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How This Plumbing Company Hit 30 Million With a Sales Team
Description
In episode 70 of Scaling Up with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna dive into the counterintuitive story of a residential plumbing company in Phoenix that scaled from $4 million to $30 million in revenue within five years — by building a dedicated sales team. Most tradespeople avoid sales because they see it as pushy or unprofessional. But this company, founded by a former HVAC technician named Dave Merrill, flipped the script. They hired salespeople who were trained to consult, not push, and they compensated them with a base salary plus a small commission on gross profit — not percentage of ticket. The result? They doubled close rates and average job value while keeping customer satisfaction scores above 94 percent. The hosts break down the specific compensation model, the hiring profile they looked for (hint: no prior sales experience required), and how they integrated sales into a field-service operation without creating internal conflict. They also discuss the common pitfalls other plumbers make when trying to replicate the model — like paying commission on revenue instead of gross profit. If you run a service business and you've been hesitant to add sales headcount, this episode gives you a concrete blueprint to follow.