In a fast-paced eight years, Wayne and Dot Barme watched their startup drain-cleaning business, Wayne’s Drains, grow from a first-year gross of $150,000 to $3 million today. They’re still shaking their heads and working hard to keep the momentum going.
They started the business in their basement and they now have 27 employees and an impressive list of the latest in equipment. A year ago, they bought a 30,000-square-foot facility that includes 10 bays on a 1-acre site in Burlington, Mass., nine miles from Boston.
Their services run the gamut, and their clients are about evenly split between residential and commercial, some 80 percent of that in sewer and drain cleaning (the balance is septic system maintenance). The Barmes credit their success to solving problems and satisfying customers. They have built the business on top-notch equipment with a special emphasis on maintenance, and on extensive training of their service technicians.
Health initiative
Wayne Barme had worked in drain cleaning and video inspection for 13 years for another company. After he had a heart attack at age 35, he and Dot began to question whether they would be better off working for themselves. At first, their goal was to make enough money to pay for their equipment and pay the bills. Then came a five-year plan, which they far exceeded.
“We started with a trailer jetter from US Jetting, and the cheapest camera I could get at the time, with a battery-operated monitor,” Barme says. “I had a brand new 2000 Ford E-250 van, and I started doing residential and commercial work. To help pay the bills, I sometimes drove a vacuum truck for another company.”
In the beginning Dot continued to dispatch for her former employer. By the time October 2000 came around, and the phone directory advertising was out, things took off. Wayne’s reputation in the industry generated many telephone calls and significant business.
“I had a non-compete agreement, and I stuck to it,” Wayne Barme says. “Business grew fast, and it was overwhelming. I had to buy more and better equipment, update the equipment, and hire people.” Within a year and a half he had grown the fleet to three trucks and had moved to a commercial site.
Learning curve
Barme and his wife had never run a company. “I had always been out on the road,” he says. “I had to take a step back. Running a company is like anything else. It was a learning experience.” He had the technical expertise. He had supervised others, and Dot had been a dispatcher. But they were suddenly faced with hiring, billing, scheduling, collecting money, buying equipment, and myriad other tasks.
Initially, they bought Quick-Books accounting software. It served them for about three years, after which they bought the Wintac program for service businesses. It still fills their needs, and they have expanded it to include a preventive maintenance module. “The program wasn’t cheap, but they have been a good company to work with,” Wayne Barme says. “It was worth the cost.”
Four Wayne’s Drains employees work with Dot in the office, which has eight telephone lines. They all share the duties of picking up ringing phones, dispatching, scheduling, and handling payables and receivables. Dot has such high regard for the employees that she calls them co-workers instead of employees.
Communication with the crew is handled with Nextel Direct Connect via radio and cell phone, and a program by FleetMatics that includes GPS in each vehicle. “I have 37 vehicles altogether, and this allows me to keep track of them at the office and even at home on my laptop,” Wayne Barme says. Even at night, if a driver is having a problem finding a location or street, we can find where they are and help direct them to the job.
“We can keep track so we don’t have people crisscrossing an area during the day. If a driver is speeding, it will alert us through an e-mail that the vehicle is going over the speed limit we have set, which is 75 miles per hour.”
A big help in promoting the business is the company Web site (www.waynesdrains.com), launched in 2005. “We upgrade it about every six months, noting the technicians and any new equipment we’ve added,” Barme says. “We like to keep it fresh. These days people use the Internet to find you. Nobody uses the phone book. It’s either word of mouth or the Internet.” Barme has switched ads out of the big Yellow Pages directories in favor of local directories, local newspapers, and local inserts.
Training the team
Barme learned early on that the only way to get good quality help was to employ people who had never done the work before and train them to his own methods. “Finding good people has been a challenge right up to today,” he says. Employees tend to stay with him, but those he hired who had worked in the business with other companies did not always pan out. Some former co-workers joined his team and remain loyal employees.
What Barme wants from his technicians is the ability to solve problems, especially tough problems. Training for new recruits involves driving with several technicians and having hands-on experience with all aspects of the work. “This includes from the time we walk up to the door, to the time we leave the customer,” Barme says. “The customer is number one. We pride ourselves on doing the job, answering all the customer’s questions, and just generally being cooperative and friendly.”
Trainees learn all aspects of the work: snaking a drain, video inspection, waterjetting.
The ride-along phase lasts two to three months, depending on the person’s ability. Prospective technicians work on a six-month probation period. During training, the experienced technician monitors the trainee and reports on the person’s performance. Barme evaluates the reports daily.
While all technicians gain experience with all the equipment, some move on to specialize in tasks such as waterjetting. “One of the things I stress is that everybody who works here can run every piece of equipment that we have,” Barme says.
Get the best
Barme had experience with many vendors during his years in the industry, and they helped from the beginning with Wayne’s Drains. “You need good equipment, otherwise the jobs become more difficult,” Barme says. “When you spend the money to buy better equipment, it lasts longer. You get what you pay for. With cheap equipment, you have less life and more breakdowns. The good equipment I started out with nine years ago is still being used on some of our trucks. I don’t buy anything that does not make me money.”
Barme makes good use of his facility for repairs and for building much of his own equipment. The company’s service trucks include seven Ford E-350 vans, and six Chevrolet 3500 vans. Barme prefers heavy-duty rather than light-duty trucks. Besides the service vehicles, the equipment inventory includes:
• A 2009 Vactor 2112HD with 12-cubic-yard high dump body, positive-displacement blower built by C.N. Wood Co., and pump delivering 65 gpm/2,500 psi.
• A 600-gallon-capacity truck-mounted jetter with US Jetting pump delivering 18 gpm/4000 psi (built in-house).
• A 1,200-gallon-capacity truck-mounted jetter with US Jetting pump delivering 18 gpm/4,000 psi (built in-house).
• A low-profile jet truck used for height-restricted areas such as old parking garages, with a 300-gallon capacity and a Harben RPD pump delivering 14 gpm/4,000 psi.
• Two US Jetting trailer units with 300-gallon tanks (18 gpm/4,000 psi).
• Four vauum trucks built by Presvac.
• Twelve RIDGID push cameras, including four handheld SeeSnake micro inspection units.
• NaviTrack and Scout locators from RIDGID.
Maintenance is of major importance to Barme. “Having a good maintenance program is my forte,” he says. “When it comes to equipment, I stick with what works. My equipment is top-notch. I get a lot of compliments on that.” Quality equipment is part of the recipe for keeping the company on its solid growth track.
