Working Together to Take Over Minneapolis
April 27, 2010
Benjamin Franklin Plumbing’s operational programs allow Paul Gavic and his friends to keep track of business every day.
Before buying his Minneapolis-based Benjamin Franklin Plumbing franchise in 2004, Paul Gavic used to keep his receipts in shoeboxes.
“At the end of the year, I hired a bookkeeper to enter all the year’s receipts into a computer spreadsheet and then tell me how much money I made that year — or how much money I lost,” he recalled. “As the systems and procedures given to us by Benjamin Franklin were implemented, the company became more successful and grew into a bigger operation. And I couldn’t run it out of a shoebox anymore.”
Gavic credits Ben Franklin’s daily manager’s report to helping him organize his company’s financial data. He can pull up the report and find out month-to-date and year-to-date revenue totals. He can see what categories the revenue was coming from — drain cleaning, plumbing, boiler sales, sewer repipes, whole-house repipes, water heater installations, etc.
A little peer pressure is involved, he said. Benjamin Franklin Plumbing publishes all the franchisees’ daily manager’s reports — daily, month-to-date, and year-to-date — so that owners can see how their businesses are doing compared to their peers.
“When you see someone who is doing well, you can call him up and talk about it,” explained Gavic. “Meeting and talking with your peers — that’s one of the best perks about Benjamin Franklin. You can get ideas from other franchise owners and learn the nitty-gritty details so you can use the same ideas in your company.”
Benjamin Franklin Plumbing uses a national call center to answer service calls. However, operators can only book calls through Answer Annie, another franchise perk Gavic appreciates. Each franchise enters in how many service calls are available the next day and when the operator takes a service call he or she can tell the customer, for example, that the Minneapolis-area Benjamin Franklin has an appointment available at 8 a.m. the next morning.
When the customer agrees, his contact information and the nature of the service or repair required is entered into the Answer Annie system, which is connected to the SuccessWare software system. SuccessWare charts such things as labor and materials numbers and service calls. The next day, that call is already in the dispatch system and the service plumber has the data he needs to complete the job.
“It enables us to capture a lot more calls that we might otherwise have missed, especially if you’re trying to answer a call on your cell phone during a movie,” said Gavic.
FATHER KNOWS BEST
Partners Alfons Foschiatti (left), Paul Gavic and Tim McGuire (not pictured) leveraged the Benjamin Franklin Plumbing systems to achieve $8 million in sales last year.
His maternal grandfather owned a one-man service plumbing business in Faribault, Minn. His father was a plumber, working for a three- or four-man shop, before becoming a plumbing inspector for Minneapolis. He also has an uncle and cousin who are plumbers.
Gavic attended college for three years before his father strongly suggested he begin a plumbing apprenticeship. A union plumber, he began his five-year apprenticeship in 1981 and was the “No. 1 apprentice out of 25 guys,” he said.
In 1986, just as he obtained his journeyman plumbing license, he was laid off from a commercial job. That was the motivation he needed to start his own plumbing contracting business, he explained. With some help from his father, he became a subcontractor for a local gas utility installing water heaters.
His first plumbing truck was a VW Vanagon with a homemade snowmobile trailer for the water heaters. Eventually, he was getting about 50 percent of the utility’s water heater installation and boiler repair work, so he expanded the business with additional employees and service trucks.
THE PATH TO SUCCESS
What really intrigued Gavic was the exit strategy that Clockwork Home Services’ co-founder, CEO, and President Jim Abrams was offering. Many plumbing contractors work all their lives to build their businesses, make good profits, and yet have no plans in place to retire. If they don’t have a family member to pass on the torch, then they must sell the company. A contractor may get 10 to 20 cents on the dollar for equipment, tools, etc., but it’s guaranteed to be less than the asset value of the company.
Abrams’ vision was to provide a wealthy exit strategy for those Clockwork business owners who wanted to sell their companies and make a good profit, allowing them to enjoy their retirement years. Gavic wanted to be a part of it, but Abrams told him his business was too small.
So Gavic bought his Benjamin Franklin Plumbing franchise in 2004. He decided to take a chance on the franchise when he found out Abrams was involved. “I knew it was going to be successful then,” he noted.
He called two of his buddies — Tim McGuire (McGuire & Sons Plumbing) and Alfons Foschiatti (Al’s Master Plumbing) to see if they would be interested in Ben Franklin. Both men bought their franchises in 2005. The plan was for all three men to operate their businesses separately, but share marketing, Yellow Pages ad phone numbers, and other co-op advertising.
In November 2006, Foschiatti and Gavic found a building that each company could share — spaces as well as administrative staff. McGuire moved his company in a year later. A general manager was hired to manage all three companies while still maintaining separate identities.
The last step came in October 2009, when the three men decided to combine their businesses and form an LLC. The company covers the seven-county metro Minneapolis area with 20 plumbers. When Gavic started his Ben Franklin franchise in 2004, he had $1.5 million in sales. Last year, the joined companies had total sales of $8 million.
“I never expected to be as large or as successful as we’ve been with the Benjamin Franklin systems,” said Gavic. “I didn’t have that vision, I guess. We’ve had mostly good years, but I’m not sure we’d still be in business if it weren’t for Ben Franklin. I believe that you need to have a support group around you to come up with best practice ideas to stay ahead of the competition.
“Follow the Ben Franklin systems and let them take you down the path to success.”
