Columns

RSS

A few weeks ago on one of the rare days I wasn’t traveling for work, I was driving into the office and came to a stop at a red light behind a plumbing company’s vehicle.

One of the greatest financial assets of a plumbing company is its fleet of service vehicles. Most plumbers treat these as a necessary expense, seeking to minimize their outlays. This is a mistake.  Trucks are mobile billboards that can drive brand awareness, brand safety and calls.  The following is a list of 12 mistakes plumbing contractors frequently make in their truck ID programs.

Ask Dave, he’ll know.” I had just walked into the inside sales area to give our salesman a list to quote. A friendly competitor was looking for answers and one of the salesmen told him to ask me for my thoughts. He had recently installed a new boiler with five zones of radiant heating in an old farmhouse.

I’m lucky enough to work with a lot of good-hearted contractors. What I know is contractors in general, despite the skewed view of the media to the contrary, want to do the right thing for their customers and their community.

BNP Media’s Plumbing & Mechanical Group, which includes the industry-leading business-to-business brands Plumbing & Mechanical, Supply House Times and PM Engineer, recently announced industry icon Dave Yates has joined the group’s all-star roster of columnists.

It sounds simple, but few marketing efforts begin with a clearly defined objective. What, specifically, do you want to accomplish?

Just over 10 years ago, when I graduated from college with my shiny new journalism degree in hand, never in a million years did I think I would be writing about the skilled trades — first HVAC, now plumbing.