If Andrew Dixon could give anyone advice, it would be to have self-confidence and trust your gut. And he has the results to prove it.

The 24-year-old Zoom Drain franchisee has had a strong start to his career in the drain cleaning industry, with eight employees, five service trucks and one pipe lining and excavation truck working in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since opening the business in December 2023, Dixon’s hard work and eagerness to learn have earned him early success, being recognized as one of the nation’s top 10% of Zoom Drain franchises and an award winner earlier this year at the WWETT Show’s inaugural Young Professionals Awards.

However, jetting pipes wasn’t always in the cards.

Big sky origins

Dixon was skeptical about attending college despite academic success and encouragement from family.

“I was scared to go to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Dixon says. “It was hard to know if college would pay off. It disappointed my family a bit, to be honest.”

After graduating from high school in 2020, Dixon instead followed his instinct and found a plumbing job in his hometown of Flathead Valley, Montana.

“I started plumbing with one of my dad’s best buddies,” he says. “From there, I went to work with another local company for a couple of years before going into business with one of my co-workers.”

That partnership only lasted two months, but it encouraged Dixon to stay the course and run his own business. He began scouring the internet for potential businesses to purchase.

“Plumbing is cool, but I thought I might try something else,” Dixon recalls. “I was looking into buying a fully operational HVAC business or a mechanic shop when a salesman contacted me about a Zoom Drain franchise.”

Initially, Dixon had no interest in a franchise arrangement and declined the recruiter’s offer. But after a few days of reflection, he decided to learn more.

“I attended a Zoom Drain discovery meeting and walked away thinking, ‘This seems pretty legit.’ So I went through the franchise process in early January 2023 and was fully approved in May of that year.”

Cross-country move

To add to the excitement, Dixon had a newborn baby to support. Dixon’s young family was in the middle of considering relocation when the franchise opportunity came about.

“My high school sweetheart and I had a daughter soon after graduation,” he says. “In the midst of my plumbing partnership falling apart, her water broke.” 

The ongoing drama didn’t stop Dixon from pursuing self-employment. He and his girlfriend followed her parents to Raleigh, North Carolina, in search of warmer weather new experiences, and a larger market for his drain cleaning franchise.

“There aren’t enough people to develop a plumbing business back in Flathead Valley, and I figured I’d need all the help I could get as I started this franchise,” Dixon says.

The family arrived in Raleigh in July 2023 and officially opened Zoom Drain Southwest Raleigh that December.

Continuing education

After Dixon’s Zoom Drain franchise opened its doors, he hired his girlfriend’s mother and a technician. Dixon says he did just about everything in those early days, going out into the field six days a week while also handling marketing and recruiting. All that on top of being a new father.

“It was just three of us when we started,” Dixon says. “In January 2024, I hired Dylan Paynter. Then, in March, I hired Nathan Begley. At that point, we were booming. So, shortly after, I hired another office assistant.”

Business picked up quickly and steadily for the company, but roadblocks appeared just as fast. One of Dixon’s Google marketers quit, taking their best ad with them.

“That was bringing in a lot of leads. We lost $60,000 a month in revenue,” he says. “Then Zoom Drain Corporate lost a commercial maintenance client, which impacted us. That all happened over the course of six weeks.”

In addition to constantly filling the work pipeline, the franchise has been a crash course in business operations for Dixon.

“Marketing and leadership are the two things that are ongoing for me every day,” he says. “Recruiting never stops. You cannot stop trying to hire people if you’re going to keep growing. Some people think marketing is a ‘set and forget’ thing. It’s not. You have to try a new marketing tactic every day, there’s so much to it.”

Many owner/operators struggle with the transition from being out in the field doing the work that got them into the business to taking on more of a leadership position. Fortunately, Dixon is learning this lesson early on in his career.

“For a long time, I was working in the field. Then one of my employees sat me down and said, ‘You’re hurting things the more you work in the field.’ The way they explained it, if I were the CEO of Ford, and we had people on the assembly line call out sick, the CEO getting on the line is only getting in the way of the solution.”

Franchising pros

Many plumbing and drain cleaning owner/operators will debate the pros and cons of franchising versus going out on your own. For Dixon, he has no regrets.

“It’s not like a McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A where you open the doors and people just come rolling in. But they give you the ammunition you need to be successful at this,” Dixon explains. “Between the manuals and the training, I’ve found a lot of value from being in a franchise. You get guidance, tools and the foundation. From there, it’s yours to build. I’ve been reading the acquisition manual lately because I’m in the middle of acquiring another Zoom Drain location. There’s so much help that I would have never figured out on my own.”

Of course, the support and industry knowledge included with franchising come at a cost that some contractors aren’t willing to bear.

“Some folks don’t like the concept of fees and dues, but I try to make use of the resources that come with it,” Dixon says. “I’m on the Franchise Advisory Council now, so I get to help make business decisions and give my input. It makes you feel like you’re getting a little more out of the relationship.”

Impact driven

Among Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast’s service offerings, jetting jobs are Dixon’s favorite projects to take on.

“That’s the best value we can provide,” he says. “They’re higher ticket items; bigger jobs with good margins. We’ve jetted a few commercial kitchens where the lines have a lot of grease. Those bigger projects put several guys on site, and you’re providing a ton of value.”

Bigger jetting jobs also require more relationship building than smaller, “one and done” jobs, which Dixon prefers. 

“We build with our larger, more frequent customers,” he says. “It’s easy to forget about us after the smaller projects.”

Go-to tools

Drain cleaners are defined by their tools and how they use them. Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast’s jetters are exclusively Spartan brand equipment, and Dixon is proud of it.

“Our primary piece of equipment is the Spartan Urban Soldier Skid Mount Jetter,” he says. “My preferred cameras are the Spartan Traveler Lite. The Spartan equipment is pretty sweet. I like that they are repairable. I cut a pushrod with a [Milwaukee Tool] SAWZALL the other day by accident when we were replacing a line. It’s convenient and cost-effective to be able to replace parts ourselves.”

Dixon’s outfit also enjoys the modern aspects that come with Spartan Traveler Lite inspection systems, such as an app that enables crews to record sewer footage and text the video to the customer on the spot.

“That’s a big benefit to us management-wise because, in the past, we had so many SanDisk cards floating around, it was hard to keep up with whose footage was whose,” Dixon says.

In addition to the Urban Soldier units, Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast has a van equipped with an Urban Warrior Skid Mount Jetter.

“The Urban Warrior is around double the size of the Soldiers. I’m glad we have it because somebody poured mortar down multiple drains at a local WaWa gas station the other day, right before they opened. They called us, and luckily, Dylan Paynter was already there.”

Another crucial tool of the trade that Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast uses is a RIDGID locator before performing any digging. To manage customer experience, Zoom Drain’s franchisees rely on ServiceTitan, a CRM for home service contractors.

What’s next

All of Dixon’s hard work and flexibility through his personal and professional challenges culminated in him earning a Young Professional Award in February at the WWETT Show in Indianapolis, though he unfortunately wasn’t able to accept it in person.

“It sounds horrible, but I couldn’t make it to the ceremony,” he says. “We had a call taker quit a couple of days before the show, and I didn’t want to leave us in a tough spot.”

Dixon says he's also interested in expansion and potentially purchasing another Zoom Drain franchise.

Back in Raleigh, Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast is also eyeing the local septic services market.

“Half of all new homes are getting put in with septic tanks,” Dixon says. “I think there’s a huge market for septic hauling as a result. Now I’m looking into a septic truck and marketing the service. We already get a handful of calls about it.”

While Dixon is still fairly new to the drain cleaning business, his strong start shows massive potential for his career. With so many years ahead, the future is bright.