Trade Fusion, LLC

Why should I, as a plumbing contractor, provide the plumbing fixtures?  It's more convenient to let the homeowner go to the box store buy want they want, right?  The last decade has seen a large swing from fixtures being provided by the plumber, to direct to customer.   The rise of the box store, online shopping, and pressure from the tract builder for lowest pricing have all contributed to the pressure of providing the cheapest priced product possible.   Almost unlimited and overwhelming choices have led to information overload and an indecisive homeowner which can generate a lot of wasted time for the plumber as they try to navigate different pricing choices and options.  I understand the desire of the plumber to just want to give in and tell the homeowner to go buy what they want, where they want.  There are times that I have wanted to just say forget it! What we need to remember though, is that we are plumbers.  We are tradesmen that prot...

 You could say I was bred to be a plumber.  My grandfather started Grabill Plumbing & Heating, Inc in 1965.  My father became president in 1980, a position he still holds.  I have been in the trade since I was young, digging ditches and being a gopher(slang for go for this and go for that).  Before I graduated high school, I was running a truck and managing job sites.  In 2008, I came in to manage the scheduling for our company and in 2014 I became Vice-President.   One of my responsibilities as Vice-President was running the Residential side of our company handling the estimating and management of new homes.  I quickly saw that our systems for quoting, job management, and fixture selections were inadequate and there had to be a better solution.  When I took over in 2014, Word and Excel were our best friend.  While they have their place, we were entering the same information into multiple files and it consumed too much time....