Charlie Mullins is Britain’s richest plumber and has a reported wealth of £70million.
He left school at 15 with no qualifications. Luckily, he had been wagging primary school to work with the local plumber.
Pimlico Plumbers has 330 employers, recorded sales of £25million last year, and operates out of a 30,000 square foot headquarters in London.
Charlie is a man after my own heart.
He is a straight talker and clearly articulates the simplicity of being an authority in his market and the default choice for customers.
When he talks about designing his product and applying it to the market he started with the problems his prospective customers experienced with the other solutions:
“I think you have got to tick every box in what you have got to offer – and come up with solutions to the worst things in your industry, whether it’s turning up late, people not being transparent.
I made a list of all the bad things that made people unhappy about the business I was going into and then I did the complete opposite. ”
“Plumbing’s a very personal thing – you’re going into someone’s home. We work with a lot of high-class people who are very busy: politicians, judges, stars,” he says.
“You’ve got to do the best at what you do.”
In his company’s case, it’s a combination skills, customer service, reliability, presentation and trust.
Having lived in London and actually been one of their customers Charlie speaks the truth.
They delivered a consistent experience.
From their well presented vans, plumbers in uniform to their communication and quality.
They are the opposite of what most people expect (and dread) about dealing with many trades people.
Doing the opposite of your competition is harder than it looks.
But to be the clear leader you must set yourself apart at the top of the pile.
That doesn’t just apply to plumbers.
If you want to be top of the pile I can help. We will speak for 45 minutes and define a custom strategy for you: http://go.jameskemp.co/aa-schedule/
