, here's the other thing. And I've
(33:13):
actually heard a couple of good points. That's kind of why we don't charge by the hour anymore.
Because it could screw over the customer. I mean, let's say we get stuck up. I'm trying
to think of a job, a simple one that we just, we got stuck up on like the customers on the
hook for all that extra time. But if you take your averages, if you take your averages and
(33:33):
you make sure you're charging enough for material, you'll meet your numbers and you don't have
to, and the customer is not like, well, what, you took so long because you're just trying
to make extra money. No. And here's the other reason why it's not good to charge by the
hour, because the better you get and the more efficient you become, you're punishing yourself
for becoming better because you're going to do the job faster. So why should you lose
(33:56):
money when you become more experienced? If you're, why don't you go charge the customer
a flat rate and just blast your experience all over the job and say, listen, yes, you're
going to pay this. You should find the right words for what you want to say. I know. I
don't know. I don't know. There was a job, I think you told me early on that there was
(34:19):
a boiler that was kind of whacking out on at a woman's house. Whacking out. Whacking
out. All right, move on. It was at a whack. And you found out that it was just a switch
for the boiler at the top of the stairs. Every time she thought it was the lights and she
(34:41):
kept turning off the boiler and she thought it was the light. It wasn't marked with the
red plate. It wasn't marked with the red plate, right? Didn't you tell me that? That was the
job that you did. I think you had the charger because I had the charger. That's my experience.
Like I knew that and you didn't kind of a thing. Yeah. Like we've, I figured that out
pretty quick. Yeah. And, and I went to go write up her bill. She's like, hold on. Who
(35:04):
was it? All you had to do was turn on a switch and tell me I need an electrician. I was
like, okay, well, if that's the case, then why didn't you do it? Why didn't you figure
it out? Why did you keep shutting off the lights and the boiler? We just, we just ride
around in charity trucks doling out knowledge and wisdom. Like it doesn't work like that.
But here's the thing. In some cases, yes, you do give, I've seen you go, I've seen you
(35:24):
do things because that wasn't a long time customer, right? It was a new customer. New
dish. Yeah. Yeah. We still have her. I had to explain to her now, but, and you explained
it to her, but you do that. You don't, you do that for a newer customer. You have to
charge. You have to prove to them that your experience that I knew this and you didn't.
(35:48):
This is why I'm charging you. But if it was like a long time customer, you would never
charge that. I know that. And you have to, you have to confidently present your invoice
to be like, listen, this invoice I'm presenting you, I know I'm worth it. Yeah. I know I'm
worth it. So whatever you come back at me with, I have an answer for you because first
of all, we've heard it all. And I know that my experience, I'm going to put into this
(36:12):
job and you're going to be better off for it. Yeah. Like here's the thing about plumbing.
When you install plumbing, you have to be good for the next half century. If you put
in a sewer line, you better be sure you don't want some hack doing it because you want your
sewer line to last until your kids buy the house. That's if the materials last. That
(36:34):
is true. See, and that's another thing we talked about that last week where you're going from,
you're going from mostly metal and heavy duty solid products. Everything is plastic. Everything
is plastic. I mean, PVC has been what been around since the 80s. I think PVC is great.
I think it's a great material. Yeah. Lightweight, durable. You know, if it catches, you know
(36:54):
why you can't use it in commercial applications. It catches fire. Super toxic. Yeah. And so
was lead and they use lead for everything. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you that's why that's
why we have this commercial job coming up. No, it's not even a commercial job. It's
that residential job in a really big house in the architects calling for cast dire. But
(37:16):
the stupid thing is the floor below it is all PVC and the floor above is all PVC, which
we're not changing. He just wants in the middle of the house. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
No, I'm trying to get him on the phone. He won't respond. But engineers think that their
God's gift to the world. And I don't know if this is completely true, but we did hear
that thing where architects make their money by writing into the plans more expensive. The
(37:42):
type of material because they get a percentage of that type of material that you're using
Yeah. That's why they'll put in expensive toilets and stuff like that. Not necessarily
the toilet, but they'll they'll recommend sometimes a certain type of pex or a certain
type of no hub fitting. He's requiring El copper. Yeah. El copper and cast iron. He's
(38:02):
probably getting a kickback. Yeah. That's that's and that's how they make their money.
Whatever. That's how they make their money. You know, I don't care how not that I don't
care, but people make their money the way they need to. But they I think engineers,
engineers go overboard like crazy. Remember the job we did where they called for it originally
they called for 12 inch diameter PVC pipe on that drainage, the drainage, the yard drainage,
(38:27):
and then they brought it down to eight inch because everybody talked them down and eight
inch was still insane. Yeah. I mean, it didn't even make sense. She hasn't flooded sense.
That's not true. Well, she flooded because the pump failed. Yeah. China. Yeah, there you
go. That Chinese pump. You know, it's it's funny that we just spent like 20 minutes defending
(38:49):
our numbers and then we're like ragging on the architect for making his money or whatever.
No, I don't listen again. I don't care what he makes. It doesn't bother me. But if you're
going if you're going overboard with, you know, the type of material that you want to
use, then he should know we should say something. I think well, mostly this mostly this week,
(39:10):
we've talked about pricing and numbers and I think besides putting in the work to figure
out what your numbers should be, it's confidently selling yourself as being worth those numbers.
That's the biggest thing. And if you lose the job, first of all, if they're if they're
going to hassle you down to the point where you're going to start taking off a lot of
money, you're going to lose. Yeah. There's no point in taking that job then you're already
(39:35):
losing with that customer. Don't take a job where you're going to lose money just to take
a job. Yeah. Even if you're slow, even if you're slow, because if you're going to take
this job just to take it to stay busy and you're going to lose anyway. Well, how do
you know that? Because you can kind of tell a lot about experience. You know that from
experience. Yeah. You've had that situation happen to you. You know those trigger words
(39:57):
that the customer uses those little triggers you'd be like and that make the hairs on the
back of your next stand up. What are those trigger words? Okay, give me your best price.
Give me your best price. This is my best price right here. Giving you this price. Yeah. If
you're calling me for the best price, by the way, that's my father. What? Give me your
best. I'm not paying for you know, he got. He has doesn't have a t-shirt that says that.
(40:22):
No, you know what happens? You know what happens? Sometimes my mom told me that he'll he'll
hassle with like the worker that's doing the job or whatever job it is. He'll haggle with
him. Let's say the guy gives him. Okay, it's going to cost $500. He goes $500. It's $200.
That's what you're getting. Okay. The guy will laugh it off, do the job and he'll say,
(40:48):
okay, it's 500 bucks. And my dad's like, here's 200. Right. And that's how he thinks. He thinks
that's it. It's over. Well, my mother will give the guy the extra three, the balance
of 300. But my father needs to feel good. Like he got that. He got him down to 200.
You can take you can take the man out of the Middle East, but you can't take the Middle
(41:09):
East out of the man. He got for the for him in his head and he's and he's sitting outside
looking at this beautiful project that the guy did. And he's like, I got that for this
price. You can do it. Next. Can you believe that I got down to that? We should have him.
We should we should get him on here because he's a business owner. Yeah, he's running
(41:30):
a small business 35 years. He's in business. Yeah. But you know, and his long time partner
left him last year. I mean, that's got to be yeah, he's got he's had to adapt. So it
was an adjustment. Yeah. I mean, he's not very tech savvy, which in today's day and
age, you know, you have to be very tech savvy, whether or not you like it, you know, social
(41:54):
media, all that kind of stuff. I'm just picturing him out in the back patio with his feet up
and just looking at a cigar and he's like, he's not realizing that your mom had had
paid the rest of the bill behind his back. This I got this for $10,000. So funny that
it really cost 20. Oh, just so content with himself. You just have to make he just has
(42:18):
to feel like he got a deal. That's why you know, the comedians of Ashmanis Galco. Yeah.
Well, when he talks to his father and he goes, he goes, I can't tell my father what I paid
for this thing. I have to give him parent price. It's true. Yeah. Because if you tell
your parents, especially immigrant parents, what you paid for something, you got ripped
off. It's ripped off. You got ripped off. You got it. What this gallon of milk for 350.
(42:42):
Oh, I could have made that. You have cows. You have cows. I've never seen a cow here.
Well, hey, that's the main focus today. Numbers charging right, having confidence. I like
I said, I want to highlight the word confidence. I've taught I've listened to guys try to sell
(43:05):
their numbers and they have they're not confident in what they're charging confidence. And that
comes from I'm going to be honest, sitting down, finally, finally hunkering down and
facing the music that you you literally have to write down all your numbers and figure
out where that it's not it's a pain in the ass, especially for guys who are in the trades
(43:27):
we're in the trades because we want to go out and work. We want to make stuff work. We
want to fix things. We don't want to have to come back and sit on a computer. Yeah. But
you have to do it. And once you do that, you have the confidence behind you to charge right,
make the money that you need to do and also put the in the customer in a good place long
(43:51):
term because they're all set now. You've got any of taking care of everything you've used.
You've blasted your experience all over the job site and they're good now. So I go on
and get blasting until next week. All of you blue collar workers go on and get blasted
(44:12):
and start blasting those job sites. But yeah, so I think this is this will be a good step
for next week. But guys, thanks for listening. It's always a good time, even though it's
only the second episode, but we're actually really enjoying this. And thanks again for
listening to our little podcast here. Peace out. Have a good one.
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