[Joe]: Good morning and welcome to Ask The Experts on Talk Radio 1190, my name is Joe Ellison. The experts in question this time around – he’s been around a few times by now, in fact you could almost run the show by yourself, I think. His name’s Roger Wakefield, he’s The Expert Plumber, he works for Texas Green Plumbing. If you like him you can dial (972)-442-4101 to get in touch with his people. Also, the website might be easier for you to remember www.texasgreenplumbing.com. How’s it going Roger?
[Roger]: It’s actually going good, how are you?
[Joe]: Wonderful, wonderful. And you bring gifts again this time around in the form of another guest: his name is Jeff Lindigrin. He’s the vice president of happiness, if you can believe that and I’m not sure where you went to college to get this job: the vice president of happiness at Great Western Home Loans his website www.gwloans.com. You can also get in touch with him by phone (972)-407-9900 Hi Jeff.
[Jeff]: Hello, Joe. Thanks for asking me to be here. Well Roger too, you know.
[Joe]: Absolutely, happy to have you. So let’s turn to Roger first, let’s talk a little bit about about Texas Green Plumbing and what you guys do over there. Texas Green Plumbing, we specialize in slab leaks and leak detection and I always start off with that because again – and it happened this week. I ran into a customer that had somebody, they were trying to sell a house, they had to have some foundation work done. They brought in a foundation company, did the work then that foundation company brought in a plumbing company, I’m gonna use that term loosely, and you know, it actually, you know, on their card, you know, they provide “plumbing solutions”, they specialize in slab leaks and leak detection, and all they test for leaks with is a camera and guys, if you listen to nothing else today here the fact: cameras don’t find leaks under houses. You have to do a water test and that’s the only correct way to do it. That’s a big problem.
[Joe]: And so it happens relatively often that that companies do this?
[Roger]: You know, it’s really funny because this is the second time I followed up the same company. We had this happened almost a month ago, because I believe I talked about it for just a minute last month.
[Joe]: I think I remember, yeah.
[Roger]: We go out to retest, the plumber shows up he’s like: oh no look I want to use my test balls, I want to use my hoses, I want to use my water. And you know, he fills it up and it leaks and we stand there and watch him. He says: Well I’m going to move it around. He says, I’ve done this test three times on this house, and it passed every time. Well excuse me, once it passes I don’t have to test it again, I’m gonna tell you it passed. So we stand there with him and he fills it up again and it fails again, he’s like: Well look, I don’t know what happened but something could have occurred in the last few days to make this leak. It’s like well we did it between two of your tests and it failed. So you know, guys, cameras do not find leaks. Cameras may find a major break, cameras may find a major separation, cameras may find roots growing in the sewer line but cameras can not tell you there is not a leak under the house.
[Joe]: This actually fascinates me: the the idea of people coming in and not actually getting the job actually done like this. So I’m curious myself, how much do you think of your personal work is actually going out and fixing somebody else’s work rather than then coming in and doing a fresh work on your own?
[Roger]: If you’re talking just for a residential homeowner, one of our signs that one of the companies and Garland used to use is “We repair what your husband fixed.” Ladies, don’t tell your husband that. Just call us and we’ll come in on the down-low and we’ll take care of it. But you know, we do. We go behind a lot of plumbers people will call us and say: look, we’ve had other plumbing companies come out and fix this and we’ve still got a problem and we get out there and we look and it’s like: okay I hate to tell you, I don’t think this was a plumber, and sometimes it’s really that bad.
[Jeff]: Sometimes it could have been a Barbie doll…
[Joe]: Does that come from personal experience?
[Jeff]: Yeah I have experience with that. I wish I had known Roger back then.
[Joe]: Yeah then you could have had him take out the the Barbie doll for you.
[Jeff]: Well I would have loved to seen video of that, if you could have inserted a camera.
[Roger]: Well when you get Ken and Barbie in the wrong position under the sewer pipe it just doesn’t look right.
[Joe]: Right, absolutely, that makes sense. So let’s talk about – I remember the last time that you came in you were talking about you had a YouTube channel and stuff. So, let’s talk about your your social media presence itself. How’s that working for you at Texas Green Plumbing?
[Roger]: It’s actually working great because what we use social media for- and everybody asks me – I do a lot of networking. We had Chas Wilson in last time for Master Networks and I do a lot of networking and that’s how I’ve grown my business and I try to tell people about social media and the way I use it and how they can use it. I use social media to get information out there, I want to teach people how to fix the things that they can fix at home. How can you fix your own toilet? How can you check your water heater? How can you turn your thermostat up? How can you do all these little details that really a homeowner with just a little bit of education can do and it can save them hundreds of dollars.
[Joe]: Absolutely.
[Roger]: I met Jeff actually networking and he throws some great events and I know we’re gonna talk about these later but I met him networking and we started talking about social media and him and I we have a great relationship. I really do. He’s one person that understands it and Jeff understands it like I do. Look, he’s not out trying to sell Great Western Home Loans every day. He’s out trying to sell: look guys we want to do what’s right for you, and at the end of the day that’s what social media can be. Nobody gets up in the morning pulls out their credit card and gets on Facebook and says “I’m gonna go buy something”
[Joe]: That’s the biggest thing for me, every time that I use, say Facebook or whatever, if a company comes along and says “Hey follow us” It’s like: well I don’t want to look at an ad from your company every day. Because that’s basically what it what it amounts to. What about – what do you got going, Jeff?
[Jeff]: Well yes, it’s true: I did meet Roger at a networking event, real-estate industry networking event, and we do think alike in the social media world. And social media is really not new to us. Socializing is just innate in us as humans, we’ve been doing it for years. Gosh, we started out with with mail and then Pony Express and the Telegraph and telephone, it kicked that out. People were reluctant to use it back then. We started out with party lines. So you used to have to communicate that way and that was social, right? However, you know, all the way through history folks are slow to adapt to to change and they don’t wrap their their self around it. Guys, Roger and I are not young, we’re older guys. But, you know, we’re young in this respect and we’re totally wrapped arms around the social media and what a great term, “social media”. I mean somebody put those two words together and it’s awesome. So it’s not that difficult to understand. It’s just a megaphone, you know, yelling out and we’re certainly adopting it and going into it full-force. It takes a while to get there you know, and you got a company, an old company, you know, we’ve been around for 37 years now and to get everybody on board and get the ship turned, it takes some time. But you know, slowly but surely we’re we’re doing those things.
[Joe]: So let’s talk about what you’re doing at Great Western, what’s your social media strategy look like? What are you trying to get out there to the people that follow you?
[Jeff]: Well I mean currently our primary platform is Facebook, you know. It’s just the biggest, most popular venue in the real estate industry. So we’re constantly trying to make our Facebook page more engaging and better. Now we’re looking for more likes and loves and reviews, okay? And there’s technology out there that will help. With that we’re signing up Monday with a company, in fact Roger referred them to us, but they will help in reviews. Not just with Facebook, with with Google, with Zillow, any other platform you want to use. It’s important to get the likes up to a certain level right and your reviews. Not a five-star review like a four point something.
[Joe]: Right so it seems like it’s a
legitimate review.
[Jeff]: Absolutely. I mean of course you want a five, but you know what the thing with Facebook and social media is this transparent. Everybody can see it and so you got to keep it real, and man folks they love watching NASCAR not because the cars are going two hundred miles an hour you know, they’re hoping for a big crash.
[Joe]: Right. It’s kind of morbid but it’s true.
[Jeff]: And that’s what they want to see on a review. You’re going out to dinner tonight, you know, look it up, there’s a one star and everything else is four and a half or five, you’re probably gonna look at the one star just to see. Curiosity.
[Joe]: Sometimes I’ll just go specifically to the one stars just to see what people hated about it, even if it’s five stars across the board, just to see what people are saying.
[Jeff]: But you know a lot of folks are just you know kind of negative, you know, overall so, you know, I can’t wait to say something negative.
[Joe]: Well sure I mean, somebody gets mad and and then they just want to try to ruin your business somehow just to get mad at you or just to get back at you somehow and that’s what ends up happening.
[Jeff]: But like with Rogers company, you know, they do a great job, just like our company does a great job and you do a good job people know it. There’s nothing to hide, it is transparent, it’s out there and so it’s just a way of being more transparent in your marketing.
[Joe]: Absolutely. I’m actually interested in in this as well because, you know, now that we’re talking about negative reviews, not that I’m insinuating that you get that many on the regular, but how do you work with negative reviews with your company and try to turn that around to a five-star review.
[Jeff]: Well real estate and mortgage is labor intensive. There are a lot of people involved in a real estate transaction, over 30 behind the scenes. So the first time we see a complaint, we get a complaint, a bad review, we’ve got to go investigate it. And the interviewing and digging into all of that is time-consuming, but that’s what we do, you know, we first go in and try to find out what happened and then see if we can make everybody happy. Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t. Usually it’s just a miscommunication. Most of the time it is on our part, we thought we said sure yes and sometimes, you know, folks are I mean – they’re trying to get – they want to move in the new house. They may not be listening to everything you’re saying. I mean there’s just a lot going on, a lot of pressure a lot of game time decisions, and you know,
it’s like it may be in writing, you know, but whoever reads that the small print? “Hey sign this, man I gotta go!”
[Joe]: Yeah, exactly. So Roger you were actually talking about events that Jeff puts on and I think I want to talk about that here in just a second. We are talking with Roger Wakefield of Texas Green Plumbing and Jeff Lindgrin, the Vice President of Happiness at Great Western Home Loans, we’ll be right back with them on Talk Radio 1190. This is Ask The Experts.