This industry is filled with hardworking, talented individuals who are proud of our industry, and we enjoy sharing their work with you.
Every month contractors share their best advice, industry insights, and the challenges they face on the job. We hope you enjoy reading these stories, to learn from others in the industry and glean tips and tricks to implement in your own business.
Here's a look back at some of what contractors shared in the pages of Cleaner magazine in 2025:
“We also have proprietary customer-relations management software that provides a dashboard for every position, from dispatching to our warehouse to the technicians, who have iPads. The dashboards tell us our leading and lagging metric and tell us when we beat or miss our goals. The bottom line is that numbers tell you the truth. Sometimes contractors feel like they’re busy and making money, but they’re not. Bringing in actual numbers and data shows us what’s real and helps us fine-tune our decision-making process so we make good decisions for the health of the company.”
- Nate Agentis, Agentis Plumbing, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
“I hear it’s so hard to find people to work, but if you don’t put any effort into it, what do you expect? A lot of owners spend one or two hours a week looking for people. My managers know that it is part of their job to spend three or four hours a week on recruiting — consistently recruiting. If you put energy into it, you get results.”
- Deven Tells, All Aloha Plumbing, Hawaii
“What I always tell people is that the lining process is like Grandma’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. Baking is a science and if you don’t add the right stuff and the right amount of stuff and follow the process, the cookies aren’t going to be like Grandma’s. In lining, if you don’t follow the process and, instead, veer off, you can destroy the project.”
- Chris Reynolds, Total Trenchless Supply and Hall’s Plumbing, Woodland, California
“(Moving to a vendor managed inventory system) means we don’t have to carry the financial burden of purchasing and storing large amounts of equipment and materials ourselves. It’s allowed us to focus on growth without being held back by inventory concerns. When you do it yourself, you’ve got the carry cost of the material, paying someone for the labor of managing it, the training. There’s a lot of overhead expense that gets cut out from having a business do all that for you.”
- Mario Morariu, Cornel’s Plumbing, Heating & Air, Portland, Oregon
“I like to stay ahead of the curve. We’re a small company, but my philosophy is that if I can stay ahead of the rest of the competition here, with all the lining equipment and machines, … small companies and big companies will use me as a subcontractor.”
- Dwayne Mitchell, Premier Drain and Sewer Cleaning, Memphis, Tennessee
“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.”
- Andrew Dixon, Zoom Drain Raleigh Southeast, North Carolina
“I never tell a customer I won’t come out. I want to introduce myself. It may not be a lining job today, but it might be next week.”
- John Billone, NuFlow Services of Upstate New York, Rochester, New York
“I don’t need to be a hero and take every service call that comes along. I like to be home by 5:30 every night because I still have younger kids and want to maintain a good work-life balance.”
- Rich Stob, G.R. Stob Mechanical Inc. (dba Stob Plumbing), Tinley Park, Illinois
“Just getting someone to respond these days is a big thing for customers. Getting into their phone is key. Once I’m in their contacts list, it’s almost a 100% guarantee they’re going to call me if they ever need something. Half the time they don’t even know my name — they just put me in as ‘plumber.’”
- Tim Rausch, Tim Rausch Plumbing & Remodeling, Appleton, Wisconsin
“I think it starts with answering the phone. When you answer the phone, that’s your first interaction with the customer. A lot of people use call centers and AI answering services because it’s more cost-effective. But I believe that when somebody calls your number, your actual people need to answer the phone. When they do so, they can engage with the customer: ‘Hey, Mr. Smith, how are you doing?’ That’s what builds relationships.”
- John Bottala, Western Rooter & Plumbing, Arcadia, California
