Meet Entrepreneur Kevin Couper: Owner of Kyle Plumbing
Apr 10, 2024Season 1Episode 20
David Conway
Meet Kevin Couper, owner of Kyle Plumbing.
This episode isn't just about pipes and wrenches; it's a deep dive into the heart of entrepreneurship. Kevin's journey exemplifies the grit needed to manage a booming business, from clinching a $1.5 million deal to plotting a course for sustainable growth. At the core of our discussion lies the profound respect for the client and employee relationship—an ethos Kevin champions as the bedrock of Kyle Plumbing's customer care and service quality. By the end, you'll have gained a fresh perspective on the service industry and the entrepreneurial spirit that thrives within.
Kyle Plumbing 888-405-0770 www.kyleplumbing.com
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
This episode isn't just about pipes and wrenches; it's a deep dive into the heart of entrepreneurship. Kevin's journey exemplifies the grit needed to manage a booming business, from clinching a $1.5 million deal to plotting a course for sustainable growth. At the core of our discussion lies the profound respect for the client and employee relationship—an ethos Kevin champions as the bedrock of Kyle Plumbing's customer care and service quality. By the end, you'll have gained a fresh perspective on the service industry and the entrepreneurial spirit that thrives within.
Kyle Plumbing 888-405-0770 www.kyleplumbing.com
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Speaker 1:
Welcome, welcome everyone to Local Living community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. I'm David Conway, your host for today's episode, and with us we have Kevin Cooper. Kevin is the owner of Kyle Plumbing. Kyle has been a renowned brand here in South Florida for quite some time. I believe that Kevin is a little on the newer side as far as ownership, but he's got a real interesting story. I look forward to hearing it. Kevin, welcome to Local Living.
Speaker 2:
Hey, david, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
My pleasure. So you are, if I've got this correct, from the entrepreneurial side more than the plumbing side Is that right.
Speaker 2:
That's correct, yes.
Speaker 1:
So tell us a little bit about your business and how you got started.
Speaker 2:
So tell us a little bit about your business and how you got started. Yeah, so I got started more in the finance business world and, frankly, I just got sick of the corporate antics and wanted to run the show myself and it was just not really an area that I was really passionate about. So I stumbled upon Kyle Plumbing great culture, recession-proof business and I just really liked it a lot. So I bought it and it's been really great. You know, you take a great company that's got some old school bones to it and you kind of just modernize it with technology and new management skills and styles, uniforms, outfits you know you name it website, marketing strategies, all that stuff. So it's been very fun to take something and put a facelift on it, so to speak.
Speaker 1:
So you mentioned Old Bones. Tell us a little bit more about the history of Kyle Plumbing. When did it get started? Who were the original owners? About the history of Kyle Plumbing when?
Speaker 2:
did it get started? Who were the original owners? Tell us a little bit about that. So it started in 1993 by Kim Kyle, I believe, and two or three years in I think he wanted to get into general contracting. So he sold it to his brother, kirk Kyle, who ran it for 25 plus years and that's who I bought the business from. He, uh, actually just wanted to retire and move up to South Carolina, but he didn't want to just sell the business to anybody. So I mean he was all in plumbing only from from the beginning his thought process was he only wanted to be good at one thing and not dabble into HVAC or electrical, he just really wanted to focus on plumbing. So he had a team of about 23 people and they did construction and service plumbing. So we still do that today. We have a little bit more people. I bought the company in June of last year, so it's still under a year, but we still do the same things. We're just getting better at the specialties and sort of upgrading across the board.
Speaker 1:
So you're relatively new to the industry. Can you tell us any myths that you may have believed prior to entering the industry or misconceptions that the layman may have about the plumbing industry?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think the biggest myth is really costs. Right, I think a lot of people. I think the blue collar space is a place where the employees kind of got left behind as far as inflation and wages, and they are very skilled technicians and there are less and less people joining the trades and these jobs take a lot of time, they take a lot of skills, they take a lot of focus and energy. So the biggest thing I see on the service side you know if I'm walking, if we have a plumber that goes to your home to fix something is there's some complaints on pricing or timing. Right? Oh, he was only here 20 minutes. How did that cost $600? So if my guys come in and fix it in 20 minutes, it could take somebody else two or three hours to do.
Speaker 2:
So we're not going to charge you for 20 minutes. It's really we're charging for the job and we're charging for the specialties and skills and training that we had in place. So we really pride ourselves on getting people to be as good as they can, provide the tools to train necessary to do it. But it's it's regardless of time, it's really just the skills that really it takes for them to come in, but it's not really cheap to train people and it's really taking an old pay scale and upgrading it means we have to raise prices a little bit. So we see a lot of people that want lower prices Not everybody. But I think that's just a myth, where you think it's supposed to be very dirt cheap and somebody comes in and you're paying them $17 an hour to do it.
Speaker 1:
So I'm not sure if there's any scientific data to support this, but it's been my experience that most emergency plumbing situations happen between 4 pm on a Friday and 9 o'clock on a Sunday night. Is it just me, or do things always seem to go amiss over the weekend?
Speaker 2:
I would say that's true. I haven't looked at the data internally, but I will say you know we do have texts on call 24-7. Most of those calls are on the weekends, for sure, or on holidays. Holidays make sense because you have family over. You know your garbage disposal gets backed up. You have a lot of people using the toilets, sinks, things happen, so it makes sense.
Speaker 1:
But for some reason it tends to happen on the weekends. That's for sure Are there certain days annually that plumbers get more calls, maybe the day after Thanksgiving, something along those lines.
Speaker 2:
It's hard to tell because I've only owned a business since June, but but yeah, thanksgiving was busy.
Speaker 1:
November and.
Speaker 2:
December were very busy months for us. Trad any difference as far as hiring new employees, salary demands.
Speaker 1:
I hear a lot of anecdotal stuff from some of my clients about how difficult it is to find quality people. What's been your experience?
Speaker 2:
It's been very, very challenging and I think you know, like I mentioned earlier, it's not as many people are entering the trades In Florida, though you know every state's different. In Florida you just need one master's, one res license to run your company, so you can still get a journeyman's license and work your way up as an apprentice. But there are certain states where you're required to go through specific steps and training to get licenses, and in even some states you have to, you're required to get to go through specific steps in training to get licenses, and even some states you need a journeyman's license and a journeyman at every construction job that you're on. So I think, depending on the state, you know you have more uh, more reasoning to kind of go through training, because otherwise you're not going to be able to work in that job. So in florida I feel like it's even harder because as long as you have a master's license, anyone underneath you isn't necessarily incentivized to go through training.
Speaker 2:
So I think that's one thing, but yes, it's very hard. So one thing we do is, you know, we'll hire somebody that's very green, as long as they have the right characteristic traits, and then we can train them internally. So but we do find very good, seasoned guys, whether they relocate or have a fallout from their employer. But right now what we're kind of doing is just finding people that have the right characteristic traits and they're open minded and eager and quick learners, and then we just train them the way we want to train them.
Speaker 1:
So, kevin, you're obviously very centered on your business. You're very driven, you've got a history now of entrepreneurship. But what do you like to do for fun when you're not focused on the business? Tell us a little bit more about you.
Speaker 2:
Sure, so I'm actually a single dad, so I spend a lot of time with my daughter and my girlfriend. I work out four or five days a week. Sometimes I can't always get to the gym with my daughter, but outside of that I really like music. So my girlfriend and I like to go see concerts and a former life I was a golfer but that's very, very time consuming, so I don't see that hobby coming back anytime soon.
Speaker 1:
So when you say golfer, casual golfer, someone who just like to get out there and and have a good time on the weekends, kind of thing, Sort casual golfer or someone who just liked to get out there and and have a good time on the weekends, kind of thing, sort of.
Speaker 2:
I mean I got down to a 10 and a half handicap, which is pretty decent. So I I'm very competitive. I don't like to do anything that I can't get good at. So you know, I was trying to get even better. So to me I don't really like going out and playing once or twice every two months or so. I like to play like two times a week and really hone the craft. Otherwise it's not really fun for me.
Speaker 1:
Now you say you came from the corporate world and now you're your own boss, which I'm sure that you enjoy. But one of the things I hear when I talk to different business owners out there is yes, you're your own boss, you control your schedule, but even when you're not working, there's a part in the back of your brain that's still working. Have you found that to be the case?
Speaker 2:
Yes, you're working 24-7, but it doesn't really feel like work and to me that's how my mind works. I'm always thinking about the next steps, different ways to do things better, different strategies and stuff, so to me it's actually a positive. The hard part is really just figuring out when to turn that off to spend time with family and be present in the moment. So so, yeah, it's you. You do have full flexibility to control your hours. But if there's any myth about entrepreneurship, it's not like you're going to put your feet up and just have people do everything for you. It's really a lot of heavy lifting, especially in the beginning, as you're building things the way you want it to be. But you know, again, that's kind of how my mind works. I like very big, overwhelming tasks and things that you can kind of build and grow, which is why I bought the business in the first place.
Speaker 1:
Now anything in your background you know we don't want to peel the onion back too far but maybe in your own personal life, or even your corporate, your business experience, anything a challenge you might've gone through that you find yourself drawing upon now that helps you be more successful.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I mean I would say communication, just knowledge of finance in general, being able to negotiate with general. I mean right now we have a $1.5 million job that we closed. We probably have another two of those coming up in the hopper. So negotiating deals, being able to communicate, sell yourself and your business in a good way and just be able to speak to people, I think is somewhat different from what maybe these general contractors have been used to with some of the companies that they've been working with. So those things I'm very used to, very comfortable with, and I think as part of my pitch to them is you know, we're kind of a different plumbing company. I'm running the business, I'm not in the field, I'm business only plumbing zero. So we really show them what our management team looks like and how we run the business in a professional, quick, tech savvy way, and I believe that resonates very well and what are your hopes for the business in the future?
Speaker 1:
Do you have some growth ideas or someplace that you might want to take the business in the future? What do you see for Kyle Plumbing in the coming years?
Speaker 2:
I see. So we do service and construction. So construction, I don't want to grow that too big. We're looking to bring on one more leader in the field, one more superintendent, so that would bring us to three. To me, that's really the biggest I want to get. There's just so many different things that can happen in the field, so I think we understand our limitations there. We don't want to grow too big. We want to be very capable, competent, be able to knock out jobs quickly and correctly, and that's where we make general contractors money, we make money, we make the end customer very happy.
Speaker 2:
On the service side individual homes or commercial where the jobs are pretty much same, day in and out or two or three days- that's where I see a lot more capacity for growth.
Speaker 2:
So that's where we'll see more trucks, probably more locations. Right now we're in Palm Beach and Broward. I don't know that we would go to Miami-Dade. It's kind of a different animal down there with high rises and traffic. But I see service growing more north up toward Port St Lucie and west a bit. So that's really where we're focusing most of the growth when we're ready.
Speaker 1:
So, for our listeners out there, is there something that you'd like them to know about Kyle Plumbing? If they're considering using your service, or maybe switching brands over to Kyle Plumbing, what would you like them to know about your company?
Speaker 2:
over to Kyle Plumbing. What would you like them to know about your company? I'd say we just care a lot about our employees and the end customer. We're not out there to rip anybody off or do subpar work. So a lot of customers sometimes want a band-aid approach. We usually don't even really want to do those. It's just because it's not the right thing.
Speaker 2:
So we'll showcase probably two or three recommendations to customers. But we're really very thorough in our approach when we come out to see your issue and it's not an attempt to upsell, it's really just taking a step back, looking at your system while we're there and addressing any possible issues that are long term. So we just want to do what's best for each customer and we leave it up to them to choose us or somebody else. There's plenty of good companies out there, but I'm a huge believer in treating every customer like you're about to work with a family member, so that you just do the right thing and put your best foot forward, so that you just do the right thing and put your best foot forward.
Speaker 1:
You know it struck me when you started off that answer, kevin. You started by saying how you care about your employees, don't you find when you take good care of your employees, the ultimate people that benefit from that are your customers, right? They pass that along to your customers.
Speaker 2:
Correct, yes.
Speaker 1:
I totally agree. I'm with you 100% on that. If someone wants to reach out to Kyle Plumbing, whether they have an emergency situation or something they've been thinking about looking at or even construction I know you're involved in construction and plumbing and a little more with that what's the best way to reach out and to get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:
The website's very easy, kyleplumbingcom. You can text us, email us on there, find all our contact information, or our direct line is 888-405-0770. You can reach us very easily and text email, call like I said. So I just go to the website, check us out and give us a call. Shoot us an email if there's any questions.
Speaker 1:
Kevin, listen, we appreciate you being on the podcast today. You've been a great guest. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
Once again everyone. I'm David Conway, with Local Living. This has been Kevin Cooper, the owner of Kyle Plumbing. Be sure to give them a call for any of your plumbing needs. Thanks again, Kevin, and to all of our listeners out there, have a great day.
