Diamond Certified Video Reports

Mike Testa Plumbing, Inc. in 5 Useful Answers

• Play from Beginning
• What does Helpful Expertise mean to you and your team?
• How did you get into this industry?
• What inspired you to start your business?
• What’s the favorite thing you enjoy about the work that you do?
• What are the handful of questions shoppers should be asking companies in your industry before they buy?
• What should potential customers know about you and your team?

Mike Testa Plumbing, Inc. - Diamond Certified 5 Useful Answers - video transcript

Helpful expertise means providing our customers with thorough, knowledgeable, and accurate information regarding the issues that they may be facing, as well as all the options available to them to address that. Taking into consideration all their personal factors, we ensure they feel comfortable and satisfied when they make a decision about how they would like to proceed. I got into this industry when I was very young, helping my father out on his jobs. He was a plumber for 50 years. Then, when I got out of school, I needed to get to work right away to provide for myself. I tried my hand at a number of different trades, but wasn’t very good at a lot of them. However, I tried out plumbing specifically, and I found that I really enjoyed the work. It always kept me on my toes and required me to think about creative solutions to difficult problems. Well, I did not actually start this business. This business was started by Mike Testa back in 1989. I was only four years old at that time. But I had been working with Mike for a number of years when I first started thinking about the possibility of leaving and starting my own business. Mike, at that time, was kicking around the idea of what he was going to do as far as retirement and what was going to happen with the company. We started having some discussions, and I came to the decision that it would be a far better option for myself to invest in an established company, as well as to learn directly from Mike, who had been running a successful business for 30-plus years at that point. He was, and still is, the best boss I’ve ever had, and the way that he did business was the way that I wanted to do business. So, I thought it was a great option. Well, from a plumbing standpoint, the thing I enjoy the most is that every job I go on is like a puzzle. Nothing is the same day-to-day. Of course, there are things that are similar to each other, but it constantly keeps you on your toes and mentally engaged. Everything is interesting; it’s not just some monotonous, day-in-and-day-out sort of job. On the management aspect and estimating side of things, I enjoy going out and taking a look at jobs and providing creative solutions for our customers to take care of the issues that they’re having in ways that they may have never considered in the first place. And, I want to make sure that we’re doing so in a fair, financially sound way for them. Well, the first thing I would advise anybody to ask when considering any contractor they may decide to work with is: Are they licensed, bonded, and insured? That’s always very important to know. With service work specifically, I would always advise customers to understand how the company charges for the work that they’re doing. Our company charges a time-and-material rate, so we’re just charging strictly for the hours that we’ve spent on-site, plus the cost of any material that we may use. But there are other companies out there who do something like flat-rate pricing, where they’re going to provide you with a cost to do the job upfront. Some people prefer that, while others prefer the time-and-material method. I would also want to know how experienced the technicians are, and to be sure that we’re getting people who have been doing the work for a little while. If they are apprentices, it’s important to know that upfront and to know that they have a good support system behind them. A potential customer should know that we have been in business for over 30 years. With the new ownership of myself, we plan on being here for at least another 30. We are developing long-standing technicians and employees who plan on being here for the long haul, to make sure that they are going to be getting the best possible service we can provide, in a fair and even-handed way. We want to ensure that our customers are 100 percent comfortable with the service that we provide.

Mike Testa Plumbing, Inc. is presented in these Diamond Certified Resource Category Reports