Tim Fagan With 1-800 WATER DAMAGE

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Tim Fagan with 1-800 WATER DAMAGE and a blue kangaroo packoutz. Welcome,Tim.

Tim Fagan: [00:00:45] Thank you, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Let’s start off with one eight hundred water damage. Tell us about that franchise.

Tim Fagan: [00:00:52] Well, that’s a franchise that primarily responds to residential and commercial water losses, and they dry out the play, they dry out the houses or dry out the buildings. And then many of the times we put them back to pre lost condition, depending how much damage is done. But most of the time the franchise can, can, can work with the homeowner or the business property manager to get the place back to pre lost condition.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] So now was this company developed as a mom and pop and then turned into a franchise? Or was it built to be a franchise all along?

Tim Fagan: [00:01:35] No. It started in in the nineties in Seattle as a as a mom pop, and they developed some marketing. Strategies, particularly among plumbers, marketing plumbers, because plumbers often are some of the first calls when water damage does take place, and then they developed a franchise and the franchise grew and then 20 15 fell for franchise group purchased one eight hundred water damage.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:09] And how many units are there?

Tim Fagan: [00:02:12] There’s ninety three units and about one hundred and seventy eight territories currently.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] Wow. So is the growth across the United States or is it in certain regions?

Tim Fagan: [00:02:27] I think it’s across the United States. I mean, I can’t point to one region of the U.S. and say, Hey, we’re growing in the southeast, but not in the northwest or et cetera. It’s all over the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:39] So is the water damage typically from flooding or like, like you mentioned, a plumbing problem?

Tim Fagan: [00:02:46] Yes, all the above. Sometimes cat events, catastrophe events where you have significant localized flooding. Sometimes you have like in the Texas Oklahoma area last year where they had or this year actually was, I think it was in March of this year where they had extensive cold and pipe freezes. And then you have, you know, any time there’s water that runs into a building and that’s almost every building we have now. It is an if the pipe is going to leak, it’s when whether that’s fire suppression systems or toilets or sinks or ice maker’s lines that go to refrigerators. They all release water at some point or another.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:41] And then is the franchisee? Typically, the plumber that this is another revenue stream for them, or it’s somebody that works with plumbers.

Tim Fagan: [00:03:49] No, it’s it’s rarely a plumber that’s that’s the franchise. Most of the time they will work with plumbers, they’ll work with insurance agents, they’ll work with property management companies to get referrals. Sometimes they get referrals online from people searching online so they they won’t get they won’t get all their referrals from one source.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:16] So what is their kind of background? Do they have to be? Is this like a hands on thing or this is somebody who hires the folks who go in and and deal with the damage?

Tim Fagan: [00:04:27] So the background of the franchise here all over the board, usually there’s a couple of things that we look for when we talk to them and they show interest and then we, we we interview them and recruit them. And and we look for a few things. One, because this is a twenty four seven business. It’s not like normal businesses, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:51] Like this isn’t if you only want to work in the mornings, this is right. This stuff happens when it happens,

Tim Fagan: [00:04:57] It happens when it happens. And the expectation is that you’re going to respond immediately to to people’s needs. So their ability to adapt. I mean, typically people that like working nine to five and that’s it, you know, and they hang the shingle and says. They don’t do real well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:22] I’d imagine that it’s not conducive to that kind of it’s not a lifestyle business. This is like you’re on call all the time.

Tim Fagan: [00:05:30] Yeah, and it is a lifestyle and what drives? You know, you said what? What attracts people to it if if you have that help or heart that helper gene that you always wanted to to help people, you know, some of the same reasons people get into nursing or get into first responder being, you know, being a, you know, in an ambulance or law enforcement or. By your service, those kind of those kind of people, teachers, they love this kind of business because, you know, you get paid to respond and you get paid pretty well for making somebody’s worst day. Ok? Again, in a very in a fairly short amount of time.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:17] Right. That’s a great way to frame it because it’s probably best suited for the folks that kind of go into the who want to go into those situations and help and really, like you said, kind of make that person’s worst day, a good day, you know, to make it more manageable and to see a light at the end of the tunnel because every day I’m sure folks are just really appreciating them. And for the work they’re doing, how they just got them out of a bind.

Tim Fagan: [00:06:44] That’s right. And that’s what motivates them. And that’s why they get up at 2:00 a.m. on those cold winter nights and say, Hey, I got to go Honey, I, we got a water damage on the other side of town and and that really is that’s what what energizes them and gives them endorphin rushes.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:02] So now is it hard to find those folks or are they finding you because they’re searching for this kind of opportunity?

Tim Fagan: [00:07:10] Yeah. I mean, for the most part, they reach out to us. We have no idea if they’re interested at all. They find us online or they find us through a business broker and then we get a chance to talk to them about what are you looking for? And I can’t tell you how many guys we have in the system that were former corporate accountants or, you know, or owned franchisee franchises that that did tax accounting or something. But they want something that is a little more. The where they feel that they’re making a significant

Lee Kantor: [00:07:49] Difference, right, because it’ll have an impact like this is something that you see what it looks like today and then tomorrow it’s going to look a lot better and you and you can say, I did that.

Tim Fagan: [00:07:59] Yes, that’s right. Yeah, it’s a lot like we have six kids at home and my wife mows the lawn. And it’s because she says that in a short amount of time, it makes a big difference and it’ll stay that way for a little while. And that’s some of the same reasons that that our guys get into this business is that in a short amount of time, you’re right, you get it can go from chaos to order and put make a frown from a frown to a happy face on a customer’s smile.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:31] So now let’s talk a little bit about blue kangaroo pack outs. What does that franchise?

Tim Fagan: [00:08:36] So that is along the same lines on an insurance deck page, which is a cover page of an insurance policy and often talks about your structure, which is basically if you took a building or a house and it tipped it upside down and shook everything out of it, anything that fell out with the contents that’s called personal property in your insurance policy. And the stuff that didn’t fall out is called structure. And so we handle and move kangaroo pack outs. The personal property stuff that may get damaged in a in a claim in it, whether it be a fire or a flood or a sewer backup or a skunk, you know, ran through the house, they don’t happen. That doesn’t happen very often, but it happens often where a dog gets sprayed, a pet gets sprayed by a skunk and the dog runs to the house and and rubs on everything because he’s trying to get the mask off of them. And then ultimately, those are not very good days for those homeowners. But thank God, there’s there’s people like us so we can come in and and either clean it on site or remove that furniture and get it ozone treated and clean and then deliver it back to the homeowner.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:01] Now is that franchise, the franchisee, the similar kind of personality, the person that likes to go into a crisis and help and then really make a difference in a short period of time?

Tim Fagan: [00:10:11] Absolutely. And they do just in a different way. And while it’s a twenty four seven business, the occurrence of getting called outside of business hours is much less than it is at one eight hundred water damage.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:25] Right. So when you’re tired of waking up at 3:00 in the morning, you can go over to Blue Kangaroo and then, you know, that’s more of a normal kind of workday situation.

Tim Fagan: [00:10:35] Typically, it is. But disasters happen as we all know at all times, and you still need to have an on call crew that you can mobilize at a moment’s notice. Sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:48] Now talk about the training. Is the training similar? Obviously, there are different things that they have to do, but it sounds like you’re dealing with a same type of personality of an individual. Is the training kind of along the same lines?

Tim Fagan: [00:11:04] The training in both cases sort of share similarities first and then I’ll see your differences, so the similarities is that both of those trainings take place with a combination of hands-on and classroom. Bell four has a state of the art flood house that we built from the ground up and not only built for property restoration, but pack outs in one 800 water damage train in that house and that house has been flooded. Oh boy, I know upwards of 50 times. Each time with over twelve hundred gallons of water, so we work on a real house, both from a contents perspective and packing the house out, you know, and securing the furniture and getting into a secure environment or a stable environment as working on that. Working on the house and the water damage itself on the structure side, including. So these are all things that that kind of make this the training unique. So when they get out of our 13 day training, they’re ready to hit the road. Now they don’t have the relevant experience. They have some because they did, you know, a pack out or a water damage at our flood house.

Tim Fagan: [00:12:35] But they’re there ready to hit the road with the equipment that they need. And then with the support behind them, they just call for help if you need it. It seems to work out very well. And again, I mean, my background as a school administrator, I mean in a degree in teaching and two master’s degrees in educational leadership. I mean, I know that people are different kind of learners. Some do a great job in the classroom and they can learn a lot from a teacher in a classroom or from opening a book. But there’s a great population of people that are kinesthetic learners that learn hands on, and that’s how they best learn. And so the classroom, we kind of introduce them to the concepts, but then we we take them right from there to the flood house or to our store number one. It contents back out in Mount Clemens, Michigan, and then they get actual hands on guided practice training. So it it’s very effective and it works out real well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:39] And then even if even if they just started and they had gone through your training, I’m sure if they ran into a situation, one of the the benefits of being part of a franchise network like this is that there’s someone to call that’s probably seen it and done it already.

Tim Fagan: [00:13:56] Well, and again, that’s back to the lifestyle. So the regional business coaches that we have. Guess what field they came out of the restoration field. So they know what it’s like to answer the call at 2:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the morning or during your kid’s birthday or a holiday. And yeah, that’s that’s an expectation that we have is that, you know, and including myself, you know, my phone never goes off because when they need help, it’s typically now it’s not like, Hey, call me on Monday morning, but I’m in the middle of a job and I need some support. And it’s also great thing about being part of the bell for family is that there is no job that we have to turn away from that is too big or too complex, or nobody in the company has ever done that or knows how to handle that. We have a tremendous network out there of the world’s largest property restoration company, largest by a lot, not by a little. And so that that network, they tap into that network and there’s there should be no jobs that we turn away from because of because we’re we’re a little bit intimidated by it.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:18] Now is there an incentive for potential franchisee to combine both of these brands?

Tim Fagan: [00:15:26] There there is. We rarely I can’t think of anybody who’s come in and tried to learn both at the same time. We do have franchisees that have started with one, and most of them are in the 800 water damage. They start with that and then they find out how much of the contents work. They’re referring out. And if I could do that myself, then they they end up buying into an eight hundred water or eight or blue kangaroo pack outs and combine that with their eight hundred water damage business. And those have been really successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:06] So now what is the trend for your firm the rest of the year? Are you kind of bullish with how this year is ending and how next year’s beginning in terms of growth?

Tim Fagan: [00:16:17] We’ve had tremendous growth, both growth in our average office and grow sales. I mean, if you were to look at our gross sales from 18 to today, you would not be able to see that there was a pandemic in the middle of it. You would think, Wow, that’s a that’s a heck of a hockey stick growth of that franchise. So. And that growth continues as we look in the franchise development or the sales funnel for more franchisees coming in, that funnels fairly full. And so, you know, and then at least foreseeable future, we’re going to continue to add franchisees to the system and and putting new owners through our training.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:08] Yeah, because these kind of issues, they don’t care if there’s a pandemic or not.

Tim Fagan: [00:17:13] No, I mean, they don’t care if there’s a recession exactly like this. This still happens. People typically will still buy insurance for their property because for the value that they get in the peace of mind, they get for having insurance to protect their property. So that will still be there regardless of what you know or irregardless of the of the economy out the window.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:46] So now, if somebody wants to learn more about either of these opportunities, is there one website or two websites?

Tim Fagan: [00:17:54] Well, they can go to the you can go to either one of the Blue Kangaroo Accounts website or the one 800 water damage website, or if they want to see what other options are available through Bell for Franchise Group, they can go to that website as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:13] Well, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Tim Fagan: [00:18:18] Well, thank you, Lee, and thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:21] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.