Plumbers are independent by nature. Working on your own from a service truck fits people with an independent streak. While it may run against your nature, there are lots of benefits to joining various groups, from learning from your peers to growing your customer base. Here are six groups every plumber should join.

1. Join the local PHCC

If you have a local PHCC chapter in your market, join it. The plumbers who belong to the PHCC tend to be the contractors who recognize that helping another plumber does not hurt them, but helps the trade as a whole. Meetings are usually once a month and feature networking with other plumbers as well as an industry-relevant speaker.

2. Join a contractor business alliance

Business alliances differ from associations. Typically, there is no government relations aspect and they are very much focused on business success. Highly motivated contractors populate these organizations, which offer extensive business training, coaching, marketing and other business collateral, and buying groups. While more expensive than a local trade association, most plumbers find the benefits and buying group rebates make them profit centers for their businesses.

3. Join the Chamber of Commerce

Every plumbing contractor should be a member of their local chamber. In fact, they should join all of the relevant chambers in their service area. In some cases, this means chambers for different communities. It might also mean a minority chamber. The chambers give you opportunities to network with other business leaders in your community. Most chambers have mixers after business hours to accommodate busy people who run companies.

4. Join a service club

Service clubs are organized to give business and community leaders a means of giving back to the local community as well as the international community. They are populated by a cross-section of community centers of influence and typically meet over breakfast or lunch. If you are going to eat breakfast or lunch anyway, you might as well do it with leaders in your community. These are the people others turn to when looking or a good plumber. Service clubs include Rotary, Lion’s, Kiwanis, Optimists and Civitan.

5. Join a leads club

Leads clubs usually meet during the day outside of lunch. They are focused groups of non-competitive businesses who try to help each other by giving heads up on opportunities, making introductions and so on. Some leads clubs partner on marketing initiatives where the members cross-market to their customer bases. Leads clubs tend to be non-nonsense and not social.

6. Join local customer associations

If you do commercial work, find out what associations your customers belong to and see if you can join them. This might include a local restaurant association, builders association and so on.

Joining these groups takes time, but pays off in a myriad of ways. Usually, the most successful plumbing company in a community is the most networked. These networks supersede marketing and advertising. They are relationship driving and business is built on relationships.

If you are not willing to take the time, consider hiring a brand ambassador to join these groups and represent the company. Offer a base pay with incentives based on leads generated. When the brand ambassador is between meetings, he or she can focus on encouraging customers to post positive online reviews.