California plumber Farrell Brown’s success is an unusual mix of new and old.

Brown has spent the past several years reinventing his business, step by step. A native of South Africa, he spent 20 years as a service plumber in the Greater Los Angeles area. In 2000, he decided to take a new direction, focusing on sewer inspection.

The success of his company, Sewer Line Video Inspection Co. Inc., has been “unbelievable,” he says. He has branched out even further, adding pipe bursting and, later, pipe lining to his portfolio, working from the Woodland Hills area northwest of L.A. His target customers? Other plumbers, who hire him as a subcontractor.

“I have a group of plumbing companies that I’ve had since the day I started,” Brown says. “They keep me busy every single day.”

Brown has employed some up-to-date business strategies, zeroing in on a niche market and embracing new technology. Yet there’s something refreshingly old-fashioned about the keys to his success: Know your stuff. Respect your customer. Build relationships. Show up on time.

A great cheerleader doesn’t hurt, either, and Brown’s wife and business partner, Lynda, is just that: “He’s a very, very good plumber and very confident in his knowledge,” she says. “Other plumbers liked that. The guys clicked with him, and then they felt comfortable always calling him.”

Long way from home

Brown learned the plumbing trade back in South Africa, where he spent seven years at it until he immigrated to the United States in 1979. “I liked Los Angeles because the weather was great,” he says. “It’s got everything you want – the beach, skiing in the mountains. And the business opportunity here was unbelievable. But most important was the weather.”

He first worked for a plumbing contractor who hired him and agreed to sponsor him for a green card. That only lasted a few months, though: His sponsor fell ill and decided to close the business. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Brown recalls. “‘Go out and get work on your own, and I’ll still sponsor you to become a legal resident of the United States.’”

Brown got a state contractor’s license and started his own business. With a dash of humor, he dubbed the business Farrell Faucet Plumbing, punning on his own first name and that of actress Farrah Fawcett of TV’s “Charlie’s Angels.”

In those days he focused on ordinary plumbing, primarily repairs – garbage disposals, water heaters and the like – as well as sewer repairs, drain cleaning, remodeling and some new construction. The business got big enough for him to own two or three service trucks.

“I did OK, but it was always a struggle,” he says. “I was a very good technician, but not a good businessman.” As he got a little older, the work started wearing on his body.

Making a break

He needed a change, but couldn’t imagine which direction to go. “The only thing I knew was plumbing,” Brown says. “I didn’t even know how to turn a computer on.”

He credits Lynda with the breakthrough. From time to time as a plumber, he had jobs where he needed to hire a locating company to find a sewer line, or a video inspection contractor to examine one. Lynda suggested he learn that aspect of the business, and she figured out how to market it.

“My wife is really the business brain,” Brown says. “She said, ‘We’re going to go to other plumbers and subcontract to them.’” He was worried about the size of the investment in camera gear, but Lynda spurred him on.

“Every step we took, she said, ‘Farrell, we have to take risks. If we don’t take the risk, we’re going to be sitting at the same level as we are. You’re going to be doing water heaters and breaking your back. You need to invest the money and take a chance.’”

He bought a pair of RIDGID cameras and learned to use them. He changed the company name to Sewer Line Video Inspection Co., sold the Farrell Faucet truck, and bought a new Ford E350 cargo van.

A focus on fellow professionals instead of the general public made selling a lot more straightforward. “I was dealing with plumbers who talk the same language,” he says. “It’s less stressful for me to explain something to a plumber than it is to a homeowner.”

He also saved on advertising costs. “We made a mass mailing to about 5,000 plumbing companies in the Los Angeles area,” Brown says. “Lo and behold, the next day I had an immediate response. I had people calling, and I gave them a good deal.”

Selling experience

Brown admits he underbid his more established competitors so he could gain a toehold in the market. He also offered something many firms already in the business lacked: experience.

“The guys I used to call out to assist me in locating sewer lines and things like that weren’t really even plumbers,” Brown says. “I could offer my customers a much better service with my knowledge, and give them a better deal.”

It paid better, too. He found it easy to charge a set rate for a camera job, which he almost always finished in less than 90 minutes. “I got in, I got out, I picked up the check and left,” he says. “It was very easy for me. I did four or five jobs a day just on my own.”

Growth was rapid, and he hired a second worker. Business kept growing, along with his reputation, which spread almost entirely by word of mouth. “All the advertising was done by the plumbers,” Brown says. “I saved an enormous amount of money.”

Profit margins grew, but so did competition. “I started noticing after two or three years that plumbers were starting to buy their own cameras,” Brown says. Worried that he would lose business, he decided to diversify in 2003, adding pipe bursting with Pipe Genie equipment from Trenchless America Ltd.

Beautiful systems

Brown was an enthusiastic convert to the trenchless technology, once again working as a subcontractor to plumbers. “It was a beautiful system because you didn’t have to tear up lawns,” he says.

Three years later, Brown diversified again, adding cured-in-place pipe lining, using the MaxLiner USA process. “Instead of digging up the streets and punching holes, all we have is one hole,” he says. “We shoot the liner into the line, going all the way up to the city sewer, allow it to cure, pull the balloon out and then bring the inspector back for a final look at it. We can line a lateral sometimes for 50 percent or even 70 percent less than it would take to dig up the street. It’s become really profitable.”

The combination of services became like a three-legged stool for his business. “One thing went hand-in-hand with the other,” Brown says.

A lot of the inspection and locating work is routine, such as when someone is remodeling a home and simply needs to know where all the sewer lines are. But about 25 percent of his camera jobs lead to bigger work when the inspections uncover major problems that call for repairs.

In addition, other plumbers regularly call in Brown to install CIPP lining in laterals connecting to municipal sewers.

Because he’s established such a strong rapport with his plumbing customers, he’s found it easy to sell them on his additional pipe-bursting and CIPP lining services. The advantages of those systems are readily apparent to other plumbers (not to mention their customers), and he has earned their trust over the years.

Farrell Brown’s personal style helps keep them. “I have a way about me,” he says. “I think it must be my accent.” By focusing on plumbers as his customers (in addition to getting some calls from the public), he has built good communications that keep business coming back time after time. “They would talk to me like I was a psychiatrist,” he says. “I could get on the same level with them.”

His advice to those who would hope to copy his success? “Be very punctual. Be very personable. And you’ve got to know what you’re doing. That’s the big key. That’s a thing you learn as you go along. Experience is worth a bundle.”

And one other thing: Don’t poach from plumbers who provide work. “I would never approach their customers,” he says. “You cannot do business with somebody and then go behind their back.”

Today, he and his wife have four employees. The original E350 has given way to two 2008 vans of the same make and model. The firm uses five RIDGID SeeSnake or Mini SeeSnake cameras, along with three DVD color monitors and four NaviTrack locators, also from RIDGID.

For pipe bursting, Brown uses the Pipe Genie 40-ton pulling machine equipped with 400 feet of 5/8 grade 100 alloy chain and a 6-inch shark fin with pulsating water. For cleaning lines, he uses two cable machines: a Gorlitz 68 HD and a Spartan 1065, along with a RIDGID 1000 rodding machine. He also uses a Gorlitz 35 hydrojetter.

Timing is everything

Lynda Brown points out that the switch to Sewer Line Video Inspection was a case of being at the right place at the right time. Farrell Brown promptly got a California C-42 bonded sewer contractor’s license to go with his C-36 standard plumber’s license, she notes. And the marketplace for inspection and cleaning services was still uncrowded a decade ago.

It’s different now, as growing numbers of franchise operations vie for the same business. “We couldn’t start it today because of the competition,” says Lynda Brown. “The customers we’ve established are the ones that we got in 2000 and 2001.”

Today’s economy hasn’t dampened his success. Brown is modest about it when talking to plumbers because he doesn’t want to encourage them to compete against him. “I’ll say, ‘I’m OK, I’m doing all right,’ but in the meantime, I’m doing unbelieveable,” he says. “Customers call me every single day, day after day, and I don’t have to advertise anything.” And when it comes to second lives, you can’t do much better than that.