126 | Michael De Silva Answered a Help-Wanted Ad… Now He Owns a $3M Plumbing Company

Welcome back to another episode of Freedom Blueprint podcast. I am your host, Justin Deese. And today we are hanging out with Michael De Silva, the owner of Plumbing Plus at a beautiful San Diego, California. Michael, how you doing, man?

I'm good Justin, how are you?

I am wonderful. I am wonderful. I'm excited to connect. We've we've run around with the same people, but we've never personally connected. So I'm excited to learn more about you and your business. And you and I are actually going to be hanging out here at the end of January at the PHCC orange or San Diego event. So we're going talk a little bit about that. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about plumbing plus like

Thank

When did you start it? What does that business look like?

That is always

cool. That's always cool to hear story when people ⁓ start out in the business just answering an ad and then they end up buying the business. So what did the business look like size wise when you purchased it?

you

But yeah, it's been quite a learning experience. Funny to go from an apprentice to running the business. And I purchased it and I was 28 years old and I had mostly employees I was inheriting were old enough to be my father and they taught me the trades. So was kind of an interesting dynamic, but it all worked out. So yeah.

So what's the primary focus of the business now?

Service repair for residential services. That's our primary focus. ⁓ Today we have somewhere between six and seven plumbers, two to three apprentices, our management team and ⁓ call center. yeah.

So on the on the gear, obviously in a really competitive market, right? San Diego is a very competitive market. What are some things that you do to even stand out?

Yeah.

A lot of it is just maintaining what we've built over the 40 years, ⁓ keeping in touch with our existing clientele ⁓ and just doing excellent work, going above and beyond plumbing plus. That's kind of what we stand for is going above and beyond the typical service. ⁓ People will contact us after the warranty is expired. We still honor the warranty. Treating people like family and ⁓ not so much.

you know, during the fall festivals and being out there with the community. ⁓ But really it's hiring great people and doing great things and just continuing to persevere on that path.

I think there's so much missed opportunity from businesses on focusing on the local community. So many of them like just lean on the Googles or the social media, but there's a lot of amazing ⁓ people you can meet and businesses and partnerships that you can have by just being out in the community. So good for you guys for leaning in on that. So let me ask you this. So obviously starting out as an apprentice, growing the business, buying the business.

that obviously comes with some pretty big challenges. And so you said, you know, buying the business, you were late twenties and a lot of the guys were teaching you and training you when you bought it. So now you're their boss. What are some challenges, some, some challenges that came up from that?

Mm

hmm. I think a lot of them are more internal. You know, you're trying to struggle with what's my purpose, what should I be doing? How do I do that? Well, ⁓ but we kind of quickly found help in the industry. ⁓ We joined the PCC almost immediately after I purchased the company. That was a recommendation given to me. ⁓

And so was able to rub shoulders with people in the business that had been doing it for quite a while and ⁓ learn quite a bit from them and ⁓ put it to work. so things like that, or we joined coaching networks and got business coaches, people to help us and guide us in the right direction. ⁓ It was really easy for me to be an owner and just jump back in a truck and go run calls and put out fires and deliver parts and whatever else. And I love that, but...

Ultimately, it wasn't serving me or my business, so I had to really start to, you know, walk my way out of that, that instinct, I guess.

Yeah.

Well, good.

Well, and that's, know, for, for people who started out in the trades and the way you did, that is that that's one of the biggest challenges is sometimes it's hard to sit down and really start writing systems or thinking about strategically on the business. Because when a problem comes up, you're like, well, I mean, I'll just go solve it. Like it's, just gonna be faster if I solve it myself, you know, right. And the system is going to take a long time. I just go do it myself. So.

Mm-hmm.

Anything? Yep.

⁓ Good for you for stepping out of that and focusing on it. So when you think about all of that stuff, because you've got a pretty good run now with the same company, because you've never worked with any other ⁓ plumbing company, what would you say is something that you wish you would have started doing earlier?

Hmm.

I guess I wish I would have actually applied what I was just speaking of earlier on. You know, kind of start to work your way out of it. It's so easy to fall back into it. gosh, I feel like as of even recently, I'm still trying to work on that, you know? So it's hard when someone's saying, hey, we're out here. We've got water shut down. We're struggling. We need this, that, and the other. And to just not go is really difficult. So finding that balance and then finding the team that can help.

support that that role. Ultimately, you we've had to really find a good management team to take on some of the day to day duties that we were still doing and, ⁓ you know, delegate those to them. And ⁓ it's pretty neat once that starts to happen and actually is working, you know, so ⁓ it's a never any battle, but, we'll keep working at it.

We do a lot. ⁓ We were one of the early users of service Titan here in San Diego. I want to say we're coming on nine years with them. ⁓ Big game changer for us. You know our metrics for much more measurable lot more tools inside of service Titan. It helped the plumbers experience in the customers experience. ⁓ We're now you know into we've been using AI for some of our answering services on the phone or you know outbounding or.

communicating through social media or different sources. We're all about it. I remember back when I took over the company, the previous owner was really into technology as well and he actually developed his own app. We were doing work or sending information out to the field. The guys were actually had printers and laptops in the truck and so we were printing out contracts. We were doing essentially what Service Titan was going to be doing.

early on and kind of helped us take a step to accept the technology and we were pretty excited to not have printers in our trucks anymore. ⁓ But yeah, mean. Exactly, yeah, you know, plumbers with a yeah plumbers, printers and laptops don't mix so well, so. ⁓ Anyway, so we moved on from that, but ⁓ you know so much technology out there from you know companies like Rilla that are recording.

You're like, I got a paper jam. got a paper jam. I'm out of ink. Where's my paper? Yeah.

you know, voices and coaching you through how your customer interactions going down. And then systems, you know, how we operate a call of being consistent, you know, the whole team has to run the call the same way. And ⁓ just being very diligent in the work that we do and not, you know, just letting, it's very easy to let a plumber go out in the field and, you know, do his thing. And you're not there to watch, you know, but with some systems in place, you know, whether or not he's really doing what you would hope he would be doing.

Yeah, I the level of, I don't want to say micromanagement, because that's not the word I'm looking for. ⁓ But the level of how you can keep up with all of that has changed so much and it's great. I think it's good for the owners, I think it's good for the customers, I think there's a lot of good wins to that and it's amazing. As I think about my journey in the trades, and I'm a little over 20 years now,

Yeah.

I think about how much different it was. And when we first started, you know, it was like, we had a salon book that we used and we had, you know, there wasn't, and then like you, we were very, very early with a service Titan and man, that was a absolute game changer. ⁓ just because we didn't even know, you don't know what you don't know. So once we could pull these numbers now, it's like, holy crap, here's a number that we can measure and you know, billable efficiency, holy, you know, now this totally changes everything. So, so that's pretty cool.

Mm-hmm.

So one of the other things, this is gonna kinda, I would imagine, tie a little bit into the PHCC side. Were you surprised when you bought the business how willing other people in the industry were willing to help you?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the PHTC created ⁓ a safe place to go to and ⁓ interact with people who were, I mean, literally people were handing over documents that they paid lawyers thousands of dollars for and said, here, use this. Maybe it's talking about pricing or how ⁓ they operate their fleets or some people are using like a

fleet service or they're purchasing their own vehicles or some guys run them till 100,000 miles and dump them, you know, so all these different like concepts and ideas and, you know, you kind of accumulate them all and you put them together and say, okay, this is what we want to do and try that out. But it's been, I don't know where we'd be at without that sort of support today. You know, I think it really helped also build confidence in us and some sort of security.

in ⁓ the challenge that we were up against and you would hear other people express what they went through and you look at them as the most successful person in the business, yet you hear their struggles and you go, okay, it's okay to get beat down every once in a while, to get back up. Yeah, it's, were.

Mm-hmm.

I mean,

this is not an easy industry and I, you know, sometimes we forget that, you know, however many trucks you've got is literally how many brands you have running around town. You obviously, you, you coach, you train, ⁓ you use technology to make sure that they have the tools they need to be successful, but there's a lot of moving parts. And then for your technicians, they have a lot of moving parts because they have a lot of steps that we want them to do when they're inside of there. ⁓ but yeah, this industry, man, it's, it's been one of those.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I know when, when I talked to younger people about, you know, what should they do when they graduate high school and whatever, my immediate response is always go in the trade. You have no idea how that can impact your business. And I think you're a perfect example. You started out as an apprentice and then bought the business. That's so cool. That is very cool. So, Michael, let's talk a little bit about the upcoming event. You and I are going to get to hang out.

in this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

at the PHCC event. this will be my first one for the San Diego one, but tell me a little bit about what to expect.

Yeah, well, it's been going on for many years. ⁓ It's essentially our trade show. So Saturday, January 31st at the Delmar Fairgrounds between 9 a.m. and 3 a.m. we have our trade show. ⁓ It's in the Bing Crosby Hall. So great, nice big space where we're gonna have truck vendors. We're gonna have, ⁓ you know, the, for example, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Spartan, Zenton Tools. We're gonna have some educational courses for ⁓

socket fusion or finance mastery. So a little bit of something for the technicians, a little bit of something for the owners. Really encourage the owners to get out there because that's really where the impact happens. That's where we can help each other. But tons of new technology, tons of free giveaways. It is free to attend. It's open to the public. You don't have to be a plumber. You don't have to have a license or anything to come. So bring the kids, bring your family. Show them what you do. You know, it's pretty neat for, I love to bring in my kids and just...

you know, showing all the cool tools and, um, you know, they don't know what dad does every day. And so to come to that kind of sheds light on that. Um, but it's a great event. There's food being served drinks, um, tons of swag. Um, you know, people generally come and hang out for a few hours cause it's just plenty to see plenty to do. Um, so it's a real good time.

So what's your thoughts on ⁓ owners that are listening that are going to be attending event? What's your thoughts on them bringing their team?

I try bring the whole team. ⁓ I think similar to what I saying about the family coming to see it, think that sometimes, especially newer guys, they have a focal, a focused view on how the industry is and what's out there. And when you go to one of these, you get to see the different tool manufacturers, the different restoration companies, ⁓ things like IATMO talking about codes and compliance and all that. ⁓

Or if you want to get certified in something, you want to up your game and become certified in maybe the socket fusion, gas piping, ⁓ or you're aspiring to be a business owner and you want to go to some finance mastery. But really for me, it's all about relationships and connections. You get around and you exchange information, you learn people's, what their purpose is in their business and how maybe they can support yours. so you walk out of there with a little network of people who are

on your team, know, and so you can also get special deals on vehicles or, know, anything you're purchasing there is essentially probably, you know, gonna have a good deal to it.

Yeah. So, so for anybody that's going to be attending the event, if you have the opportunity, I would, I would highly encourage you to bring all of your team and, and including encourage them to bring their family. I tell you, we, in our business a couple of years ago, we were, we were growing, we were expanding. And when you do that, obviously, you know, there's a lot of hours that are spent and spouses sometimes don't understand the trades. And so we ended up having our.

Mm-hmm.

all of our leadership team attend a big conference and bring their spouses. And man, I can tell you what, when we left that conference, there was just a completely different vibe from the spouses of the leadership because now they started to understand who it, you know, they're like, oh my gosh, this is like a, this is a legit industry. Cause sometimes people, especially spouses, they're like, he's a plumber. It's like, no, no, no, this is a totally different industry than it was 50 years ago, 40 years ago.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

20 years ago it's a different and there's so much more about technology and leadership. And I mean, there's a reason that private equity is all over our industry and it's not because it's not an amazing industry.

and

Yeah, well that's really kind of forced companies to step up their game, you know? But you're right, I mean even the plumber being in a truck, they're not just a plumber anymore. You know, we're asking a lot of these guys and you know, they're offering financing and ⁓ you know, providing multiple options on the trip and you know, it's hard to...

to balance customer relations and the workload and keeping your truck clean and inventory tight and you you name it and then attending training classes and there's expectations. So it's ⁓ definitely different from where I came from. You know, it was do a good job, bring enough money to pay for you, you know, and you're kind of winning. But yeah, it's definitely changed quite a bit. So, but it, but it's good change. It's really elevating our industry. So it's really cool to see.

Yeah. And the amount of AI that is, uh, and you, you talked about this a little bit earlier in the conversation about AI. It's a, was at a, I was at an event earlier this year and the amount of AI companies and not just in one space. I mean, it was all the different things, whether it was the, the Rilla type or the field spark or, know, the broccolis of the world. was like so many AI companies out there that it was, it's really neat to sit back and see all this innovation that's

Mm-hmm.

that's now happening. But I will say this, I made a comment to one of my friends as we were walking around the stage as we were breaking down booths is I said, you notice what's happening in all these AI booths, people are breaking them down. So AI is not there yet. So I think we're all, we're on a very safe spot. We got a long runway until AI is affecting what we do as ⁓ a trade as a whole. ⁓

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

in a fixing broke things kind of way. Now from a technology standpoint, it obviously has been ⁓ great and it's, you know, it's technology. I mean, even back in the day, people weird about cell phones and they were weird about, you know, computers and, and then Google came out and people were like, ⁓ don't, don't know if I'm gonna mess with Google. And now if you're not, you know, playing in some capacity in that you're probably having a hard time. you're residential service, you know, new construction and stuff like that can get away without that. But, ⁓

Yeah.

But

let me ask you this, as somebody who's been in the industry for as long as you have, what is a piece of advice that you have for someone who is new in the industry and starting to come up and really wanting to make this a career?

Ahem.

well, I've been doing this for quite a while and I believe heavily in it that, you know, I think that showing up to a job and learning the job, you know, firsthand is great. But there's also a backend to that. And I think that you need to be, ⁓ you know, more open with your, your learning experience and ultimately, ⁓ you know, you can learn, I honestly believe that you'd learn, you know, probably 90 % of what you need to know.

out in the field, you know, with hands on. But we send all of our apprentices through the PHTC Academy. It's a four year program. And it really, they're learning, you know, terminology or mathematical formulas or sizing charts or all these things that are going to lead to a polished technician, you know, he's going to have confidence in himself that he knows, you know, if I had to re-pipe this helm, I could probably figure it out. ⁓

And it also shows a commitment to ⁓ from the employee to the company. know, he's serious about his career. So we're not when we find somebody, we're going to build a career. That's our goal. If they're not in that headspace, then we're not we're not going to be going anywhere, you know, ultimately. So that's huge for me. ⁓ You know, them going one night a week after work, you know, that's not easy. ⁓ Shows a lot of commitment. And, you know, I think it's also just beneficial for them. And at the end of that.

Right.

you know, get their journeyman's card and certificate. And, you know, they're a legitimate plumber at that point. So that's been huge for us.

Well, and I think, I think it's a big difference between being a, person who has a job and a person who has a career. Like you have to, know, you have to do more than show up eight to five Monday through Friday in order to advance and be better. And I think that PHCC program is amazing. And it's a, it's a perfect, yes, it's a little bit of time on their part. Actually, it's a lot of time on their part and it's a lot of effort on their part, but at the end of the day, you're now in the field and you're now a pro. You're not a, ⁓

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

a Pee-wee player, you're a professional, so.

Yeah, and I think with that too, like per your question, you know, spend the time to find the right company to work for that's going to invest into you like that and provide the education and then take your time. You know, I think a lot of guys start off and then they hear the people in the industry talking about like, they're paying me, you know, $2 an hour more, this pay plan or whatever it is, it's very enticing early on, you know, but you're

the investment of time with the company and the people in that company can get you a lot further. ⁓ can't you how many times I've seen guys, you know, kind of have the idea that they want to start their own business, go through the schooling with us. And then some year or two after that, they're kind of, they want to go off on their own. ⁓ And we were just about to really hit it, you know, hit a spot in their lives and our lives that really elevate, you know. ⁓ So.

That's where I think I found my opportunity with Plumbing Plus is being there, sticking around, pushing through the growth and, you know, there's ups and downs, but being consistent through that, I was seen as somebody that was reliable and consistent and wanted it. ⁓ So, you know, when the opportunity came that the previous owner was going to sell the business, that was the first one he came to and ⁓ it's all history from there.

Right.

I think, I think that's a really good point and a good story. mean, what if you did jump ship for two more dollars an hour or somewhere else?

Yeah,

I almost did. I almost left for 1%.

Man, what a change in trajectory that could have had.

We're making commissions.

Yeah, yeah, was very close to happening and I look back and I just wonder what would have happened differently if I did. It was literally a matter of a year.

where I could have made the decision a year later I had the opportunity to buy the company.

That's amazing. And again, it's, you sometimes you got to give things a little bit of time. And I know a lot of times technicians, especially as you're talking about revenue numbers, they go, I'm making X amount of dollars a month. I'm not making that. they don't understand like the business and you, You definitely know this firsthand. And there's a lot of differences between being a technician in a truck and owning these businesses. There's a totally different shift that happens.

Mm-hmm.

Well, cool, Michael, I appreciate you coming on here and jumping in and it's great to meet you. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the PHCC event at the end of January. And ⁓ yeah, man, I appreciate it so much. And thank you for coming and hanging out.

No, thank you. appreciate it as well. Looking forward to January 31st.

Sounds good.