At Your Service Magazine | December 2015 | 1-800-618-9972

At Your Service“At Your Service” is a magazine from Nexstar Network® to its members.

December 2015 – issue 47

EMBRACING INNOVATION & A CULTURE OF FUN!

“I call this Disneyland and I’m Mickey Mouse. You can’t have Disneyland without Mickey.”

– Eric Dutton

At Your Service Magazine | December 2015 | 1-800-618-9972

Taking Change Seriously Can Seriously Change a Business

“They went from no focus, with no direct leadership with their frontline technicians, to completely dialed in to every detail of their business. Once I get their buy in on something, it’s done. They’re off and running.”

– Jodi Peter, Nexstar Business Coach

By Robin Turnblom, Nexstar Network Com-munications Specialist/Staff Writer

Dutton Plumbing is Disneyland.

Or at least that’s how owner Eric Dutton puts it.

Any resemblance between Disneyland and Dut-ton Plumbing is not just the California locale—it’s the way the company embraces innovation and a culture of fun.

Dutton Plumbing is located in the predictably sunny Simi Valley, California, but Simi Valley’s mountainous views and distance from Los Angeles hubbub give it a different, relaxed feel, even though it’s not near a beach. In Simi Valley, you can take a deep breath. Plumbers can take a break to play ping pong in the lazy haze of afternoon sun.

Even with this pleasant atmosphere, Dutton Plumbing is anything but sluggish. The $7-mil-lion company is constantly changing and striving forward to be the best it can be—almost at too fast a rate at times, according to Dutton and General Manager Eric Falconer. Given a place of honor on the wall next to the Dutton Plumbing Vision and Mission statements is this quote from Walt Disney:

“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

Dutton, at the suggestion of Nexstar Busi-ness Coach Jodi Peter, has started to integrate systems from the book, “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business,” by Gino Wickman. The book introduced him to the idea of visionaries and integrators: where a visionary dreams up ideas, the integrator puts these dreams into action. In his business, Dutton is the visionary and Falconer is the integrator. They complement each other’s working style and lead their team to provide the best customer experience possible.

It starts with family

Dutton’s business began in the family, when his parents divorced and his mother remar-ried a plumber. Dutton grew up in Weedsport, NY, where his family has deep roots. When his mother remarried, she moved out to California, and after visiting over a few summers Dutton moved there at 12 years old.

“I was a big kid—ambitious,” Dutton said. “So I was drafted into digging holes for my step-dad. I was his helper and laborer on weekends and holidays; I learned plumbing that way.”

Dutton got his plumbing license in his late 20s when he found out he was going to be a father. In 1987, he started contracting in construction by himself out of a pickup truck. He continued to build small tracks of custom homes until he had two, three, four and more people working with him. He said had he ran the gamut of the business—“remodeling and everything”—when he met Frank Blau Jr., founder of Nexstar Network, in the late 1990s. He went to a few of Blau’s seminars and was inspired.

“I’m the type of person who, if you show me something and it makes sense, I buy in; I drink the Kool-Aid,” he said.

After being introduced to this other way of doing business, Dutton discovered he was more driven than at any other point in his career, got his hands on every tool he could, and in 1998 moved his company into service only.

Dutton has filled many roles in his business: technician, bookkeeper, CSR, dispatcher, payroll clerk; he said one of the biggest challenges in his business is holding himself back from getting involved.

“For a long time I was the ‘guy,’” he said. “It’s hard not to meddle; it’s hard not to microman-age. One of the downsides of this industry is many people started in the business and do everything. You think you know everything and that no one can do it as good as you.”

Dutton Plumbing is finally to the point where Dutton has good people who can manage the

business. He said his current goal is to operate completely hands off and develop his leadership skills. He remains passionate about the industry, but has gone with the flow as far as his changing role in the business.

“I call this Disneyland and I’m Mickey Mouse,” he said. “You can’t have Disneyland without Mickey.”

It takes change to find where you fit best in your business

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is attributed with saying, “The only constant is change.” This theory is put into practice at Dutton Plumb-ing, where there are frequent changes in roles, management, systems, and more. Dutton and Fal-coner embrace change wholeheartedly once they commit, sometimes to the company’s detriment, they both said. In the end, though, the changes have been for the better.

“I like change, I like anything different,” Dutton said. “I like the stimulation of something new. If I commit to something, I’m going to do it. I’m the motor driving the bus—there has to be someone navigating, but I’m pushing it, saying, ‘let’s go.’”

Around 2008, when Dutton Plumbing began doing sewer replacement, the company went from a $2-million to a $5-million company in about a year and a half. The size of the service area doubled.

“There was money everywhere and lots of organization that had to be done,” Falconer said.

And at a revenue of $5 million, the company was stagnant. Dutton said he had great plumbers working for him who were commissioned and essentially self-managed, who were inspired to be good and who had a lot of pride. But Dutton felt he wasn’t really spending enough time in his own business and at the same time, wouldn’t be able to leave it in a good state if he were to retire. He was frustrated.

“In 2012 I started to stick my head up out of the dirt,” Dutton said. “I was thinking what do I want to do? What’s my end game here? If I

At Your Service Magazine | December 2015 | 1-800-618-9972

Nexstar Cover Feature

“As good and as smart as they are, they can always learn. Their ego doesn’t get in the way. They’re not overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to change things or adopt new ideas.”

– Ed Cerier, Nexstar Marketing Strategist

decide I want to retire, what am I going to do? What is it really worth: a $5-million company without a good infrastructure, without me here?”

There was a sense between Dutton and Falconer that the business was doing pretty well, but they wanted systemization. The big-ticket question was where to get such a system.

“Again, I’m a show-me-something person,” Dutton said. “If I see that it works—that it is possible—I will do it. It’s like Dumbo’s magic feather: I will fly, just give it to me!”

Dutton plumber Sean Goldate had come up in the trade at Weltman Home Services in New Jersey. After relocating to California and finding work at Dutton, he planted the seed of the idea to join Nexstar. Dutton joined in 2013.

“If you want to be the best of the best, you join Nexstar,” Falconer said. “It was a no-brainer once we looked into it; the upfront cost and monthly charge can be pretty significant, but what you get out of it is so worth it. We use and abuse the coaches.”

Falconer was not exaggerating; Dutton Plumbing has certainly made the most of membership. This year, Nexstar Connections Coach Pam Heruth and Director of Coaching Scott Pearson developed the Nexstar Engage-ment Index. This index measures how engaged Nexstar members are based on how many of the Nexstar tools the members are using.

Dutton Plumbing is the highest-engaged Nexstar member. The connections made through Nexstar and the clarity of roles brought through business coaching are among some of the more valuable gains Dutton Plumbing has made from being a part of the organization. Falconer still talks every other week with his accountability partner, Elaine Damschen of Mainstream Elec-tric, who he was matched with at Boot Camp three years ago.

The changes in management for the company have been huge. When Nexstar business coach

Jodi Peter began working with Dutton Plumbing, she said she actually had to do a little convinc-ing to get Dutton and Falconer on board with the idea of a service manager.

“They went from no focus, with no direct leadership with their frontline technicians, to completely dialed in to every detail of their business,” Peter said. “Once I get their buy-in on something, it’s done. They’re off and running.”

One of the technicians at the time, Kevin Kalin, set his sights on the service manager position and never looked back. He won a scholarship through Troops to Trades to attend Service Management School, and even had Nexstar’s Training Manager Julian Scadden put in a good word for him during his interview. He landed the job. He’s worked for the company for 13 years, and noticed a significant change post joining Nexstar.

“We’re a different company altogether,” he said. “It brought a different level to our game. It’s taken us a lot farther a lot quicker than any other way we’ve done business in the past.”

Peter said Falconer and Dutton both do a great job of challenging themselves and asking themselves, “Am I doing the right thing?” It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day to day, but they try to always think in bigger terms.

Dutton said Falconer is the one who can pull one of his ideas down to the ground and make it work. With Falconer as the integrator and with a solid system in place, Dutton is freer to work on lofty ideas without being bogged down by the little things.

“I don’t look at my steps; I look down the road,” Dutton said. “I look at this little dot of light on the horizon. In 1998 I had that epiph-any—you know that religious, ‘ta-da’ thing—I got this little beam of yellow light that identifies where I’m going. It’s still the same spot; I keep going to it. I’ll never hit it—maybe I will one day and say ‘how cool is this’—but I’m drawn to it like a moth.”

A little added flavor keeps training implementation fresh

Although the staff at Dutton Plumbing are great at maximizing the use of the Nexstar coaches, the advice the coaches give them would be useless without implementation. Falconer has been the point person for training the staff since the group joined Nexstar. He has attended nearly all of the Nexstar classes and has been known to make things interesting at the weekly service system training. At one of the early trainings, he donned a suit of armor to help Dutton technicians feel less awkward in front of the group.

“I was trying to keep it fun, keep it exciting,” Falconer said. “We were going to do the role-playing—the skill practice of Service System—and I wanted to make it more ridiculous. I’m going to ask you guys to get out of your comfort zone because I got out of my comfort zone.”

He has since worn some other costumes and tied the outfits to the training material for the week, such as a doctor’s outfit to represent the fact that in a business, you have to keep your eye on the KPIs: the pulse.

The Dutton team has another strength in the combined trainings they do with Pacific Aire, a Nexstar member company based out of Camarillo, CA. Falconer approached Pacific Aire after Dutton joined Nexstar in the hopes of do-ing some cross training. Pacific Aire owner Mark Schneider said he believes a big part of what makes the cross training successful is having a new voice to speak to his technicians. Onsite at Pacific Aire, that voice is Kaleigh Smith, “Mission Controller,” also known as service, dispatch and call center manager.

“Eric Dutton and I both know at a certain point your own employees stop listening to you, but when someone else says the exact same words, it sounds brilliant,” Schneider said. “So there’s a huge strength to having Eric Falconer speak in front of my team and Kaleigh speak in front of their team. It’s also a fun little competi-

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At Your Service Magazine | December 2015 | 1-800-618-9972

tion, we do different things [in the industry], but a lot of the structure is the same.”

Every two to four weeks, the Dutton techni-cians go to Camarillo or the Pacific Aire techni-cians come to Simi Valley. Service technician Frederick Deal has been working at Pacific Aire for about one and a half years. Although he was initially skeptical about Nexstar’s Service System, he has since grown to be confident its success.

“Having the opportunity like this to cross train and see it working for other people–now it’s way more natural,” Deal said. “It’s changing the industry. People expect to get ripped off but doing it this way [with Service System] it’s like they’re here to help.”

Don’t be afraid to offend someone with your marketing

Dutton Plumbing is “the plumber you’d send to your mom’s house.”

Nevertheless, just because you would send a Dutton plumber to your mom’s house doesn’t mean the Dutton marketing is vanilla. Dutton Plumbing runs a series of radio ads featuring an older woman with a New York accent calling her son, “Eric Dutton” (actually Dutton’s radio ad producer, Steve Garland), and pestering him at work.

“The characters are fairly legitimate,” Dutton said. “My mom is zany as hell.”

The ads are funny and often feature innuendo, as in the ads promoting Dutton Plumbing’s “Summer of ’69” drain-clearing special.

“The radio station gets a lot of calls,” Dutton said. “But we’re OK with that. We’re making an impression.”

Falconer also recently got a complaint over Facebook about a different ad that prompted wives to call Dutton to fix the problem their hus-bands tried to repair. The listener was offended.

“When I got that I was really proud of that,” Falconer said. “We’re going to stick in that guy’s brain, and when he does screw something up,

who do you think he’s going to end up calling?”

The Dutton Plumbing marketing aesthetic does contain some cute; however, and that cute comes in the form of puppies.

The puppy idea began when Falconer requested that Dutton wrap his personal truck, which Dutton has since purchased for the busi-ness. When the wrap designer came in, the three of them went through all kinds of wild designs before landing on puppies. Dutton paid Falconer an advertising fee and Falconer drove the truck around in his day-to-day life for a time.

“Eric [Falconer] is not afraid to be vulnerable; he’s got that goofy kid smile,” Dutton said. “He’s the puppy guy. He’s a perfect spokesperson.”

After the puppy truck, puppies just caught on. Various team members at Dutton Plumbing will take around boxes of plush puppy toys wearing Dutton T-shirts featuring a sign that reads, “Free puppies to a good home.”

Even though their marketing has been suc-cessful so far, as with everything in the business, Falconer and Dutton don’t simply stop once something is working. Nexstar Marketing Coach Ed Cerier said they are an open book and know they don’t have all the answers. Dutton told Cerier he liked so much of the new marketing collection, he wanted to postpone one of their meetings to spend more time with the new material.

“As good and as smart as they are, they can always learn,” Cerier said. “Their ego doesn’t get in the way. They’re not overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to change things or adopt new ideas.”

Looking forward: To February and beyond

Falconer and Dutton visited the Mainstream Electric peer group in July 2015, and Falconer was inspired to host his own, which will be Feb. 17-19, 2016. He said he hopes to show visitors some things the business does really well, but also hopes they can point out blind spots.

“I hope that they can really dig in and find all these skeletons for us so I’ll be like, I didn’t even know there was a closet there!” Falconer said.

Although Dutton was initially hesitant on the idea of a peer group, he said he’s good with a challenge and also invites critique.

“I look forward to people saying dude you’re crazy—your head’s in your butt on that,” Dutton said.

Until then, as they prepare, Dutton’s staff might find him in his warrior pose, standing on his chair with a foot up on his desk and ready to face a challenge head on.

“I’ve been caught a couple of times,” he said. “When I need to be thinking outside the box, when I need a more fearless approach to things [I do this]. This is an extension of my family—I’m the one who defends them from the big threats.”

“I noticed a significant change post joining Nexstar. We’re a different company altogether. It brought a different level to our game. It’s taken us a lot farther a lot quicker than any other way we’ve done business in the past.”

– Kevin Kalin, Dutton’s Service Manager

Dutton Plumbing Profile

Website: www.duttonplumbing.comOwner: Eric DuttonMarket location: Greater Los AngelesTrade area: 20-mile radiusCompany founded: 1987Joined Nexstar: 2013Current revenue: $7 millionBusiness mix: 100% residential plumbing and drainsNumber of employees: 48Number of trucks: 25

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