As the year comes to a close, we take a look at some of the most popular stories on www.cleaner.com. If you missed any of these, now is your chance to catch up.  

10. Adapting Drain Cleaning Operations to the Realities of a World Under Lockdown
The COVID-19 pandemic defined 2020. In the spring and the early days of widespread lockdowns, essential workers like drain cleaners never stopped working but had to modify how they went about conducting business. This article used Florida’s Next Plumbing as an example of how companies were handling all the new changes. 

9. The Art of Inventory Control
With anywhere from $5,000 to upward of $10,000 in materials, work trucks can all too easily turn into black holes where thousands of dollars disappear. Having a solid system in place to keep track of parts and tools can have a tremendous effect on the bottom line as this article explained.

8. Why Drain Cleaners Must Adapt to the Digital Landscape
It can’t be emphasized enough — growing and promoting a business is vastly different today than it was even only 10 years ago. Efforts like online marketing are no longer a choice to be made for your business. They are imperative if you want to grow. Doug Stine, owner of Stine-Nichols Plumbing in Missouri, offered some tips in this article.

7. 5 Steps to Battle Burnout For Your Busy Crew
The success of a company is heavily reliant on the employees so burnout should always be a concern. Even more so in a stressful year like 2020. But creating and maintaining a high-functioning team is always going to take work. This article looked at steps you can take to provide employees some relief and keep everyone pulling in the same direction, no matter how busy and hectic things get.

6. Make Flat-Rate Pricing Work for Your Business
Switching from a time-and-materials rate structure to flat-rate pricing is a big jump for a business. It can help profit margins, but it has to be executed in the right way to ensure that it does. Anja Smith, managing partner of All Clear Plumbing in South Carolina and a regular contributor to the magazine, discusses it more in this article, which is also tied to a virtual training session on the topic that Smith did for Cleaner.

5. Cellphone App Makes Tracking Employee Work Hours Easier
In a perfect world, technicians would punctually fill out their time sheets every day, keep detailed and accurate track of the time spent on each job, and have impeccable penmanship so that their paperwork was a snap to read. But that wasn’t reality for Iowa’s Royal Plumbing a few years ago. This article looked at how a cellphone app solved those issues for the company.

4. Why Good Employees Leave and What to do About it
The departure of a good employee is always felt strongly, and that impact is only exacerbated when labor markets are tight. Employee retention is important, but so is being able to stay strong when a valuable employee does leave. This article offered some tips.

3. Drain Cleaner Builds Business Around Durable, Portable Cable Machines
Never underestimate the power of a reliable, time-tested tool. In this article, a California contractor discussed the line of drain cleaning machines that were a key part of growing his company to 52 people strong over the course of 15 years.

2. Times of Adversity Can Breed Opportunity for Drain Cleaners
Even in an essential industry, some contractors have seen a decrease in certain types of jobs during the pandemic. This article served as a necessary pep talk and reminder that when some doors close, others open.

1. Pull-in-Place CIPP Method Proves To Be Good Fit for Contractor
What’s your CIPP go-to method? Inversion or pull-in-place? While inversion has plenty of pros, such as the ability to line long runs of pipe, in this article one contractor explained why he also likes having a pull-in-place option and actually prefers using that method more of the time.