Keith J. with Jackson Plumbing
Q: What made you choose a career in the trades?
A: My dad did plumbing part time growing up. Though he never did it full time, I knew I wanted a career as a plumber since then. For about ten years, though, I actually worked in a factory and did this on the side like my dad did. It was me and another guy, and we were both just working part-time plumbing new houses during the day and working a factory job at night. I then went full time and incorporated in 1987.
Q: How big is your operation?
A: We just brought on three new people this week, which got us up to forty total in the shop. We run eight plumbing trucks, two drain trucks, and now we’re up to five HVACs, and quite a few electrical.
Q: What would you describe as the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in business so far?
A: The most valuable lesson is to go to work on yourself. Work on self-improvement and developing your leadership skills. Many people in all businesses don’t realize how important the mindset is. It just changes your world when you start working on yourself and you start growing and getting a little better every day, and then you get that culture going through your shop. That’s where it’s at. Blue Collar has been a tremendous resource for this.
I have also learned how important it is to value your team. If we take care of them, coach them up, and help them to have a happy, successful career our customers benefit from that environment. That’s my role today, to help develop people and build people.
Q: What inspired you to become a Blue Collar member?
A: I floundered for a long, long time. I knew I could do plumbing but I had no idea about business, about how to price jobs, any kind of management skills. I just thought if I could outwork everybody else, that I would make it work. And unfortunately, you can dig a big hole really fast doing that.
In 2001 I met Kenny Chapman. We had both joined a contractor’s organization at the same time. He was doing so many great things and I kept floundering around. I bought a franchise in 2006 but was stuck right around a million dollars. We could never get past it. I realize now, that’s the point where the owner should get out of the truck and become a manager, a leader. But when I would get out of the truck, the next thing you know I’d be right back in the truck.
So in 2016 we finished up with the franchise. Kenny and I had always kept up with each other and I’d be reading about him, reading his books, and I was like, “man!”. So I decided to work on me, and I joined Blue Collar. Since then, we went from a million dollars to 7.6M this year. It didn’t happen overnight, but we started scaling up and then every year we’ve had incremental growth.
And, now we’ve got the team in place. I’ve got a leadership team now. Our people are so awesome. They all know their roles. They work so well together that in 2021 my wife, Lori, and I were able to go on seven vacations! She worked at Jackson Plumbing for years, but we just got such a great team of people here that she can now spend time with our six grandchildren and do all kinds of good stuff. And the business kept growing, even without having a GM.
Now we’ve got four people and myself as our leadership team. We’ve been working with them and developing them for the last year. This thing’s just ready to take off and just get bigger and bigger. Last December was our largest sales month ever. Then we’d passed that in January, and that’s wintertime here in Alabama when things aren’t usually happening.
I also want to give a shout out to my team. Last year, Jackson Plumbing was chosen as the small business of the year (11 to 50 employees) in the entire state of Alabama. I had been chosen by our local chamber as the small business person of the year in our area, and they nominated us for the Alabama Award as a business. It was just amazing, we were so honored.
Q: What Blue Collar training has helped the most?
A: All of our leaders and techs go through Blue Collar training. We do it regularly. We teach more soft skills in our shop than we do anything else. The 12 Steps to the Ultimate Client Experience™ has helped our team to do their job where you don’t need to have a manager to oversee. It’s all about professionalism, and Blue Collar is such a good avenue.
And we network with other Blue Collar members and keep up with what they’re doing. And that’s really cool.
Everything rises and falls on leadership. It’s all about relationships. We’ve been blessed to have run across a lot of really good people in their trades over the years. Our coach Jeremy is so great. Kenny and Christie (Chapman) and Chris and Chelsea (Crew) are four of our favorites for sure. Chris really cares, and deeply. He’s tireless. He’s always thinking of ways to do things for members.
Q: What would you say is the most valuable piece of advice you would give another business owner?
A: The more hats you wear, the harder it is to grow, to be successful. You’ve got to learn to delegate and you’ve got to learn to develop people. You can do so much more when you build a team and invest in your people. Many of us just jumped in because we were good at our trades, but then we floundered. But it’s not just about how hard you work. You’ve got to work hard on your business, not just in your business. So, I would say, go to work on yourself and join The Blue Collar Success Group!
