LEGENDS #180 | Roger Wakefield: Shaping the Next Generation of Plumbers

Summary

Owned and Operated Podcast Episode Summary

Title: LEGENDS #180 | Roger Wakefield: Shaping the Next Generation of Plumbers
Release Date: March 25, 2025
Hosts: John Wilson and Jack Carr
Guest: Roger Wakefield

1. Introduction and Guest Background

The episode kicks off with John and Jack introducing the guest, Roger Wakefield, a prominent figure in the plumbing industry known for his influential YouTube channel and commitment to mentoring the next generation of plumbers.

Notable Quote:

Roger Wakefield [00:00]: "Blue collar workers repair America every day. You got to be true to you and to me. That's what the brand book is."

2. Roger's Journey into Plumbing

Roger shares his unconventional path into the plumbing trade, highlighting how a pivotal conversation during his high school years led him to switch from managing a restaurant to pursuing a career in plumbing.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [03:16]: "I started just like everybody else. A good friend of mine told me about it."

Roger Wakefield [04:35]: "I was dating a girl who said I couldn’t marry anyone who didn’t graduate high school, so I returned and finished my education."

3. Launching Texas Green Plumbing

In 2015, Roger founded Texas Green Plumbing after previous ventures failed due to poor management. This time, he approached the business with a strategic mindset, focusing on professionalism and sustainable growth.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [07:07]: "I started Texas Green Plumbing. I did it with a different mindset, hiring coaches and consultants."

4. Learning from Coaches and Mentors

Roger emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and mentorship. He credits his success to hiring coaches like Michael Gerber, who taught him to separate his role as a plumber from that of a manager and entrepreneur.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [09:11]: "Most young business owners stop learning once they get established. I continued to educate myself to grow."

Roger Wakefield [11:04]: "You have to learn from others when starting a trade. It’s essential."

5. YouTube and Content Marketing Strategy

Facing ineffective traditional marketing, Roger pivoted to YouTube in 2018, creating educational plumbing videos that positioned him as an authority in the field. This strategic shift led to organic growth and increased business leads.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [19:18]: "We started posting three videos a week, every week. It was impossible, but we kept up, and it worked."

Roger Wakefield [22:15]: "If I can teach people about their plumbing system, it builds me as an authority."

6. Growth and Building the Brand

Roger discusses the exponential growth of his YouTube channel, reaching over 200,000 subscribers within two years. He highlights the significance of brand identity, particularly his iconic mustache, which plays a crucial role in brand recognition.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [28:32]: "Our brand book is 43 pages long. The mustache is a big part of it, helping people recognize us."

7. Leak Pro and Training Center

Expanding his expertise, Roger acquired Leak Pro, a company specializing in acoustic leak detection. He established a training center in Dallas to educate plumbers on advanced leak detection techniques, enhancing service quality and operational efficiency.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [37:00]: "We built a training center to teach plumbers how to find leaks using Leak Pro’s tools."

Roger Wakefield [40:18]: "The complete kit is under three grand, making it accessible and easy to use."

8. Advice for New Entrants

Roger offers valuable advice for newcomers in the home services industry, stressing the importance of having a solid brand book, continuous learning, and leveraging social media for marketing. He advocates for authenticity and staying true to one’s brand values.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [31:27]: "Start with a brand book. Know what your brand is and be true to it."

Roger Wakefield [33:12]: "The mustache is our logo. It’s what gets me recognized."

9. Future Plans and Industry Impact

Looking ahead, Roger plans to expand his training programs nationwide, foster a tighter community among tradespeople, and advocate for national certification standards. He aims to reduce licensing hours and create a unified certification process to address the growing demand for skilled tradesmen.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [42:20]: "I want middle schools and high schools to start talking about the trades as viable career paths."

Roger Wakefield [51:28]: "We need a national certification for plumbers to facilitate mobility and address workforce shortages."

10. Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with Roger discussing his upcoming initiatives, including launching a second YouTube channel, Trade Talks, and planning nationwide networking events to support and unite the trades community.

Notable Quotes:

Roger Wakefield [56:28]: "We’re building an event center to host monthly events and a US Tour to network with tradespeople nationwide."

Roger Wakefield [58:40]: "If you want to find us, search for The Roger Wakefield Show on YouTube."

Key Takeaways

• Continuous Learning: Success in the trades industry is highly dependent on ongoing education and adaptation.
• Effective Use of Social Media: Leveraging platforms like YouTube can significantly enhance brand authority and generate organic leads.
• Strong Branding: A clear and authentic brand identity, exemplified by Roger’s mustache, is crucial for recognition and trust.
• Mentorship and Coaching: Seeking guidance from experienced mentors accelerates business growth and operational efficiency.
• Community Building: Fostering a supportive and united trades community can address workforce shortages and elevate industry standards.

Resources Mentioned

• Roger Wakefield Show on YouTube: The Roger Wakefield Show
• Service Scalers: service scalers.com
• Leak Pro: Information about their training center and products was discussed, available through Roger’s YouTube channel.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from episode #180 of the "Owned and Operated" podcast, featuring Roger Wakefield's impactful journey and strategies in the plumbing industry.

Transcript

[Roger Wakefield]

Would you ever start a trade and not learn from anybody? If I can teach people about their plumbing system, that will help build me as an authority. I love what I get to do and to me, that's what makes it fun. Blue collar workers repair America every day. You got to be true to you and to me. That's what the brand book is.

[Jack]

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 welcome back to Owned and operated today. We have a special guest on with us today. Welcome to the show, Roger Wakefield.

[Roger Wakefield]

Thank you for having me here, man.

[Jack]

This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be a good time. You know, I told my. I told my director of fulfillment today that we were gonna have you on the show. Her name's Allie, and when she first came up in the industry five or six years ago, she had never. She came from a totally different industry, figured it out. She's a real inspiration, but she was like, oh, my God, I love that guy. I learned so much. I learned how to plumb and learned how to lead the plumbing department from watching his videos. So I'm giving Allie a shout out here, but you're helping a lot of.

[Roger Wakefield]

People, and I love that. And Ali, thank you so much. I do appreciate that. It's really funny. I called a friend of mine one day who's up in Washington state, and he answers the phone and he's laughing. And I said, what's going on? He said, man, I'm driving down the road with this new apprentice, a girl named Randy. And Randy saw my name up here on the dash and she's like, oh my gosh, you know Roger Wakefield? He's like, well, yeah. Why? She's like, same thing. This is who I watch to learn plumbing.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And he just started laughing. So it blew her mind. But it was neat because I got to say hello to her and it's just, look, I love what I get to do. I tell people every day I'm living the most amazing life I could have ever imagined as a plumber. It's not a bad gig.

[Jack]

Not a bad gig.

[John]

Not in the least.

[Jack]

We're gonna, we're definitely gonna Talk about the YouTube channel that's helped inspire hopefully another generation of plumbers. But before we get there, I would really love to talk about how you got started in the industry and how like the journey that you took to become the plumbing influence, the plumbing influencer in plumbing influencer.

[Roger Wakefield]

And I, I appreciate it, guys. You know, I started just like everybody else. A good friend of mine told me about it. I was literally working in high school. I was managing a restaurant at the age of 16, and it's a little hamburger place. And on, man, I think it was a Tuesday night, we were dead. And him and I are just down there talking and he looks at me and says, are you going to do this forever? And I thought, man, I am 16 years old, I'm managing a restaurant, life is good. And he looks at me, says, but what happens if you quit or get fired? Who's gonna hire a 16 year old restaurant manager? And I had never even thought about that. But he went on to tell me about his father and his three brothers that were all plumbers. And I'm like, man, you know what, that sounds pretty cool. Cause he's telling me about how much they love it, how much money they work, just the things that they do. So a couple of weeks later, I either quit or probably got fired. But I'm not confirming or denying either way. But I called one of his brothers. Now, this is the middle of my junior year. I had just quit high school, very stupid thing to do. And I got into plumbing and I fell in love with it. I played sports growing up, and this was one of the coolest things because I look at it this way. We're a team. We're trying to accomplish a common goal. We're trying to build a building. And not just our team, not just the plumbers, but the electricians, the H vac techs, the carpenters, everybody. And I'm like, man, this is neat. Now, luckily, I was dating a girl who we were talking one day and she said, you know, I could probably never marry anybody that didn't graduate high school. So that summer I called one of the principals, said, hey, look, if I come back, will you let me in? He said, if you promise to stay and graduate. So I did. I was far enough ahead when I quit that I was able to come back and graduate with my class. And after I graduated, I tried a couple of other things, but got right back into plumbing. And it's just, it's something I love. I've been drawn to it and I've done it for. Well, that was, that was 1980, you know, before either one of you young puppies were born. So, you know, it's. Yeah, I know. I love that, though.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

I get to talk to people every age, every day about plumbing. And I think it's amazing.

[Jack]

One of the fun things about talking to people that have been in the industry for a long time for me is I'm a young guy, but to the industry. I'm kind of an old head now. And Jack's heard this spiel before, but we had Ellen Rohr on maybe three or four months ago.

[Roger Wakefield]

Right.

[Jack]

And it's kind of fun to be able to, you know, I remember the industry 20 years ago. I remember 2009 real well. And. And it's fun to be able to talk to people that have been there for a longer than the last five years because there's been a big, like, push, especially like, you know, hey, I'm going to searchers buying small companies. I mean, Jackson example of that. But I don't think people understand how dramatically the industry has changed even in just the last two or three years, let alone the last 10. So it's always fun to talk to people that have been around because it is totally different.

[Roger Wakefield]

So tell me this. Have either one of you actually poured lead nocombe joints on a job?

[Jack]

Oh, yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

Okay.

[Jack]

Oh, yeah.

[John]

Okay.

[Roger Wakefield]

See? 5050 right here. Half the world is like, I've never done it. Wouldn't know what to do, wouldn't know how to do it.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And then the other half of the world, you know, if you're in Chicago, like, dude, we do that every day. Wow. What's the problem? So it does. It changes drastically, but it's neat. And that's what I love about what I get to do. I'm getting to show people how we used to do things.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

Along with how we're doing things. Because I do a lot of the current modern stuff too. So it's neat that I get to talk about it all.

[Jack]

When did you launch your business?

[Roger Wakefield]

I started my plumbing company in 2015. I had opened a couple before. I did everything wrong, and it was great reasons to close those down. But I did it this time with a different mindset. I was actually in the union at the time. I had moved up to director of operations for one of the large mechanical contractors. And they talked about getting into residential service. And I listened to the things that they were saying. I thought, you know, they're just one of these companies that are going to BS people. They're going to tell them, oh, my God, we got the best trained plumbers, we specialize in customer service. But when you ask them about it, they're not doing anything to train people. And I'm like, you know, I don't want to be involved with a company like that. And I knew then I was, as Jim Collins says, I was in the wrong seat, in the wrong bus, going the wrong direction at the wrong time. And it's like, it's time for something to change.

[Jack]

What were the other companies that you had started like? Were they also residential service or was it new, construction focused or what were those like?

[Roger Wakefield]

It was always residential service because I understood that was an easy way to get in and start. You literally, you need a van, you need your tools. And I had all the tools and just slowly started stocking the trucks and doing that. But I was so young and dumb. I'd literally go to work for a couple hours just like, gee, man, I made enough money today. Let's go out to dinner, let's go have a drink. And it's just, that's the way I ran the businesses in the beginning. Just work as much as you have to and then go celebrate the rest of the time.

[John]

That sounds like a fun Roger to me.

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, trust me, I do know how to have fun, I promise. But I've learned a lot since then. It's like, look, it's a better world out there when you learn how to do things right. And you're like, look, I can actually make pretty good money at this, hire other people, pay them good money, and watch everybody grow and prosper.

[John]

Roger, as you have started multiple of these and you've kind of gone through the wringer a few times, what are some of the most common mistakes that you're seeing that these other young, brand new business owners are making?

[Roger Wakefield]

I don't think that we continue learning. I say this about plumbers, electricians, and H vac techs all the time. Once we get that professional lessons Normally, we stop learning. It's, look, I'm a plumber. Let me go plumb. I'm going to go make my money, yada, yada, yada. Once I started learning again, I got my MED Gas endorsement. I got my wsps. I got my multipurpose residential fire protection system. I became a lead AP so I could know more about sustainability and rainwater harvesting and all that. And I truthfully think that most young people that want to jump in and open a company, they were like me a long time ago, hey, I'm just going to open a plumbing company. They don't even know what they don't know. Which I didn't either. But my first coach was Michael Gerber. If y'all have ever read the EMF books, he was my first coach. And, I mean, he literally just. He taught me how to open my eyes and look at everything completely different. And it's been great. So you.

[Jack]

You launched and what was the name of the. Of your. The one you started in 2015?

[Roger Wakefield]

Texas Green Plumbing.

[Jack]

Okay, that's what I thought. I didn't want to misquote it. Texas Green Plumbing. So you started Texas Green Plumbing. What'd you do differently this time?

[Roger Wakefield]

I hired coaches, I hired consultants. I joined best practice groups. I had mentors. I had people that I could reach out and talk to and say, look, I'm not doing things right. What are we doing wrong? And I think that that is probably what helped me in my business. And then again, that's what helped me on social media. I started hiring coaches. I didn't just want to try to guess and figure out how to do it. Y'all are both in the trades. Would you ever just say, hey, I'm going to get into a new trade? Say, you both got into electrical tomorrow. God bless and pray that never happens?

[John]

Well, John is in electrical, but yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

But the thing is, and I mean, think about it. Would you ever start a trade and not learn from anybody?

[Jack]

I mean, the answer is no.

[Roger Wakefield]

Absolutely. But most of us try to do that when we open a company. Hey, I'm just going to open a plumbing company tomorrow. I know I've got to get my license. I've got my master license. I got my rmp. I'm good. Well, I hope you have a business plan. I hope you have an attorney. I hope you have a cpa. I hope you have things to help you do things right. Because if not, it's an uphill battle, even with coaches and consultants and trainers, but to get the right people that you can call and say, hey, man, look, I'm screwing up here. And it's like, well, come sit down. Let's talk. I remember one of my mentors, I walked in, he said, look, come over and talk to me. Bring your price book. So I brought my price book over. He flips it up into the press page, shuts it back, and slid it back across the table. He said, you're not charging enough. And I'm like, look, you're an electrical. How do you know? He said, because I know what it costs to do business in this town. We're both here in Dallas. He said, to be honest. He said, you need to raise your prices 25 to 50%. And I'm like, no way. And he said, oh, yahweh. He said, you need to do that. Of course. I go back to my office, I talk to my manager, my csr, and everybody. They're like, oh, my God, we could never do that. We won't get any calls. And you start looking at the value that you can add and the value you can bring to people, and. And then you find out, like, this really is possible.

[Jack]

I absolutely agree, but I have to crack this joke, Roger. I have to.

[Roger Wakefield]

Go ahead. Go ahead.

[Jack]

What's the one tool an electrician doesn't know how to use?

[Roger Wakefield]

A broom.

[Jack]

That's right.

[Roger Wakefield]

I talk about that every day. Come on. That's not even a joke. That's serious stuff right there.

[Jack]

Some real stuff. You know, I bought an electrical company in 2021, and I. I've heard that joke my whole. In my whole career. That shit's real. It was real. It was actually a real issue.

[Roger Wakefield]

Yeah. And is when you find an electrician that does know how to keep his area clean, you tell him, hey, you're smart enough to be a plumber if you want a real job.

[Jack]

Yeah, nice. Yeah. When. When I bought. When I bought that company, the owner sent me a shirt because he was a smart. He knows I'm a plumber first. Right?

[Roger Wakefield]

Right.

[Jack]

So he sent me a shirt, and it's. It's like a fake Budweiser, and it's electric king of the trades. And I was like, dude, come on.

[Roger Wakefield]

Oh, yeah, that's pretty good.

[Jack]

Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, it's like Mar. Eaton Crayons jokes, you know, it's easy to crack. All right, so you launched a business. You did it totally differently. How many. How many technicians did you guys get up to in Texas Green?

[Roger Wakefield]

We were up to. I think I had six guys out in the field. Whenever we sold the company.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And, you know, we went up and down. We did different things. It was funny because I already had the company open whenever I hired Michael Gerber as a coach. And I remember going to see him the first time in San Diego. I went to a conference. He did. And I get up on stage and I'm talking about what I'm doing, how I want to do it. And he's looking at. He's like, oh, my God, this is amazing. You're going to do great. And he looks at the room and says, how many of y'all think this is just an amazing business plan, amazing idea? I'm going to say half. Most of the people raised their hand and he said, that's great. And he kind of hands me the book back, and I grab it and I start to walk off, and he kind of pulls me back, and I. I looked back at him like, wait, you didn't let go. He said, there's only one problem with this. I said, okay. He said, you've got to fire the plumber. I said, but, Michael, I am the plumber. He said, no, that's it exactly. You cannot be the plumber, the manager, and the entrepreneur and do all three jobs the way they need to be done. At the time, it was like. I mean, that was like getting hit in the head with the two by four. I was just like, wow, now I had other people working with me, but I was still trying to be the plumber. I was still trying to be out in the field almost all the time. And that's a hard thing to do when you're running a business. You need to be closer to the office. Being the entrepreneur or the manager.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Did you solve that by balance and balancing, like, 50, 50, or did you listen to him and actually completely fire the plumber and move yourself more into the entrepreneurial side of the role?

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, I love that question, because it was hard to do, but I had to start backing out as the plumber and trust that my plumbers were going to do it the way that I wanted it done. And at the time, I had some good plumbers, so I knew, hey, we can probably do pretty good here. Even if you're not the one out in the field doing everything, it's going to get done. And a lot of company owners that are still out in the truck, I think they're the only ones that does it right each and every day. And that's not always true.

[Jack]

One of the reasons I like doing this show is I get to Take out what I call my operating energy. So, like, our company's a little kind of large, so I don't get to. Everything we do takes a couple steps. There's 140 some people on the team, so if I want to do something, I have to go through, like, whoever owns that department. So the. This gives me an excuse to exercise my operating energy. And I'm listening to the story, and it sounds great, and I totally agree. And it's sort of like, why to fire the plumber. So what I did was I launched a media company completely built around how to plumb.

[Roger Wakefield]

I kind of did the same thing, so I completely did it.

[Jack]

You took out your plumbing energy. So I'm, like, listening to this, and I'm like, huh?

[Roger Wakefield]

And you don't think about it. The cool thing is, anytime now that I want to, I can literally do plumbing. All I've got to do is go down to the barn and say, hey, I want to do a video about rebuilding a toilet. I don't even have to go to somebody's house. I don't even have to get in my truck.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

Go down there, open up the toolbox, pull my tools out, and, you know, clean the dust off of them and do whatever I want to do down there. It's not a bad thing.

[Jack]

Yeah, that's not bad at all. When did you start. When did you start creating sort of these how to guides? And, like, how did it start?

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, literally, I got tired of getting ripped off by marketing companies. I tell people, imagine driving down the road, throwing $47,000 cash out the window, and knowing that when you get to the office, your phone is not going to be ringing. That's where I was. We had spent exactly $47,000 up until this last marketing company. And when we did, I remember I was at a conference one day, had just started with one of the best practice groups, and we had had different marketing companies to help get us to where we were. But I tried this latest and greatest. Oh, my God, I'm gonna do magic. I'm gonna do all this and this. And literally, the phone was. My phone did not ring all day, and I got a call going up the escalator, and it was my csr. And she says, roger, the phones aren't ringing. I said, I know. I appreciate you turning mine off. She says, no, no, no. Our phones are not ringing at the office. We have not had a call all day long. And I'm like, wait a minute. So I go to try to call this guy. He's ghosting me. Ghost me for all that day and the rest of the next day. And finally, I called one of my old website guys. I said, look, I need you to get my old website back up as fast as you can. And he was a friend of mine, so he said, okay, I can do that. Got it back up. And I decided then that I had to do something different. And that's when I decided I'm going to learn social media, because then I can control it. I don't need a website guy. I don't need an SEO guy. I don't need all these things you need. And it's so funny, because in the last seven years, I have learned more about marketing than I could ever imagine. And I travel around the country, and I was speaking on stages, and I say things like, look, I'm Roger Wakefield. I'm just a plumber. I don't know anything about marketing or advertising or whatever. And they're like, oh, yeah, you do. But it wasn't on purpose. I just had to learn it to grow my business.

[Jack]

How did that initially help?

[John]

How did that start?

[Jack]

Like, walk me through how that was a win for Texas Green at first. I can see how it would be now, but walk me through it at first.

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, I walked into a conference, and it was actually seven years ago and 11 days that I found out what YouTube even was. Now, we had a YouTube channel. We had put videos up there, but it's just where I stored my videos. So I'm at a conference, and it's social media marketing world. I'm headed there in about 18 days. But I walk. I'm walking down the corner now, remember, at the time, I'm 54. So I'm walking down the corridor, and there's a placard out in front of a room, says something like, get in front of your customers using video. I thought, wow, we could do that. I knew that we already had made videos, but they were really just like, ads.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

So I go in, I sat down. I'm ADD adhd. Any anything in the world distracts me. I'm sitting on the front row, right in front of the podium, and this guy walks out and he says, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. And I literally. I shot my notebook. I thought, this guy's stupid. He didn't know anything. YouTube is just where I store my videos. And I put my hand on the chair next to me, and I'm raising up to turn around and walk out. And I look back in the entire back of the room is standing room only. And it clicked to me, hey, maybe this guy does know something. So I turn back around and look back up in time to hear him say, and it's owned by Google, the largest search engine in the world. And immediately through my head I'm thinking, wait, we send a lot of money to Google for ads. Why aren't we sending any money to YouTube? Never realizing or thinking that eventually Google would send me money for doing what I'm doing. And I sat there in the next 45 minutes, I took about three pages worth of notes. I had to leave the conference early that Friday because I had a radio show here in Dallas on Saturday morning. On the way home, there's nobody next to me. So I've got the tray table folded down, the one next to me folded down, and I'm going through my notes trying to come up with an implementation plan. What am I going to do? And I was torn between, do I start speaking on stages? Because one of the people that I heard was Pete Vargas talk about that, or do I do YouTube? And I worked on it that Friday. Saturday morning, I went and did my radio show, went back to the office and worked till about 6:00 that night, Sunday, got up, went to church, took my wife at the time back home, dropped her off, went back to the office, worked till about 5:00. And then Monday morning when we got in the office that we, we got the plumbers out and I called everybody else together and said, we're going to start doing YouTube. We're going to change our marketing, we're going to change everything we're doing. We're going to do it right now. One month later, we started posting three videos a week, every week. And that's really how it started.

[Jack]

And the videos were, they, it was like, I'm sure, like low. Yeah, low grade comparison to current stuff. But it's like, hey, here's how to do this. Was that the idea? Like, yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

I just, I just literally thought, it's funny because I just thought, if I can teach people about their plumbing system, yeah, that will help build me as an authority, because they're going to understand I know what I'm talking about. And I mean, my first videos are still up. I've never taken them down. And it's funny because, guys, in the beginning, I would set my laptop up on my desk and then roll my chair back far enough that I look good on the screen right the way I wanted to be. And I'm about five or six feet from the computer. So I'm hollering at the computer, talking loud enough that it would record it. And that's how I started. And it's funny now because I was teaching somebody a YouTube course the other night, and they're like, roger, how often did you post in the beginning and why? And I told them, I said, look, I said, in the beginning. I started three videos a week from the very beginning. And they're like, how hard was that? And it's like it was impossible. But we kept up. We just told ourselves, this is something we have to do to make the phone ring. And eventually it started working.

[John]

How long was that eventually?

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, to be honest, I would say within a couple of months, three months. We're probably getting a call or two every now and then, but after about a year. It's really funny, Jack, because I'm walking out of the office one day and Amber looks at me and she's my CSR. She said, we got three plumbing videos off YouTube today. And it's about 10:00 in the morning. I'm like, okay, number one, we didn't get three calls today. She said, no, no, no. The calls came in last week. We had dig crews go out last week. These were all tunnel jobs under a house which run anywhere from 500 to, say, $100,000, $5,000 to $100,000. And she said, the dig crews went out, dug all three of them last week. We have three different crews out working on all three of those today. So, yeah, we did get three jobs off of YouTube. And I'm like, wow. And I'm thinking we didn't pay any advertising for that. We didn't pay Google for that. We literally made videos about what we do, about what we specialize in. And people are calling us based on that. And that's really how it. That's when I started realizing, look, we can do really good at this.

[Jack]

Actually, I'm going to specify something really quick because Texas has a very unique sewer system where when you replace a drain in 49 other states, you do it one way and in Texas, you do it another. You have to tunnel under a home and replace it that way. So it's a very complicated, invasive job. Versus in Ohio. You know, we're. We're just going to dig the front yard. So. So that. I think that's something to specify there, if somebody's wondering what that was. Because I first talked to a plumber and I was like, what do you mean tunneling?

[Roger Wakefield]

Okay, but wait a minute. You said you just dig the front yard. What do you dig in the front yard for if the leaks under the house?

[Jack]

Well, we have basements.

[Roger Wakefield]

There you go. Yeah, we don't have.

[Jack]

Right, yeah. So that's the big distinction. Is. Is there a basement, and can it be a floor break, or is it. Is it going to be a tunnel? Which Texas, for some reason, does tunnels.

[Roger Wakefield]

And every now and then, we will jackhammer to the floor or something like that. But the word that you said is, it's. The tunneling is very invasive in a way. It's not because we're not intruding into their house unless we have to go up through the floor or anything like that. But we can go. Go down, find it and make the repair under the house. And they never even know what we did.

[Jack]

I learned about this for the first time, like, two months ago, three months ago, I was talking to my friend Woody, and he's the GM of Radiant in Austin. And he told me, you know, he came up and visited, and I think it was January. And he said, yeah, we just sold a $75,000 sewer. I was like, that's a heck of a sewer. What. What on earth is that? And he's like, no, it's just a house like this doesn't make. So he had to explain it to me.

[Roger Wakefield]

You know what the funny thing is? Now we built a training center out here for Leak Pro. And we don't just teach people how to find the leaks on the water lines, but I have built two sewer systems, a cast iron and a pvc. And we teach people how to use test balls, hoses, and cameras to isolate the leaks. That way, you're not coming in saying, look, we just need to replace everything.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

Instead it's, hey, the lime going to the kitchen sink is rotted out. It's not holding water. We've isolated it. We've tested everything else. Everything else holds. So here's what we need to do. And that gives people peace of mind before you get started, because there's a lot of plumbing companies say, hey, we know the kitchen line's bad. Let us fix it, and then we'll tell you what else is bad. Yeah, nobody wants to buy that.

[Jack]

So what year did you start creating the, like, videos?

[Roger Wakefield]

2018.

[Jack]

That would be. I mean, just describing the size of your company. Yeah, yeah. Like, I think good timing pretty early on. But that would be a real sacrifice just of resources. That. That probably took a lot.

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, I'm really lucky. My stepson was working for me at the time. He was helping us with Facebook and different things. And literally, when we had that meeting that Monday morning, I said, look, I want you to get on YouTube and learn how to do YouTube. And it's funny. I mean, you can get on YouTube and watch videos and learn how to do it. Now, most people don't teach you the right way, or they don't teach you the tips and tricks and secrets and things that you really need to know to make it successful. So after a few months, we hired a YouTube coach. And I've pretty much had a YouTube coach since then. Just like any professional, if you want to get better at something, you hire a coach to coach you and keep you going and motivate you and tell you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. And it's funny now because anytime I go to these social media conferences, I still sit on the front row, I still take no slack crazy. And people come up and they're like, roger, I've seen your channel. You could have taught this video. It's like, yeah, or could have taught this course. And I'm like, yeah, I do teach this course. But if I can learn one thing new in here that I'm not thinking about or I'm not teaching or I'm not doing right, it helps me improve at what I'm doing. So that's why I still think coaches, mentors, and trainers are the most amazing thing in the world.

[Jack]

When did it start really gaining traction? I mean, 2018. Did it take a year? Did it take two years? When did this really start taking off?

[Roger Wakefield]

Probably two years is when we really started noticing, hey, we're doing good. And when it did, I mean, it exploded like crazy. You know, you get an award or a plaque from YouTube. Matter of fact, right over my shoulder down here on the bottom, the silver play button. So you get that at 100,000 subscribers. We applied for it the day we hit 100,000 subscribers. By the time we got it in about three weeks later, we were over 200,000 subscribers. It was just like it was going so fast. It was scary.

[Jack]

And was it two years that you got to a hundred thousand subscribers?

[Roger Wakefield]

It was somewhere between two and three. It was just over two years, but it was before we reach our third year.

[Jack]

And I say this, I feel like delicately, but it's also somewhat obvious. When did content become the primary business?

[Roger Wakefield]

Probably about three or four years in, it got to the point where the company was growing, we were doing good, and my ex wife and my CSR were really running it. And they needed me involved in it more. They're like, man, look, you need to come in, you need to do this. And I'm like, man, I need to do this, I need to do this. So we had to make a decision, what do we do? And they kept running it. I kept going on YouTube and I started looking to sell the company and seeing what the possibilities were.

[Jack]

And that was 2021.

[Roger Wakefield]

God, that was. Yeah, 2021.

[Allie]

We're about eight months into using Evoca and Evoka has been an awesome partner for us in our call center. So what Evoca does for us is they do two different things. One, they have their Coach product, and Coach has been helping us do what it says, coach our csrs every single day. It listens to every call and uses AI technology to basically pick apart that call and tell us where we can improve. And for the last eight months, we've been consistently improving our scores, which has been awesome. The other product they have is just conventional booking, and it's an AI tool that books over the phone. A customer calls in and it either handles overflow, as in our phones are full, or it does nights and weekends for us. And a customer will call in and actually deal with an AI agent all.

[Jack]

The way through booking.

[Allie]

And the savings inside call center has allowed us to ramp up our marketing to continue to grow even more. Thank you, Evoca, and thank you, Tyson, for your partnership.

[John]

Yeah, so, I mean, you built a extremely strong brand online over these years as well. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that are now starting this process, including John and myself. What kind of advice do you have for newcomers who want to build this brand, especially in the home services space on YouTube and social media platforms?

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, that's a great question. Start with a brand book. Know what your brand is. We've got a 43 page brand book. It talks about what colors we wear, what we do, what we don't do, what we say, what we don't say, what kind of companies we will work with, what kind of companies we won't work with. I literally turned down a $25,000 speaking gig because they wanted me to wear a suit. And I said, guys, don't mean that bad, but that's not me. And they're like, yeah, but, you know, we're going to have a lot of entrepreneurs in here and we just think it'll do a whole lot better. I said, I can't do it. And they literally looked at me and they said, you're going to turn down $25,000 to speak for 90 minutes. I said, well, I thought it was 60, but yeah, I'm going to turn it down because I'm not wearing a suit. So, you know, you just. You got to be true to you and to me. That's what the brand book is. If people ask me to do something, to say something, or they send me something and say, hey, we're going to put this color on your website, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not. That's not part of our brand, and you've got to understand it. But the good thing about that is when somebody does reach out to you, you can literally send them the brand book and say, hey, this is what we're about, and it lets them see. And I think that is probably that's one of the smartest things that we've done. But, like, if I hire a new employee, I can hand them the brand book and say, hey, read through this. This is what we do, this is what we are, and this is what we're all about.

[John]

I mean, I think that transcends just the YouTube page, too. I mean, that's great idea for your business in general. I do have one question about brand book, though. How many of the pages in the brand book are dedicated solely to the mustache? None.

[Jack]

20.

[Roger Wakefield]

Half of the book. The mustache is a big part of it, but, you know, it's not everything. The mustache is the brand. The mustache is what gets me recognized. But, you know, I mean, every now and then, like right now, it's kind of long. Sometimes I'll take trimmers and cut it really short. Not quite as short as my. My hair, but I'll cut it at a number two guard. And it's just a little short, stubbly mustache then. But every now and then I do that because I want to be able to be a little different every now and then, but. But I've never shaved it off or I hadn't shaved it off in many, many years.

[Jack]

Yeah, that'd be a. Be a big move. I mean, the logo itself is the mustache, right?

[Roger Wakefield]

It really is for.

[Jack]

Did you. You know, one of the things I think of with. You're a good example, but Radiant is also a good example. They created just a tremendous. I think they were pretty early on in content, TikTok and Instagram, I'm remembering, but they. They drove an insane amount of applicants through their. Through their media efforts. Did. Did you find that you had the same result?

[Roger Wakefield]

I had people calling me from around the world Saying, look, I want to move to Texas and work for you.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And it's like, look, if you're willing to contact the Texas state board and do what you got to do to get your licenses or whatever. I had people come in from out of state. I had a guy come in from Washington state, comes in to apply and goes through the interview process, a fantastic guy. And ask him, so where all else are you interviewing while you're in town? He said, I'm not. He said, I'm either coming to you, I'm gonna work for you. I'm not coming to Texas.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And it's like, wow. So it can help you grow. Like, if you're growing a good brand, you're growing a good name recognition. I mean, it doesn't matter where I go to. If it's a trade show, I'm recognized all the time. But, I mean, even speaker conferences and things like that, I have people come up and stop me and say, oh, my gosh. Well, I was in Austin yesterday. I went down there for an event at south by Southwest. I get on the elevator to go up to my room, and there's a guy and his girlfriend sitting there on the elevator. And he literally looks at me, says, you make content on YouTube? I said, yes, sir. I'm a plumber. And he's like, oh, my gosh. I've watched your videos. He said, I don't remember which one. He said, but I recognized you, and I know you help me. Yeah, man. You can't beat that.

[Jack]

Yeah. Do you remember one of my anecdotes? And I'm curious if you had a similar thing, but radiant. At one point, I think it was peak, right? It was like, 2019. I don't remember when they traded, but I think it was 2021. But at their peak, I heard they had 7,000 applicants come in from their tik Tok social media alone. I mean, it was like. It was insanity. I. I've never heard of anything like that before.

[Roger Wakefield]

I've never seen anything like that. Not that many people. But the reach is so big on social media, it doesn't surprise me. We're in the middle. We just bought 10 acres outside of Dallas last year. We built a training center out here. We've got studios out here. We've got. I mean, everything we do is here now, two walls over. I've got seven people on a marketing team that help me do everything we do. But we're building an event center out here, too, because I want to be able to host monthly Events for tradespeople and say, hey, guys, look, we're hosting a party this Friday. And Saturday, the sponsors and the VIPs come in. Friday we cook dinner, we have fun. Saturday, we bring people in and we educate them, we teach them. But there's also a lot of time for networking to build these relationships with plumbers, electricians, H vac techs, roofers, whoever, around the country. And, man, it just. It makes us a tighter community. And I think things like that are awesome.

[Jack]

Yeah, I agree. Can you tell me a little bit more about the training? And you mentioned Leak Pro. Like, walk me through this stuff a little bit.

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, here in Texas, the way our houses are built on slab, we get leaks under the slab, we get them out in the yard. So I have wanted to do leak detection since I started my company. So I found a product out on the west coast, went to their training, found a product in Florida, went to their training, and they were both okay. But they're really complicated systems, both of them. You have these big power packs that your headphones plug into. And then out of the power pack, it goes to a wand that you walk around in the house and, y'all know, trying to lean down.

[Jack]

This is like a nitrogen setup.

[Roger Wakefield]

No, this is strictly acoustic.

[Jack]

Okay.

[Roger Wakefield]

So, matter of fact, that's the device right there. This is the one that I can walk in the house with. And what I like about it is there's a plug right here on the end where you plug your headphones in. Everything else is in here.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

So literally all you do is this.

[Jack]

Is your product, or are you a distributor for this product? Or how does this work?

[Roger Wakefield]

We ended up. Me and my son ended up acquiring the company. The beginning of 2023, I believe.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

God, maybe. Maybe it was even 2022. But I had gone to San Diego to. Or actually gone to LA for one of the social media conferences that Friday. There was supposed to be a lot going on. Everything got canceled. So me and my stepson, the one who started helping me do YouTube, and this was 2019. So literally, we get in. God, was it. It may have been 2018. Anyway, I know it's like, God, it goes by so fast.

[Jack]

Time flies, man.

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, we got in the car, we rented a car, drove down to San Diego to meet with somebody that has a product for remote leak detection. Yeah, kind of like Mullen Flow, even before I ever heard of Moen Flow. But I go to San Diego to meet him, and he's there because he's meeting this guy who owns this product. Leak Pro. And we start looking at it, and I'm playing with it. I'm like, dude, this is amazing. I said, I love this better than any other equipment that I've ever seen. Well, he didn't know who I was. He calls me two days later. He's like, oh, my God, I've been watching your videos. You're the Leak Pro. You're the guy that needs to be talking about this and doing this. So I told him, great, sell me your company. And he never would. And two or three years ago, we finally came up with an agreement that was beneficial to both of us. So we bought it. He had a training center out in Morongo Valley, California. And we decided, look, we don't want to come to California to train people all the time. So we built what I think is a better training center here outside of Dallas. And we can bring somebody in that knows nothing about plumbing, nothing about leak detection, nothing about the equipment, and train them to find leaks and put them on it. And it really is such a neat deal.

[Jack]

Yeah. How many people are you training a year right now through that program?

[Roger Wakefield]

Man? I would have to ask Randy. We train anywhere from one to three at a time, and we haven't really started pushing the training. We talk about it a little bit, but, I mean, Dottie's selling about 15 pieces of equipment every month, so it's. It's. It's doing pretty good.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

How.

[Jack]

Like, how much is it? How much is it?

[Roger Wakefield]

The complete kit, which comes with the Sidekick that I just showed you, and the probe, which looks like a probing rod, but it's got a box to hold all the components. It's got a stainless steel rod. This one has an aluminum one. The aluminum one, you can hear better. But we found that pushing the rod down in the ground, if you bent that aluminum rod, you're never going to get it straightened back out. So we went to stainless steel on that one, and the guy who invented this did all this. But the complete kit, which comes with two headphones, the Probe and the Sidekick, and attachments to hook up everything is. I think it's on sale right now under three grand.

[John]

That is not bad.

[Roger Wakefield]

Yeah.

[John]

I mean, we've looked into the acoustic style leak detection to run inside our business multiple times, and it always comes out to be three to five grand in general. So that. That's actually a great price.

[Roger Wakefield]

The first two kits that I bought were over five grand. And I think this is better because the first kits that I bought you had all these adjustments and frequencies and all this, and it's like, I don't know what it's supposed to be. I'm trying to find a leak under there. There's nothing here but squeeze the trigger and that turns the headphones on.

[John]

I love it.

[Roger Wakefield]

All there is to it. It's. It's simple, it's easy to use.

[Jack]

I feel like I've mostly run into the nitrogen ones, but I, I'm. I'm trying to remember the use case because we don't.

[Roger Wakefield]

We've done helium, and we're looking at building a helium package.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

Because the good thing about helium, like, if you're in a big field and you know where the water line is, you don't want to walk and listen every six inches. So what you do is you plug helium into the system and then you walk above it with the sniffer. And once you get right above the leak, it starts beeping because helium is going to go straight up. It's not going to come up to the ground level and then dissipate or anything.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

So, Roger, you've built this great channel. You're. You're continuing to, to grow yourself in this plumbing space. As a prominent figure in the plumbing world, what do you see as your role in the next few years of, of shaping the industry and, you know, frankly, shaping the next generation of plumbers?

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, when I become president of the United States. No, look, I just, I love what I get to do, and to me, that's what makes it fun. I love the fact that young people come up to me and ask me questions about plumbing or even online on social media. We get in, we engage with them, we talk to them. I want to build the trades as a bigger, better community than it is if I do things right. And I was on Dr. Phil last year, the beginning of the year, and he said, and he. I asked him, I said, are you still on my numbers? He said, there's a million unfilled trade shops right now, and in the next three years, that's going to be 4 to 5 million unfilled trade shops. Imagine how much money you all are going to be losing as entrepreneurs if we don't have enough people that can actually run all the calls that we were paying for marketing to bring in. So my thing is, I want middle schools, I want high schools to start talking about the trades. You know, for over 40 years, we've told kids, if you don't go to college, you're never going to amount to anything. I was told that. So when I talk to other Tradespeople. A lot of that mental mindset is, look, I'm nothing. I'm just a plumber. I'm just a tradesman. I didn't go to college. I'm never going to amount to anything. It's like, dude, you know, you make more money than most people that went to college, right? And they don't necessarily get that. They don't understand it. But that's part of my message, is trying to teach people that what we do in the trades, number one, we're essential. We figured that out a few years ago. But here's the deal. Walk outside and look around you. Blue collar workers built everything you see except for the trees and the grass. Blue collar workers built the road, they built the bridges, they built the buildings, the houses, the offices, the towers, whatever it is. Blue collar workers repair America every day. Plumbers protect the health of the nation and the Texas plumbing license help you protect the citizens of Texas. And if you don't believe in that, you need to give up your position.

[Jack]

I have. The plumber protects the health of the nation. Picture across the desk from me.

[Roger Wakefield]

I was going to say I've seen it. Yeah. I think we should all have it somewhere.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you've Good. I think you've done a good. I think you've done a good job of illustrating the earning potential too, because I think that is interesting. It's. It's obviously gotten even, like, crazier in the past few years, but, like, we just, we have. Plumbers make a lot of money. Electricians make a lot of money. H Vac makes a lot of money. It's, it is now a pretty standardized. Like, you should be in the six figures or you should have a path to the six figures really quick. Really? Yeah. Like in your 20s. I think what we've seen, which I think has been cool, is a big resurgence in young interest. A lot of macro factors there, but we're seeing a ton of that. We're like, we're getting applicants like crazy in the, you know, high teens, early 20s of like, yeah, hey, I'm interested. Walk me through this. So I think that's been kind of fun. Our average age of the business, I think, is 31. That's average team member age, which I think is kind of crazy. That's a lot longer. Younger than it was five years ago.

[Roger Wakefield]

Oh, yeah, you're doing great. Most companies around Dallas that the average age is in the mid-50s.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. In Dallas, you Know, we have a few friends that operate down there. We have Josh and Jimmy and Gus and I mean, they're a lot of big companies. I would have to imagine there's a large infrastructure for training more and more upcoming. Like, what does that feel like in Dallas?

[Roger Wakefield]

I think that there is. I think that there needs to be more part of what we're doing. I just created a bunch of digital courses. You know, it's funny, you're talking about how to make money. The one that we titled Rich with Roger is getting into the trades and I teach people how to get in and find the trade that they can make the most money in. Yeah, but you know, teaching stuff like that online is good. I teach that. I teach people how to become superintendent's informant. I teach them how to start their own business. I teach them how to use social media and things like that I don't want to get into right now anyway. Teaching them to solder pipe, teaching them to pull pipe. I make videos about that. You can find all that for free. But there's a lot of training places around that even do like as little as a seven or eight week program where they're like, look, if you want to be a plumber, we can bring you in and train you in eight weeks to do plumbing.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And they're focusing on residential service. So they teach you how to troubleshoot a water heater, rebuild a toilet pull and repair faucets, garbage disposals. Just things to where if you hired one of these kids, they're going to be able to come in and jump on a truck with a plumber you've got and they're going to be able to go out on the job and be productive. This is going to help them because now they're. Look, they're not just overhead costing you money just to ride around and learn. They've actually gone to training for eight weeks and learned to do things. So maybe one day I do build. I've got 10 acres here, so if I want to build training centers out here in the near future, I can do that. I think Collin College here in town is doing fantastic. And even a shout out to Belton High School down in Belton, Texas, they've got a plumbing training program. Yeah. Now that's one thing that the state of Texas has done. You can put plumbing in high school now. So after their freshman year, if somebody decides they want to go into plumbing and you've got that curriculum and syllabus all set up, you can take plumbing for the next three years when you graduate. If you graduate and pass that class, you're eligible to go down to Austin and take your tradesman exam. Now, tradesmen is a limited licensed plumber. They can do anything a plumber can do in a single family and two family dwelling, and that is it. But imagine if you went to high school and knew that when you got out you could make 50, 55, maybe $60,000 a year the day you get out of high school. Not a bad gig.

[Jack]

Not a bad gig. Yeah. What we've seen in, we're in Ohio is all of the local trade schools have over optimized for H Vac. So every school and their brother has some type of H Vac program. The high schools have it. Every high school has. Every public high school. None for plumbing and honestly none for electrical. And the only ones that do exist are very. I mean, it's important. Like it's important work, what I'm about to say. But it's, it's like, hey, here's how you plumb a hospital. And I'm like, yeah, that's, you know, they're working with the unions, they're doing their thing. But like, guys, we just need to know how to fix toilets. You know, this isn't that deep. Like we need to know how to. What's a water heater? So it's kind of an interesting gap.

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, John, let me ask you this, because one of my big arguments is in Texas right now, it's 8,000 hours to get your journeyman license. If you didn't go through a DOL training program, it's another 8,000 hours to get your master's. Now, if you did go through a DOL training program, I'm talking the union, phcc, something like that, you can get it. You can get your master's in a year instead of four years. But here's my thing, and y'all are younger than me, but I think this younger generation can get on YouTube, get on social media, go to Google, go, go to ChatGPT. They can learn faster and better than I did. I mean, we had this thing, it's called a library. It's a, it's a big building, it's made out of brick and it's full of books. Okay, A lot of people don't even know that these days, but yeah, Jack says, oh, one of those. I know what you're talking about. I heard about them one time.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah, but I heard about it on YouTube.

[Roger Wakefield]

It's probably me talking about it. Yeah, yeah, but, but the funny thing about it is. If I wanted to learn something, I had to go to the library and check out a book and read it.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And people these days, they pull out their phone and they're like, oh, that's how you do that. I think. And this is just me personally, I'd love to know what y'all think. Two different things. Number one, I think the hours should be cut in about half. And they say, well, a lot of old plumbers are going to hate that. Well, I had to put in four years and yada, yada, yada. Well, okay, you didn't have the capabilities and the resources to learn like they do. So that's one thing. That's why I think this should be cut in half. But my other thing is I think that we need a national certification, a national MEP board, meaning if you can pass the plumbing test in Ohio and I can pass the one in Texas, they can probably come up with the test between them that say, hey, if they pass this, they're good to work in either one. Because when we do have natural disasters or anything like that, and we need plumbers, man, if you've got a national certification, it's like, hey man, I can go to Louisiana and work. No big deal.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

What are yalls thoughts on those two things?

[John]

I mean, I'm on board with you with the hours specifically as well, because I know you don't know my story, but for many of our listeners, when I bought my H Vac company, everybody quit the first day there. Roger. So the way that I started running calls was I'd wake up at 4am and watch YouTube for three hours on how to troubleshoot an H vac system for about the first six months until I got through the summer and then got through that first winter and then was a pretty decent mechanic after that. But I love that it was a sink or swim moment and YouTube videos like yourself, but in the H Vac category, actually saved me. But point being though is, is I'd say that that my history of actually hands on H Vac experience with a YouTube background and a little bit of a degree put me in a position where I was able to pick up the H vac trade extremely quickly. And so I'm 100% on board with, with the reduced hours. I. I don't know too much about a night nationwide certification. But John, John, maybe you can speak more to that.

[Jack]

Yeah, we. So our licensure in Ohio is different than Texas. So in Ohio we're one of the states where you work under one master so I'm our master plumber. So for us, we, we don't have that licensing requirement that you have. But from my anecdote to sort of agree with what you're saying is I can take somebody, and I've done this dozens of times at this point. I can take someone off the street with, you know, the desire and teach them to be a plumber in two to two and a half years. And that is how long it takes someone to go from off the street to a functional service plumber. Now it can definitely be sped up more with YouTube, but that's like the hands on training. So from us, like we have great plumbers who are two or three years into their career.

[Roger Wakefield]

So do you know John Akoyon out in California? Okay. John Akoyan's got, Is it, I think it's rooter hero.

[Jack]

Okay. Yes, yes, yes.

[Roger Wakefield]

Okay. So went in and talked to John one day. I had a plumber in North California wanting to buy me. So there was a little three way thing going on that we talked about. Bidding war night.

[Jack]

I said a bidding war.

[Roger Wakefield]

So anyway, I went out to California, met with John because John's like, man, I want to get to know you and hear what all you do. He had never heard of me, but he thought it was strange that when he walked into his office, half the people in his office knew who I was. So he's like, how do you do that because you're in Texas. But I went out there and talked to him. He says he can take a person off the street if they have the desire. He can put them in a truck as a revenue creating plumber in nine weeks. Yeah, three days training on trainers in the shop by somebody who knows what they're doing. Three days a week, every week. The other two days a week you're in the field riding with a plumber who's one of their top trained technicians that knows how to do everything. You've been learning pretty neat stuff.

[Jack]

I, I mean, I totally agree. We, one of our, you know, I said Ohio doesn't have these plumbing trade schools. We're, we're working with our senators. We're, we're meeting. I've never met a senator, but it should be fun. But I'm trying to, I'm trying to get him to give me money. Of course we're, we're pushing on a plumbing and electrical and H Vac, but H vac, you know, it's pretty well taken care of. But plumbing's not to do exactly that because we know we can do it faster. It's more of a problem of resources. We could do it. At this point, I would just rather not foot the whole bill.

[Roger Wakefield]

I love it.

[Jack]

But yeah, we. I think with the right training, you can ramp it pretty good. We. What we used to do when we. This was like my 10th apprentice, so this was like 2018 or something. We brought some guy in good mechanical aptitude, and 90 days was our target. So it was pretty. And honestly, we. We changed the program a lot since. So now it goes slower than this. But it was, hey, in 90 days, you're going to know how to change a garbage disposal, change a water heater, and change a sump pump. And those were the only, you know, three things that we really focused on. And then we'd give you all of those, all those calls and he would. Day 91, he was doing it now. He wasn't very good at the, you know, bedside manner and all the other stuff you need.

[Roger Wakefield]

Well, you got to work on that along the way too.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah. But it is possible. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And then as far as like shared state licensure. Yeah, that's insane. Like, they. They need to chill. Like, if I'm taking tests on nationwide code, I should be able to plumb nationwide.

[Roger Wakefield]

Like, I completely agree.

[Jack]

Yeah, that's a ridiculous problem. Well, this, this was, this was a ton of fun. What does the next year look like for the Roger Wakefield Show?

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, we. We started a second YouTube channel called the Trade Talks. We talk about all the trades. We go live, me and my son, we've got other sponsors we're talking to that are wanting to come in and do some things. And we've got 11 different topics that we talk about. And the neat thing about it is we do it at 10 o'clock Central Standard time. And that way the people on the east coast can watch it or listen to it at lunch. And then everybody on lunch all the way across the country can go back to the channel, turn it on, listen to it. Man. We're getting a lot of good engagement, a lot of good feedback. And that was part of what we're wanting to do with the event center, because we're wanting to build the event center here to where we can host events here in Dallas once a month. And I say in Dallas, right outside of Dallas. But I'm also wanting to go on like a US Tour where I fly into a city and either go to a plumbing supply house or somewhere and host a networking event and just invite tradespeople and get Tradespeople to come in. Look, the more we can all get together and get to know each other and support each other, the better the trades are going to be, because right now, we're all siloed. It's like, look, I'm fighting for my company. I'm fighting for my company. If we all start getting together and start fighting for the trades, which happened in Texas, whenever that politician wanted to get rid of the plumbing license, we had a rally on the state capitol, and I spoke at it, and PHCC spoke at it, and so many people did. But, I mean, Mary Conger helped put that together. And it was like we had about 7,000 people at a plumber's rally at the state capitol, and it was good. And literally, I think Governor Abbott knew what was going on because the day before, he made an announcement that he was going to invoke his executive order and he's going to save the plumbing license. And of course, he did it the day before we had our rally, but it was still pretty cool.

[Jack]

Yeah, sounds cool. Well, thanks for coming on. This was a lot. This was a lot of fun to get to hear more about the story and understand a little bit more. If people want to find you, it's the Roger wakefield show on YouTube.

[Roger Wakefield]

Just. Yeah, just go. Yeah, I. You can go to YouTube and search plumbing and look. Look for the mustache.

[Jack]

Yeah, that's. That's a pretty. That's putting it on the table, man.

[Roger Wakefield]

You know, you just. You gotta lay it out there sometime. It is. It is what it is. But it's neat because now that I'm coaching YouTube, that's one thing. Whenever I'm talking to entrepreneurs and speakers and stuff, it's like, what one word do you wish people could put in YouTube and find you?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And, man, it makes people think. Wow. So it is. It's really neat. Now, I got a question for you all before you leave. What part of Ohio are you in?

[Jack]

I'm just out of Cleveland and Jack is in Nashville.

[Roger Wakefield]

Okay. How close are y'all to llama?

[Jack]

Yeah, pretty 30 minutes, 40 minutes.

[Roger Wakefield]

Oh, cool. I spoke there at a social media marketing conference. If y'all have never been to it, you should go to it. It's called Social Media Week, Llama. And two days of different social media people, local people that do different things for the communities. Man, it just is a great conference to speak at. So anytime I meet people from Ohio, I'm like, y'all need to check this out. But it's smwl Social Media Week. Llama.

[Jack]

Interesting. What is the next one this year? Did it already pass?

[Roger Wakefield]

I think it's this year. I think it's late June.

[Jack]

Oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'll check that out. Yeah, I'm like, 40 minutes away from there.

[Roger Wakefield]

Cool.

[Jack]

And while you're on your nationwide tour, you should stop on by.

[John]

Swing by.

[Jack]

You better swing by.

[Roger Wakefield]

There you go. Well, you know, it's funny. I was. We were. We flew into, what, Columbus or something and drove to Llama.

[Jack]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roger Wakefield]

And we're driving on the road, and there's like, three social. Four social media people in this car, and I'm driving, and the girl in the backseat is a tiktoker, and she's like, look, I hate to say this, but I need to use the restroom. And we just pulled up to a lot. I look up, the union hall is right there. I'm like, oh, my God. Y'all go in there. This will be fun. So you go in. I walk in, I'm like, how are y'all doing? They're like, fine. It's like, can I talk to the business agent or business manager? Like, yeah, what do you want to talk to them about? I don't know. I'm a plumber out of Dallas and just thought I'd stop in and say hi. They had no idea who I was, and it was just. It was great because I got to talk to the guy for a while, and he's like, man, that's pretty interesting. So neat people up there.

[Jack]

That is funny.

[Roger Wakefield]

Cool.

[Jack]

Well, thanks so much for coming on, Roger. We loved hearing your story, and I encourage everybody to check out the show. We'll send links on the bottom.

[Roger Wakefield]

Thanks, John, Jack. Thank you all for having me on. This has really been a pleasure of.