The most expensive plumber in the world

Great story!

I find it so odd that some of the people around here only want to make money, gimmee money gimmmeeeee money...."what topic, what niche"....they have no interest or pride in what they intend to do.

On this offline board I am amazed at people who somehow (???) get a contract to market a local biz, or even build a website and they have NO idea what to do. "Maybe I can get someone on fiverr"??

I wonder how long they will keep these "contracts"??

I have a lot more respect for people who have passion or a talent and want to figure a way to make money with it rather than people who are just jumping around with the get rich quick schemes.

I had an argument...well discussion...with one of my old timer staff back in the day about a similar and regular occurrence.

I was all for Just in time manufacturing and keeping lead times short but they had the opinion that because we were making a customised product there should be certain amount of time between when the customer ordered and when we delivered.

My take on it was (we'd just installed the fastest machine in our industry in OZ) that because we could make it faster we could charge more and deliver quickly but their point of view was that because the competition was taking that much longer that it would be "unethical" to charge more and deliver quickly.

They wanted us to hold back work so we appeared to be making the item by hand and therefore charge more.

Anyway, I shortened the delivery times and charged a premium for FAST.

Needless to say business expanded exponentially.

Now more than ever Money loves Speed.

Now not to say that it doesn't love other things also like "Slow cooked ribs" but that is where you need to analyse your market and come up with solutions that basically beat your competitors.

Beat your competitors = Charge More...or maybe not...but definitely make more profit.

The skill is in recognising when the opportunity to improve your position is right in front of you and you take action on converting that opportunity into a result.

You need to separate the morals or ethics of being successful with the actual event and just deliver the result for the return you can deliver.

The price the client may put on the job is not generally one to be guided by but the VALUE the client puts on the result is the key factor.

There are a couple of recent instances I can share.

My massage therapist recently did have a plumbing problem and he had a plumber as a neighbour. They regularly had beers together and it was always "If you need anything MATE...just hit me up"

Anyway it was a Sunday and the massage guy's plumbing was blocked so he asked the neighbour (plumber) to have a look.

He pulled out the long drain unblocking apparatus and fired it up and fixed the problem in less than 10 minutes.

My massage guy was shocked when the neighbour gave him a bill for $600.

When question on the amount he was told" Well it's a Sunday" "Weekend rates MATE"

Needless to say the bill was paid but the Massage Guy told all his clients about the "Scum *$#ing so called mate next door that ripped him off when he didn't even have to be called out"

Second instance was a week or so ago, I was in the market for new washing machine and refrigerator.

Was going to get the two models I had previously selected Online from my reputable dept store and use their interest free period to spread the burden of the expense.

They already had the items I wanted at RRP less 40% for members card holders so I was just gonna buy without any haggling or questions.

Salesperson when I specifically asked for the two products I was determined to buy and I told them "I want to use your Interest free offer" promptly told me that they would "Go Online" and check current pricing so they could give me the "Best Deal"

After 10 minutes they came back to me with a better offer than the "Less 40%" ...plus they waived the delivery charge...plus they upgraded the model to another that was German made not "Elsewhere".

I was in a hurry so I just said "yeah lets do it"

...which I would have done at full price because I'm busy and I know what I want.

I gave them my contact details and card details thinking that was the deal.

Later...about an hour later... they phoned to tell me they took another $150 off because of some combined delivery option the sales rep uncovered.

I reckon that salesperson gave away at least $800 of company profits.

How many of those people do you have working for you?

Thanks Ewen...Old Story...New Story...doesn't matter.

Opportunity matters.

Love that story!


Dan Kennedy mentions it a lot in his books.