← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
#181 From Plumbing to Profits: One Entrepreneur’s Journey to Business Success & Growth Strategies
00:51:33
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- [00:00]
Kenny Bush
November and December, I think we got a total of like five or six jobs. It was tough. Knowing how to plumb does not mean you know how to operate a business. It was, yeah, sink or swim.
- [00:15]
Unknown Host 1
What's one mistake you'd tell plumbing business owners to avoid?
- [00:18]
Kenny Bush
I would say.
- [00:24]
Unknown Host 1
FieldPulse is the all in one field service management solution. Built specifically for field service teams, FieldPulse is designed to simplify your day to day operations by combining everything that you need into one platform. This includes multiple integrations with other softwares you might already use like QuickBooks online or desktop. With advanced tools and features for scheduling and dispatching, CRM estimates, invoices, project management, team communication, and detailed Reporting and insights, FieldPulse will transform the way that your team operates, saving you time and finding revenue potential you didn't even know existed. Whether you're a small business looking to grow or a larger company Ready to scale, FieldPulse gives you the tools to increase productivity and keep everything running smoothly. And don't just take our word for it. FieldPulse has earned over 580 glowing reviews with an average of 4.8 stars. That's Field P U L S E. Head to their website to learn more. That's FieldPulse.com and because we know how impressed y'all are going to be, we, we got you guys an exclusive limited time offer. So make sure you mention owned and operated and get 15% off their annual plan with field Pulse. Now check it out. Welcome back. I beat you to it. Welcome back to owned and operated. Today on our show we have a special guest. From Portland, Oregon, we have Kenny Bush, who's the owner and operator of Da Vinci's Best Plumbing. Welcome to the show, Kenny.
- [01:50]
Unknown Host 2
Hey Kenny.
- [01:51]
Kenny Bush
Guys, thanks for having me.
- [01:53]
Unknown Host 1
Nah dude, this is good. This is gonna be fun. You know, like I said off camera, we, we don't often get a chance to talk to people like pretty fresh into their entrepreneurial journey. And it sounds like you've had a really strong like first 18 months. So I'm excited. I think this is gonna be a lot of fun. So you've, you started a plumbing company. You've got a great story to tell. I'd love it if you just gave us a little bit of a background on the last like what, what got you into plumbing in.
- [02:21]
Kenny Bush
So I grew up farming out in a small town, Burns, Oregon. You know, it's a two hour drive from the nearest city, you know, and grew up farming. Then I ended up moving to the Portland area. Plumbing just came easy to me. I mean I, I spent years building, you know, wheel lines and pivots and running sprinkler systems and all that kind of stuff. So plumbing, it made sense from the get go. And like I had, I had the work ethic and the drive to do it. You know, a new family at the time and yeah, I was just ready to go. I, I found something that I enjoyed and I could stick with and make a good living.
- [03:06]
Unknown Host 2
And when, when did you catch. I'm always interested. When did you catch the entrepreneurial bug? Was it really early on in your journey or was it sometime during that 15 year plumbing stint? You said, I just want to do this myself.
- [03:18]
Kenny Bush
So honestly it was, it was in 2023. So like I, I had no intent on starting my own thing. Didn't even think it was a possibility. You know, like I didn't have the capital to do it. You know, all these excuses. I told myself in my head that, you know, like, why I couldn't do it. So I, and the, what was it the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. So I left one company, went to another. Basically it was a big company, but it was a, you know, like a machine with too many moving parts, not enough oil. You know, it was pretty bad. When you're working for somebody that doesn't know half of what you know about plumbing or even what they're doing, you know, like, I can do your job better than you can. What the heck. I, I got offered a partnership by a construction company which gave me the idea, you know, like, I started diving into the legal aspect on how to start the, the business. But what it, it turned out to be like, I was basically being an employee for this, this construction company and getting 10, 99 to 50 bucks an hour so it didn't pan out. And you know, I did it for about six to eight months. And then after that, wife and I like decided like, you know, can't, can't do this with this guy. We need to get our own thing going. Which, and I already bought a box truck, you know, like, because I was, I was, thought I was going business partners with somebody else. So I was working out what I had bought a box truck, an old 94F350 repurposed U Haul.
- [05:09]
Unknown Host 1
Heck yeah.
- [05:10]
Kenny Bush
You know, and it's, it's still my favorite truck. It rides like a Cadillac and it is, yep. It's sweet that it's got the big block 460, so it gets up and moves whenever you want. It to. But anyways, after, you know, feeling taken advantage of on that aspect, you know, I'm not calling myself a victim because like I put myself in that situation but decided it was time to get our own thing going. We had already come up with the name. No, because back In February of 2023 we came, came up with a name and incorporated because that's how the guy was saying, oh yeah, I know you need to start your own LLC and pay that llc. I mean I was a few things short of being complete, completely legal because I didn't have my CCB and everything yet at that time.
- [06:06]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah, I think that's a real common way that people get started is they start into the sub as a sub in the trade. They get their toes dipped in, they bought by the truck and then they're like I'm almost there. Like why not just get my license and, and run.
- [06:20]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:21]
Unknown Host 2
So how did you come up with the name? Because you know there's a lot of different names out there. Da Vinci and the branding looks good.
- [06:26]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, I'm gonna Google a truck picture here in a second.
- [06:30]
Unknown Host 2
But, but super unique. It's not like a plus one Plumbing or best plumbers. You know your last name, right?
- [06:39]
Unknown Host 1
That's a good looking truck.
- [06:40]
Kenny Bush
This is what our newer trucks look like.
- [06:42]
Unknown Host 2
That is really cool. I love that you have a model too for anyone not, not watching on.
- [06:47]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, just get on YouTube.
- [06:48]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah, get on YouTube. I can't explain this but it's a really cool truck.
- [06:55]
Unknown Host 1
That's sweet.
- [06:56]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:57]
Kenny Bush
Trucks look like now the, the newer one at least the, the older ones. Of course they're, they're the old box truck, the old U Hauls, you know, the big old square body and the, the like little grainy cover, whatever it's called over the top. But I mean they look once they're wrapped, once they, I mean like they look sweet. They look brand new. I mean you couldn't tell. You wouldn't. Oh yeah. It's just an old U haul truck driving down the road because it looks legitimate, you know, and that it just, it takes a new wrap, you know, a new skin put on an old body and it, it looks brand new. It's, it's pretty nice.
- [07:41]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, that's what we used to do too. I, I remember when we were, when we were smaller. Like the are my only measurement for like am I going to buy this truck? Was, was it below $177,000? Like well 17,000 and 100,000 miles I think. Yeah, it was those two qualifications. And this was like a decade ago now, but. But I, I, we. We still have a few of those. Of those, like, I bought you for 16,5 back in 2017.
- [08:14]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, we. Our first truck, we got for right around 7,000. The guy, he was asking 5,500 bucks on Facebook Marketplace, you know, and I, I had part of it. I mean, I had. We had 5,000 bucks in the bank, you know, and that's what we had to start out with. Like, got to buy tools, got to buy.
- [08:36]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [08:36]
Kenny Bush
You know, all sorts of stuff. But we. I made him an offer, you know, because I didn't have the credit, didn't have the capital, nothing like that to start out. Made the guy an offer, you know, like, well, I can go to the bank and get a loan and pay them an interest, or you can carry the loan, and I pay you the interest. So we just chopped it up to, like, seven, 200 bucks. You know, just threw it. Threw a little extra on top of it for him and had him carry the loan. And it, like, I paid it off in four months. So, I mean, it was. Yeah, it was easy for him, an extra, you know, 1700 bucks in his pocket.
- [09:17]
Unknown Host 1
Something that I find interesting, especially, like, you've been in plumbing for a while. I. I've been in plumbing for a while. I remember 15 years ago, and I remember it used to be kind of common for guys to go off on their own. Right. It was. It was like, you know, the average business size was a lot smaller. There weren't a bunch of Goliaths freaking everywhere.
- [09:40]
Kenny Bush
Yeah.
- [09:41]
Unknown Host 1
You know, I remember average size of a company used to be like, 10. 10 people total. And so it was. It was a natural career progression 15 years ago to go off on your own because it was likely that you'd make more money. What I've always wondered is, like, how nowadays that might not be the case because you can make so much money working for these companies. Like, how do you. How do you get over the hump on that? And that's, like, a real curiosity of mine. Like, I have guys that make hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's hard to imagine that they would ever want to go start something because literally all they have to do is show up to work, do a decent job, and they'll make, like, 180 grand.
- [10:28]
Kenny Bush
Yeah.
- [10:29]
Unknown Host 1
So how. How'd you mentally get over the hump on, like, hey, this is easy. This is hard.
- [10:36]
Kenny Bush
So, you know, knowing your worth is. Is one big thing, especially, like, knowing what you can do. And I mean, so Me, I have, I have adhd. And if I'm not challenged, if I'm not intrigued by a job, if I'm just going there and going through the motions, it's. It's over, it's done. You know, like, I'm, I'm bored with it. So getting my own thing going was intriguing. I got to hyper focus and learn on, you know, what I, what I could do, basically, you know, And I mean, I spent, I spent a year or so, like, reading up on because, like the, the first business idea, I thought I was gonna go flip houses, right? Like, I thought that was gonna be good. I had a few friends that we were planning on doing this and looking at, like, how much capital and how much credit it's going to take to flip houses for, you know, very little. Like, there's a lot of risk, but you don't get as much profit even, you know, you can spend six months on a, on a house flip and make, you know, 15,000 bucks. There's a. I didn't see that as working out too well. And I was like, well, why don't I just do something that I already know in plumbing? You know, like seeing how much these plumbing companies are making, you know, like, shoot, we can charge whatever we want to charge, really. You know, like, that's, that's the whole thing. It's a specialty trade. You know, same with H vac, same with electrical. You know, like the specialty trades is where it's at. You know, the handyman can say that he can do it, but we still have to go in and fix his mistakes all the time.
- [12:25]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah. So as you start, you, you incorporate the name, you become the sub, you, you start deciding, I'm going to do my own thing. How did those first six months go? Because I know from a, like, I, I. John, I don't know about you, but I've never started up. We acquired everything that we've had, so phones were ringing for us. Day one, hour one. We had leads coming in. We weren't scared of, of people sitting. How was that first six months for you? And that process of, like, I need to ramp this up. I'm just sitting at home and this isn't what I expected. Or maybe it's the opposite. I don't, I don't know.
- [12:59]
Kenny Bush
So it was, you know, like said, like, it was November 1st is when we got our business license and got legal legit. Right. So posting on every, you know, like Facebook. We were trying Yelp, you know, and Google. Trying everything. Yeah. November and December I think we got a total of like five or six jobs. So it was, it was tough.
- [13:27]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [13:27]
Kenny Bush
And then January came along. Still kind of slow in the beginning. And like January 11th or something like that. We got hit with a big freeze.
- [13:38]
Unknown Host 2
I was just gonna ask. Yeah. What's the weather like in January there?
- [13:42]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, like. Well, this January, it was rough. We didn't have a freeze. We didn't have. I mean, we got below, you know, freezing a couple times here and there, but it always warmed back up in the daytime, so we didn't stay cold. You know, we didn't get cold and stay cold. We just got cold and warmed right back up during the daytime. So there was no big freezes. But. Yeah, last winter we went from having nothing on the board to being booked free three weeks out and just, just like that. I mean, it was like overnight and it was. I went from, you know, being in the office, trying to get everything organized, put together, you know, and we had a. We had just, I think January, February, I believe February. We started with field poles. We were trying.
- [14:35]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [14:37]
Kenny Bush
Might have been a little bit sooner, but getting it all organized. So, I mean, I, I didn't get a lot of sleep that first year. It was, it was kind of rough. Just. I mean, I still don't get much sleep.
- [14:52]
Unknown Host 2
I was just gonna say, wait, did that change for you because, like a baby now.
- [14:56]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [14:58]
Kenny Bush
Because like I, I run the emergency calls and we have a late night call come in. You know, are one of the things we offer, like the employees, which employee have one right now is, you know, no weekends, no nights a weekend work like you're. You work your regular schedule and go home and do what you want to do. You know me as the business owner. Well, like, I, I'll take on whatever I'm. Shoot, I have a hard time sleeping anyways, so it's. Might as well go to work and make an extra thousand, two thousand bucks, you know, at ten o'clock at night. Why not?
- [15:37]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah. How are you handling? Like, you know, you talked about bringing on Field Pulse, but administratively, sounds like you're driving revenue. Are you in the truck full time? Like, who's answering phones? Who's putting in customer info? Who's doing all that stuff?
- [15:52]
Kenny Bush
All right, so we have, we have a. Like, I do that sometimes when I'm sitting here at the computer. Like, I'll answer the phone. My wife, she's majority business owner, so she is. She, she left her job in January of last year. She was a meat wrapper. Right. So she had no experience in answering phone calls and putting in computer information. Like, she, you know, probably hadn't been on a computer really, except for training for a job and school, you know, high school, probably, you know, and so it was a learning experience for her. Me, like, I was trying to manage everything in the very beginning. I was. Yeah, I was trying to do all the books. I was trying to. Well, I messed up the books. Like, I found out that is not my place. So luckily, yeah, my wife is. She now manages the books. She answers the phone. She, you know, like, she manages the stuff at the office. And it's. It's great, you know, working. Working with my partner, you know, to create not only a family, but we create our other baby, which is our business. You know, like, we're watching it grow. At the same time. It's. It's really special to. To do something like that with a partner and, you know, a spouse, because it's. Yeah, it's. I don't know. I. I just watched another plumbing business who partnered up with a friend, and one was a plumber, one was the IT guy. Right. And, yeah, that business just. Just closed its doors, like, and not a year later. Kind of wild seeing how quick it can happen to other companies. But it's. It's cool watching it, you know, Like. Like, oh, man, we. We escaped the. The downfall.
- [17:58]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, the first year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did. Yeah. And, like, seemingly strong, right? You said in your first year, you guys did 600,000 in revenue. Like, that's. That's an awesome first year.
- [18:10]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, yeah, we did pretty good. You know, when we had had another plumber who I used to work with at another company hired him on, he was tired of jobs. He was tired of union and, like, all sorts of stuff and cheerboard and. Because, like, I had been talking to him, I was like, you know, because I. I bought a second truck and I'm building it out, and, you know, it. Call and talk to him. What are you doing? I'm building your truck, bud. Waiting for you to come on board. You know, he was stuck on. He's like, no. He's like, I think if I do something, I'm gonna do it for myself. I don't want to go, you know, work for anywhere else. But eventually, you know, like, he didn't have the capital. He didn't have anything set up. So he came and worked with us. He worked with us for five, six months.
- [19:00]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [19:00]
Kenny Bush
And we were both running full time for a little while. Both of us were in the trucks and Running jobs. Of course we give, you know, our employees, they get first, first dibs on jobs, you know, like, that's just. They got to make their money. I mean, because we're going to be getting paid a little bit off of them working anyways. So I mean it's. They got to make their money, make a good income and you know, stay happy with their work.
- [19:30]
Unknown Host 2
Do you find that, that being from the industry helped you out in that sense with hiring and getting contractors on board and making those networking connections?
- [19:41]
Kenny Bush
Yes and no. So I found out that being a plumber, knowing how to plumb, like has nothing to do with, like, does not mean you know how to operate a business. Like, it is very true. It is nothing, nothing like it, you know, like, because like, other than having a drive to do the work to do, you know, to improve on everything, you know, that was, I mean that's, that's all I had going for me was the drive. Like the, the past experience did not give me a leg up on, on anything on running a business. It was, it was still just as hard. And I wish I would have learned a little bit more before I jumped on in, but it was, we, we jumped in and, you know, burned the boats. You know, like, we, that was, that was about it. We didn't have an option for failure. You know, my wife was pregnant when we started the whole thing. It was, yeah, sink or swim.
- [20:48]
Unknown Host 2
I mean, that's, in my opinion, that's one of the best ways to do it. Just because there's no turning back. You're there, you're doing it. It has to work no matter what. It gives you a little extra incentive to run that 10pm call for that $3,000. Like it's a lot easier to say I can go back to doing something else and not do that. Let's change gears a bit. So you have the business up, you're running it, you're running calls. You have one guy working for you running calls. Talk to us about the structure of the business, how are you getting leads, where are they coming from, what services CRM are using, what work us in on the business side and how you came to those decisions.
- [21:27]
Kenny Bush
So in the, like the beginning, like I had, you know, like I was wearing all the hats, right? I was trying to do everything myself. I was, I was going to the Small Business Development center and trying, you know, using free resources and I wanted to, you know, like, I wanted a website, I wanted all that stuff. So I was trying to learn how to build all my own stuff. Right. I'm gonna build my own website. What happened was the, the, the teacher, the guy that works for the sbdc, the teacher, he has his own like web development and everything, like business, you know, and he's got some, some pretty big clients and a lot of them. So I mean after, after working with him a couple months and like, and I'm just like this is going too slow. I can't get any calls off of my website because my website's like non existent. It's still, you know, like I don't know how to code anything. And I asked him, I was like, are you available to take on any more? You know, he's absolutely. So we started up and he's the one that actually turned, turned the design right. So my first design was pretty rough. It was just done on Canva and that was. I, I made my own. But it was similar, right. It was the, the Vitruvian man holding wrenches. But yeah, this guy, his name's actually Guy, he took it, did the artwork. He's a graphic designer as well. He took it and changed it all around for us. But the web development, he created a web page and it was, it looked so good, you know, like still looks good. The, the change in having just Canva based looking artwork or you know, whatever to having a professional appearance that, that changes everything. You know, like, especially when you're trying to charge people professional prices and not handyman prices. You know, like you better look the part.
- [23:44]
Unknown Host 2
And so did, did he also help you right? I mean with your Google business page and intro to marketing or did he just do the website and SEO?
- [23:53]
Kenny Bush
So he does SEO. He does, he helps with like a lot of everything. So we work together on the Google my business know getting that all set up. Like I did a lot of it myself and he just comes in behind me and fines tune whatever I mess up. Which is kind of nice. But yeah, like, and he's. We're. We're just looking into the mail Chimp Avenue because you know we got, we got almost 700 contacts on that we've, we've gained over the last year or so and so we're gonna start a mailchimp campaign and you know he's taking care of all that for us and it's, it's really nice having a, a company to do all that kind of stuff for you and just you know, not, not feeling the obligation to do everything yourself is huge. You know, definitely when you're.
- [24:52]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [24:53]
Kenny Bush
Finally just like I, I can do a lot of stuff But I can do a lot of stuff that's kind of half ass that I know nothing about. You know, like, am I going to spend the time and energy to perfect myself in this area or am I just going to pay a professional to do it for me? And that's, you know, the same, same concept with hiring a plumber. You know, somebody else can do what I do, you know, with experience, but you know, like when it comes down to it, you hire a professional.
- [25:26]
Unknown Host 1
So the latest thing that we've been working on is maximizing our LSAs, which is local service ads, and also optimizing our Google my business profiles. So what that means is we're making sure that all of our LSAs are on when we need them and they're maximized to give us the best ROI. And then for GMBs, it's been partnering with service scalers to drive way more traffic through our GMBs. GMBs are almost like the new SEO. The more you put onto them, the better the performance. So our GMBs have been consistently getting better week after week after week. And it is our currently our single most impactful organic lead channel. So we'll sell hundreds of thousands of dollars a week through our GMBs. And I think last week we got 900 phone calls. So really impactful, awesome investment. And we've been able to partner with service scalers on both of those things. If you want to hear a little bit more about service scalers, check out service scalers.com how did technology work at first? I think you talked about starting off with Housecall Pro and then you trans. Did you look at Jobber? Like what other alternatives did you look at?
- [26:35]
Kenny Bush
I looked at Jobber. I didn't never tried it out or anything like that. It just didn't seem like it was the right fit for us. But after we, after the, you know, trial on Field Pulse, like I knew it was, it was right. So you know, having the, the price book ability to go in and change anything and everything in your price book. So in the way that basically, I mean, heck, I can run you through like what a call looks like for us and how we do it. So like what we do is, you know, call comes in, blah blah, blah, we collect information. So and then when we dispatch, you know, push a button on field polls and I added my own little touch. So I used to be a front man and singing bands and stuff. So they get a link, you know, to a video of me singing in the truck. So and it's nice, it's just makes it personable. Right. So now they know, like now they get, they know a human's basically coming to help them. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, not just somebody that's random. Right. So they get, they get an actual human being who has character and everything like that gives them an insight to me. So. And then also send them, you know, customer communication with Field Pulse. You're able to send them a link that tracks your vehicle on the way and then also a picture of the tech, you know, and that's, that's huge. People love that. Yeah. And then, you know, once we get to the job, we switch the status right. From on the way to in progress, go through, we assess the situation, we provide options. We provide free options on every job. You know, a good, better, best. So it's not just you're stuck with one option and people feel backed in a corner. It's you know, the powers in your hands basically to the customer. Give them the opportunity to make decision on what level of service they want. People love that. You know, like you don't go to McDonald's because there's one thing on the, you know, one item on the menu. You, you know, they go for options. So we, we do that. We provide options. Good, better, best customer signs for the work to be done. We do the work and complete it and you know, then we bill out. After the bill out process. Like I have a nice way that I like to, that's not too direct or pushy to ask for a review. Like I always say, not sure if you're a fan of giving reviews. I'm a huge fan of receiving them and I love to hear from you, you know, on Google like.
- [29:33]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Kenny Bush
And if you like I can send you a link. So you know, just I created a custom status on. Because you know, you can create your custom statuses with custom triggers and everything like that.
- [29:45]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [29:46]
Kenny Bush
On Field Pulse. So custom status review link and it sends them a review link to their email and a review link to their phone through text message, you know. And from that we completed. And that's, I mean that's, that's it.
- [30:03]
Unknown Host 1
And I, yeah, you had a good amount of reviews. I was just looking at your GMB105. Like that feels pretty good for being year in.
- [30:12]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, yeah. And it's, they're all, you know, legitimate reviews, you know.
- [30:19]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [30:19]
Kenny Bush
We didn't hire a company to come in and give us reviews. You know, we earned every one of them.
- [30:25]
Unknown Host 2
And how has the reviews and all that, how has that shaped your business in terms of Having the Google train continue to roll. Have you noticed that that drive additional leads or where are you generating most of your leads from?
- [30:41]
Kenny Bush
So Google with SEO, with local service ads, everything. Google likes to see the reviews. They want to see reviews coming in. When you get a bad review. Google dings. Yeah. So Google is not going to feed you as much when you get bad reviews coming in. They're going to feed the people that are getting positive reviews coming in, you know, because they're gonna basically they want to, Google wants to make sure their customers are being taken care of. They're not going to feed their customers to you know, like the, the people that are taking advantage, the people that are doing shoddy work. They're gonna feed them to the people with the positive feedback. Reviews are everything like, and I, I let people know that all the time. You know, like reviews help us out a lot, you know, and that's even in our, our triggered message with the link to our review link. It's like, you know, your reviews help our family grow. Because in all reality it does, you know, know like that's, that's it and it's, and also letting people know it's not just a business, you know, like we're a family.
- [31:52]
Unknown Host 1
That's awesome. When before we got on the air you talked about Google, LSA and the GMB process merging and the impact to your call volume. You want to walk us through that a little bit and then like what, what have you done to try to gain leads?
- [32:07]
Kenny Bush
So yeah, mid November, local service ads and Google, my business merged. We tried sure fire local for a little while, use their three month period. That was, you know, in contract. I mean it was okay, just end result. Then it like we didn't get any better leads off of it. It was just an expense that wasn't paying for anything. And even you know, my SEO guy was saying like you don't need them. Like that is. He's like we got this aspect covered. So we had majority of it was just organic calls for you know, the last couple months we've had a lot of organic calls, you know, versus where we were getting, you know, three to five local service ad calls a day in the past and now we're getting maybe one or two and then sometimes none. But it's, we're, we're slowly picking back up because I mean I think we went December, I think we had like five local service ad calls through the whole month. Yeah, it was, it was kind of tough. Luckily we had some other big projects that we, you Know, took on from previous customers that helped pull us through, you know, like right when we needed it the most too. Like, I dove into the local service ads and the Google my business read all about it on, you know, finding out why we could have been, you know, like why we took a dive, basically.
- [33:43]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [33:44]
Kenny Bush
And it was just little things. So there was a lot of little changes that we made. Like in our Google my business, it was DaVinci's Best Plumbing LLC. The Google Local Service ads, it was just DaVinci's Best Plumbing. So we had some discrepancies between the two. So they weren't even correlating. They weren't feeding off each other.
- [34:08]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [34:09]
Kenny Bush
So changing that, playing, playing the local service ad game, basically, you know, going in and rating every one of their calls. Like I rated every call from like May of 2024, went back and I rated every call and you know, like just trying to pay their. Play their game. You know, jobs that were, were not marked, booked or not archived or anything like that went through and, and did every job that was on there.
- [34:46]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah, I mean we just, I just did a giant post on this and you've hit all the nails on the head on playing the local service game, service ads game and a lot of that. What we saw was huge improvements. When you rate the review it or rate the job, it sends it back through the algorithm to let it know, hey, this was good. Feed them more. This is not good. Take those off.
- [35:07]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [35:08]
Unknown Host 2
Making sure that you're adding pictures to your local service ads. And actually what was interesting that I found was that they prioritize pictures with faces in them as well as pictures for individual job types. So if you have a plumbing sink job type, you take a picture with a sink. If you have a tub job type, you take a picture with a tub and there's. If you go into the subcategories of all the LSAs, there's a subcategories for each one, making sure to hit. And then I think you hit the nail on the head. Play the Google game. If there's a button for them for you to click, click it like they want you to. They want you to fill it out. And then Reviews now through GMBs drive Velocity, they want good reviews. And I mean, it sounds like you're doing all the right things across the board to, to ramp your LSA back up. Have you seen that, that increase since those, those implementations?
- [36:00]
Kenny Bush
Yes. So we're, I mean it's, it's slow, but it is increasing. You know, January was A little bit better than December and February, a little bit better than January, you know, and so on. You know. And one of the things I learned, you know, is, is don't. I think one of the big things, you know, people will rate a call negatively if they don't book it. That's not the, the key thing to do. You don't want to rate them naturally just because you don't book it. Like if it has anything to do with your service industry, rate it somewhat good because otherwise they're not going to feed you the jobs that you actually need just because you didn't book it. They want to charge you, you know, like yeah, doesn't do this for free. They want, they want to charge you. Give them a reason to charge you. Tell them you like it. You know, like I like being billed, you know, like that's kind of nice.
- [36:57]
Unknown Host 2
I like spending Google money.
- [36:58]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:59]
Unknown Host 2
For no reason.
- [37:00]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, but it's.
- [37:02]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:03]
Kenny Bush
Google likes to like, they like to be informed. Put the notes in, you know, the customer's name, put what type of job it was, you know, whatever kind of information you can feed it. Feed it.
- [37:16]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, I'm all about that now. Have you have used during that process? Obviously you optimized your gmb. Makes total sense. Did you figure out other lead gen activities to sort of de risk gmb? Like how did you protect yourself from this in the future?
- [37:31]
Kenny Bush
So that's our, our SEO guy has just been killing it. Like so we, you know, he, he generates three blogs a week for us and we are a top competitor with like the local giants. You know, on Google we have, our ratings are, are high. And then also, you know, he shows us every week, you know, I have a meeting with him and you know, shows me where we're ranking up next to the giants and a lot of times we're up ahead of them. It's, it's pretty cool to watch and pretty cool to see how, you know, like how what he's doing is actually improving the, the, you know, the call volumes and yeah. What people are searching and you know, it's, it's interesting to watch it all unfold.
- [38:28]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, no, that is when, when do you think you start bringing on like the next tech? Like when does that, what does that timeline feel like to you?
- [38:38]
Kenny Bush
So it's not like a timeline. Basically it is, you know, when, when the service picks back up once I'm working full time back in the truck all the time. And then once, you know, like we got two trucks up and running full Speed, we can bring out another one. I mean, because we already have the trucks. We have them all ready to rock. We got four box trucks. Yeah. You know, all outfitted out, you know, like, because I was. The way that we were climbing and growing in our first year, like, I was, I, I was ready. Like, I thought we were going to need, you know, more than four trucks. Like, because it was. The business was coming in and we couldn't keep up with the call volume. Like there was times we had to turn away jobs just because, you know, like, we couldn't get to them fast enough. Yeah. The next one, hopefully, I mean, shoot, May or June would be awesome, but yeah, come tax day and you know, hopefully after all that stuff, we get some calls coming in which April 15th is not only my daughter's birthday, but it was Leonardo da Vinci's birthday as well.
- [39:55]
Unknown Host 1
Hell yeah. Nice.
- [39:57]
Unknown Host 2
So is that the, Is that how you got the name then? Never answered. I'm still confused.
- [40:04]
Kenny Bush
So the name actually came from like. So I was looking up, you know, good quotes because I, I like quotes, you know, like. And Leonardo da Vinci had a quote that was, water is the driving force of all nature. Right. And that one, I was, that is perfect. I was like, we're gonna do. At first it was, you know, da Vinci's drains. Do we. No, I don't like that. Do we do da Vinci? You know, and then I was thinking about. Because after, after doing some of the classes with the SBDC or, you know, like, just thinking about it, decided it was going to be da Vinci's best plumbing. Because what do people search for when they go to Google? Best plumbers near me. Right. Best plumbing me. Right. What if your name's already part of that search? You know, you're, you're going to be ranked a little bit higher than, than a lot of the competitors that are, you know, John Doe Plumbing, you know, or, or whatever. And that was another thing because I didn't want to name it after myself because guess what? Like, who's going to buy Kenny Bush Plumbing five, ten years from now?
- [41:20]
Unknown Host 1
You would be amazed.
- [41:21]
Unknown Host 2
Well, yeah, I mean, like, George Brazil is a giant corporation.
- [41:25]
Unknown Host 1
Brazil.
- [41:26]
Unknown Host 2
And it's not owned by George Brazile anymore.
- [41:29]
Kenny Bush
Yeah. But it's still da Vinci's best plumbing. Like that's something I can scale, Right. Like that's something I can, I can make big. I can, I can, yeah, you know, branch out across the nation if I needed to. You know, I'm not, I'm not aiming that high right now, but you Know, the. The opportunity's there with the right name, with the right branding, everything.
- [41:55]
Unknown Host 2
It's a fun branding play, that's for sure. I think that the name is great from a branding perspective. It's definitely unique and memorable, which is always, always good to see.
- [42:04]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [42:04]
Kenny Bush
And it's. It's a name that people already trust, right?
- [42:08]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [42:08]
Kenny Bush
Da Vinci. Like, you know, people know that name. They're. They're already familiar with it, right?
- [42:14]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [42:15]
Kenny Bush
So they'll be. Even be able to remember it, you know, like.
- [42:19]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah. I feel like you'd get a lot of questions of, like, is your last name Da Vinci?
- [42:23]
Kenny Bush
I do.
- [42:24]
Unknown Host 1
Like, that's. Yeah, I feel like that would come up a lot.
- [42:27]
Kenny Bush
Nope. My last name is Bush.
- [42:31]
Unknown Host 1
What is. What's one mistake you'd tell new plumbing owners, like, plumbing business owners to avoid? Like, what would be the warning shot?
- [42:38]
Kenny Bush
Don't. Like, okay, so know what you're worth and charge accordingly. Right. Don't go in and don't ever race to the bottom to try to just get work. You don't want to be the bottom dollar plumber. That's not, you know, like. And don't give your time away for free. You know, don't do free estimates. Don't do none of that stuff. Like, make sure you're getting paid. Whatever you're doing, you're making money, and you're making enough money to cover all your expenses, plus have your growth and everything on top of it. So it's.
- [43:13]
Unknown Host 1
Have you made. Have you made, like, Facebook groups or, like, have you made other friends that are, like, pretty new on in the journey?
- [43:21]
Kenny Bush
Yeah. So even one of the plumbers that we had, you know, like, I shared my price book with him and everything, you know, like, whatever. And. And try to try to coach him along, because I want to see him succeed too, you know, like, that's. I'm not. We. We both work for a company that they were mad as hell when we, like, when we left and started our own things. Right. So, yeah, we're getting bad mouth and all this. And, like, I don't want to be that kind of person. Like, that is trash. Like, that is trash. You're gonna envy or be jealous of somebody so much because they're not making you money, you know? Like, that's. Yeah, that's. That's not the kind of people I want to be.
- [44:05]
Unknown Host 1
If. If you could go back and start over, like, what would you do differently in those first few months?
- [44:09]
Kenny Bush
Had my wife start on the books instead of having me, like, finance part Finances. Yeah, like that. Like I made such a mess of our 2023 and 2024 taxes. Yeah, it was, it was such a mess. Like we took a lot of money and a lot of time and effort from our accountant to fix everything. And also Rene, my wife, you know, like it took her a lot of hours. Like she's still, still working on, on, you know, last year's stuff. You know, like she's still trying to fix it, which. So I stepped away from the, the finance part of it quite a bit. I don't do much with it anymore. I mean, I still pay some bills here and there, but that's, that's about it. I don't try to do any bookkeeping, any accounting or nothing like that. I stick to what I know and that is plumbing.
- [45:09]
Unknown Host 2
Like that's good advice. Yeah. I mean, in a third party bookkeeper really isn't that expensive to outsource.
- [45:16]
Kenny Bush
Just make sure it's a legitimate company. So we paid out. Oh no, over $10,000 to a supposable bookkeeper and. Yeah. Accountant. You know, like they were a partnership. Right. We got taken. Yeah, we got taken for over $10,000. You know, like got told where they were going to do our taxes, that they were going to fix our books. So we got our books scrambled even worse and our taxes, we had to pay somebody else to do. So.
- [45:50]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [45:51]
Unknown Host 2
Rough.
- [45:52]
Kenny Bush
Yeah. Hire legitimate businesses. Don't. Don't do anything. A friend told me they had no. A guy that does this. Don't do none of that stuff. Hire legitimate businesses. Hire professionals. And you know, that goes back to why we're in the trades as well. Right. You know, like, because people. It's a good decision to hire a professional when you need help.
- [46:15]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah. Yeah. What are your goals for the next couple years?
- [46:20]
Kenny Bush
Goals for the next couple years. I would say, you know, get it, get free guys. Be able to step out of the truck completely. Be able to get a, an office location where we're not working out of our house, you know, and, and be able to separate our home life from our business life because that is, that is, it's, it's rough and it's taxing on the relationship even. You know, like just.
- [46:47]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [46:48]
Kenny Bush
My wife and I, when we talk, there's not always, there's not always a lot of other discussion besides business now. You know, it's.
- [46:55]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [46:55]
Kenny Bush
It has its own challenges there, but. Yeah. So business or my goals for the next couple, three years would be to. Yeah. Separate my home life in my business life and be Able to take vacations. That would be, that would be. That sounds good.
- [47:18]
Unknown Host 2
That does sound good.
- [47:19]
Unknown Host 1
That does sound pretty nice. This was, this was awesome. I, I appreciate you sharing your journey here. It was, it was fun to get to talk to someone like early on in their entrepreneur journey. I think this is my ninth, this is my ninth year. You still don't sleep well, Kenny? I, I really hate to break it to you that that does not get better. It's, it's hard to remember the early, like the first year or two just because it's been, it's been a minute. Yeah, I definitely remember just like drinking through a fire hose of. Just like how do you drive leads? How do you get people? How do you find trucks that you can afford? What does pricing mean? Yeah, it's a lot. But I'm pumped for your success that you've seen this in your first year.
- [48:10]
Kenny Bush
I did find out leasing trucks is better than buying trucks, buying used trucks, anything like that. You know, not only is leasing tax write off. Yeah. You know, like buying the old U Hauls trucks. Like we had to replace a motor in one of them already. Yeah, that was 10 grand down the, you know. Yeah, so it was.
- [48:31]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, we, we. We've leased ours for eight years now. Seven years. And we learned it almost the exact same way that you just said you learned it.
- [48:40]
Unknown Host 2
Yeah.
- [48:41]
Unknown Host 1
Except I think it was four engines.
- [48:45]
Unknown Host 2
So.
- [48:45]
Unknown Host 1
It sounds like you're smarter than me, Kenny. You figured it out a lot quicker. It took at least four engines in the. An embarrassing amount of transmissions to realize maybe we should go newer.
- [48:55]
Kenny Bush
Yeah, it's just, you know, I think the thing is, is just learning from the people around you. Surrounding yourself with like minded people.
- [49:05]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [49:05]
Kenny Bush
Like you guys. You know, like that is, that is everything. Create a network of people or join a network of people that are driving to excel in life, that are business owners that are doing, doing the same type of thing you are. Doesn't matter where they're at in the states or anything like that. You know, like, you know, Facebook friends. We're not limited by our geographical location anymore. Like you can.
- [49:32]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [49:33]
Kenny Bush
And it's, it's the same thing going on over where you guys are at that is going on over here. You know, like it might be different times and, but it's, it's. That's all the same stuff, you know?
- [49:45]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah.
- [49:46]
Kenny Bush
So.
- [49:46]
Unknown Host 1
Yeah, I mean we, we agree. Yeah. That's why I'll give some selfless plugs for us here. But like our Facebook group has been a lot of fun. We have 800 people from all over the US and Canada in there just contributing every day. It's been really valuable. We've been able to keep, you know, like, vendors and stuff out. So it's really just other home service entrepreneurs asking each other questions. And that's also the whole idea behind our new product. The peer groups owned and operated pro. Same exact thing. How do we surround ourselves with other people that we can just learn from and be supported from? So all about it. We're all about it. Well, thanks for coming on today, Kenny. This. This was awesome. We loved having you on and we loved hearing your journey.
- [50:34]
Kenny Bush
Yeah. Thank you, guys. It was a lot of fun telling my story and I mean, we could probably go on for hours telling stories, but I am going to join your guys's. Your. Your group on Facebook and I. Yeah, join the Facebook along with you guys and yeah, stay in touch.
- [50:54]
Unknown Host 2
Kenny, if people want to get a hold of you or find you somewhere, where should they go?
- [50:59]
Kenny Bush
I mean, find me on. On Facebook. I mean, my name is Kenneth Bush. I mean, look for the Da Vinci's best plumbing truck. I mean, that's my. That's my profile picture. That's the easiest way. Or they can always go to now.
- [51:16]
Unknown Host 1
In the Facebook group.
- [51:17]
Kenny Bush
Da Vinci's best.
- [51:18]
Unknown Host 1
Find them in the Facebook group. All right. Thanks, Kenny.
- [51:22]
Kenny Bush
Yep. Thank you.