It’s said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

As the owner of Agentis Plumbing, Nate Agentis took that old adage to heart, which has helped him avoid the financial issues his father and grandfather faced and turn the third-generation family company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, into a growing and data-driven business.

“We swung the pendulum hard the other way,” says Agentis, 43, who bought the business from his father in 2022. “I’m very serious about organizational structure and finances. We get financial updates every other day and I meet once a month with a financial consultant and an accountant.

“We also have proprietary customer-relations management software that provides a dashboard for every position, from dispatching to our warehouse to the technicians, who have iPads,” he continues. “The dashboards tell us our leading and lagging metric and tell us when we beat or miss our goals.

“The bottom line is that numbers tell you the truth,” Agentis adds. “Sometimes contractors feel like they’re busy and making money, but they’re not. Bringing in actual numbers and data shows us what’s real and helps us fine-tune our decision-making process so we make good decisions for the health of the company.”

The company, which employs 60 people and runs about 50 service vehicles, was founded in 1954. Residential service and repair plumbing and drain cleaning generates about half of the company’s income while commercial work contributes the balance, Agentis says.

HUMBLE ORIGINS

Agentis’ grandfather, George, started the business in 1954, after learning the plumbing trade during a stint in the United States Army. But like many tradesmen, he was good at his craft, but not a good businessman.

“My grandfather was soft-hearted and often worked for no fee,” Agentis says. “He literally brought a horse home one day that he’d accepted as payment.”

Agentis’ father, Steve, took over the business in late 1977 when George Agentis ran into deep financial problems. Steve added drain cleaning to the company’s services, which helped the company hit a financial milestone by 1994: $1 million in revenue, Agentis says.

“My dad ran the business out of our home with help from my mom, Debbie,” he recalls. “I grew up in the world of plumbing. I remember technicians playing Nintendo video games with me while they waited for service calls.”

Agentis worked for his grandfather and father at an early age, accompanying them on service calls and helping out in the shop.

“I was my dad’s little right-hand man, which was really fun,” Agentis says. “He was smart — he started me out at the bottom.”

BUSINESS-LIKE APPROACH

After issues with delinquent taxes nearly forced the company to close its doors in 1977, Agentis’ father got serious about the business side of plumbing.

“He realized that in order to build a business, you have to run it smart, not just do the work,” Agentis says. “My mom got more involved, too.”

Along the way, his parents exposed Agentis more and more to things like bookkeeping and other business-related aspects of running a company. Agentis also went to college and earned a degree in management marketing. He graduated in 2002 — the same year he became a master plumber.

“My dad never forced me into plumbing — it just made sense,” Agentis says. “My grandpa did it and my dad did it and they made good money. So I wanted to be a part of it, too.”

In his mid-20s, Agentis transitioned from a service truck to a full-time office position, where he continued to learn about finances and dealt with customer complaints and so forth.

“I learned a lot about the business,” he says. “I got into strategic planning and business development as my dad scaled back and delegated more and more work to me.”

In 2011, Debbie was diagnosed with cancer and died about nine months later. After that, Agentis’ father stopped doing plumbing work and opened a kitchen and bathroom store, leaving Agentis to run the company, which he eventually bought in 2022.

BALANCED CUSTOMER BASE

Aside from the emphasis on collecting data and closely monitoring finances, Agentis cites several reasons for the company’s growth, starting with developing a roughly 50/50 split between residential and commercial work.

“Doing both gives us a healthy business balance,” he explains. “As long as your residential business is big enough, that’s what supplies your cash flow. But given that an average homeowner calls a plumber only every five to seven years, you also need commercial work.

“You might get five calls a month from a commercial customer, plus you make more money on commercial jobs,” Agentis adds. “But you also wait longer to get paid.”

Agentis, who nurtures a faith-based company culture, says he loves doing residential work because it helps people in the surrounding communities.

“You feel like you’re a part of people’s lives and helping out families,” he says.

Eliminating trip charges and emergency-service fees also plays a role in the company’s success. While Agentis concedes it reduces revenue, he says it pays off by enhancing the company’s reputation for honesty, plus it strongly differentiates the business from competitors.

“This past week, three customers said they called us for service because there was no trip fee,” Agentis points out. “Other companies make people pay $80 even though the customers probably don’t know anything about the company.

“To me, it feels like entrapment because once you’ve paid that charge, you feel like you should use that company whether you want to or not,” he continues. “By not charging those fees, we build trust with our customers. About 50% of our business is repeat customers.”

KEY INVESTMENTS

Investing in reliable and productivity-enhancing equipment also spurred growth. Today the company owns about 50 service vehicles, most of them either Ford Transits or GMC trucks equipped with box bodies made by Reading Truck.

For drain work, the company owns dozens of Electric Eel Model drain machines; a few Mini and Maxi Miller drain machines from Picote Solutions; and three trailer-mounted water jetters from Harben (a subsidiary of Flowplant Group Ltd.), one Mongoose trailer jetter (a brand owned by Sewer Equipment) and two truck-mounted jetters, one equipped with a Harben unit and one with a Mongoose unit. The Mongoose machines feature UDOR water pumps.

The business also relies on RIDGID NaviTrak Scout pipe locators and dozens of pipeline-inspection cameras, mostly RIDGID SeeSnakes and units from Vivax-Metrotech.

In 2022, the company invested in a Bluelight pipelining system from HammerHead Trenchless.

TRAINING AND POSITIVE CULTURE

Comprehensive technician training via an in-house program developed by Agentis also has been critical to success.

“This kind of training basically doesn’t exist in the plumbing industry,” Agentis says. “The training program includes detailed procedures for service tasks, including step-by-step procedures, material needed and so forth.

“We created our own videos for the program and technicians take a test after reading and watching the videos,” he explains. “It helps us determine where technicians’ strengths and weaknesses lie, which also helps us get the right technicians for the right jobs.” 

Aren’t apprentice programs adequate? Not really, Agentis says, noting that apprenticeship training is largely building code-based and focuses primarily on new construction plumbing.

“Apprenticeship programs are great, but if an apprentice rides with six different guys, he might learn how to set a toilet six different ways and possibly start taking shortcuts that create liability risks,” Agentis says.

Another key factor in the company’s growth is its focus on building a faith-based, team-oriented culture. Agentis says that the company doesn’t pay the highest wages in the area, but makes up for it with an emphasis on things such as retirement plans, career paths/promotions, teamwork, company-sponsored activities and regular encouragement and recognition, he says.

“Sometimes we lose people because they can get higher pay elsewhere, but we’ve also had five people come back,” he notes. “When it comes down to it, money is not the No. 1 priority for employees. I even have a handful of guys who took pay cuts to work here.”

MORE GROWTH EXPECTED

Agentis says he has hired about 40 employees since he started running the company about 12 years ago, which reflects its steady growth. And he expects to keep growing, either through geographic market expansion or by acquiring other companies.

“But my ultimate objective is caring for my community and our employees and making enough money in the process to keep growing,” he says. “I want to make sure our people love to work here.”

Looking back, Agentis says he’s “surprised, humbled and blessed” by the company’s rapid growth. But he says it hasn’t stemmed from his efforts alone.

“God gave me a great team and everyone does their part to drive things forward,” he says. “It’s all been a great gift.

“This business was built on my dad’s back,” he continues. “I walked into something that was well-established, which was another huge blessing for which I’m very grateful. Now it’s my responsibility to keep building and growing it.”