Business lessons from a plumber
Pimlico Plumbers MD Charlie Mullins tells LaunchLab how he grew his business by 25 per cent in 2008 despite dire economic conditions.
Charlie Mullins founded Pimlico Plumbers, the UK's largest independent plumbing firm, in 1979 with a bag of old tools and a second hand van. The business is now nearly 30 years old and trading with a turnover up by over nine per cent year on year.
Against the backdrop of a 220 per cent increase in bankruptcies in the last quarter of 2008, Pimlico saw January’s turnover exceed £1.59m, up 25 per cent on the previous January results and February rose to £1.51m, up 29 per cent up on the previous February.
1. Give people what they want – if you lose sight of what your customers want you should pack up your business immediately. If you don’t offer what people they are looking for you won’t last very long.
2. Value for money – If your customers feel they’re getting their money’s worth they’ll be happy to part with it, and they’ll keep coming back for more.
3. Stay in control of your own destiny – banks and credit are a necessary evil, but as we now know they are ‘crooks in suits’ so don’t let them talk you into borrowing more than you can handle.
4. Work as a team – your workforce spend half their waking hours working for you, so you’ve got to make sure ‘you’re all drinking from the same teapot’. Happy workers make happy customers.
5. Don’t be Complacent – no matter who you are or how successful you’ve become don’t ever think there’s nothing you can improve – in business if you stay still you die.
6. Don’t be afraid to try new things – if you do the same thing as everyone else you’ll probably get the same result. ‘They say there are many ways to skin a cat, it’s just that some ways are more profitable’.
7. Communication – no matter how successful you’ve become if you don’t know what’s going on within your business, you’ll lose it and you won’t even know until it’s too late.
8. Keep things Simple – don’t complicate things, if you confuse your customers they won’t believe they are getting value for money. Also the more complicated things get the greater the chance that something can go wrong.
9. Don’t be afraid to ask for a discount – part of being successful in business is about being able to negotiate a better deal – never pay the asking price if you can help it.
10. Don’t let others send you broke – good credit control is vital; I’ve seen many a viable business go to the wall because its creditors racked up huge bills and then couldn’t pay.
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