Business Branding Is Important to Your Plumbing Business

In this edition of Potty Talk LIVE, Richard challenges you to re-think your plumbing business brand and explains why good business branding is important.

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Resources

3 Golden Nuggets

Good branding differentiates You: Stand out from the competition with memorable branding. Avoid “blanding” where you blend into all of the noise of plumbing companies with white trucks and simple letters.
Good branding elevates you: Raise the bar, guys. We don’t have to be the butt crack jokes. Give them something different. What you wanna hear is, “You don’t look like a plumber.”
Good branding endears you: to the community and to your customers. People are drawn to emotion. You have such a huge opportunity, being a little guy, to do what I call planting the flag. Show them you are the plumbing company to call in the area.

Show Notes

(10:29) There are things you gotta know before you even get to brand, but branding can be one of those things that should be right up front. There are things you have to do first, but branding is kinda like one of those finishing things. It’s extremely important.

There’s a lot to the whole branding thing, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Good Branding Differentiates Your Plumbing Business

(11:37) Number one. Branding differentiates you from everyone else.

Dan from KickCharge has a saying, “branding versus blanding.” Sadly, a lot of plumbing companies out there are blanding. They’ve got the white truck or van with some basic letters and maybe some image on it just kind of blending into everything.

There’s so much “noise” and the brain only has nanoseconds to decide. In a split second, the brain is saying “I don’t even know what the heck that is. Forget about it.”

You wanna stand out above that.

A lot of the service trucks, carpet cleaners, electricians all have a white cargo van with some sort of lettering on it. It all looks the same.

I was driving out and about today, and all of a sudden I saw Bullseye Home Services (that’s a KickCharge brand creation). And bam! The brand just hits you. It’s a gorgeous truck. You can really see them coming. They stand out from all the others.

The brand is not just what’s on your truck either. It’s all of you. It all goes together. For example, are you uniformed? Or are you just showing up in jeans and tee shirts. An actual uniform is branding.

If you’re serious about creating a brand that just owns the market, you need to use pros. This isn’t something you just have your pal do for you. Creating a professional brand is an investment. Some of our clients have gone through rebranding, and all of them would say it’s a game changer.

It’s not cheap though, and that’s the reason why you don’t just jump right into it. You might spend 10 or 12 grand as an investment. It really is an investment. And the ROI on it is 100-fold.

Good Branding Elevates Your Plumbing Business

(18:34) Number two. Good branding elevates you. Raise the bar, guys. We don’t have to be the butt crack plumbers. We don’t have to be the joke. Remember: plumbers protect the health of the nation.

Give your customers something different. What you wanna hear from your clients is, “You don’t look like a plumber.” That’s a good sign. It elevates you from the pack.

You may think,”I can’t compete with the big guys.” But customers don’t know how big you are or aren’t. They just know how they feel about you, and what they think about you. People do judge a book by its cover, and your branding will help you stand out.

You can be just a one truck dude and still hear, “We see your trucks everywhere,” because they’re so memorable.

We talk about this all the time with our clients, and you’ll hear about it in our Success Academy: The idea of “Mrs. Jones.” It makes Mrs. Jones feel good to have your truck, when it’s all branded out, sitting in her driveway.

And if your guys are in a branded uniform, the customer trusts them better. I’ve known guys who are so skilled they can look at plumbing and it practically fixes itself. But based on their appearance (tattoos, gauges in their ears, etc.) the customer was scared of them. Good branding with a good uniform can overcome that. The branding elevates them.

Good Branding Endears Your Plumbing Business

(23:15) Finally, a good brand endears you — to the community and to your customers. You have such a huge opportunity, being a little guy, to do what I call “planting the flag.” Planting the flag that you are the plumbing company to call in the area.

We have clients who’ve done very well endearing themselves to the community.

For example, we have Aspen Mountain Plumbing in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Aspen Mountain happens to be a landmark in their area. Everyone knows Aspen Mountain. So there’s already a warm, fuzzy feeling with that.

Their logo has an aspen leaf with a wrench inside. Very clever. The colors are brown and gold. Those colors have nothing to do with plumbing, so why those colors?

First of all, the leaves in Aspen turn this really beautiful gold in the fall. So they’ve captured that feeling there.

Second, the University of Wyoming Cowboys are super popular in Wyoming. Everyone follows the Cowboys. Their colors are brown and gold. So there’s another emotional tie to the community.

The business name, logo, and colors all endear them to the community. It makes them the company to call.

When all of the other companies out there are named “Master Plumbing”, or “Joe’s Plumbing”, or “Jack and Son Plumbing,” Mrs. Jones is thinking a more community-based brand looks and feels safe.

There’s emotion there. As I always say, it ain’t about plumbing. In this case, it’s about emotion.

So, does branding matter to your plumbing business?

Yup. 110%.

Richard’s Call to Action.

If you want to learn more about numbers that matter and how to best run your plumbing business, why not schedule a free 30-min strategy call with us? Let’s talk about your goals and where you want to be this time next year, and we’ll help you create a path to make that happen. Schedule your free strategy call here today!