Rooter Ranger is the “fastest growing plumbing contractor in the United States.” On our podcast owner Jordan Beebe explains that he couldn’t have grown the company to 89 employees doing over 20 million dollars in revenue in just two and a half years by himself. “This was done because a large group of guys bought in to doing the right thing for clients and coming together with a vision that we wanted to create.”
Having an athlete’s mindest in your home service business
On this episode of Pro Talks, Housecall Pro’s Roland and Alexa talk to Jordan about how he transitioned from being a college athlete to the owner of a successful plumbing company. Throughout this episode, Jordan explains how he inspires and leads an amazing team of nearly 90 employees.
We’ve included some of the highlights from the episode here.
Find what motivates you (and your team) [8:50]
When Jordan learned he wasn’t going to have a career in the NFL, he went to work for a plumbing company. For four years, he worked a job with no pay bump and few incentives.
“What were my life goals? They had to be adjusted,” he explains on the podcast. “I had to go about it differently. I had to think differently than what I was at that current moment because that moment was not a healthy place for me.”
He now teaches his employees that having the right mindset is critical to success. To Jordan, a strong mindset:
- Starts with the understanding that practice makes perfect and being prepared to build better habits.
- Knowing what motivates you.
“I had a really deep, profound reflection talk to people that I loved. And they said, ‘Listen, this is a great opportunity for you to truly understand yourself first and foremost, before anybody else, because you can never help anybody else do anything else until you know exactly who you are.’
Through self-reflection, Jordan realized that most of all, he wanted to help others succeed. That realization was a turning point. He left the company he was working for and became a salesperson for one of the largest residential contractors in the U.S. He worked his way up to being the top salesperson. (Listen to Jordan’s perspective on sales, starting around 6:13)
Leaders help people grow [17:58]
While he worked as a salesperson, he came to another realization: he wasn’t yet a leader, but he wanted to be. He actively started developing leadership skills through:
- Self-reflection
- Taking feedback
- Looking for different perspectives
“You know you’re a leader when the people that are following you are continually growing and you’re influencing more and more people,” Jordan explains. By the time he ran his own company, Jordan had worked hard on these leadership skills.
Manage people successfully by getting to know them [24:30]
Jordan sees learning how to manage people as the hardest part of leadership. Part of the difficulty is how very personal the work is.
To be a good manager, he believes you have to get to know the people who are out there representing your company:
“Once you understand things differently with your employees than just the fact that they’re out making a paycheck and working for you, but yet they’re a person that you should care about, that you should love, that you should want to see their families do well and do amazing things, that’s when you can really propel yourself to the next level because there’s not a better investment than in people.”
This care is the true key to the success of his company.
Reviews keep companies honest [31:34]
Thanks to the Internet, homeowners are savvier than ever, able to research companies before they do business with them. Jordan sees this as a good thing. Reviews keep companies honest.
“If you’re afraid to ask for a review, there’s a problem there that you probably should look a little bit deeper into,” he advises other business owners. Jordan uses critical feedback to guide what he works on with his team. And he makes sure to work with them consistently.
Meet and train consistently [36:31]
No matter how busy the company gets, Jordan makes sure to consistently communicate with his team. His management practices include:
- Two meetings a week where they practice things they want to do effectively.
- Incentives for good feedback such as paying for one-to-two day staycations for employees.
- Responding to concerns and bad reviews immediately.
“As I tell my employees, I don’t want to go through tidal waves, I want to go through speed bumps,” Jordan explains. “And the way to manage and go through speed bumps is, is to stay on top of this stuff as it’s actively happening.”
Increasing the number of happy customers is the first priority [42:27]
When asked what metrics he follows with his team, he explains that statistics like revenue come second to the number of happy customers and the satisfaction of his employees:
“Money has to be secondary. It has to be. If it is the sole focus of you individually or as an organization, your decisions are going to solely be money-based decisions and not based off of what you need to do is to grow as a person, as a father, as a husband, as an entrepreneur, as an employee. And if you focus on those things and how to help people first, it comes back tenfold.”
He practices this mindset with his team by helping them set other goals for themselves that aren’t monetary.
Let your team set their own goals [55:31]
During their morning meetings, Jordan asks his team to write down three personal goals on a blank piece of paper and hand them in. He then reads them aloud and the team discusses them.
“We talk about as a group how we can help everybody obtain those goals if it applies to them,” Jordan explains. “And such a satisfying thing takes place when you see that unification of a team coming together, rallying for something.”
