I still remember the first time I set my tools down and realized I couldn’t be everywhere at once. For years, the truck was my comfort zone; the place I knew I could deliver for customers. But as my business began to take off, it became clear that if I didn’t change my approach, my business would never grow beyond me. The hardest, and yet most important, transition a plumbing business owner makes is stepping out of the truck and into the role of leading the company.

To go from working “in” your business, to working “on” it.

This transition requires recognizing the need for your role to change, learning to let go of doing everything, and staying aligned to your ultimate purpose and passion as a business owner.

Recognizing the shift 

Let’s start with this simple and honest truth: It’s hard when you move from the field to being in the office and leading a team. 

Some of it can be attributed to pride. You recognize good work when you see it and want to be responsible for the work your name is attached to. But it can also be a comfort thing. You grew up using your hands, dealing with one job at a time, and love getting to serve your customers. 

But by reaching that stage and acknowledging what your business needs to grow – you start to realize that you’re the one that’s limiting that growth. 

You can only take it on your own so far. You have to recognize, “I’m at my limit.”

I see this with so many business owners. They’re in the truck the whole day, and then at night they’re trying to work on the financing and the bills. And then they need to order more materials. Oh, and there’s all the quotes they didn’t get done, which means more revenue opportunities are lost.

All of this is happening, and then there’s a point the lightbulb goes on: “I just can’t do this all on my own.” You realize you have to start bringing other people in to move into that office management role.

When you shift into that leadership role, it gets more complex. But at the same time, it opens a whole new world of possibilities for how your business can grow.

It just starts with recognizing that you’ve reached your limit and that your role needs to change.

Delegation is the first step

While in the field you have tons of hard skills that are critical to being successful:

• You can turn a wrench and know how to use all the other tools of the trade. 

• You have a lot of diagnostic capabilities so you can determine what is needed to resolve problems for a customer.

• You’re good at communicating with customers, especially if you’re doing a good job selling and upselling and closing deals. 

However, one skill we don’t do well, and you see this across the trades, is delegation. We have a hard time teaching people how we do something. We struggle letting go and letting somebody else do it.

And what’s our reaction to situations where we might need to let go? 

“I’ll just do it myself. It will be easier if I just get it done.” 

That thinking will only take you so far in the moment, and ultimately is depriving you of time better spent elsewhere, but also your team from the experience of learning something new. And that’s a powerful investment in your future as a business you might be saying no to every day.

So where can you start figuring out what and when to delegate?

For almost all businesses I coach, I tell them to start with a piece of paper. Put it on your desk, by your phone, by your computer – somewhere that is always next to you. And then throughout the day, write down everything you do that should be someone else’s job. For example: I answered that call. I responded to that email. I jumped into that situation to handle that situation. I quoted this job. I scheduled these meetings with our team.

All the different things that you get sidetracked on throughout the day, write them down. You’ll start to understand where the bottlenecks are and what’s consuming so much of your time. Those are the areas you’ll want to start with when it comes to delegating.

For me, there was a lot of scheduling and planning that I needed to be consistent with. I’m an advocate for consistency in meetings, consistency in communication. 

But getting them on the calendar, communicating to the team when we’re meeting, where we’re meeting, what we’re meeting about … it was very difficult for me to do all of that, plus write the content of what we’re going to talk about and lead the discussion, in addition to everything else I was doing. 

Delegating to someone these administrative tasks was a huge relief for me in transitioning from the field to the office. Plus, it also gave the opportunity to members of our team to contribute to day-to-day tasks that supported our success.

Advice to get started

If I could tell every plumbing owner, currently trying to grow their business, one thing, it would be this: You need to fight to stay healthy. 

When you’re in the field, moving from one job to the next and getting to help customers, it’s satisfying. It’s like cutting your lawn. At first, it’s overgrown and rugged. Then you cut it, and it looks beautiful. The lines are straight, the edges look perfect, and at the end of all your hard work, you look back and can say, “Wow. I DID THAT!”

It’s different when you’re in a leadership role. 

You’re more like a farmer tilling a field. You plant the seeds, but then you have to wait to see something growing. You’re not working any less hard, but the joy that comes with the result of that work might take a lot longer to come to fruition.

That can create a lot of burnout, a lot of frustration, a lot of angst. You start telling yourself that you’re not doing something that brings success – that you just have to do more. And as a result, you start cutting out other things. 

You give up going to the gym. You spend less time with the family. You snack all day because we don’t have time to eat good, healthy meals.

I’ve seen this sink so many companies, owners, relationships and families; we lose ourselves in pursuit of success that isn’t happening.

At one point, we were a tech in a truck who loved what we did. We loved our job. We loved the work. And suddenly now we’re angry, we’re tired, we’re frustrated. All because we’ve lost sight of why we are really doing this.

The number one question you need to ask yourself every day as an owner is how can I fight to stay healthy? Physically and mentally. 

If you’re not – your business, your team, your family and your success will follow suit.

This transition isn’t easy. It requires patience, humility and the willingness to let go of habits that once made you successful. 

But if you’re up to the task, you’ll unlock something far greater than what you could ever achieve alone.

Your business will thrive, your team will reach new heights, and your company will be on track to a level of success you never thought possible.

Nate Agentis, a third-generation plumber from Pennsylvania, has 30-plus years of experience owning and running a multimillion dollar plumbing service company. As an author and coach, he’s passionate about ethical growth, organizational health and helping those in the trades find balance and fulfillment.