Interview
How a two-van plumber booked $1M in a year
He stopped losing work to missed calls, then built the rest of the business around being first to answer.
The calls were never the problem
Two vans and six years in, the phone rang plenty. The trouble was that it rang while he was under a sink, on a roof or driving between jobs. Most of those callers never left a message. They rang the next plumber on the list.
When he finally counted, about one call in three was going unanswered. Each one was a job he would never hear about.
What changed first
He put an AI receptionist on the business line and kept everything else the same. Every call got answered in the company’s name, the job was quoted from his price list, and the visit went straight on the calendar.
The first full month brought in more booked work than the previous quarter. He didn’t add a van until month five.
Then he brought people back
Once new work was steady, he turned to customers he already had. Reminders for water heater flushes and winter pipe checks went out without him lifting a finger. By the end of the year, repeat customers made up nearly half of his bookings.