Padley Heating & Plumbing

HOW THE CLIMB WENT

Dave Padley came to the free Survey Session convinced he had a sales problem: “we need more work on.” The Deep Survey said otherwise — Padley’s was busy to bursting. The problem was that its day-rates hadn’t moved in three years while wages had moved four times, and the owner was pricing every job at 9pm from the van.

Month one was the argument every trades client has with Martin: an 8% price rise across service work, scripted, sent. Two customers pushed back; none left. Months two to six rebuilt labour recovery — travel time priced in, a real call-out rate, engineers’ weeks planned Thursday-for-Monday instead of morning-by-morning.

The second half of the engagement got Dave out of the quoting seat: his senior engineer trained on the new price book, a part-time office manager hired for scheduling and invoicing (paid for roughly five times over by the recovery gain), and invoices out same-week instead of month-end.

Fourteen months in, the business makes more profit in a quarter than it used to in a half — on essentially the same turnover. Dave’s working week is down nineteen hours, and he has since joined the Boardroom, where he opens most meetings by telling somebody else to put their prices up.

“Martin made us put the prices up 8% in month one. I argued for a fortnight. Not one customer left.”

— Dave Padley, Managing Director

Figures client-reported and published with written permission. Results depend on implementation.