From every quote on the owner's desk to a team that prices the job
An 8-person Melbourne plumbing firm handed standard quotes to the team. Delivered by month three: 20 owner hours a month back, quotes out in a day instead of three, and pricing calls down from 6 a week to 1.
01 At a glance
The short version
The owner of an 8-person Melbourne plumbing firm priced every job and took every pricing call. We ran the Two-Week Test to find what would break first without them, then wrote and tested a playbook for the biggest one.
8-person plumbing firm
Homes and light commercial work across Melbourne's east. Five plumbers, an apprentice, an office manager and the owner.
Every quote waits for the owner
Jobs got priced at night after a full day on the tools. Standard quotes took three days to go out.
A 90-minute test, one playbook
One session with the owner, a 4-page pack that maps what breaks first, and a tested playbook for pricing standard jobs.
20 owner hours a month back
With the team pricing all 8 standard quotes a week, the owner gained 20 hours a month back by month three.
The shift
Before: every quote and every pricing question went through the owner. After: the team prices standard jobs from a written playbook, and the owner signs each one off in about five minutes.
02 The pain
The work was there.
The owner was the queue.
Nothing was broken. Everything just had to go through one person first.
Quotes priced at the kitchen table
The owner priced 14 quotes a week at about 35 minutes each, mostly after 7pm. That's over 8 hours of desk work on top of a day on site.
Customers waiting three days
Simple jobs like hot water swaps and blocked drains took three days to quote. Some customers booked whoever answered first.
Six pricing calls a week
Plumbers on site rang to check a price or a part. Each call pulled the owner off their own job for about ten minutes.
Supplier accounts in one head
Which trade account gets the discount, and which supplier has stock, lived in the owner's memory. The office manager could place an order but couldn't choose one.
Holidays planned around the phone
The last proper week off was four years ago. Even then, the phone came too.
03 The solution
Find what breaks first,
then hand one over
The Two-Week Test asks one question: if you took two weeks off from Monday, what would break first? We answered it in one session with the owner, wrote it up as a 4-page pack, then built and tested a playbook for the job that needed the owner most.
We walked the last customer from first call to paid invoice and counted every time the job stopped for the owner. Then we put a rough cost on each stop.
The map of what breaks first, a ranked list, the money page, and what to fix first. Page one tells the whole story on its own.
One playbook for pricing standard jobs. The senior plumber ran it on a real quote without the owner, then we fixed what tripped them up.
The owner's call stayed in
The playbook covers standard jobs only. Anything over $3,000, any commercial job, and anything the plumber isn't sure about still goes to the owner. For the first 90 days the owner reads every team-priced quote before it goes out.
04 Implementation
What we ran,
and what it gave the team
Two weeks, start to finish. The owner gave about three hours of it: the session, a read of the playbook, and the Verdict Call.
| Part | What it gave the team |
|---|---|
| 90-minute session | The two-week question, the last customer walked through, and every interruption priced |
| Page 1: the Two-Week Map | The first three things to break, in the owner's own words |
| Page 2: the ranked list | Every only-the-owner job ranked by how often it happens and how much it hurts |
| Page 3: the money page | Owner hours, the owner's rate and quotes waiting, all rounded down |
| Page 4: what to fix first | The Holiday Plan, with who could take each step and what they need first |
| The playbook | How to price a standard job, tested on a real quote without the owner |
| The Emergency Page | One page to pin up: what has to happen this week if the owner is out |
| 30 days of support | Questions answered on Telegram while the playbook beds in |
90 minutes with the owner, on site or on a call. No forms to fill in first.
We wrote the pack and drafted the playbook with the office manager and the senior plumber.
The senior plumber priced a real hot water job from the playbook alone. Then the 45-minute Verdict Call.
05 The map
Page one: what breaks
in the first two weeks
| Bucket | Each week | What stalls |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing and quoting | 20 | 14 quotes plus 6 pricing calls. Quotes sit until the owner gets to them. |
| Judgment calls | 5 | Variations on site, warranty call-backs, whether to take a job |
| Client and job knowledge | 4 | Which builder pays slowly, which supplier has stock, old job history |
| Keeping it moving | 3 | Next week's schedule and any parts order over $500 |
Standard quotes
Nothing gets priced. Simple jobs wait, and the phone rings out.
Supplier orders
The office manager can order, but doesn't know which account gets the trade discount.
Variations on site
Plumbers can't approve extra work, so jobs stop while they wait for a call back.
Two of three can move now
Quotes and supplier orders can be written down. Variations need one decision made once, then they can move too.
06 The playbook
One playbook,
tested without the owner
| Section | What the pricing playbook says |
|---|---|
| What this is for | Pricing standard jobs: hot water swaps, blocked drains, tap and toilet repairs |
| What it doesn't cover | Jobs over $3,000, commercial work, anything the plumber isn't sure about |
| What you need | The price sheet, the supplier list, and photos from site |
| The steps | If it's on the price sheet, use the sheet. If access is hard, add the set labour block. If unsure, send it to the owner. |
| What done looks like | Quote sent the same day, signed off by the owner in five minutes |
| Who runs it, who owns it | The senior plumber runs it. The owner owns it. |
| Check by | 90 days, then update the price sheet |
| If it goes wrong | The owner reprices, and the playbook gets a new line so it can't happen twice |
A real job, owner out
The senior plumber priced a real hot water swap from the playbook alone. The owner stayed out of it.
45 minutes, then fix it
We went through what tripped them up and changed the playbook on the call.
07 Delivered outcome
Delivered operational impact
at 90 days
Each bottleneck on page three mapped to a delivered change the owner tracks each week.
| Area | Before | Delivered after 90 days |
|---|---|---|
| Standard quotes | Owner prices all 8 a week | Team prices all 8, owner signs off in 5 minutes |
| Quote turnaround | About 3 days | Same or next day |
| Pricing calls to the owner | 6 a week | About 1 a week |
| Owner desk time on quotes | 8.2 hours a week | 4.2 hours a week |
| Two weeks off | Not possible | Playbook and Emergency Page cover the first thing to break |
The 90-day rollout
The team priced 3 standard quotes a week. The owner checked every one.
Scaled to 6 quotes a week. The price sheet was updated with live site questions.
All 8 standard quotes handed over each week, completing the first playbook.
Verified operational impact
Measured from the firm's job tracking and quote logs across 90 days of operation. Standard jobs moved entirely to team pricing, leaving the owner to sign off quotes in minutes.
08 The numbers
Delivered: 20 hours a month
back by month three
Delivered results trace one operational change: the team took over all 8 standard quotes a week, freeing the owner from evening quoting.
The team prices the 8 standard ones. The owner keeps 6.
The price sheet answers most of the calls.
Quotes go out from site, not the kitchen table.
Month by month
| Measure | Before | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard quotes the team prices a week | 0 | 3 | 6 | 8 |
| Owner quote hours a week | 8.2 | 6.7 | 5.2 | 4.2 |
| Pricing calls a week | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Owner hours back a month | 0 | 7 | 15 | 20 |
| Value of those hours at $110 | $0 | $770 | $1,650 | $2,200 |
Returned across the first 90 days, delivering $4,620 in reclaimed owner time at $110 an hour.