Trade Guides
The Plumber's Guide to AI
Twelve pages for Australian plumbers on missed calls, unchased quotes, live-priced materials and the texts that fix them. Free.
A plumber charging $130 an hour who misses six calls a day isn't losing six calls. He's losing the two jobs a day that would have booked if someone had answered.
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Where your week goes
| The job that isn't the job | What it actually looks like | Hours a week |
|---|---|---|
| Missed and returned calls | Under a house, on a roof, hands in a drain. Six calls a day go unanswered | 3.5 hrs |
| Quoting | Site visit, write it up that night, send it, never chase it | 3 hrs |
| Invoicing and chasing | Invoice sent two days after the job, chased twice, paid in six weeks | 2.5 hrs |
| Scheduling and reshuffling | Emergency job blows up the day. Ring four customers to move them | 2 hrs |
| Customer updates | Are you still coming, what time, is it fixed | 1.5 hrs |
| Compliance paperwork | Certificates of compliance, gas notices, backflow test reports | 1.5 hrs |
| Marketing you meant to do | Reviews you didn't ask for, posts you didn't make | 1 hr |
| Time you are not billing | 15 hrs |
That's 720 hrs a year, or $46,800 at $130/hr if only half those admin hours became billable time.
These are estimates for a typical 1 to 8 person plumber business, not a measurement of yours. Put your own numbers in. Most owners who do this find they were guessing low.
A plumber charging $130 an hour who misses six calls a day isn't losing six calls. He's losing the two jobs a day that would have booked if someone had answered.
The short version, if you read nothing else
- You're losing more jobs to a missed call than to a competitor. Switch on missed-call text-back today. It's the cheapest thing in the guide and the biggest.
- The quote you never chased was the job you already paid for. Three follow-ups, written once, sent automatically.
- Price the materials off today's prices, put a validity date on the quote, and stop paying for the difference yourself.
- Your job photos are your marketing. One a day, posted on Friday in 20 minutes. Suburb in the caption.
- Your past customers are your quiet months. A message on the right date, in your name, sent for you.
- AI does the admin. It doesn't do the trade, the judgement or the cashflow. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Nobody chooses a plumber. They choose whoever answered.
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Twelve pages, written for Australian plumbers. Free.