Welcome back to ask the experts radio show on talk radio 1190 I am Anthony
Sumilia. I am joined by Roger Wakefield from Texas scream Plumbing and
his wife, Julie Wakefield all right jumping right back into it Roger. I guess, quick question.
Plumbing. Was that a good career choice?
Oh my god.
Anthony, uh I tell people, look I have a great life. I have I've always enjoyed
working and for me to get into plumbing and I owe that to Grant Speak, Speak's
Plumbing over in Garland, a great company. I was in high school and working in a
restaurant and it's a video on my YouTube Channel you can go watch it and
I get I tell the whole story. But basically we're talking one night and
I'm 16 years old, I'm managing a restaurant, and he says you know are you
gonna do this forever? I'm like man, like I'm 16 managing a restaurant. I got it
made, life is beautiful. It's great. It's just what happens when you get fired?
Who's gonna hire a 16 year old restaurant manager? You said fire and I
thought, oh. How did he know you were gonna get fired? I didn't get fired. I quit, but
you know the thought went through my mind. So we talk a little bit more and he
tells me about his three older brothers, Rodney and Austin and Lynn, and how much
they loved plumbing and Dad, Dad was a chief plumbing inspector in the city of
Dallas and I tell you what plumbing to me is an amazing career. It's been a good
life. I've I've enjoyed it. I have fun. I have toys. I just I love what I do and I
love being a problem solver and it's a neat deal because some plumbers, and
nothing against them, some plumbers are great fixers. They can't find the problem,
they can't solve the problem, but they can fix any problem that you you show
them. I'm a little bit of both. I can fix the problem but my thing, my specialty is,
I'm a problem solver. You like solving people's problems, you like seeing
that smile on their face and fixing that problem. Absolutely, and letting them know
that you know I remember an emergency call I
got one Friday evening and it's one of the very first, it actually, it was the
first five-star review I got. Lady calls, is like my my son called, I've got sewage
come up in my house. I show up and she's crying, it's Friday night at
7 o'clock, and she's hysterical. I look at her and said ma'am look, everything's gonna
be okay. I can take care of this. I got this. I remember by the time I left
she's sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of wine, smiling, you know life is
good, and everything was fixed. And that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy
inside doesn't it? It is a feeling that, I mean, taking care of people is a great
thing. And you know going back to you know down in Austin. You know you can see
the passion there as well. Um, you don't just own a company. You own a
company that gives a service or, provides the service
of not just you know conserving water and also you you're almost like a
problem solver as well as a plumber. You know Anthony, and it's it's funny because I,
I have had to study marketing because I've been ripped off. You know we
had a marketing company what we call other people's money and that that's
about the the idea that they had with it. But all they did is rip us off
and we started getting into marketing and you know you asked me a lot about
social media. But we started growing on social media because we realized we knew
more about it than most other marketing companies and now we have literally
started training. I've got YouTube coaches I've got people that I consult
with from around the world. I've got guys in Thailand, I've got guys in Utah. I've
got a coach in the Dallas area and LinkedIn people. I've got LinkedIn
coaches that I consult with and talk with and hey I'm thinking about doing
this and hey I'm thinking about doing that and it's awesome and its really
helped us. But now Will's actually got a company, Residential Service Group and
it's all about helping people in the trades. People in the residential
service-industry learn that video and networking and social media and
marketing it all ties together and if you do it all it's cheaper then
just send the money to Google for pay-per-click all the time. Oh yeah right.
Yeah and it's a big deal. It is and especially locally. You know being able
to tap into that and being able to tap the local consumer and market. Um, you know I
guess with everything with plumbing and you know and getting into it. You know
say somebody is out there. You know, wants to get into plumbing like you. How
soon could they get into plumbing? There is such a need in the trades
and not just plumbing. Aren't you hiring? I'm looking for very high end plumbers.
Okay, and I guess that's probably the best way to put it. I want, I want the
best of the best. As you should. I'm a union company.
I pay more than other companies. And you hold your standard high. You bet and the
benefits that we have I mean we pay for people's insurance for their entire
family. That's awesome. My plumbers have a pension plan, a retirement plan. I mean
you know my deal with my my dental. You bet. I mean that's, you know I wish upon
a star, you know, that iHeartMedia was like that but not so much. And it's
funny because I mean me and my wife look around at different things. How can we
improve our company. How can we make it better. What benefits can we offer. But
what we have other companies say look you know what y'all are doing is
great for your guys and that's what we try to do. But we also try to be a great
company and yeah tell me this Julie, what well we try to be a great company.
What kind of crazy calls, what kind of crazy things happen where at the
end of the day you realize hey look we did good or hey we are a great company?
Right. Well that again speaks to the character of the people that are in our
company. So, the first one that comes to mind is the lady that called one day and
said I need a second opinion I just
had a hvac person in my in my attic he said you've got some leaks up here in your in
your gas system call a plumber. Called the plumber. The plumber never went into
the attic. Turned the meter off. Said you need a new
yard relay. It's gonna be ten thousand dollars. Call me when you're ready to
turn it back on and he left and she said she started cussing and when she
stopped cussing she started praying and she says she went to Google and found
us and she said I just felt like I needed to call you. So I said we'll come
out and take a look at that for you absolutely and we went out there. We went
into the attic. We found a few leaks and we fixed it for less than a thousand
dollars. We turned her her gas back on and we felt like heroes that day. And we
tested everything and there was no leak in the yard is that correct?
Oh no. The leak was not in the yard. Her HVAC guy was correct. You've
got gas leaks and there was more than one in the attic.
And I've got a similar story and I may have told it here before. One of the
first foundation repair jobs, slab leak jobs that I got called on, lady called me
out to a house, says look we've had another found a we've had a foundation company
do foundation work. They sent their own company out here so guys if your
foundation company owns a plumbing company, don't use them together. But the
foundation companies plumber came out and said everything under your house is
bad. It all needs to be rerouted around front and it was gonna be $40,000. My
goodness. And she asked me, she said what do I do? I said look let me come in. Let
me test it and start over. I said I don't know what else to tell you. So I tested
it. They had one leak and it was in a bad spot because we tried going through the
floor it was in two beams which unfortunately we've run into a lot here
lately. We ended up having to reroute that one line around front and tie into
the front. Total job was $8,000. Okay save that homeowner $32,000 so they
could move into an assisted living home to retire.
All right well not to cut anybody off but we do have a minute and I do want to
get both your numbers out there and you know I do appreciate y'all coming in and
speaking with me and I know that I am smarter now I've been you know
enlightened with today's episode and I'm sure our listeners as well and listeners
if you'd like to get a hold of Roger his phone number is 972-442-4101.
Julie's phone number is 972-268-9500.
Would you like to say anything else Mr. Roger? Yeah, Anthony, well
I've got a deal going on my YouTube Channel right now, The Expert Plumber.
We're fixing to start giving away some really cool plumbing products. Okay. And
we're gonna do it through our subscribers. So anybody out there, if
you're listening, you want to win some cool plumbing stuff, subscribe to The
Expert Plumber, ring the bell. We've got some really, very nice plumbing product
stuff we're gonna be giving away. Yeah it's exciting.
What's that YouTube channel once again? The Expert Plumber. The Expert Plumber
and if you like to get a hold of Julie on the web it is JWetiquette.com.
Once again, her number is 972-268-9500,
and if you like to get a hold to Roger, once again, 972-442-4101.
Thank y'all very much for joining me today.
Thank you Anthony. You always do a great job. I love it when you're in here. Well cheers.
Thank y'all very much. Happy New Year Dallas and uh go Dallas Cowboys. Ee'll
see y'all next time on Ask The Experts Radio Show.