146 | 500,000 Plumber Shortage Is Coming — Here’s How to Prepare

welcome back to another episode of freedom blueprint podcast. I am getting to hang out today with Spencer Pope from Bradford white. And, ⁓ he is actually the manager of technical support and training. So as you can imagine, we're going to talk a little bit about the gap that's happening right now in our industry. And, ⁓ Spencer is the guy who can, who can probably help answer some questions on that as well. Spencer, thanks for coming and hanging out, man.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

did I get the title right? Manager and technical trainer, Bradford White.

you

That's correct, manager of tech support and training or technical support and training at Bradford White. You got it.

All right. So tell me a little bit about what that even means. What does that mean?

Yeah.

preparing water heaters, answering questions. And then on the tech training side, my day looks like setting up curriculum, hosting guests here at the facility that you can see behind me. And then a decent part of my day is participating in what we call core teams, which is new product development. interesting thing we do at Bradford White is the information we get directly from the phones and directly from our visitors in technical training, we integrate that feedback.

into new products. So let's just a little bit about what my day looks like and kind of where I started here.

Okay, so for anybody listening, I don't know if they did the math there, but you've been there for 15 plus years.

Yep, yep, just over 15.

So as we're, as we're going to talk about, staffing and recruiting and retention today, I got to ask the question, what has kept you there for 15 years? 15 plus.

That's a great question.

15 plus, yeah, great question. The short answer is culture. Gallup's done some really great work on, there's a Gallup set of questions of what keeps workers happy, what keeps employees at jobs, and some of those questions are things like, do you have a best friend at work? Has your manager or your boss?

interacted with you and especially giving you positive feedback in the last seven days or the last 30 days, things like that. And so I could touch on a few of those different things to get into the weeds. But really the top level answer is the culture here. Bradford White has always felt like a much smaller company than we actually are. My background before Bradford White, I was a service contractor. I did commercial food, equipment, refrigeration and HVAC. And it was a was a five man company, small shop.

Mmm.

You know the owner personally. I had the key to stop by the house and let the dog out in between jobs. I mean, it was that kind of a place. And so when I came to Bradford White, I was looking for a change just a little bit. I wanted to get into tech support, maybe not be the guy that was personally on a rooftop in February in Michigan at 3 AM. ⁓ But I still wanted to use the skills and the knowledge that I have.

And so when I look for a job like this, I found Bradford White and the culture here just makes it feel like a great team environment. They've always got my back. so yeah, short answer culture.

That's fantastic. And actually, ⁓ I do want to come back to that because I do want to talk a little bit about, the gap that we have in this industry. That's no surprise. That's a, that's a big topic that people are talking about. ⁓ you actually might know this number, but like the number of the boomers that are retiring and the backfill rate, it's like a one to eight or so. don't even know exactly what it is, but it's a crazy number. ⁓ so as people are trying to get the, the next generation in,

Mm-hmm.

So I do want to circle back to that here in a few minutes on the culture, because those are all really good stuff. ⁓ what, ⁓ tell us a little bit about the training. So what are some training and some processes through Bradford white that companies can take advantage of?

We've got a portal where you can get lots of different resources for the pro.bradfordwhite.com and that's got

Some of the day to day things you might look for if say you're in front of a water heater, we've got installation literature, we've got service manuals, we've got on demand video content. But the other thing you can find there is you can get connected with our local rep and you can gain access to our technical training team. We offer a lot of different avenues of technical training and one of the first ones I want to mention is virtual live presentations and as best we can, we set those up to be a little bit more like

distance

learning.

And what I mean by that is it will be an in-person live technical trainer like myself in front of one of the water heaters behind me. We've got a 5 million BTU live fire water heater lab here in the building where I'm at in Middleville, Michigan. So we'll jump in front of whatever heater you're looking to talk about. We will run through installation best practices. We'll take a brief look at the installation literature, and then we'll go to sequence of operation and live fire training. And the distance learning part of that comes in with we do ask

Mm.

students that attend things like that to bring their own tools, bring their multimeters, and if you're engaged with our rep, our rep tends to bring parts, things you can put your hands on. So when we say we're going to measure the resistance of the coil on a gas valve,

Students in that session will have the gas valves will have taken them apart with their own tools And so it's as hands-on as you can get with the instructor just being at a distance So that's one example of what we offer in technical training And then the other big thing we do here is is we do bring thousands of contractors a year from all over the North American continent So us and Canada to this facility This is our ITEC facility the International Technical Excellence Center, and we've got an auditorium classroom space We've got the live fire lab

And the focus here is hands-on break and fix. that's the part that excites me the most. I'm guessing you'd be the same. I think probably all of us who have worked in the field have experienced that technical training. And I'm doing air quotes here for technical training because it turns into a giant sales pitch. It's a guy in dress slacks that's telling you the breadth of the product portfolio. And Bradford White tries to avoid that as much as we can.

Right.

So we do base things on real experience. We have real technicians working here. And then the training is going to be one of those technicians getting you as hands-on as we can.

Well, and I think what's really good and unique and a win on that is technicians by nature, they're tactile learners. Like they want to touch things, they want to feel it. And here's the deal, let them break it in your lab, not in a customer's home.

better to practice here than, yeah, on the job, 100%.

Yeah. So, ⁓ and we'll, we'll put some stuff in the show notes too, but when, when, when do you guys do live in-person training? Is that on a pretty regular basis?

yes, any given week we have, I'll say a minimum of one group visiting this facility. In fact, today we have two groups. do our best to...

you know, be hospitable, I'll say, and we bake in things like, we have a factory tour, which is really interesting to see how the heaters are built, see the raw steel come in and get turned into a vessel. And so those groups are out on the factory tour right now. It's a small chunk of a visit here, but ⁓ average week is probably two to three different groups. And I'll say not just limited to contractors, we host wholesalers, we host spec engineers, and we do tailor our content accordingly, but we stay busy.

all the time. This morning we had a little scheduling snap, so I'm in the lab and with the two groups we had here we were thinking they might be in this lab so the view behind me for those that can see on camera might have been a little bit different if we didn't get our schedule issues sorted out. So we stay busy.

That's pretty cool. And, and I think it's, I think it's good that you guys offer that kind of training because kind of going back to the gap that we're having in our industry right now is there's so many people leaving and not a lot of people coming in. And I think that I'm a personal and I've been this way the entire time I've been in this, this trade is I've always focused on hiring for attitude and training for aptitude always. And I know that's easy to say, but sometimes like, if you're in a jam, you're like, well, this guy's got 15 years experience.

Well, that's excellent. ⁓

get them in, we go knock out jobs, which that typically comes with 15 years of maybe bad habits and you know, things like that. But ⁓ the nice thing is with using and partnering with companies like yourself is that you can make that curve a little faster. Because I think the reason most businesses are a little bit nervous about hiring less experienced techs or no experienced techs is they do have to train.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Like

we're in not an easy trade. mean, plumbing and AC, there's a lot of moving parts. It's not, there's not a lot of just figure it out kind of deal. There's, there's, there's some safety things if you don't do correct can be bad for everybody. So, ⁓ so tell me a little bit about stat, like staffing coming up, the new people coming up and in, I know you talk a lot about, a lot about this.

Definitely.

this gap of the industry, but what do you think is a big cause of that? Of not as many people wanting to come in the industry.

Looking at the average age of my master plumber is 58 years old. Looking at the fact that I've seen on the job training is slowly becoming extinct, it seems like.

And that's for legitimate reasons. mean, timelines are getting more aggressive and budgets are shrinking and inflation, cost, all that's going up. And so you sort of add all these things together and you see conditions where the crowd that's exiting the field, they're busy having to do the actual work. They don't really have the time to train maybe somebody who's entering and then you have the cost constraints, the deadline constraints. You don't have the downtime for maybe a new person entering the trades

receive that on the job training. And you hit on something that I think is really interesting because we have that challenge here in our tech support team. For technical support, you mentioned it sounded a bit like soft skills. And that's something we focus on very heavily here at Bradford White in our tech support team. Because as you said,

Mm-hmm.

I, as I'm looking for the best candidate to support our customers, I get that candidate that walks in the door and they've got 15, 20 years experience and they're awesome at turning a wrench. They can fix a water heater, but do they have the spirit of an educator? Do they have those soft skills to convey the information effectively, especially when it's only over a phone? You don't get the eye contact, you don't get the little physical cues, you don't get the body language. And so it's really challenging to staff.

Mm-hmm.

a team where you do need above average soft skills and above average mechanical skills. And I would venture that ⁓ maybe more in the service realm. I mean, that's my background of service. I know I have been that person that's in someone's home and you sort of have to make that upsell. You sort of have to make that recommendation. And again, not ⁓ in a sleazy way, I'll say, but in the best interest of the customer. And so, yeah, you do want to find those candidates that have the soft skills.

and have the mechanical skills. And I would venture between those two. It's likely easier to teach the mechanical side than it is to teach the soft side. I think you can certainly improve on both, but I think if you start with a foundation of great soft skills, you can build up with the mechanical side. And so that's where the technical training comes in, is you find that right foundational person, that right blank canvas, and you build it up from there.

Yeah. I mean, you, can't train

good attitude. You got it or you don't, you know, and, the, the skillset of what we do from an industry ⁓ that can be taught. And I know that, so you mentioned OJT, the thing about OJT, which is great, like on the job training is fantastic, but it is like the slowest form of training ever versus if you have somebody who spends, let's call it two days going over your electric water heater.

Yeah, exactly.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

by the end of that two days, if they've got any technical aptitude whatsoever, would you agree they should have a pretty good handle on what that water heater looks like and feels like and how to test it and everything versus when you do it from an OJT standpoint, you're just kind of getting whatever call comes up.

100%.

Yep. And let's be fair, I just had a conversation recently with an individual that's out in the field and he mentioned...

Water heaters are certainly a small percentage of a plumber's or mechanical contractor's day. And so to your point, say you're doing on the job training and you do two years of it, three years on the job training. What percentage of that, and I'm going to pick water heaters because I'm a little bit biased. That's my topic. But what percentage of that was spent on water heaters? And really, if you reach a level of comfort, is it the three years

Or is it the fact that you worked on 10 or 15 cumulative water heaters during that period? And so exactly like you said, if you could concentrate that, you spend one eight hour day really hammering out sequence of operation, really gaining exposure to that one topic. And then of course you broaden that and say, well, now let's, let's focus on a different topic. Of course, it have to just be water heaters, you know, so on the job training does certainly have those, those pitfalls. And you mentioned earlier too,

You

are allowing for a little bit of experimentation or a little bit of mistake Allowing for mistakes to show up on a paying customers job and so there's always that risk too So yeah, it's it's I think it's great to be able to make mistakes in the lab environment to do your learning in the lab environment and at least leave with a foundational understanding and

Yeah.

What we tend to train on here at Bradford White is we like to say stronger trades means a stronger Bradford White. We're wholesale only. We only sell to professionals. So when we approach technical training, we teach broad core concepts that would technically apply even to, you know.

dare I say, competitors products, ⁓ other types of equipment. And in my shop, before I came to Bradford White, we used to say a water heater is a furnace, is an oven, is a fryer, is really at the end of the day, you're dealing with combustion producing appliances. And it's not to say that there isn't some nuance. It's not to say we shouldn't understand the sequence of operation of any given piece of equipment. But it is to say that there is a ⁓ skill set or a set of techniques

that we would use, or method of thinking, I'll say, that we would use that really applies across the board. And that method of thinking is something that we should definitely endeavor to learn quickly and in the lab environment where we have the room to make mistakes.

That's good. ⁓ Yeah, that's good. And when somebody comes to training there, how long is the training?

It totally varies. The average is going to be two or three days.

But it can be one day, it can be the full five working days of the week. I think the biggest constraint tends to be, you know, the boss is looking at, I've sent my best guys or I've sent half my staff or whatever it is, they're looking at that downtime. it's probably fair to say, I would venture that your listeners might agree with this, that one of the hardest things I've experienced on the training side is ROI. How do you establish, how do you connect the ROI to, I had three trucks down.

Yeah.

for a day or three days or five days. And so we will tailor it to whatever particular customer would like. We do a one day where it's introduction to Bradford White, it's introduction to this is the kind of product.

I

where you're at in your journey as a contractor. We get a feel for what your market is like and what your company is most interested in learning. And then we address core concepts. And the next day we can do an eight hour break and fix where it's all hands on. We put bugs in the water heaters. We do escalation of concept. We have some adult learning techniques that we're applying. You you mentioned that the bulk of contractors that we're training are usually going to be tactile.

want to be kinesthetic learners. But we try to bake in auditory visual learning, anything that we can so that we can set that hook and get that material sunk in to the benefit of whoever's visiting. And then from there, you can expand it out. If we're talking about a three day session, we can really get into the weeds of escalation of concept. We can go out to some more complex products like tankless product, heat pump product, commercial condensing, combustion analysis, all of those good things. So yeah, a lot of flexibility. ⁓

Right. Yep.

just depends on what ⁓ kind of downtime the contractor can handle.

Well, and I think from an ROI perspective, know, ROI means something a little different to every business owner. And sometimes they want instant ROI, which I mean, I get it from a cashflow standpoint, but if you've got people that you're investing in the likelihood, and this goes back to what we were talking about earlier with culture too. think the more you train and the more you enable the people on your team to learn and grow and advance. Now what happens is they don't feel like they're just a plumber.

Mm-hmm.

Ciao.

Now they feel like they're in a career field. Now they feel like my company invested in me to go to a manufacturer and be an expert in this product and service. And then now when they return and they go get in a truck, now when they're in front of a customer, the level of confidence so much higher, the level of the speed of which they can troubleshoot much higher. So there's always an ROI, but it is a matter of how long of an ROI, but I think

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yep.

I think it, I think when you invest in your team, the ROI is worth it. may just take longer than you want, but I think it's totally worth it.

And you hit on a hidden aspect of ROI that circles back to what we started with in the beginning. You asked me, what do I like about Bradford White?

The kind of company culture where an individual could say, my boss cares about my growth, my boss cares about, you know, in the job environment, we tend to think of growth as promotions. We tend to think of growth as I need to get to new status levels, but growth really can encompass. am becoming the best technician I can be because my organization is investing in me to gain new skills. And as an individual, of course, there is the benefit to the company. Like you said, if a company

technician is in front of a piece of equipment, likely that visit is going to be shorter, pretty clear ROI there, but the other side of that is as an individual, if I gain those skills, they're non-perishable skills, those move with me, I become...

You get to take them with you.

Yeah, I become more employable.

Yeah.

There's more salary potential there. So yeah, it's sort of ⁓ a double whammy of positive. But yeah, you mentioning the investment of an organization into the individual, I think that that does promote a healthy culture. And that's the kind of stuff that will retain younger technicians as they come into our industry is things like that.

So earlier, so now that we're on the culture conversation again, you mentioned earlier about culture. So you said you could go a little bit deeper about Bradford White, but I would say what is one thing from a culture standpoint that every business owner, especially in our space right now could be doing to help advance and build their culture? And I know obviously training is the obvious answer because that's what we're talking about, but something outside of that box. What is one thing you think business owners can do

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

to help advance their culture. And I'm asking you that as somebody who has stayed with a company for 15 years plus, we all wish we had guys that stuck around for 15 years. what is another thing or one thing that these business owners that you work with can start doing now to help make that culture better?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I'll do a shameless plug for... ⁓

something that my director did for me. He openly invests in our team's ability to receive training, to build our skill set. And one of the things that's been said within these walls is, we're looking to help you build the best resume you could have. Now, we don't want you to leave, but we're hoping to build out your resume. And I found that really interesting. It's sort of like when I'm doing a service call, I'm in a customer's home and I'd say, so this is the cost we're looking at to repair this piece of equipment. I've itemized, you know, what I've,

measured and diagnosed, I've itemized what the components are to fix it, and I've itemized what are the things that contributed and what we should address now versus what maybe we can bump down the road. Now I would encourage you to shop around and keep me honest. Please get some quotes from other outfits because here's my price, but I want you to make sure that that's fair for you. Sometimes that invite to investigate is enough to say, you know what, this person's trustworthy when you're in someone's home. And so the analogy there is here at Bradford White, when they say things like, we're looking to build your resume,

It's

a really interesting thing to turn on its head and say, we're not trying to cling to you and trap you and not let you go. We're just hoping we build the best resume that we can. And it turns out by doing that, you're going to end up staying. And one of those investments for me was a course on change management. And so the one.

Mmm.

pointer I would give to improve culture in a company would be helping the employees feel heard and like they are participating when change is happening. And an example that might be that any given employee has direct access to management and can give feedback that turns into changes within the organization. I think if you're an entry level technician, if you're a younger technician, that feeling of being seen, being heard and participating

I think that's the beginning of that fruitful relationship that keeps a long-term employee. At Bradford White, always describe us as, you picture the pyramid of any organization, you've got the CEO at the tip of the pyramid, and we are a very, very flat pyramid. ⁓ I'm not anybody of terrible importance here at Bradford White, but I am about ⁓ one to the third level up for me would be our CEO.

So we are a very flat, low organization as far as a pyramid structure. And what that's meant for me is, again, with my service background, if I'm taking phone calls and I'm saying, I'm seeing, there is feedback on this particular product. We built it right, but it turns out the way it gets installed, we still have this, this issue that crops up. I have the ability within our organization to give that feedback directly to engineering that goes into new product and we make changes fairly quickly.

And so yeah, giving that feedback to ⁓ those who are running an organization, feeling seen, feeling heard, I think that's critical to create a good culture.

I think that's the

big difference between now and 10, 15, 20 years ago is that there's a whole different level of opportunity for people now. ⁓ know, the gig economy has a lot to do with that. You know, if they don't like you or they don't feel respected, they just go get on an app and now they've got a job before they roll out of the parking lot. So it's good. It's good to hear you say that because that is the truth is like people just want to feel a part of something and they want to feel important. They don't want to be in a

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

hog and some giant wheel that has no saying whatsoever. So that's a, that's a very good point.

And the gig economy, great example of exactly the opposite. I have no control over what my rate is, where I'm sent. I mean, I have control over when I accept jobs, but yeah, I'm not connected to anything other than an app. And so I think that's a good example of sprinting the other direction and creating that isolation.

Right.

Well, cool. Well, Spencer, ⁓ as we wrap up, I know you got tours and training and all kinds of stuff. I know you got a lot going on today. What is a way that someone can get more information about Bradford White and some of the programs and training that you guys make available to contractors?

You

For

the Pro app does have a chat feature that we've turned on. And so you have direct access to tech support. If you've got a general installation question, if you're onsite, you're troubleshooting something, we have prioritized that. We answer within minutes. so that's something I'm proud of because again, we've got staff here in Middleville tech support is right here across the street from the factory where we're making the water heaters. And everybody here is some flavor of a licensed contractor, which spoke to me. It's what brought me to.

Bradford White was the priority on using real contractors, nobody reading from a script here. And it is a live person that staffs our chat. It's not an AI chat bot, it's somebody responding. So yeah, the For The Pro app or forthepro.bradfordwhite.com, get in touch with us, get plugged in with the rep, and get some training. It helps, it boosts your individual performance, it helps out your company, it's good stuff.

Cool, and all that information for anybody listening, we will have it in the show notes. So if you're listening and driving, you don't have to stop and write it down. Just go into the show notes and all the information that we've talked about and all the links will be in there as well. So listen, Spencer man, I appreciate you taking some time jumping on here and good conversation, man.

Thank you so much for having me. It was a great talk. Good to be here. Hope to see you again.

We'll see you real soon.