Plumbing Owner Grew From $6M to $25M on Sewers (Here’s How)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Plumbing Owner Grew From $6M to $25M on Sewers (Here’s How)

Podcast: Owned and Operated – A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Host: John Wilson
Guest: Isaac Zimmerman, owner of J Blanton Plumbing
Date: December 2, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, John Wilson sits down with Isaac Zimmerman, owner of Chicago’s J Blanton Plumbing, to explore how the business grew from $6 million to a staggering $25 million annual run rate in just under two years—fueled largely by a bold investment and strategic overhaul of its sewer and drains division. The discussion unpacks the industry’s high-margin potential, unconventional growth strategies, the economics of trenchless pipe lining, and the game-changing sales process that set them apart.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Business Growth Background & Shift in Focus

• Isaac acquired J Blanton Plumbing at the end of 2022, when it was a $6M company. As of this episode, the company is at a $30M run rate, closing the year at around $25M ([02:10]–[03:05]).
• The last year’s growth was driven almost exclusively by the expansion of their sewer and drain division, which now accounts for nearly 50% of the business.

Quote:
“We structurally changed the business… Drains took a way bigger step forward. You guys made huge investments, like a million dollars probably, into lining and jetting and growing the drain side of the business.”
—John Wilson ([02:30])

2. Differentiated Market Position: From Premium to Value Leader

• Most large competitors are HVAC-focused and minimize sewer work, often seeing it as a small, seasonal, or less-profitable niche ([04:00]–[05:00]).
• Isaac’s strategy bucks the industry norm:
  • Instead of positioning lining (trenchless pipe replacement) as an expensive, “premium” service, J Blanton Plumbing offers it as a mid-market, high-volume solution, emphasizing value to the customer.
  • Heavy investment in technology and equipment (e.g., $1M in UV-curing setups) allows execution at scale and efficiency, passing cost savings directly to the consumer.

Quote:
“Most people I talk to in lining want to be this premium option to digging—very expensive… I decided I wanted to be extremely high volume at a good midpoint price point.”
—Isaac Zimmerman ([00:02], [14:48])

3. Reengineering the Sewer Sales Process

The Traditional Approach

• The industry typically sends a junior “drain tech” to unclog and upsell, later flipping the job to a salesperson for big-ticket repairs ([08:00]).

The J Blanton Approach

• No traditional “drain cleaners.”
• $93 “Unclogs for Dogs” promo: Includes a camera inspection and sewer unclog. Proceeds help donate dog food ([06:30]–[07:25]).
• Directly dispatches a skilled salesperson with a camera to the first appointment—no tech-to-sales flip, leading to higher conversion and a seamless customer experience ([08:00]–[09:14]).

Quote:
“We send somebody directly to that $93 call…with a camera or a diagnostic technician…we view these as the most important calls. We don’t want to have a flipping process where we risk that the most untrained people in the business are taking this golden goose egg.”
—Isaac Zimmerman ([09:14])

• Educates customers for two hours about the true nature and urgency of sewer problems and the futility of recurring cleanings.
• Refuses to take the $93 if the homeowner doesn’t move forward with a liner, positioning themselves as expert consultants instead of transactional contractors ([16:20]).

Quote:
“I coach the guys, don’t charge $93. Don’t show them the cost of cleaning or jetting as a price comparison…don’t spend $2,500 cleaning the sewer when you can spend $13,000 fixing it forever.”
—Isaac Zimmerman ([17:33])

4. The Liner Pricing Model & Market Disruption

• J Blanton’s pricing for lining is intentionally disruptive—undercutting the “premium” market by setting their price as the value alternative to excavation.
  • Average material cost: $20/foot.
  • Sells for ~$180-$200/foot (with memberships); market competitors often charge $270-$400/foot ([12:26]–[13:29]).
  • Gross margin on these jobs: 62–68%, sometimes higher ([11:29]–[12:13]).

Quote:
“We’re not only technically the best with the best equipment, but we’re one of the cheapest. I think over the last two years, we’re dragging down the market, which people probably hate…”
—Isaac Zimmerman ([12:55])

• This high-margin, mid-price model results in rapid market share gains as competitors focus elsewhere or can’t match costs.

5. Lead Generation: Direct Mail & Membership Upsells

• Direct mail is a major driver: 25% of leads, aiming for 100,000 pieces/month and looking to triple that ([14:24]).
• 9x ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) from direct mail campaigns.
• Membership tune-ups equipped with cameras; about 30% flip to senior sewer techs, closing at a 40% rate ([38:04]).

6. Sales Process & Staff Strategy

• J Blanton hires and cross-trains high-performing HVAC salespeople (not plumbers) for sewer sales due to their comfort with competitive, consultative sales and lower close rates ([40:45]–[41:05]).
• Result: Each salesperson generates $2–$3 million/year, seeing 3–4 appointments per day at a 30% close rate ([46:09]–[46:39]).

7. The Consumer Education Playbook

• Educates homeowners on the futility and long-term cost of just cleaning sewers or doing spot repairs, comparing lining to “bath fitter” (overlaying rather than rebuilding) and presenting it as cost-effective and sensible ([21:13]–[21:25]).
• Emphasizes regulatory realities: Sewer disclosures affect home sales, increasing urgency ([25:13]–[26:32]).
• Preaches the “paying interest to the problem” concept—either fix permanently now or risk far greater costs later ([17:33], [25:13]).

8. Operational Investment and Complexity

• Drains, especially trenchless lining, are capital-intensive and operationally complex.
• Each lining trailer (UV-cured) costs ~$300,000; company aims to support high sales volumes with enough equipment ([45:25]–[45:31]).
• New “prep crews” further optimize install efficiency, aiming to double daily capacity per crew ([46:56]–[47:44]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sales Philosophy:
  “Either do nothing, or line it. When we do our sales process, we’re educating the customer—there’s no such thing as cleaning a pipe.”
  —Isaac Zimmerman ([16:33])

• Market Disruption:
  “We’re one of the cheapest. I think we’re dragging down the market, which people probably hate, but...when people shop us, they choose us because we’re cheaper and we blow them away with our team and technology.”
  —Isaac Zimmerman ([12:55], [14:48])

• Sales Process Focus:
  “It doesn’t matter what the promo is or if it’s in the membership…If you don’t have the right sales process, it breaks down.”
  —Isaac Zimmerman ([37:56], [39:57])

• Comparison to Bath Fitter:
  “At the end of the day, it’s bath fitter…we’re putting a tub over a tub. Putting a pipe inside a pipe.”
  —John Wilson ([21:13])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:05: Introduction, business transition, and growth metrics.
• 04:00–05:00: Market overview and unique focus on sewers/drains.
• 05:21–05:30: Investment in trenchless technology and UV-cured lining.
• 06:29–09:14: Rethinking the sales process: Sending sales pros on first visit.
• 12:26–13:29: Liner pricing model and market disruption.
• 14:24–14:55: Direct mail and lead-generation success.
• 16:33–17:33: Sales doctrine: Permanent fixes over band-aids.
• 21:13–21:25: Bath fitter analogy and value proposition for customers.
• 26:07–26:32: Sewer disclosures in home sales—regulatory environment.
• 38:04–38:32: Membership program: Converting maintenance visits to high-ticket sales.
• 40:45–41:05: Recruiting HVAC sales pros for sewer sales.
• 45:25–47:44: Drains as a capital/execution intensive business; operational efficiencies.

---

The Takeaways

• Aggressive investment in technology and process, coupled with a radical, customer-centric sales philosophy, enabled J Blanton Plumbing to capture massive market share in an overlooked, high-margin vertical.
• Disrupting the norm—offering premium technology at a sensible price and focusing on high volume—built a scalable, sustainable business model.
• Obsessed over process, salesmanship, and consumer education, J Blanton Plumbing has flipped industry dogma and set a compelling precedent for growth in the home services space.

---

Find Isaac Zimmerman:

• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)

---

This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to unlock new growth avenues in residential home services by challenging the status quo, investing wisely, and mastering the art and science of high-ticket technical sales.

Transcript

[A]

Like one of the attractive things about the drain business, it's high margin.

[B]

Most people I talk to in lining want to be this premium option to digging, very expensive. And I decided I wanted to be extremely high volume at a good midpoint price point. So they choose us because they shop us and we're cheaper and we blow them away with our team and technology.

[A]

How much of it is because you think other people aren't doing lining?

[B]

Most of our largest competitors, they're 80% H VAC businesses, they're actually shrinking and cutting sewers while we're growing at it. God, that's what it's like to only be plumbing. Yeah, that's what it's like to, to not have seasonality. The sales process is very complicated cuz we're showing up to people's houses and 30% of the time we turn that into a $13,000 sale.

[A]

What happens the other 60?

[B]

Either we sell a liner or we get nothing.

[A]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host John Wilson. Today I'm on site with my good friend Isaac Zimmerman, the owner of J Blanton Plumbing in Chicago. Welcome to the show and thanks for having me out.

[B]

Yeah, it's fun to, it's fun to have you here. It's. I texted this to you yesterday but it's very surreal because yeah, I started in the industry and first learned about it by shadowing you and seeing your operation and now having you here and this event you're doing is pretty cool.

[A]

Yeah, we have, I think we're like 52 registered people that are going to come out. We'll see, we'll see how many show up, but 52 registered people coming out, touring the place, having lunch, doing a shop tour and having a round table discussion. So this should be pretty interesting. The other ones we've done have been like you know, 20ish. So big group. It should be a lot of fun.

[B]

Yeah, I'm, I'm super interested to see who, who comes and where they're from. So. Yeah, and we had a, we did a little pre dinner yesterday and that was good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Had some out of town people come in so it was very fun.

[A]

Yeah, awesome. We did an episode. I mean was it a year ago?

[B]

Probably like a year and a half ago.

[A]

Yeah. And we talked a little bit about the story so we can link to that in the show notes. So check that out if you're listening. But today what we're going to talk about is and I guess we can do like a rehash. I'm going to summarize it and you can add some flavor, but you bought a business in 21 or 22.

[B]

End of 22.

[A]

Yeah. Six million dollar plumbing company. Jay Blanton, you kept the name. And, and so at the end of 22, $6 million. And now you're. What will you. You're on a run rate for 30. But what are you going to finish 25 at?

[B]

We'll finish 25 at 25 million run rate. 30 million of revenue right now.

[A]

Yeah. Awesome. So yeah, a lot of crazy growth. I think the last episode we focused a lot on like GMBs and like some really like tactical marketing stuff, which is awesome. Today what we wanted to talk about was like the last year basically since we talked last, because you guys structurally changed the business. Drains took a way bigger step forward. You guys made huge investments like a million dollars probably into lining and jetting and like growing the drain side of the business. So that's what we're going to focus on today.

[B]

So last year we did 15. We'll close this year at about 25. 30 million dollar run rate.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Big part of that.

[A]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.

[A]

50.

[B]

That's a 30.

[A]

So is it 100% like if I look at service titan, is it going to be like what did one month stand out or were like really like 60 to 70?

[B]

Like no, it's like 70 every month pretty much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean there's some like nothing really declines. It'll like step go up, step go up. Yeah, yeah. It's a pretty nice looking revenue chart when you look.

[A]

I glanced at it earlier, I was like, God, that's what it's like to only be plumbing.

[B]

Yeah. That's what it's like to not have seasonality. The only scenes we have our, our good seasons.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So yeah, pretty much doubled in the last year. And a huge part of that was the, the drain business. And so I mean, you know this like you've grown an immense amount too, like to constantly find what's the next avenue, like what's going to get me 5 million, 10 million of revenue.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so for us this last year it's been a lot of our sewer business and really trying to find like a pocket of the industry that we feel like was differentiated. And so for us, you know, most companies are industry very H vac heavy. That's the main thing. Secondly, you know, plumbing and a lot of even These, you know, $100 to $200 million companies have very small sewer divisions. Like I can Even think of two, roughly nearly $200 million businesses in Chicago that have maybe they do $5 million of sewers. Like very small.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's about half our business now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so kind of organically through like people we hired and then kind of just the success of the business has continued to grow. And then the big thing that we made a big investment into is, is lining. So trenchless pipe replacement for your sewer. And so we went really heavy on technology for this. So we invested in these like UV curing setups. We have three trailers now on actually nearly gonna order our fourth. And yeah, each rig's, you know, close to $350,000 all in. So we've made about million dollars of investment the last year and a half so that we can do these jobs faster, more cost efficient, pass on the savings to the consumer. And so customers are able to basically replace their entire sewer trenchless without having to dig for $12,500, $13,000. Whereas digging it would cost $50,000 and make World War II in their yard.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so kind of like built this like really interesting connection flywheel between like the product and service which is trenches lining.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The team that we have that focuses in on it, we could talk about. We have this whole like setup of the team of like how we do the insult coordination, prep crews that go out and prep the sewers, then the lining crews that come in. And then what we've really connected it to now is marketing and to make it scalable.

[C]

Tight deadlines, breakdowns, last minute jobs. That is just the life in the trades. And that's why we trust wesupplytrades.com they're family owned and with nearly a century in business, they stock 3 thousands of H vac plumbing and hydronics parts from brands that you already use. They're shipped fast and even same day. If you order by 3:30 Eastern with a free pro membership, you'll get better pricing, free shipping, over 99 and real experts who actually know the field. Get 20% off your first order with.

[A]

The code owned, 20 at the link below.

[C]

We supply trades. Finally a supplier who actually gets it.

[B]

But yeah, so obviously like the biggest thing that people always have problems with or always think was leads. Like okay, sewers. This sounds sexy. Even though it's, you know, kind of dirty.

[A]

It's like sound pretty sexy.

[B]

It's sexy. I have big, you know, your replacement, you're talking 12 to $20,000 sale.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

60 plus percent gross margin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Very, very lucrative. And but the thing is leads. Okay, how do I get these leads? Yeah, we've talked a bit about this the traditional industry way. And you know, we're both member of nexstar. Yep. And you know, whether it's nextar or just best practices like, okay, advertise drain cleaning calls, do the drain cleaning, flip that to a, to a salesman. And we very much like turned that on its head in. That we don't do. We don't have drain cleaners. We market essentially like camera inspections and like unclogs. So we have this promotion called $93 Unclogs for Dogs. So $93 camera inspection, a sewer unclog, and we donate 10 pounds of dog food. That's the dog part. Yeah. And. But we send. So these calls come in and they.

[A]

The 93 it. The 93 or free I think is what that promo is usually called. Is that sort of like we're obviously adapting it, but just to break it down, there's a 93 or free. This is the way the industry does it. So 93. We will unclog up to 25ft or something like that. Or like you don't pay anything. And obviously very similar to H Vac. The whole purpose is to go in and offer options to make it not $93 like H vac is like a $89 tune up. Drains is $93 unclog. So you're sort of taking that.

[B]

Yeah, it's very similar to that starting point bore. The sales process massively flips is the industry norm is run that promotion, send a drain tech who tends to be very junior, like it's an entry level role. So not a skilled salesperson. They go there, try to unclog it. If it's a mainline, you know, a properly functioning sewer shouldn't back up. So the principle of it is that if they're backing up and they're calling you for this, then there's something that needs to be repaired. So go there, camera it, say, hey, you know, we need to get someone here to offer you long term options. And then you have this flipping process where you then bring in the salesman with a camera. So most businesses running it, their initial drain tech has no camera, no way visualizing it. They flip it to the sales guy. We don't run that model. So we're really deviates. We send somebody directly to that $93 call. We directly send a salesman with a camera or a diagnostic technician if we want to call it that. And so we right away run that lead with the Salesman. And try to sell it. And our reasoning for that, it's working very well is that, you know, we view these as the most important calls. We don't want to have a flipping process where we risk that the most untrained people in the business are taking this golden goose egg.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And needing to properly transport it. And secondly, I think that consumers are not so silly. And so a lot. It's very easy for them to see through this process of needing to bring in a salesman having this flip. So I think it kind of creates even more down people's minds. Yeah. So we send somebody. Again, this is very different. We don't really use rotting or unclogging machines or whatever terminology you use in your market. We call it rotting. We just send someone the camera there and do a diagnostic and see what's going on. And then we tie that into our lining process where now we can show them on the camera and offer them a solution as preventative liner that's very cost effective. And so when consumers weigh it and a lot of them like we target in areas that are older homes, a lot of them have done repairs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when they see that they've done a previous repair for 6,000 for 5ft of line and we can fix all 70ft for 13,000 and they see the visual and see that the sewer is degrading it like actually tees up a really nice thing for the customer where it truly does save the customer money. It's powerful for them. And so we go to these, these marketed leads and we're closing them at 25 to 30% where we're selling replacements. And so the main way we get.

[A]

These leads is we mail the replacements being the liner. The liner, yeah. And I think I'm going to hit this really quick. I'm curious if it's different in other markets. Sounds like lining is the low cost option. And I think that's important to like hit because in almost every other business it's not.

[B]

And I think that is how it's supposed to be here. We just, we just didn't do that like again like, yeah, most people we talked to are like, hey, you should charge more for lining than digging. Because it's.

[A]

I think the idea is it's the premium option. It's trenchless, you don't have to touch your garden. So there's like the cost of not having to ruin your yard and like replant it which like there's hard and absolute to that. So I think that's the mentality of the industry. You're right. Hey, if I ruin your yard, it should be cheaper than not ruining your yard.

[B]

And that makes so much sense when you think about it that way. We just for whatever reason flipped it. Like I just had this idea that what would be a more powerful sales system would be to flip this. And if I can do, I think it makes sense.

[A]

Like you're coming in at a cheaper price and like as long as it's acceptable.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And our margin ON these are 65%. 62, 65%. They're very, very good because material cost is very low on them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Our technology allows it to be very fast.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we're doing it in a, in a very fast time frame. And so margins are really good. It's a no brainer for the customer. And that's why I think like this like beautiful sales system of like marketing meets the sales system. So I talk to a lot of.

[A]

People, meets appropriate price because I, I do want to hit like the price part of it. So one of the benefits of excavation or drains in general, like one of the attractive things about the drain business, it's high margin. So like our drain business is our most profitable business unit. I think it's like 68 to 72, like gross margin a month, which is crazy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Excavations high and linings high. There's hard cost with lining of some amount per foot. I don't really know what it is. Let's say 20, like for the materials, for the material.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, so 20 bucks a foot. And so the way most people think about it is there's like, maybe they sell that for what, 200, like what do you sell per foot?

[B]

200. But with membership you end up getting down to like about 180. So the material is about 10.

[A]

Okay, that, I mean that still feels pretty good. What have you when you've talked to other people. Like, I just want to unpack pricing a little bit because I'm, I, I think it's interesting when, when you've talked to other people that are doing lining are like, what are they at? 200, 300, 400 foot?

[B]

Yeah, that's a great question. We are not only are we like technically the best with the best equipment, but we're one of the cheapest. And I think we're like the last two years, I think we're dragging down the market, which people probably hate, but when we started a year and a half, two years ago, other premium people I would talk to were 270, 300 a foot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so we came in. I mean this is kind of crazy. And we've come up. I was, we were at one point early on at like 120, 130 a foot.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I remember you saying, yeah, we were crazy low. And we've steadily actually like, I think we were undervaluing ourselves.

[A]

So that would be 20 materials.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which still is not bad.

[B]

No. You're still clocking a 50 plus percent gross margin.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So yeah, that's. You have an incredible amount of price you can play with.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And still make a very high margin because the material is not expensive. The labor, like we now have these teams on commission anyway. The labor is, is relatively fixed on a percentage basis.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you know, we, we hit our sales team for discounts and expensive financing, stuff like that. So they can drop their commission. But, but no, it still works out even at a, at a 20% material rate. So it still is very profitable. So. Yeah. And I even like, I go to like nextar conferences, I talk to people and most people I talk to in lining want to be this premium option to digging. Very expensive and low volume. And I decided I wanted to be extremely high volume at a good midpoint price point. So even when people shop us, they choose us because they shop us and we're cheaper and we blow them away. With our team and technology, it's way better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it creates this like super scalable business model. Like one thing that me and my team nerd out on is like the, a lot of our leads now we become very big on direct mail. So direct mail is about 25% of my leads now. And that's where most of these sewer leads come from is these. We send mail. We send think. This month we're sending close to 100,000 pieces of mail and we want to triple that to 300,000. Our limiting factor of sales guys, right now, and we're getting about a nine times roas on our mail. It's very strong.

[A]

How much of it is. Because you think other people aren't, aren't doing lining?

[B]

So I think that again, it's very interesting and I think there's like a confluence of factors in the industry. Most of our largest competitors, the most capitalized biggest companies who are somewhere even bigger than us, they're 80 H vac businesses. Yeah, 70 H vac businesses. So all their efforts going on H vac. So do they want to drop millions of dollars in equipment for lining when it's a tiny part of their business? They're actually shrinking and Cutting sewers while we're growing at it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So these capitalized people, the best people in the industry, are not even wanting to do it if you're very small, like, you can't really afford to do it. And then you have to, like, take a mix of factors of, like, you've got to have the marketing, you've got to have the sales process, and you've got to be able to do the operational part. Like, it's not an easy process. Like, it's operationally very complex. Like, you saw the trailer. I mean, it's a 22 foot trailer. Looks like Breaking Bad has a ton of equipment on it. Like, you got to have a very good insult team you can trust. You got to train the heck out of them. The sales process is very complicated because we're showing up to people's houses, they think we're gonna unclog the sewer for $93. And 30% of the time, we turn that into a $13,000 sale.

[A]

What happens the other 60 or 70? Are you walking out with absolutely nothing, or is there like a jet?

[B]

No, zero. So our whole process, and I believe this is the right thing for the consumer. I said at the beginning of this.

[A]

Conversation, do you ever walk away with 93?

[B]

I hope not. I mean, sometimes they do, but my preference is, please do not charge $93. Like, do not charge anything. It's either we sell a liner or we get nothing.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

Because. And this is. This is what makes the process work. And our best people have this, like, embedded in their DNA.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is if someone has a sewer problem, any sort of cleaning or band aid solution is wasting money. It's truly like, they're going to continue to have issues. A properly functioning sewer shouldn't have issues. And you know, most of the sewers here are old clay pipe. It doesn't get better, it gets worse. And so eventually it gets to the point where it can't be lying. You have to dig it. Instead of $200 a foot for lining, digging is $1,000 a foot and disruptive. And so when you teed up, it's like, it's kind of an urgent situation. Like, we don't know when this pipe's going to fail. So do you want to gamble with spending more? You want to just fix it now and have less headaches? So if you really internalize that, that like cleaning the pipe or waiting is bad because you're wasting money, you're paying interest to the problem, then you go in the mindset, like, either do nothing or line it. And so when we do our sales process, we're educating the customer like there's no such thing as cleaning a pipe. You're, you know, if there's roots in a pipe and you rot it, you're just pulling the roots of the cracks. Like what's that going to do to a clay sewer?

[A]

It's not good.

[B]

You hydrogen it better, but there's still holes there. Roots are going to grow right back in. And all you're doing is destabilizing the pipe more. So your most cost effective thing as a customer truly is just align it and line it before it gets to the point. Because once the pipe sags too much or cracks too much, doesn't have a shape, we can't line it anymore. It's like a cancer, it spread too much. And so the sales process during the tam inspection is two hours of educating that customer on the trade offs of waiting. Why cleaning doesn't do anything. And so it's almost by the end of that process. It's like kind of insane to sell somebody a riding or a jetting because you just spent two hours telling them that it's a waste of money. And we tell people, I don't even want your $93. Like I don't care about your $93. Like I'm here to help you. And so if you don't want to like line your sewer, don't give me $93. So I coach the guys, don't charge $93. Don't show them the cost of cleaning of a jetting so they can see it as a price comparison. But don't spend $2,500 cleaning the sewer when you can spend 13,000 fixing it forever. And so much of the industry, even our customers, have been programmed to maintain their sewer every year. So we go to all these customers in these hundred year old houses and they're being what I think is scammed by companies in the industry, charging them $500,000 a year to just come in and fake clean the pipe every year. And then it's not cleanable anymore. $7,000 spot repair. And that's how the industry is programmed to. That's how every sewer company operates pretty much. So we've kind of flipped this whole model in the way we talk to customers.

[A]

How do you handle what I think is probably like an obvious problem. We're saying we're coming out to do a ninety three dollar thing and we're basically just not. So like there's the potential for reputational harm. Like, how do you handle that? Because I would assume that is a lot of pushback. Like if I listen to like craft recordings or whatever, I'm assuming that that would come up. So.

[B]

Yeah, no, it's a great. You'd be surprised. It's maybe 2% of the calls we get a complaint about. It's very low. Because again, like, if you, if you go through this process from a point of like empathy with the customer, like, like, first of all, like, it's free. I don't want your 93. Like, this is free. You're not spending any money. I'm gonna educate you for two hours and it's gonna be very educational and you're gonna get so much value out of learning. Like people are, are. And they, they come out of it, they understand, like, okay, I do have a problem. Like, you do have a problem. They didn't charge me a dime and now I have a consideration, like, do I want to make this preventive investment or not? And so I think like the value we do in the two hour process way overcompensates the zero dollars we're charging them. It's just their time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's not that we, we've had a couple of those, like I said maybe 2%. If someone's really adamant about rotting it and it's safe to rot it, we'll send, we have one or two people that we can send that will go do the rotting. But truthfully, when you do the camera inspection, a lot of these pipes, you really honestly should not rod like you. You can actually cause damage, blow out these pipes, make them more fragile. So we also tell people that like, you see this gigantic hole in the side of this, like, do you want me to take this metal pulling, spinning thing and like put this through this right now? If you do, that's like, we'll do it. But if it breaks, like, we're not responsible for that.

[A]

Yeah. This feels. I was thinking about the excavation versus lining and like how to approach price. It feels in a good way. Like one day bath style. Just as far as I'm like, everyone's trying to aim for this premium thing, but like at the end of the day it's bath fitter. Like we're putting a tub over a tub.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Putting a pipe inside a pipe. Right. So it makes sense that a full bath, like, so the consumer's already trained that like, okay, putting a tub over a tub should be cheaper than a full bath replacement. It just should be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's feels like this In a good way, I think, because we've already been sort of like trained to do exactly that.

[B]

Yeah, I agree with that point you're making. I think the, the biggest headwind is like what I think the industry, I mentioned it a second ago. I think the industry has done in like a bullshit way to consumers, a negative way to consumers, which is like blindly clean this and pay me and pay this company a 500 to $1,000.

[A]

Yeah, that's definitely ridiculous. Like we've bought, we bought people's like we bought a couple drain businesses and they were like, they were like, yeah, it's 200 bucks a year. It's like passive income. And I'm like, that's really weird. Like why don't you just like offer them a replacement?

[B]

Yeah. And then we're like, oh, I didn't.

[A]

Even know that we could replace this. Yeah, it was a kind of a silly. Yeah, it was kind of silly.

[B]

And it's half assed. Like they're not even like a lot of them are not even cameraing it. So they're taking $700 from you half assing the cleaning. And if you were to camera it right after the cleaning, like almost nothing's been done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because the prices they're charging like to actually clean it carefully and fully. You could spend six hours cleaning a sewer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you're charging somebody four or five hundred dollars for six hours of work. Like it doesn't actually make sense.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's actually like the whole industry operates in a way that I think is less ethical than what we're doing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So how, how often are you guys jetting right now? So here, let's unpack drain the drain industry really quick or like the way that it's usually going to work. So there is like you call it rotting, we call it snaking or drilling. But like you're going to use a metal coiled machine and it's going to like wrap around inside a sewer. So that's one that's probably like the lowest brow option. The next like option is jetting. So someone's going to come in and it's like a pressure washer. Super high powered pressure washer. Yeah. And it's going to blow out the issue. Then the next is like spot replacement. So like, hey, this is exactly where the issue is. We're going to solve this problem and then finally full replacement. So that's like this, the layers of, of drain. So how many like are you guys frequently jetting? Are you frequently doing any yeah. What are you doing on the maintenance side? I guess non. Non replacement. How often does that happen?

[B]

Yeah. So if we go to a call where a customer has a sewer issue or just wants us to like do a camera inspection or do the $93, we do the camera inspection. Our options will typically be we'll show somebody what it costs to. We're not going to give you a rotting option. Like we don't believe in it. If you really want us to, we'll do it. But like it's, it's not the right thing to do. So we'll start with a jetting or an advanced cleaning. Like you could do some descaling stuff, but we'll call it. We'll just say jetting. So we'll start with a $2,500 option. Then we'll show you what a spot repair to dig would cost. And it could be an actual spot repair or call it a theoretical spot repair. And let's say that's $8,000 and that covers five feet of pipe replacement. So we could do a cleaning of this for $2,500. We can replace 5ft for $8,000. Or we can replace 60ft trenchless for $13,000. And by the way, if you ever have to dig, if you're responsible for the street part, the tap where connects to the city and you ever have to dig that, it's 25,000. And so this is your line, your sewer line. It's 70ft, whatever it is. Here are all the parts that are compromised like a cancer. They're going out. So you want to spend $2500 to clean this. Yeah, which is temporary. Every five foot section you have to dig is $8000. But if it's in the street, which happens all the time, people now you're out $25,000 or once and for all for 13,000. Do you want to just get this done right now? And so we tear up kind of this like gambling math equation for people. Like do you want to gamble on $2500, you want to gamble on $20,000 or do you want peace of mind for 13,000? Because.

[A]

And then paying interest at the problem is a good way to pay interest.

[B]

Around paying a tax. A lot of people are like, oh, I might sell my home. Well, guess what? In the state of Illinois, you have to disclose.

[A]

Oh yeah, that's become like a thing. And that's become a huge thing in Cleveland. It's kind of ridiculous. Like ridiculous in well sewers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It went from like, I feel like it's kind of the, the new thing, to be honest. Like I remember 10 years ago it was radon, like everything was radon this, radon that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And like all the radon companies are shut down now. And so like maybe we have to be careful with drains but like it is definitely sewers. I, I don't think they require cameras, but it, I think it's not far off that you will have to camera every single time. Home inspections at this point always include.

[B]

Home inspectors are including it.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Buyers are smart about it. Agents are $20,000.

[A]

And it's a car. Like it's literally a car. It's an H VAC system. Yes. Yeah.

[B]

It's a huge part of the inspection. Now if you as a homeowner have had issues, it's on the seller disclosure form for your house.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You have to disclose it. So we tell people is when you go to sell this house, what do you think that's going to do to the value? And we, we actually see this. Like you're going to, you're going to get penalized at the negotiation table.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're going to get penalized for a bigger amount.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So again like you want to gamble with that. Yeah. So you can kind of just like circle the wagons on this wholesale system.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're like the smartest thing to do is just to align it right now. And then we have all kinds of financing options, term loans, no interest, no payment, promo loans that we can get it down to, you know, $170 a month. And so it's. Yeah, it's kind of a no brainer.

[C]

Are you still running your business on pen and paper or a clunky software? FieldPulse is the top rated field service management platform that saves you full five to ten hours a week. It syncs with QuickBooks and it puts scheduling, invoicing and more all in one place. FieldPulse users grow 78 a year on average. Book your demo today using the link in the Description and get 15% off an annual plan. Field Pulse, a field service management software for those who need more.

[A]

I think so. The sales process, I'm trying to like equate it to a different industry. I like the idea of the bath fitters comparison. Is there another industry that you feel like?

[B]

Well, I think about it a lot actually compared to H Vac. Like I, I've thought a lot about a lot of.

[A]

It's H Vac. It's just, it's H Vac's not preventative.

[B]

No.

[A]

And it's also like, it's harder to tee up.

[B]

Kind of like the bad case scenario in H Vac. Like, okay, your, your thing goes out and then yeah, it's cold for a day.

[A]

So where it differs with H Vac, like there's a lot of areas. But first off, H Vac is like depending on your buying power, 30 to 50% of that job is material. So like you just have less wiggle room, which is amazing. Your ability to sort of sell down is limited with H vac. Like, hey, I've got this system at $20,000 and I have a cheaper system at 12. And if you don't want to replace the whole system, you can do this one at five or something. But like that's different than drains where it might be like, hey, yeah, 2510, 2500. Like you have a, you have an option where it's still like a good size something, whereas like H Vac, you don't usually have that. And just to be like really blunt, there's much less competition. I mean there is just much less competition. In Cleveland. There's like one other company that lines maybe two. So it's just not like a thing. Versus there's 161 h vac companies that we compete against selling similar equipment. Yeah. Which, yeah. Like a box is a box now who installs it and there's a bunch of value add stuff you can dive into. But at the end of the day it is a, it is a competitive field.

[B]

I thought about more from like, even the sales process though of like, you know, hvc. Again, similar to most trained businesses, it's normal to send a repair technician, a service technician.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then flip it to a comfort.

[A]

Advisor that way it's very similar to H Vac.

[B]

Yes. And so I've thought about it a lot. Like we turned that on its head and we dropped the drain tax.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, why don't more H Vac companies drop the repair tech, service tech first and just send their. I know some do. And like you guys are. Have a modified version.

[A]

Well, the, I mean the reality is they'd get sued. Like that's, they would just straight up get sued. Companies have done that and those are the companies that get like they're on the news with the attorney General. Yeah. I'm sure there's a few cases. So H Vac is also like a.

[B]

Thing around building that like the idea of in same in the drain business, when you send someone is that repair person, that drain tack, they're building value in that Part so that when someone else comes in, there's already been value built, that they're.

[A]

Yeah. What an H Vac is, people are more aware of H vac. Like H Vac is like a notorious industry. It has a bad rep and frankly a well deserved bad rep.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Where the consumer knows less, the contractor knows more. And if you go through most like bad reviews of H Vac systems, it's exactly the problem you're just describing. Oh, all they did was come out and try to sell me a system. Yeah, like the Reddit's, you know, the nextdoor conversations, the Facebook groups, it's all just that. Whereas Drains doesn't have the same perception. Whereas like with H Vac, like if I think of like the hyper awareness of someone, if I. If someone's walking in with H Vac, a consumer is like a 15 out of 10 hyper aware.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're going to get multiple bids because they don't trust. There's zero industry trust in H Vac. And again, some of it's well deserved because some like people maybe like did stuff, I don't know. Whereas for Drains, that's just not a thing. Like it's just absolutely not a thing at all. Like there's, there's trust walking in, there's a lot more trust walking in. So I don't know. But yeah, that part's very different.

[B]

Yeah, sure, that's different.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. What One of our big anecdotes this year, I think most people are seeing it but like it used to be that most, most H Vac companies, like it's the same process where like you have marketed leads but you also have tech flip leads. And tech flip leads are like the easy ones. Like you have higher close rates, usually a better average ticket. But today in like 2025, the industry's taken on a ton of headwinds because of like a variety of factors. The weather was less cooperative. So we have a friend here and he's in la and the weather, it was a very cold summer in la. Like it was the summer that didn't start. So that was a big part. There was a horrible refrigeration changeover process. Like they literally ran out of refrigerant so people couldn't install systems. It was like selling cars with no gas. Like it's wild. It was crazy. That was like a 60 day period where you couldn't even, like you could sell a $20,000 system and not be able to actually use it, which is obviously a horrible experience. And then the macro of like hey, if everything's going to finance this, it's basically a car. You know, someone just found out they have to buy a car, like $20,000 system. But debt to income is really high. The consumer stretched and financing is like getting declined at a higher and higher rate. So yeah, so H Vac is like up against it and I think that drains is like necessary. Less competitive. Yeah, it's the same business model where it's like the tech comes in and flips or in this case doesn't. But like that's normally how it works. The tech comes in and flips. The average ticket is. What's your average liner? Ours is like 12.

[B]

12 ish.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Our average sewer is 12. Our average H vac job is 11. So. So and this is like way higher margin and 70% margin versus like we fight for every single percentage point on H Vac like tooth and nail.

[B]

Well, and, and I think the competition is even more or less developed. So like. Oh yeah, most H Vac companies are quite intelligent. Well run sales processes look professional.

[A]

You're not competing against. This is a joke I think about. And you probably remember this too because in like 2022 and there were still people being like, yeah, plumbing H Vac. Like you're competing against people with a fax machine. I'm like, that's not who you're.

[B]

Yeah, that's crazy.

[A]

You are competing against real intelligent funded competitors like maybe 10 years ago, like today. That is not, that's not remotely the case.

[B]

I think that is more true in sewers today. I think, I think they're not fax machines but they're again the industry is run on like people doing more unethical practices and doing just like being more like bootleg, like it's just more bootleg competition than.

[A]

Yeah, then.

[B]

So I think we're coming in with a.

[A]

It's a dirty business.

[B]

It's a dirty business and I think it's like more hillbilly like competition. And so I think we come in like very professional, very transparent, very open with an offer that I think is legitimately better than other people. We tell people go ahead and get five quotes. Like I guarantee you it's not a better quote than ours. Like it's not going to beat us on price.

[A]

Well, I think the hyper, like the part that is the most interesting is the, the price part because you are literally delivering the, the lowest price.

[B]

Probably great value for sure.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's kind of interesting.

[B]

And I think, I mean it makes.

[A]

Sense again like back to the bath fitters thing. Like, it makes sense if, if this is, like, if you're not fully digging it up and replacing it, it should probably cost less. And like, the industry has gone the opposite way. And, like, we've gone the opposite way.

[B]

The way that we.

[A]

Price is the opposite. Like, excavation is the cheap one because we're destroying a yard. But, yeah, you can.

[B]

And like, that, like, makes sense if you think about it like, oh, I'm not destroying the yard, so I should be able to charge you more. Like, I'm creating more value for you.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But for us, we really think we're competing against doing nothing. Inertia. It's like, yeah, I need to bring the price down so that I can get you to.

[A]

Well, and you can bring the price and I can't. I think that's probably the most important part is you can bring it.

[B]

I can, yeah.

[A]

Because, you know, versus H Vac, there's a very hard cost inside H Vac, whereas drains, like, you could still clip a 70% gross margin and take a 20% discount. Yeah. Like, that's crazy. Absolutely. Yeah. That's really interesting. What else about the sales process do you think sets it apart?

[B]

I think we dived, like, very deep into the. Honestly, into the sales process. I think is different. I think you made.

[A]

You made a point to me the other day that I think I'm just going to, like, repeat on here. I'm going to word it my way. But the sales process is what sets it apart.

[B]

And.

[A]

And the. So the way that you describe it is, oh, it's our unclogs for dogs. Yeah. So then what usually people are going to hone in on is like, what's the promo?

[B]

Yeah, show me the flyer.

[A]

Show me the flyer. Show me. Which, I mean, I do want to see. The language would be interesting, but I'll give you a really good example. Yeah. So, like, I was. We're thinking about, like, we have H Vac. And for us, in 2025, H Vac was going to be like, our big investment. So last year, 2024, H vac grew like 60%. Like, it was crazy. It was tough to keep up with. And, like, it was, like, going. And, like, we really won and we were so excited about it. And then this year, like, H Vac still grew, but, like, like, we took market share. We grew, we installed more boxes. Like, you know, we did more jobs. So, like, okay, we're really happy about that. And we. We grew like 10% in a year that the industry shrunk 40.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like fuck yeah. Like, all right, we're on one hand we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And on the other hand it's like plumbing grew 25%. We didn't try that much.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So we're like. And got it. Like we clear. Like, why are we fighting this fight?

[B]

Yeah. Poor gasoline and what's burning.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So as, as we're thinking about this, I've been like over the last month sort of just like unpacking my thoughts on it and we. What was interesting was. Yeah, it's. It like our sales process is flawed for sewers for a couple reasons. One, I think like cheaper lining makes total sense to me especially like nailing it to that bath fitters analogy helps. So that helps me. But like I, I pulled up, we have drains inside our membership program. We have like 2,000 some members and we ran 80 membership drain tune ups. We sold one.

[B]

Yeah, I got some.

[A]

That's the sales process. Like that's a pure. Like all that is is us doing like not running a sales process at all, which was, which was interesting. So I think to my, to your point, like, it doesn't really matter what the promo is or if it's in the membership or like none of that really matters. Like, we didn't. We got 80 leads and we delivered on one. So 79 times. We totally whiffed.

[B]

Yeah. No, that's a great point. So like a huge percentage of our sewer business is not just 93 oncologics for dogs. It's also our membership program.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which all my maintenance membership techs have cameras.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Roughly 30ish percent of maintenance visits we go to the maintenance tech, flips it to a senior sewer person and 40% of that time we sell liner.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So our membership program has now gone from. And you know, four months ago, five months ago, we had. Similar to what you just said, we had zero coming out of our membership program. Now it's at like a $6 million run rate.

[A]

We also just weren't even looking. I mean when I went to go get that data, no one had it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it was like, okay, well like I already know it's going to be bad. Like if we're not looking at this, like it's not very good. We're not converting like 80%. Yeah, yeah, but it was funny. Like 80 calls and we, we sold one. So 79 times. We just like didn't deliver.

[B]

Well, I'll call in like another episode. You did, like, we actually do some bath Remodeling also. We won't go there, but yeah, you had those premier home pros guys on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I've listened to all their stuff quite a bit. And really what they're amazing at in their whole business is essentially their sales process. Actually, everything is outsourced except this in home sales process. And they've.

[A]

And call center. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But like, you know, they buy a lot of leads, they subcontract labor for install. But they've gone so deep on their sales process and the psychology and honing it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And yeah. I think there's something like very cool about, like when you do one thing and you obsess over it. Like, you get very good at it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so they, you know, they're all of their successes through their sales process. Our sewer success, which is, you know, not as big of theirs, but, you know, growing very rapidly, you know, doing, you know, we're selling probably $20 million a year of just sewers now is, is this sales process and like, how it connects with all the things we talked about that we do. And if the. The leads can come in through membership flips.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

On maintenances, they can come in through mail. But if you don't have the right sales process, it breaks down. Like, let's take mail, for example. We send 100,000 letters.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Our response rate is only 0.35% that someone books from the mail. So we send out.

[A]

So that's 350.

[B]

Yeah, that sounds right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so that's the. That's how many leads you get that come from all that mail you sent. Get that many leads. Those are the $93 unclog for dogs leads.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now you're walking into those. Your Salesman. And only 30% of the time they're going to sell something. Rest time. It's a zero.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Most people in the industry in sewers are used to these backed up mainlines that you sell an 80% clip.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So now you're taking somebody who's used to selling 80%.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you're having them to run a sales process that's 30%. And most people can't handle it. And they break down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we're actually bringing people in. This is another differentiated thing. We're hiring H VAC salesmen and teaching them this sewer process.

[A]

Yeah. To me, that makes sense because it's.

[B]

Not very technically complicated.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they're used to a more difficult sales process with a lower close rate.

[A]

Yeah. And much more competitive.

[B]

Much more competitive.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. This would be like candy.

[B]

So, yeah, so that's our number one source actually. Are HVC salesmen to grow this? And then it's kind of like a math.

[A]

Are you posting the job as H vac sales or like, how do you post that to attract or like in home service sales or.

[B]

No, we posted as sewer sales, but right at the top in very big, like you don't have to have any experience. We called outreach to H vac salesmen.

[A]

Yeah. I'm like, how do you optimize around the H vac salesperson?

[B]

Message them. Like find them on. Indeed. And send them a message and say, we got something better for you. A little less competitive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Car salesman we're looking at too.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, that would hit right now. Like, there's companies. I mean, H vac is on like multiple years of just getting like punched in the field. But like, we have competitors that just, they just laid off all their salespeople last week. Like, it's kind of wild.

[B]

We are interviewing. It is insane how many 1 to 2 million dollar comfort advisors we are interviewing right now. Who. Yeah. Are in the shitter. They have. They're selling 1 to 2 million dollars a year, but it's on a very small number of leads. Like, we'll interview a 1 to 2 million dollar company advisor. They've only ran 100 leads in the last year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they're having to discount a lot because it's very competitive. And then their commission gets whacked.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So they're, they're selling, you know, 1 to 2 million dollars, but they're getting 4% commission because their commission's getting whacked down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they're running a lead every two or three days.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it's, it is very attractive. And so we can, you know, we are continuing to hone the sales process and we need to. Need to do a better job, obviously, like building out the training program for it and immortalizing it. But. And the way this developed too was like very organic. Like, we didn't start off with the sales process the way it is. We started off actually just like marketing the unclogs for dogs. Because I heard someone else doing it. I was like, okay, this will be drain leads. Like we'll do it. And then we had one of our salesmen that kind of like developed a lot of this process by himself, like just to be able to like make something of these calls. He started like toying with some of these things and I was talking to him a bunch. You know, I'm Very in the weeds of my business. So I was talking to this sewer salesman a lot about like, well like what's going on in these calls? Like what are you doing, what's working, what's not working? And that kind of created this process. And so now we bring someone new in. We have them do, you know, one to two weeks of ride alongs with people to see this process and so they can, you know, basically build this. Then we send them to a nexar class and we kind of just like build this process around this. Yeah.

[C]

Are you thinking about turning up your marketing in the new year? Now is the time. Our friends at service scalers are making it easy. When you sign up before December 31st, they'll cover up to $5,000 in free ad spend to help you launch strong. That includes Google, ppc, local service ads, even Facebook ads, all managed by their team. If your home service company is ready to scale, this is the offer for you. Service scalers handles everything. They handle setup, management and strategy so you can stay focused on running the jobs. Don't wait. Head to serverscalers.com and tell them owned and operated sent you to get started.

[A]

That was a good deep dive on drains, on lining. I feel like we covered pretty much like the whole thing. I, I even, I like that we got into some of the economics behind it too because I feel like that's going to be like a, I think that's going to come up is like all right, how much does this actually cost? How much to price it for? So I'm just going to repeat that really quick. Like roughly cost is $20 a foot of material. There's probably $10 a foot or something of labor. And then you can figure out the rest. Like do you sell it for 100, do you sell it for 200, 300, whatever. I don't know what we're selling it for. My guess is like 270, 280. But like I'll look once we're done with this. I'm pretty curious. We have struggled selling not I wouldn't say struggle. We sell more digs than linings. And it's, I think it's because exactly the approach that we're taking, we're not taking the bath fitter approach. We're like, this should be cheaper.

[B]

Well, if I can too. I think the, the other thing people do is they price it higher and then their team skews excavation because they don't get the right equipment. So it's technically harder. So like to do it in the Way we do it, it's because we put so much money. We put so much capex. They're like, we can do the replacements, the line, which I think that's probably.

[A]

The most important thing with drains that like. We didn't say it's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly expensive. I mean even. Yeah. I mean excavation, like each team is like $150,000. Like the jet trucks are $150,000. Lining trailers are 200. It's incredibly, incredibly expensive. Yeah.

[B]

Essentially every one of our sewer salesmen almost needs their own $300,000 trailer to support them.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a shockingly expensive business. But there's equipment financing out there that probably finances all of it or most of it.

[B]

We've started doing that more historically. No, we've just cash. We've just cashed it, but we're financing it more now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we can.

[A]

So like probably three grand a month or something. Like that's what septic trucks are or they used to be for us. We haven't bought one in a while, but like it was a quarter million dollar truck and it's like 3, 500 bucks a month.

[B]

Yeah, I mean that's a function of like what down payment and duration you want. I think know we're doing. The ones we're looking at doing are more like minusing it for three years with a hefty down payment.

[A]

So.

[B]

But it just. Yeah, depends what you want to do.

[A]

All right, I'm going to hit the other KPIs real quick because I didn't do that yet. So average tickets roughly 12. We're going to see three to four appointments a day per salesperson. We have a 30% close rate. So like eight jobs a week sounds right.

[B]

Run. Let's say you run 15 and then sell. Probably four. Maybe.

[A]

Okay, so each salesperson. What's that? $2 million is a good. Okay, I'd say.

[B]

I'd say yeah, two to $3 million is good.

[A]

All right. 180 grand a month. And then we've got an install crew. You said a one to one ratio essentially.

[B]

A little. Maybe it's like 0.7 ratio, but it's multi days.

[A]

I would assume that you run into a couple multi days.

[B]

Yes. I mean we didn't talk about this, but less so because now we've built this whole prep department.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That pre goes out and like makes it shorter.

[A]

That makes sense. All right, so. And then each install crew at 0.7, like they're probably a million and a half to two and a half million per crew installed a year to 2.

[B]

2 million. And then we're working to stretch that with prep to get them to 3 million.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's going to reduce the investment. You, you will have to bring on less trailers to fulfill the same amount of work.

[B]

So now by prepping, we're trying to get a trailer to do two liners in a day. Having someone out go before. Because half the process of lining is actually cleansing the sewer so that you can.

[A]

Oh, it takes hours.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you have to do the whole p and like jet it and yeah, it's an involved process.

[B]

So we're having people go out ahead. So we have now prep people that will go out and prep two sewers a day. So they'll go out, do the whole process, measure everything, prep it, cut it. Not. We're not that far yet, but that's even like a whole future state. Is.

[A]

Could you. I, I went, I went down to Chris Hoffman's place and they were prefabbing in office. They had a whole fab room.

[B]

Yeah, we're, we're, we're exploring that. That is our feature.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And they only had two like active jets or active trailers. Yeah, like lining, lighting trailers. So I don't know, it was kind of interesting. I don't remember how much they did a year but it was like 70% margin. Like it's a, it's a machine of a business. This was awesome, dude. Yeah, yeah. If people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

[B]

LinkedIn X. Those are my two main platforms. I post a decent amount of content.

[A]

So feel free to drop bids on.

[B]

The Linked drop in video. Yeah.

[A]

Awesome. All right, thanks for having us out. For those who are listening, if you could do us a favor and subscribe or give us a five star review wherever it is you listen to shows. Helps my mom know that people like me. Thank you.