One person and a truck are all that is required for a plumbing business.
Plumbing is an industry that doesn’t require many employees or pieces of equipment. With some basic tools, you can do a variety of jobs. You can also borrow equipment whenever you need to.
While plumbing is a good way to earn money, some people have a hard time doing a few things to get started. If you’re aware of them and know what to do, you’ll be able to start a plumbing business without much of a problem.
Here are the 3 hard parts of starting a plumbing business and what you can do about them.
1. Getting Licensed and Insured
When starting a plumbing business, you’ll need to be aware of the licenses and insurance to get. All businesses need to get what’s known as a business license. This license ensures the government that your company is safe, and it will prevent you from having to pay hefty fines.
Plumbers also have to get certified, which usually requires going to a trade school and doing an internship. The exact requirements vary by state, so you’ll have to be sure that you look at your state’s requirements.
After getting your licenses, you’ll need to get insurance. Insurance is a way to protect both you and your customers as it prevents anyone from having to pay for damages. If you were to break something in someone’s home, your insurance could cover it.
Plumber insurance typically covers things like medical costs, damages, and repairs. So if you had to work on something because it broke, there’s a possibility that your insurance company would help you pay for material.
2. Choosing the Right Location
Because plumbing businesses revolve around local communities, you need to choose a good location to set up shop. If you end up going somewhere where plumbing isn’t demanded, you’ll have a hard time getting your feet off the ground.
Plumbing is a trade that will never go away but if there are already several establishments in an area, it will be difficult to compete. You would have to lower your prices or offer a plethora of services, which might cost you more over time.
The best way to go about choosing a location is to think of states that you’d like to live in. If you don’t want to move to another state, you’ll have to keep in mind that moving to another city will be a possibility.
Key factors that you’ll want to pay attention to are the average salaries and jobs available. When plumbers are offered a lot while there’s little job availability, it may be easier to start because that typically means people just don’t want to work there.
The same thing can be said when plumbers are offered a lot and there are a plethora of jobs available. If you try to start in an area where plumbers don’t make much and there isn’t a demand, you might not make enough to sustain yourself.
Some of the best cities for plumbers include Gary, IN, Beaumont, TX, and Anchorage, AK. The average salary of these cities are all over $67,000 and have a decent amount of jobs available. If you want to remain in your current state, do some research and look at local cities to see which would be best for you.
3. Advertising Your Services
Advertising is essential to the success of a business because it’s what gets their name out there. There are a few ways to advertise, but the most effective take place on the internet. You can go around putting up posters and billboards, but that doesn’t guarantee that people will see them.
Social Media
Advertising on social media is one of the best plumbing for dummies tips you can get. Social media is accessible to nearly anyone, over 3.2 billion people are actively using it. This means that your business can easily reach out to your target audience.
What makes advertising on social media different than traditional advertising is the ability to choose a set of filters for your target audience. From the platform of your choosing, you can pick the location, gender, and even employment of those that you’d like to advertise to.
When you publish the ads, users will see them as they’re scrolling on their feeds. They can then click the ad and get redirected to wherever you’d like, most likely a website with your services.
Using a Website
Websites are the most important part of the advertising process because you need a place that customers can go to when they want to hire you. Without one, they’d have to rely on physical ads, which aren’t an effective way of advertising anymore.
Your website should have contact information, a blog, and details about your services. When you make a blog, customers can build trust because they’ll be assured that you understand plumbing. Having your services also gets to the point and lets them know if you provide what they need.
You can post your site’s URL in various places, such as advertisements, social media accounts, etc. You can also advertise a specific part of your website, like your blog.
Be sure that you work with someone to build a website. A plumber marketing company will know what to include on your site so that it gets a better ranking on Google. SEO for plumbers will help you get more traffic to your site so that you can ultimately make more sales.
Start a Plumbing Business Today
If you’ve been on the fence about starting a plumbing business, we encourage you to look into the industry and figure out if it’s right for you. Plumbing, like any other business, requires a few things before starting. You’ll have to get licensed and insured, and you need to choose a good location to start.
Now that you know how to start a plumbing business, it will be much easier for you to form a plan. Think about how you’ll advertise and finance. If you need to, you can look into business loans to fund your plumbing company.
Browse our articles to find more advice about starting a plumbing business.
